In chapter two, The Message of the Apologist, Frame states that “the apologist’s message, ultimately, is nothing less than the whole of Scripture, applied to the need of his hearers.”
Frame summarizes the message of Scripture from two perspectives. The first is Christianity as a philosophy, and second, Christianity as good news.
Philosophy
By “Christianity as a philosophy,” Frame means that Christianity provides a comprehensive view of the world (worldview). Frame does not make a distinction between Christian theology and Christian philosophy. Philosophy generally is understood as an attempt to understand the world in its most broad, general features. It includes metaphysics (the theory of the fundamental nature of reality) or ontology, epistemology, and the theory of value.
Metaphysics (the theory of the fundamental nature of reality)
The four most important things to remember about the Christian worldview are:
1. God, The Absolute Personality.
God is “absolute” in the sense that he is the Creator of all things and thus the ground of all other reality. God is also personal. God is Spirit who in Scripture has personality. He speaks (Acts 10:19), loves (Romans 15:30), etc.
No other religion has both characteristics. The major religions of the world, in their most typical forms, are either pantheistic (Hinduism, Taoism) or polytheistic (animism, some forms of Hinduism, Shinto, and the traditional religions of Greece, Rome, etc.). Pantheism has an absolute, but not a personal absolute. Polytheism has personal gods, but none of these is absolute.
2. The Creator-Creature Relationship.
God is both transcendent and immanent. His transcendence is simply the fact that he is radically different from us. God is immanence is his involvement in all areas of creation.
All non-Christians of all persuasions radically deny the biblical Creator-creature distinction. Liberal theologians insist on thinking autonomously (i.e., recognizing no absolute standard outside themselves), denying the Creator’s authority over them.
Process theologians use the rhetoric of immanence (i.e., “God is really related”) to deny divine sovereignty, eternity, and omniscience in their biblical sense. Karl Barth, the father of neo-orthodoxy, adds to the notion of God as “wholly other” the contradictory notion that God is “wholly revealed” in Christ. The “wholly revealed” version of immanence contradicts the biblical doctrine of transcendence; the “wholly other” view of transcendence contradicts the biblical doctrine of immanence.
3. The Sovereignty of God.
The sovereignty of God is God’s control. God directs all things according to Ephesians 1:11: “God works all things according to the counsel of his will.” This divine rulership is important to apologetics because it destroys the unbeliever’s pretense of autonomy.
4. Trinity
Frame prefers to simply say “one God, three persons.” The Trinity is unique to Christianity. There are interesting triads (threefold distinctions) in other religions, such as the Hindu gods Brahma, Vshnu, and Siva. Many people intuitively grasp that there is something remarkable about the number three. But the Hindu gods are three gods, not one God in three persons.
Epistemology
So rationalistic philosophy declares human reason to be the final standard. Empiricism, recognizing the flights of speculation to which unbridled “reason” is prone, demands that all ideas be ultimately accountable to human sense-experience. And skepticism, recognizing that both human reason and sense-experience are prone to error, declares (on its own authority!) that truth is unattainable.
We cannot consistently issue such a challenge if, as has often been done traditionally, we build our own apologetics on one of those non-Christian epistemological options.
Ethics
Under epistemology God is the supreme criterion of truth and falsehood. Under ethics God is the supreme standard of what is good and evil, right and wrong (Deut. 4:1ff.; 6:4ff.). Unbelievers know not only of god’s existence, but also of his standards, his requirements (Rom. 1:32). Yet they disobey those laws and seek to evade that responsibility (Rom. 1:26-32).
The history of philosophy illustrates how human thinkers seek to avoid responsibility to God by claiming autonomy. They set themselves up as the ultimate judges of what is right.
Good News
The apologist must always be ready to present the gospel. He must not get so tangled up in arguments, proofs, defenses, and critiques that he neglects to give the unbeliever what he needs most.