Book Review – Apologetics – A Justification of Christian Belief By John Frame

This book was fully discussed on Cave To The Cross Apologetics

John Frame has been a well-known theologian and apologist for some time. While he’s known to have written whole systematic theologies and apologetic tomes, this updated book is a good introductory book on presuppositional, Reformed apologetics for a college-level discussion.

What Frame does is lays out the role of apologetics in the life of a Christian and also the impact it should have. He covers the three aspects of reality a good apologetic should cover like a metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Within each of these are breakout discussions on things like the necessity of the Trinity, the need to ground knowledge in a consistent means, and the always constant need to be true to what your claims actually are.

Probably one of the most controversial topics Frame takes on is a critique of Cornelius Van Til’s transcendental argument. There are areas of disagreement with Frame here but it does not come from the point of view more Van Til critics have which is to not really try to understand what Van Til is saying. Frame is a fan of Van Til and subscribes to a lot of what he puts forth. As a TAG discussion point, this is a good one to go over.

Other points throughout the book is the necessity of the Gospel in one’s apologetics and in the discussion of the “problem of evil” Frame wants to do what he does throughout the book which is encourage Christians to be Christian in their apologetic and discussions. This is a highlight of Frame’s writing in that he speaks as a Christian, assumes as a Christian, and lays out arguments consistent with what he actually believes.

I would say that one of the negative aspects of the book is the flow of the topics don’t always stick with what came before and there are parts of the book that seem copy and pasted into the work from previous writings (this is admitted to in parts so it’s not as if Frame is hiding this fact). Also, these topics do require a lot of discussion to really hit it solidly and even for a 350+ page book there are sections that are too short for the discussion to be fully fleshed out.

If you’re looking to get into Frame but may be intimidated by some of his larger writings or you’re looking to step up your reading in presuppositionalism from an introductory level this would be a good book to do that.