John Frame
So far in our consideration of the ‘modified classical theism’ of some contemporary evangelical and Reformed theologians we have looked at the proposals of Rob Lister regarding God and emotion, and Scott Oliphint’s account of ‘covenantal’ theism. In the case of Lister the relationship between him and his doctoral supervisor, Bruce Ware, is evident, and we have also looked briefly at Ware, at what he has to say in God’s Greater Glory. In the case of Oliphint there is possibly a similar connection with John Frame, who taught at Westminster Philadelphia in the early part of his career, then at Westminster Escondido, and latterly at Reformed Seminary in Orlando. So there is a chance that he directly influenced Oliphint, though this side of things is not our chief interest. What is of interest is the coincidence of outlook.
God and time
In The Doctrine of God (2002)
we find Frame discussing God’s
relationship to time and space. (The sections are reproduced almost verbatim in Frame’s recently published
doorstopper, his one volume Systematic
Theology. (On God and time compare pages 557f. of The
Doctrine of God with pages 359f. of his Systematic
Theology. He also has similar, though briefer things to his along these lines in his Salvation Belongs to the Lord; An Introduction to Systematic Theology (2oo6), 27-9) So these are long-held, re-affirmed views. Let’s look at them in order. First, the eternal God’s relation to time.
Frame says this:
Obviously, God is unchangeable in his atemporal or supratemporal existence. But when he us present in our world of time he looks at his creation from within and shares the perspectives of his creatures. As God is with me on Monday, he views the events of Sunday as in the past, and the events of Tuesday (which, to be sure, he has foreordained) as future. He continues to be with me as Monday turns into Tuesday. So he views the passing of time as a process, just as we do. (570-1)
So God ‘in his atemporal existence’ is unchangeable. In his temporal
existence, he changes, as we do. He
keeps in step with the unfolding of his creation. God himself changes. He changes as things in time change. This is
one perspective, or one set of such, or mode of existence; the eternal, atemporal mode is another. And Frame is clear that these
two perspectives, the eternal perspective and the temporal perspectives, cannot contradict each other. He says this, though he does not
argue the point, not at least here. They are ‘two modes of existence’. (572)
But there is an obvious prima facie contradiction.
God is atemporal, outside time, or without time. He knows all creaturely times
from an atemporal point. But given creation, ‘He is not merely like an agent in time; he really is in time, changing as
others change’. (571) God is in time; he
has a temporal vantage point and a temporal agency like ours.
God transcends time, he is eternal, unchangeable, immutable. More
than that, he is essentially eternal,
unchangeable and immutable. That is, if
he were to mutate, he would not be God.
But also, according to Frame, God is in time, changing with his changing creation, and therefore
is mutable. So is God both mutable and immutable.
We assume that ‘God’ whether in time and mutable, or eternal and
immutable, refers to the same reality. Suppose this one reality is both in time
and timeless. With respect to his timelessness he is unchanging, while in time
he changes from time to time. But surely nothing can be both in time and timeless. He is one God who both changes with time, and who has
eternally foreordained the future. The one God has both an eternal essence, but
also has relations which mutate. Necessarily eternal but contingently temporal.
How can these things be? So how can Frame so easily say that there is obviously
no contradiction?
Alternatively, God refers to different realities, ‘God-atemporal’
and ‘God-in-time’. These are two ‘divine realities’, (572) Frame may say. If
so, how do these two realities relate to each other? And what has happened to
classical theism according to which God is both transcendent of his creation and immanent in it?
It is interesting that Frame goes on to say ‘My approach bears a
superficial resemblance to process theology’. (572) Indeed it does. He presents
a bi-polar theism. Of course, as he goes on to say, there are serious
differences between him and process theism, which he lists. Nevertheless, his
view is bi-polarish. So it is odd for him to conclude his summary critique of
process theism by saying that process theists have ‘no meaningful
Creator-creature distinction and no sovereign Lord’ when his own theism appears to attribute creaturely properties, change nad a temporal 'perspective' to God himself. (573)
God and space
Following his discussion of God’s temporality Frame discusses ‘God’s
Spatial Omnipresence’. He says that ‘Covenant presence is a Lordship attribute
of God’. (579) So what is spatial omnipresence?
