By James N. Anderson.¹

Author Note: This article was originally posted on the author’s personal blog (dated 4/17/25). Some context may be helpful for the reader. In my estimation, Dr. John Frame is one of the most gifted and important Christian thinkers of the last 50 years, and his writings have been a significant influence on my own theological development. Because of his uncompromising commitment to the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Dr. Frame has been unafraid to raise questions about the way in which some traditional Reformed doctrines have been formulated and defended. In response, his critics have sometimes portrayed him as standing outside the mainstream of Reformed theology (and even, in some cases, as unorthodox). This article is a modest attempt to set the record straight about one aspect of Dr. Frame’s doctrine of God. It was occasioned by the author happening upon a post in a popular online discussion forum that absurdly associated Dr. Frame with process theism. Obedience to the ninth commandment requires us to accurately and charitably represent the views of others, even when (indeed, especially when) we disagree with them.

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In his influential book, All That Is in God (Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), James Dolezal draws a sharp distinction between “classical Christian theism” and what he calls “theistic mutualism.” Dr. Dolezal criticizes a number of evangelical theologians, including some who identify with the Reformed tradition, for embracing theistic mutualism. One of his targets is John Frame. But is Dolezal right to categorize Frame as a theistic mutualist? I will argue here that this is a mistake. Dr. Frame, it turns out, is neither a “classical Christian theist” nor a “theistic mutualist” as Dolezal defines those terms.²

What is Theistic Mutualism?

In chapter 1 of his book, Dolezal defines and distinguishes two “distinctly different models” of Christian theism. The older of these two models is “classical Christian theism”:

It is marked by a strong commitment to the doctrines of divine aseity, immutability, impassibility, simplicity, eternity, and the substantial unity of the divine persons. The underlying and inviolable conviction is that God does not derive any aspect of His being from outside Himself and is not in any way caused to be. (p. 1)

Note the implication of the second sentence: presumably the other model will be such that God does derive some “aspect of His being from outside Himself” and is subject to external causation. In other words, the other model will be characterized by a denial of divine aseity.

The second model is “the newer approach of theistic mutualism” (p. 1). In a footnote, Dolezal clarifies what he means by ‘mutualism’:

“Mutualism,” as I am using the term, denotes a symbiotic relationship in which both parties derive something from each other. In such a relation, it is requisite that each party be capable of being ontologically moved or acted upon and thus determined by the other. This does not necessarily require parity between the parties involved. Accordingly, a mutualistic relation could obtain even if only one of the parties involved were the architect and ultimate regulator of the relation. (p. 1, fn. 1)

Dolezal further explains that according to theistic mutualists, “God is involved in a genuine give-and-take relationship with His creatures” (p. 2). Although some theistic mutualists identify with the Calvinist tradition, “many of them share with open and process theists the theistic mutualist belief that God’s being is such that He is capable of being moved by His creatures” (p. 3). This second model holds to “the newer ideal of a mutually interactive, give-and-take relationship with God” (p. 5). Theistic mutualists undermine divine perfection, Dolezal contends, because “God has been reconceived as deriving some aspects of His being in correlation with the world” (p. 6). While the “modern Calvinist theologians” who have embraced theistic mutualism explicitly reject open theism and process theism, they have arguably “already embraced a rudimentary form of process theism to the extent that they allow some measure of ontological becoming and dependency in God” (p. 7).

What’s very clear is that theistic mutualism, as Dolezal describes it, is characterized by a denial of God’s absolute independence. For the theistic mutualist, God is dependent on his creation, specifically in the sense that God is ‘moved’ by his creatures; that is to say, the creatures cause God to change.

Is John Frame a Theistic Mutualist?

