Partial Preterism
While vacationing in Greer earlier this week, I read RC Sproul’s book The Last Days According to Jesus. In this book, Sproul makes a case for what he calls “partial preterism”, which is the belief that many, but not all of the New Testament prophetical passages were fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Cindy mentioned this book to me after my post about Bertrand Russel’s objections to Christianity a while ago, one of those objections being that the prophecies of Jesus’ return did not come to pass as stated in the Bible.
I don’t know a whole lot about eschatology, but what I’ve been taught, and have had no reason to discount, is the teaching pervasive in Evangelicalism that these prophecies don’t refer to the fall of Jerusalem, but to sometime in the future. The only preterists I’ve known in the past have believed that none of the references to the end of the age or last days referred to the future, but had already occurred in 70 AD. The bodily resurrection and the rapture are explained away by saying that it is really a spiritual resurrection and a spiritual rapture. But that’s clearly not what the Bible says, so I rejected it.
Sproul develops sort of a combination preterist/futurist argument, i.e. that many of the prophecies do refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, but others refer to the end of the world. He calls it “partial preterism”. I’m not going to present the argument here – it would just take too long. However it is, as you would expect from Sproul, a well-thought-out presentation of the argument and I’d recommend reading the book if you’re interested in the subject.
Two verses that Bertrand Russel uses as examples of Jesus’ predictions not coming true are:
When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. [Matthew 10:23]
Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. [Matthew 16:28]
My response to Russel’s objection would have been that these statements did not necessarily mean that it had to happen right then, but in light of time relative to eternity, could happen far in the future. Reading this book though made me realize that I was being as dishonest with the interpretation of these verses as the preterists were being with verses about the rapture and the bodily resurrection. The plain reading of these verses are that Jesus would be returning within the lifetimes of most of those he was talking to. Sure, I have futurist explanations (rationalizations) for both these verses, but Sproul’s book does a good job of knocking them down. Sproul also points out that Jesus’ coming in glory to judge Jerusalem does not negate his coming at the end of the world. He backs up both.
One of the more interesting parts of this book was the description of extra-biblical historical documentation of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Several historians witnessed and documented strange lights in the sky that could have been Jesus “coming in glory.” Granted it’s not biblical, and it has been explained away by many, but interesting nevertheless.
Bottom line – my opinions in these areas have been challenged. And it occurs to me that almost all the meat in this book adds to my understanding, but there is some that I still need to investigate further.
Intelligent Design’s Theological Problem
I’m not much of reader (a situation I long to correct) but I do read readers’ blogs, which provide some insight into interesting books, and occassionally into some side issues. Such is the case with R.C. Sproul’s review of Stephen C. Meyer’s new book, Signature in the Cell.
In his review, Sproul says:
Advocates of intelligent design are directing most of their efforts toward addressing scientific questions and objections. They are not addressing the questions theologians might have about the implications of their work. If they were, it would probably bring more criticism down upon their heads. Be that as it may, Christian theologians do need to ask questions about the implications of their works.
He then talks about a theological error that intelligent design proponents frequently make, which is to say that if it can be explained from laws of nature, then you cannot say it’s designed (which, by the way, is an argument that is not made in Meyer’s book). Sproul argues that this isn’t true:
… God designed things that can be explained in terms of natural laws as well as those that cannot. In fact, God designed the natural laws themselves! God not only designed irreducibly complex biological systems; He designed simple biological systems. He designed everything. It is the failure to deal with this issue adequately that has led many to see in the work of some intelligent design proponents a “God of the gaps” argument.
The “God of the gaps” argument, I assume, is that if you can’t explain it, it must be from God. Does that mean then that if one day you figure it out and can explain it, it no longer is from God? No one would use this argument if they thought about it for a second, and yet I’ve heard it.
The “thinking” behind this may be good-intentioned, that is to give God credit for understanding a whole lot more than we do. But this argument could, and sometimes does, make ID proponents come off looking as blind as evolutionists look. We have to be disciplined in our thinking.
Speaking of evolutionists, my favorite evolutionist quote so far is from George Wald, a Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate:
One has to only contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet we are here-as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation. [ref]
What faith he must have!
Bertrand Russell’s Misunderstanding of God & Man
I listened to a message by RC Sproul on the way in to work this morning on the philosophy of Bertrand Russell. Russell’s three arguments against Christianity were:
- The law of causality requires that God be caused
- The presence of pain and suffering in the world shows that God is either not good or not all-powerful
- The prediction by Jesus that he would return before that generation passed away was not fulfilled
The law of causality was misunderstood by Russell. The law of causality states that every cause has an effect and that every effect has a cause. It’s really just a definition. Russell misstated the law to be that everything that exists has a cause, therefore God must have had a cause, and whatever caused God had a cause, etc. Christian belief is that God is not an effect, and therefore does not require a cause. God is an eternal uncaused being.
The presence and pain of suffering in the world is a result of the fall and is a consequence of sin and God’s justice. This is a subject of another series I’m listening to on 1 Peter by Mark Driscoll. I plan to develop thoughts on this and put it in this journal.
The prediction by Jesus that he would return before the generation of that time passed away (Matt 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) referred to, according to Sproul, the events around destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. Sproul mentioned that he wrote a book about it. My understanding is that generation doesn’t necessarily mean 40 years, but could be an age or race of people. For example it could mean the church age, or “the evil generation” that will be here until Christ returns. I guess I’ll have to read his book.
