We're back one last time with Dr. John Frame on the podcast. He's the author of A History of Western Philosophy and Theology, an outstanding new book that releases in mid-November from PNR. Of course, Christians are not the only people who know things. Non-Christians know a lot of truth about this world and about how it works and operates.

All knowledge is in some way a revelation of God, of course. As we talked about yesterday. But it seems that non-Christians can even perceive at some level what is true and good and beautiful. Yet, the Bible also makes it clear that unbelievers suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That's Romans 1, of course.

So Dr. Frame, how would you describe the truth that unbelievers grasp? And what do you mean when you say that non-Christian thought vacillates between rationalism and irrationalism? Well, that's very difficult to describe, Tony. People much wiser than me have tried to do that and found it really beyond their ability to state clearly.

Romans 1 is the clearest passage in Scripture that tells us about the unbelievers' knowledge. It tells us that God's glory is clearly revealed so that non-believers, pagans, as he's writing about in Romans 1, pagans have a clear knowledge of God. In fact, in verse 21 it even says that these pagans know God.

They don't just know about God, but they know God. So they're not ignorant. What they need is not additional information, in a way. Now, in a conversation between a believer and a non-believer, sometimes there's an exchange of information. If the non-believer claims not to know something, we have to remedy that claim, at least.

But in the most profound sense, the non-believer knows God, even though he rejects God. Now, Paul goes on to say in Romans 1 that as the non-believer suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, he exchanges—this is unbelievable if you know the glory of God—but he exchanges the glory of God for the glory of things in the created world, and makes statues and images and worships these idols instead of worshiping the true God.

And then Paul goes on to show how that naturally leads to very gross sins in the area of sexuality, and then toward the end of the passage he gives a very long list of different kinds of sins that all arise out of the suppression of the truth, exchanging the truth for a lie, as he puts it.

What does that mean? What is it like to know God that clearly and yet to be suppressing that knowledge of God? Well, you know, psychologists have ideas about the subconscious and how people sometimes repress the truth into a part of their conscience that they're not entirely aware of themselves.

We're often mysteries to our own selves; we can't understand ourselves in many ways. Practically, I don't know if that's a good description, because the Bible doesn't give me a precise description of what takes place. But practically, I think what happens is that when you're talking with a non-believer, you can agree on things like the sky is blue, and this is an evergreen tree, and it's not a pumpkin, so you can agree on ordinary things, but the closer you get to talking about God, the closer you get to talking about Jesus Christ, the more disagreements come in, and the more fervent the disagreements are.

And so you really have to—it's a paradoxical situation, and the unbeliever is always pushed back and forth. He lives in God's world, so he has to acknowledge certain things about God's world. When you jump up in the air, you fall back down again, and if you ignore that knowledge, then you won't live very long.

He has to acknowledge certain things, and yet he tries so very hard to squeeze God out of his knowledge. I think of Satan, for example, as the worst possible example along this line. Satan, in one way, knows more about God than I do or than any of us do, but Satan tries the terrible project of trying to replace God on the throne, and it's just laughable that anybody would try that.

But essentially, that's what Satan tried to do, and that's what unbelievers try to do. Now I say that's a pretty good description of irrationalism from a philosophical standpoint. When they do that, that's really a repudiation of reason, because a reasonable person doesn't turn away from what is clearly evident in his eyes.

But the nonbeliever, therefore, is an irrationalist. But why is he an irrationalist? He's an irrationalist because he wants to be the lord of his mind. He wants to be the final authority for what is true and what is false. He wants to rule his own thoughts rather than thinking God's thoughts after him.

Well, that's a pretty good philosophical description of rationalism. A rationalist is somebody who trusts his own reason as the final and ultimate standard of truth. Well, here I am, I've said that the unbeliever is an irrationalist, and I've also said that he's a rationalist. Well, which one is he?

Well, the fact is that he bounces back and forth. The desire of his heart is to be irrational, but when he gets into trouble that way, when he finds out that he's living in God's world and he can't behave that way, then he tries to set up some kind of an orderly type of thought based on his own reason, and that doesn't work either.

But when that gets him into trouble, then he jumps over into irrationalism. And Tony, I think that's a pretty good guide to the way the history of philosophy progresses. You know, you have one generation of philosophers like skeptics in ancient Greece, and they take an irrationalist, relativist kind of view.

And then another group of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, for example, come along and try to show that reason is reliable and reason is dependable. And then you have another generation that questions Plato's assurances. And so the history of philosophy tends to move from rationalism to irrationalism, and some philosophers, of course, try to come up with combinations of the two, which are always unstable.

So I think that's the most helpful way I know to describe the unbeliever's mentality, but it's paradoxical, it's difficult to understand. In fact, it's impossible to understand consistently because it isn't consistent. That's fascinating and true. So let's make this concrete and put this distinction into a context of non-Christian novelists.

It seems like in the best non-Christian fiction, authors grasp some sense of what is true and good and beautiful, like the beauty of self-sacrificing love. It's beautiful to give your life for others. And they also understand the human condition in some really authentic and profound ways too. Years ago, I remember reading an article of yours and you said something to the effect that no one can suppress all the truth all the time.

And for me, that was illuminating. That was really helpful. And the image that I have in my mind is that truth is everywhere in creation and being in this world is like being in a pool and truth is like being surrounded by a hundred ping pong balls. And the suppression of truth is like trying to hold down a hundred ping pong balls underwater at all times.

It's just impossible. Does that illustration work for understanding non-Christian novelists and their perceptions? Oh, that's a great illustration, yeah. Well, I appreciate the novelist tradition because often what they come up with and it's not surprising, but what they often come up with are stories and images that are analogous to the story of redemption in the Bible.

That's because I think everybody knows in his heart that what we need as human beings is redemption from sin. What we need above all is not more food, more entertainment, more goodies, but what we need is forgiveness. And so they write stories that allow for that and which picture that in various ways, but most of the time they don't tell anywhere near the whole story.

Yes, exactly. Tragically true. And in some sense novelists can speak to what they know is true, but they don't have to embrace it as true personally maybe. Is that going on? So perhaps in a novel more ping pong balls get to the surface. Yeah, that's true. And of course when you're writing a novel, you maintain some distance from the characters and from the things that you're writing about so that you're writing something that you don't need to urge on anybody else.

You don't need to preach. You don't need to make a claim that it's true. You just sort of pretend that you can look at it objectively from the outside. Bingo. That's gold. Thank you, Dr. Frame. I appreciate your time in these past two days. Thank you, Tony. I've enjoyed being with you.

That has been Dr. John M. Frame, the J.D. Trimble Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Reform Theological Seminary in Orlando, filling in for John Piper, who returns tomorrow. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. Thank you, John. Thank you, Tony. Thank you. Dr. John Piper, the J.D.

Trimble Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at