Let’s begin by conceding that Dr. Frame is not a classical Christian theist as Dolezal defines that position. Frame has argued that God has both atemporal and temporalaspects, and thus that there is a sense in which “God dwells in time.” For example, from his Systematic Theology:³

[God] really is “in” time, but he also transcends time in such a way as to have an existence “outside” it. He is both inside and outside of the temporal box, a box that can neither confine him nor keep him out. That is the model that does most justice to the biblical data. (p. 367)

For Frame, then, there is a sense in which God changes. On the one hand, God has (eternally, atemporally) decreed whatsoever comes to pass. But on the other hand, since God is also “in” time, as an agent who interacts with his creatures in the course of history, God changes in accordance with those interactions:

[T]he historical process does change, and as an agent in history, God himself changes. On Monday, he wants something to happen, and on Tuesday, something else. He is grieved one way, pleased the next. In my view, anthropomorphic is too weak a description of these narratives. In these accounts, God is not merely like an agent in time. He really is in time, changing as others change. And we should not say that his atemporal, changeless existence is more real than his changing existence in time, as the term anthropomorphic suggests. Both are real. (p. 377, italics original)

Since he holds that God is not purely atemporal, and that God changes in some real sense, Frame does not affirm unqualified divine immutability and is therefore not a “classical Christian theist” in the Dolezal sense.⁴ But does it therefore follow that Frame is a theistic mutualist? No, it does not, for at least two reasons.

First, Frame unambiguously affirms and defends the doctrine of divine aseity, according to which God is absolutely independent of anything external to him. He writes:

God is self-existent and self-sufficient (a se). He is not dependent on any being outside himself for his existence or sustenance. Implicitly, his attributes are also a se. His power, love, and knowledge do not depend on anyone or anything other than himself. (p. 37)

Chapter 19 of Frame’s Systematic Theology is devoted to the idea that God is ‘self-contained’ and thus has the attribute of aseity or independence. Frame notes that when he speaks of God as “absolute personality,” the ‘absolute’ specifically connotes aseity. For Frame, God’s independence is “absolute independence” such that God is “absolutely self-existent and self-sufficient in all things” (p. 407). God’s self-containedness extends to his eternal decree, by which he foreordains whatsoever comes to pass: “his decree is not dependent on the world [and] is unchangeable, not subject to the influence of creatures” (p. 407).⁵ This absolute independence is tied to the Creator-creature distinction, which is foundational to Frame’s theology and metaphysics. If God were dependent on the world in any sense, Frame contends, “then there would be no clear distinction between Creator and creature” (p. 412).

If God has absolute independence and aseity, as Frame insists, it follows that God’s relationship to his creatures cannot be “a symbiotic relationship in which both parties derive something from each other” such that God is “ontologically moved or acted upon and thus determined by the other” (which is how Dolezal defines ‘mutualism’). Likewise, it follows that God is not moved or caused to change by his creatures. Since theistic mutualism, according to Dolezal, is characterized by a denial of God’s absolute independence, Frame is clearly not a theistic mutualist.

Secondly, Frame’s proposal that God has a temporal aspect and changes in some respects does not in and of itself entail theistic mutualism. Consider these two propositions:

1. God changes.
2. God is changed by his creatures.

These are not logically equivalent propositions; one could affirm the first without being committed to the second. Here’s a thought experiment to illustrate. Suppose, following Frame, that God is timeless sans creation but freely chooses to create a space-time universe and “enters into” time at the point of creation, such that he is “both inside and outside of the temporal box.” Suppose further that God has sovereignly decreed that the only object in this universe will be an atomic clock that displays the number of milliseconds since the first moment of time. (Leave aside the problematic physics of this scenario!) Being omniscient, God would know at every moment that the clock nowdisplays such-and-such (e.g., after one second, it displays “1000”). But since the clock’s display changes over time, so does God’s knowledge of what it displays (now is it “1001,” now it is “1002,” etc.). It should be clear that although God’s knowledge changes over time, it isn’t changed by the clock. The clock itself isn’t causing the changes in God’s knowledge. Rather, the clock is changing because God has decreed, created, and continues to sustain the entire universe, including the clock.⁶ God’s knowledge is dependent only on his decree, not on his creation. So, although God changes along with his creation, God is still absolutely independent of his creation (and the creation is absolutely dependent on him). The causal relationship is exclusively from God to the creation.

