A History of Western Philosophy and Theology Quotes

“Getting the past wrong is almost as problematic as not getting the past into our minds at all.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“In a truly free society, people in every field would be free to express their views whether called religious or not, and the marketplace of ideas would be free to sort them out.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“To cut ourselves off from the past is to rob ourselves from understanding the present.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“The philosopher must argue for sense experience by appealing to sense experience. What choice does he have? If he appeals to something else as his final authority, he is simply being inconsistent. But this is the case with any basic commitment. When we are arguing on behalf of an absolute authority, then our final appeal must be to that authority and to no other. A proof of the primacy of reason must appeal to reason; a proof of the necessity of logic must appeal to logic;”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“But objective wrongs cannot be derived from mere instincts, feelings, conventions, evolutionary defense mechanisms, and the like. Moral rights and wrongs are based on personal relationships, specifically relationships of allegiance and love. And that means that absolute moral standards must be derived from an absolute person. So develops the “moral argument for the existence of God.” But that argument is based on conscience, a sense of objective right and wrong that is universal, that exists even in those who do not formulate it as an argument.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“So the difference between unregenerate and regenerate knowledge of God may be described as ethical. The unregenerate represses his knowledge of God by disobeying God. This disobedience could lead in some cases to psychological repression, or explicit atheism, but it does not always. The apologist should recognize, therefore, that the unbeliever’s problem is primarily ethical, not intellectual. He rejects the truth because he disobeys God’s ethical standards, not the other way around.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“The post-Reformation theology is more academic, more detailed, more argumentative. It makes more use of philosophy and therefore is often described by the phrase Protestant Scholasticism.266 That is appropriate in a way, because one of their main interests was to present a version of Protestant theology suitable for academic study and therefore academically respectable. This is not wrong in itself, and it has not been proved that this drive for academic respectability led the Protestant scholastics into any specific departure from the teaching of Luther and Calvin.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“Protestant Scholasticism Successors of Calvin and Luther264 worked out the Reformation insights into systematic form.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“The sixteenth-century parallel: (1) medieval scholasticism as a synthesis between the Bible, Plato, and Aristotle; (2) the heresy of works-salvation, perhaps with Tetzel as an extreme case; (3) Luther the Reformer, who like Athanasius pushes hard for the fundamental principle of justification by faith alone; and (4) Calvin the consolidator, who rethinks the whole of theology in the light of the knowledge gained in the Reformation.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“Grace, too, is not an impersonal, metaphysical substance that trickles down to people through the sacraments, as in much popular Catholicism. Grace is an irreducibly personal category, first, in that it is a personal attitude of favor from God’s heart, bringing us into relationship with him as our Savior, Friend, and Father.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

“For all its newness, we can understand the Reformation as a Renaissance phenomenon. It is antiquarian in the sense that it returns ad fontes, to the Scriptures and the older church fathers, particularly Augustine, bypassing much, but not all, of medieval scholasticism. It is humanistic in that it is concerned in a fresh way with the individual’s relation to God.”
― John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology