Review: Nature’s Case for God: A Brief Biblical Argument

I’m glad I’m the first to review this new book on Amazon!

John Frame.  Nature’s Case for God: A Brief Biblical Argument. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, December 12th 2018. 124 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

Christian apologist and theologian John Frame has written this short book on a biblical natural theology.  If you have been studying theology for sometime now you might be familiar with this Reformed theologian.  I really enjoy John Frame for his discussion about theological method, apologetics methodology and the inter-relationship of doctrines and theological disciplines.  In this recent work Frame gives the topic of natural revelation a one volume treatment.

The main body of the book is divided into two parts.  Part one is focused on the witness of the Created World to God’s existence and the character of God in light of that revelation.  Part two then looks at human nature’s testimony to God’s existence and attributes.  After an epilogue the book also feature an appendix in which John Frame answers certain questions and objections in the form of four letters he has received in the past from pastors, seminarians, readers, former students, etc.  Part one consists of five chapters while part two of the book consists of four chapters.

I thought it was a plus that after each chapter there were questions for reflection and discussion.  This is followed by a section called “For Further Reading.”  I highly recommend the books that he suggested to further elaborate on what Frame has to say.  There were many works he recommended that I have benefited from in the past.

The writing style of this book is more relaxed than other works by John Frame.  That is, it is not as heavy on the footnotes.  He writes in summary form what he’s gone on to explain in more details and rigors elsewhere.  I still think this book is worthwhile since this is the first book where he focuses only on natural revelation (Frame’s discussion elsewhere of the inter-relationship of natural and special revelation is very helpful).  Also this book is helpful for those who want a simpler introduction to John Frame’s work and/or if any readers want to refresh on Frame’s theology and apologetics.  I did wish Frame could have gone in more details at times especially with possible nonbelieving skeptics that might be reading this.  I also wished there was more of a Transcendental argument presented with some more bite of the impossibility of the contrary of competing worldviews.  Still I think if one wants to just learn from biblical lens what does natural revelation tells us about God this is a good work to have.  At times though I thought Frame did veer off from the subtitle of the book of “a brief biblical argument” for what the title says is “Nature’s case for God.”  This is especially true in part two with the discussion of the conscience.  Let me say Frame’s discussion of the conscience is excellent and biblical; but it wasn’t primarily about how conscience shows God’s existence per se.  His discussion of the conscience and the types of conscience is very profitable and edifying and is worth getting the book alone.

I realize some of the readers seeing this book would not consider this book in a vaccum; John Frame is influenced by Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositonalism though some might ask how faithful he might be to Van Til’s apologetics’ methodology.  For the record I do think Frame is Presuppositional but he’s not where Greg Bahnsen is at.  Those who are classical in their apologetics’ methodology might not find this book as objectionable as they might think yet some Presuppositionalists would wish he emphasized certain aspects of Presuppositional apologetics’ more.  For Classical or Presuppositionalists if one reads this book primarily to answer the question of what does Scripture has to say about natural revelation revealing about God and His attributes then this is a worthwhile work to purchase and read.

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