The only reason one would think that God changes entails God is caused to changewould be if one held to the Aristotelian dictum that “whatever is moved is moved by another,” i.e., that any change in X must be explained in terms of a cause external to X. As a Thomist, Dolezal presumably holds that view. But Frame himself is not constrained by Aristotelian metaphysics, so he is free to maintain that God himself is the sole source of any changes in God. In short, God changes because he sovereignly decrees to change. There’s simply no ‘mutualism’ to be seen here.

That Frame understands divine change in terms of a unilateral dependence relationship is illustrated by this passage:

Some “changes in God” can be understood in this way [i.e., as mere “Cambridge changes”], but it would be wrong, I think, to understand all of them according to this model. For one thing, Reformed theology insists that when a person moves from the sphere of wrath to that of grace, it is because God has moved him there. God’s “change” in this context (from wrath to grace) is not the product of creaturely change; rather, the creaturely changes come by God’s initiative. (p. 373)

In other words, there is real change in God, but the source of the change is entirely on the Creator side.

There’s one potential fly in the ointment, however. According to Dolezal, theistic mutualists typically hold that God is “involved in a genuine give-and-take relationship with His creatures,” and Frame seems to say exactly that:

For example, a covenantally present God, like a temporalist God, can know (and assert) temporally indexed expressions such as “the sun is rising now.” He can feel with human beings the flow of time from one moment to the next. He can react to events in a significant sense (events that, to be sure, he has foreordained). He can mourn one moment and rejoice the next. He can hear and respond to prayer in time. Since God dwells in time, there is give-and-take between him and human beings. (pp. 366-67)

Isn’t Frame convicted by his own words here? No, because Frame doesn’t conceive of this ‘give-and-take’ relationship in the way that Dolezal attributes to theistic mutualists, i.e., as a mutual dependence relationship, a bilateral causal relationship. We’ve seen that Frame insists upon the absolute independence of God, and thus we need to interpret his ‘give-and-take’ claims in that light. Notice that even in the passage quoted above, Frame affirms that every temporal event — including those in which God ‘reacts’ to events in time — has been foreordained by God. Again, the idea is that God’s actions in time are no more than the outworking of his eternal decree. This interpretation of Frame’s ‘give-and-take’ language is confirmed by what he writes a couple paragraphs later:

But this temporal immanence does not contradict his lordship over time or the exhaustiveness of his decree. These temporal categories are merely aspects of God’s general transcendence and immanence as the Lord. The “give-and-take” between God and the creation requires not a reduced, but an enhanced view of God’s sovereignty. We must recognize God as Lord in time as well as Lord above time. (p. 367)

In other words, Frame’s conception of the ‘give-and-take’ is specifically tailored to acknowledge what he affirms elsewhere about God’s absolute sovereignty and aseity. It’s reasonable to assume that Frame felt the need to put quote marks around “give-and-take” to indicate that this relationship between God and his creatures is not to be equated with the ordinary give-and-take relationships that hold between creatures (such as a back-and-forth conversation between two friends, or a negotiation between two traders, where neither party is fully in control and thus there is a mutual dependence relation).

This understanding is further confirmed by Frame’s use of the same language in chapter 35 (“Human Responsibility and Freedom”) where he deploys the authorial analogy (“author-character model”) to help illustrate the relationship between divine agency and human agency in the course of history:

The relation between the author and his characters is analogous to the third lordship attribute: covenant presence. The author is always present in the drama, arranging the whole drama to fit the characters and the characters to fit the drama. He blesses and judges, using his own standards of evaluation. He is committed to the world that he has made. His characters take on lives of their own, lives of creaturely otherness. He does not treat them as robots, even though he has complete control over them. Rather, he interacts with them as person to persons, treating them as responsible individuals with whom he enjoys a certain communion. In the sense I mentioned earlier, even though God has complete control over nature and history, his creatures do influence his plan. So between God and his creatures there is a certain give-and-take, as is characteristic of personal relationships. (p. 841)