It is God’s presence ‘both now and here, with all his creatures at all
times and places.’ (579) We have seen covenant lordship as regards times, what
does Frame say about places?
As far as I can see Frame gives the same treatment to God’s relation
to space. But as he himself points out, God is not corporeal, and so he does not
have a spatial location. Though there is a section where he seem to be
attracted to the idea that the universe is God’s body, in rather the way in
which the late Grace Jantzen argued in her book, God’s World, God’s Body. The chief point being that God is wholly
present at each part of his creation, and that the universe is to God as our
bodies are to us, accessible immediately via ‘basic actions’. (583-4) But he
does not go through with this.
Nevertheless, God’s omnispatiality has parallels with his account of
temporal omnipresence. He says, for example, that God’s presence is analogous with
the way in which our presence is to us.
Second, God feels directly everything that is going on in the universe he inhabits as the omnipresent one. Third, God can move “directly” any object in the universe. Fourth, as omnipresent in time and space, God “looks out from” every location. Fifth, God’s thoughts are not ‘affected’ by happenings in the world, but he certainly perceives them and responds appropriately….to the events of the world. (584)
There is more.
He inhabits all times and all places equally. (584) and
(Frame does not say whether such perspectives include those of all sensate creatures, lobsters and lions as well as men and women. Perhaps there are sets of sets of such perspectives. But it's a funny way of affirming divine omnipresence or ubiquity.)
is present to the world he has made. In his immanent temporal and spatial omnipresence, God experiences the world in ways similar to the ways in which we do. His experience of the world is analogous to what it would be if the universe were his body. Indeed, we can say more than this. God experiences the world, not only from his transcendent perspective and the perspective of the whole universe, but also from every particular perspective within the universe. Since he is with me, he experiences the world from my particular perspective, as well as from the perspective of every other such being in the universe. (585) (See Systematic Theology 386f. for similar language.)
(Frame does not say whether such perspectives include those of all sensate creatures, lobsters and lions as well as men and women. Perhaps there are sets of sets of such perspectives. But it's a funny way of affirming divine omnipresence or ubiquity.)
These expressions suggest a failure to distinguish the thing itself,
omnipresence, and the consequences of God being omnipresent. The consequences
may be as Frame suggests, let us suppose, even though it is a curious way of stating God's ubiquity. But God’s omnipresence is such that it is in virtue of
God being wholly present at each point in his creation that he is able to act in the finite world. From Frame’s language one gets no sense of God’s ubiquity.
So, here are more creaturely properties are being ascribed to God. Not only temporal situatedness but also hosts of spatial perspectives, billions of them. Very different from classical Reformed theology.
So, here are more creaturely properties are being ascribed to God. Not only temporal situatedness but also hosts of spatial perspectives, billions of them. Very different from classical Reformed theology.
God’s transcendence
Here’s John Owen:
In respect of place, God is immense and indistant to all things and places, absent from nothing, no place, contained in none; present to all and in his infinite essence and being, exerting his power variously, in any or all places, as he pleaseth, revealing and manifesting his glory more, or less, as it seemeth good to him. (Owen 92)
Notice two things. The first, that the fundamental fact is that God
is transcendent. And second that his omnipresence is a consequence of that
transcendence as it concerns the contingent creation. So it is ‘by and in his
infinite essence’ that his power is manifest variously, over the varied
phenomena of his creation.
For God to be immense, infinite, unbounded, unlimited, is as necessary to him as to be God; that is, it is of his essential perfection, so to be. The ubiquity of God, or his presence to all things and persons, is a relative property of God; for to say that that God is present in and to all things supposes those things to be. Indeed, the ubiquity of God is the habitude of his immensity to the creation. (93)
Immensity, as far as it relates to the created order and things
within it, is ubiquity. The point for
Owen and for the Reformed tradition more generally, is that omnipresence in the
physical universe is a function of God's transcendence, and an expression of it. There is no sense in which God ‘relocates’ in time, and in space in order thereby to have billions of different points of view, to effect this. As infinitely immense he is also omnipresent throughout his creation.
