When we speak of authority in the Christian life and faith it is easy for some to assume that Christians are anti-rationalists who view the Word of God in isolation from the rest of epistemology. This is accusation is only compounded by some theologians who actually claimed this very thing, but nothing could be further from the truth. When we speak of authority it is not that we hold only the Word of God to possess authority in the realm of epistemology, in fact I personally follow Dr. John Frame’s Perspectival Model of epistemology which maintains that the Law, World, and Self are interdependent. This will for some be an unacceptable approach but I believe it both holds the up the supremacy of Scripture and yet rightfully acknowledges the place of other authorities in the access to knowledge. I quote Dr. Frame at length now to expound upon the concept of Perspectivalism.
“I have argued that the knowledge of God’s law, the world, and the self are interdependent and ultimately identical. We understand the law by studying its relations to the world and the self – its application – so that its meaning and its application are ultimately identical. Thus all knowledge is a knowledge of the law. All knowledge also is a knowledge of the world, since all our knowledge (of God or the world) comes through created media. And all knowledge is of self, because we know all things by means of our own experience and thoughts. The three kinds of knowledge, then, are identical but perspectivally related; they represent the same knowledge, viewed from three different angles or perspectives.”
“Certainly Scripture does have a privileged position. What Scripture says must govern our thinking about the world and the self – and about Scripture too. The reciprocity works this way. We come to know Scripture through our senses and minds (self) and through Scripture’s relations with the rest of the world. But then what we read in Scripture must be allowed to correct the ideas we have formed about these other areas. Then as we understand the other areas better, we understand Scripture better. There is a kind of circularity here, a hermeneutical circle, if you will, but that does not prevent Scripture from ruling our thoughts; it merely describes the process by which that rule takes place.”
(John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Philipsburg: P&R, 1987. 89)
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