Monday, November 8, 2021

John Frame on Westminster Confession of Faith 1:6 and Acceptance of Doctrines that "may be deducted from" the Bible

  

Scripture teaches that God himself is logical. In the first place. His Word is truth (John 17:17), and truth means nothing if it is not opposed to falsehood. Therefore His Word is noncontradictory. Furthermore, God does not break His promises (2 Cor. 1:20); He does not deny himself (2 Tim. 2:13); He does not lie (Heb. 6:18; Tit. 1:2). At the very least, those expressions mean that God does not do, say, or believe the contradictory of what He says to us. The same conclusion follows from the biblical teaching concerning the holiness of God. Holiness means that there is nothing in God that contradicts His perfection (including His truth). Does God, then, observe the law of noncontradiction? Not in the sense that this law is somehow higher than God himself. Rather, God is himself noncontradictory and is therefore himself the criterion of logical consistency and implication. Logic is an attribute of God, as are justice, mercy, wisdom, knowledge. As such, God is a model for us. We, as His image, are to imitate His truth, His promise-keeping. Thus we too are to be noncontradictory.

 

Therefore the Westminster Confession of Faith is correct when it says (I, vi) that the whole counsel of God is found not only in what Scripture explicitly teaches but also among those things that “by good and necessary consequence may be deducted from Scripture.” (John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God [A Theology of Lordship; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987], 253)