Note the crucial qualifications on this ‘give-and-take’. God is the sole author of the “whole drama” of his creation. His creatures are not ‘co-authors’ but only characters in his story. God has “complete control over nature and history.” Yet at the same time, God himself appears as a character in the story he has authored, and thus there are character-to-character interactions between God and his creatures within that story. Yes, his creatures “influence his plan,” but only in the sense that God arranges “the whole drama to fit the characters and the characters to fit the drama.”⁷ This is not the kind of ‘influence’ that theistic mutualists ascribe to creatures, where God has to cede some degree of control to them such that he is no longer absolutely independent.

It should be quite clear, then, that while Frame does not subscribe to classical Christian theism, as Dolezal defines it, neither does he embrace the characteristic tenets of theistic mutualism (let alone “a rudimentary form of process theism”). Even though Frame wants to say that God has a “temporal aspect” and “dwells in time” insofar as he is “covenantally present” with his creation, he is very careful to articulate this in a way consistent with his commitment to God’s absolute independence from and sovereignty over his creatures.

Why Does Any of This Matter?

It matters for at least three reasons.

First, it matters because it reveals that Dr. Dolezal’s division between “classical Christian theists” and “theistic mutualists” is prejudicial and inadequate. Prejudicial, because it groups conservative Calvinists like Frame, who hold that God sovereignly decrees whatsoever comes to pass, with open theists and even process theists, who hold that God is radically dependent on his creatures. Inadequate, because it fails to recognize that it’s possible to be neither a classical Christian theist nor a theistic mutualist, as Dolezal defines those categories.⁸

Secondly, it matters because if you’re going to charge someone with serious theological error (especially one with “idolatrous implications”) you ought to take special care to accurately represent that person’s position and to interpret it charitably in light of their other theological convictions.

Finally, and most lamentably, it matters because I fear too many people have been made suspicious of Dr. Frame’s theological writings (writings that would actually benefit them immensely) by the misguided charge that he is a “theistic mutualist” who will place them on a slippery slope to process theism. On the contrary, there are few theologians today who will better equip you to avoid such an attenuated view of God.

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Footnotes

1. Dr. James N. Anderson, Carl W. McMurray Professor of Theology and Philosophy, Academic Dean, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina. Used with author’s permission.
2. For Frame’s own response to Dolezal, see: https://frame-poythress.org/scholasticism-for-evangelicals-thoughtson-all-that-is-in-god-by-james-dolezal/
3. John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (P&R Publishing, 2013). I will be quoting from this work since it represents Frame’s most recent and extensive discussions of the divine attributes. The relevant sections in ST are largely reproduced, with minimal changes, from Frame’s The Doctrine of God (P&R Publishing, 2002).
4. Frame carefully specifies the ways in which he does hold God to be unchanging (see pp. 373–76). For the record, I do not share Frame’s views on divine temporality. I think all the biblical data can be accounted for on the view that God is the timeless cause of temporal effects within the creation. I take myself to be a classical Christian
   theist as Dolezal defines it. But it’s not my purpose here to defend that position, and nothing in my defense of Frame depends on my own views.
5. For Frame’s lengthy discussion of God’s decrees, see pp. 206–28.
6. Actually, the clock is strictly superfluous to the illustration. Even without it, God would always know the number of milliseconds that have passed since the moment of creation.
7. Compare what Frame says on p. 839: “The author has complete control over his characters. But as I indicated in my discussion of creaturely otherness, the author seeks to make the characters and events fit together in a coherent and artistic way.”
8. For the record, I actually agree with most of the theological positions Dolezal defends in his book. I’m simply taking issue with his characterization of Frame and the way he frames (no pun intended) the debate over different
   models of Christian theism.