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Preterism and Calvinism
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Earlier
I was viciously attacked by someone here because of my rejection of the general
theology of Calvinism, and particularly, the doctrine of predestination. I was
labeled “blind, sorry, foolish, heretic, vain, sad, nauseating, hypocritical,
and sinful.” All this because I disagree with election and predestination.
Since this is MY website, I decided to respond to these vicious allegations
appropriately and show why I believe election to be incompatible with
Preterism, and furthermore why Calvinism is a relic of futurist theology.
I will approach my argument against Calvinism and specifically against predestination in three distinct articles dealing with the following topics:
- The Philosophical argument
- History of Calvinism and predestination
- Calvinism and Preterism: Two incompatible worldviews
The Question of Personal Identity
When I started studying philosophy, I ran across a poem by Elizabeth Bishop which was presented to us during a philosophical debate. Poetry is not my first choice for communicating abstract concepts; however this particular powerful poem struck me and stuck with me every since; so much so that I still have my very first philosophy textbook in my library.
In the poem, “In the Waiting Room,” Elizabeth Bishop remembered a visit to the dentist on a winter day in 1918. She describes the time when she became aware of herself as a self:
I said to
myself: three days
and you'll be seven years old.
I was saying it to stop
the sensation of falling off
the round, turning world
into cold, blue-black space.
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
I gave a sidelong glance
--I couldn't see any higher--
at shadowy gray knees,
trousers and skirts and boots
and different pairs of hands
lying under the lamps.
I knew that nothing stranger
had ever happened, that nothing
stranger could ever happen.
Why should I be my aunt,
or me, or anyone
What similarities--
boots, hands, the family voice
I felt in my throat...
held us all together
or made us all just one? -
What this poem describes is something all humans experience at some point in their lives: the sudden realization that each of us is an I, an independent self. This is an awesome, amazing and powerful realization, which can bring tears to my eyes and feelings of amazement and of giving glory to God for finding it necessary to give me, the lowly me, a sense of self. And this process of self-realization underlines one of the most awesome characteristics of God, and therefore of mankind. Self-consciousness and personal identity is what gives man the ability to refer to himself as “I” or “me.” This is consistent with God's repeated use of the phrase “I am” when describing who he is and is consistent with God naming the first man Adam, setting him apart from the rest of the creation. This self-identity provided by God is instilled in Adam's descendants to this day. We all as humans have a strong sense of identity which we both use as a platform for our environment (so that we view ourselves as having distinct identities, separating us from everything and everyone else) and as a means to identify ourselves for the rest of eternity, set aside our good and bad memories, moments of happiness and sadness, love, dreams and creative times when we know God's glory is being magnified through our actions. It is this process of self-awareness and self-identification that is being denied by Calvinism and by supporters of predestination. Also note that the self in this context is unrelated to the human soul and the two concepts are entirely different.
When an architect creates a building, the most important step in the building process is the architect's projection of himself into the building. The building first exists in the mind of the architect as an abstract, concrete model of the reality of the building. Nonetheless, this model is very important in the creation of the building itself. The modeling step of the creative process is key to identifying the creator and his relation to the creation. In fact, by projecting their personal identity over their creation, authors and creators can be identified by outsiders as distinctive individuals. This is how one can visit a museum, point to a painting and say, “This is a Monet,” or “This is a Van Gogh.” And this is how experts in architecture can point to a building and say “this building is in so-and-so style.” In essence, Monet and Van Gogh, through their paintings clearly are expressing one thing: “This is who I am.” This is possible because the creator had one important characteristic: a sense of self and of personal identity which clearly and undeniably separated himself from everyone else before him and after him. Throughout the ages, people have been able to create things which personified their memories, dreams, intentions, feelings, wishes and desires, which all sum up the I am.
The Question of Self-Transcendence
Since the “I am” statement appears to be a sum of everything that one is as a human being, it would only be natural for me to look at all the “I ams” out there and compare them with my “I am.” The amazing thing about our individualism is that although we are for now physical beings confined by both time and space, it seems as if God gave us the ability to rise above time and space and transcend whatever present reality we experience. We do this for example by creating memories, displaying and having children. The time gone by is kept alive by memories, and after our passing away we continue to project our self onto our children, friends and family. Of course as Christians we believe that we continue to exist after death into a spiritual body, and even though the physical body dies, our sense of identity transcends even death and continues on for eternity.
Jesus told the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Both men died and went to Hades, the rich into a place of torment, and Lazarus into a place of comfort. Both men were able to recognize each other. Although it is beyond our understanding of how this is possible, the sense of “I am” was strongly projected by both men even though their physical bodies were dead. We can therefore deduce from the parable that our sense of self has very little to do with the physical environment, and it has a lot to do with the unseen part of the human body, although one's soul, as Jesus showed in His parable still has a sense of self, therefore the soul and self should not be confused or used interchangeably.
Is it not true that as I previously showed, everything which was ever created first existed inside one's mind? Is it not true that even the universe, planet Earth and mankind first existed in the mind of God? Indeed, is it then not true that the ultimate display of “I am” is God creating man with a self-identity and the ability to transcend the physical environment by man himself saying “I am?” Would it then be harder for God to create a physical hunk of flesh and breathe life into it, or a being able to look at himself, identify himself from the rest of creation and say “I am?” I certainly hope I am not the only one seeing the vastly superior glory of God being displayed in a self-aware and free creation, rather than a creation already predisposed to be for or against God.
The sense
of self-transcendence which I believe God instilled into us is also expressed
by projecting our sense of individualism onto our children, families and
society. Note that God deemed it necessary for Adam to have a mate. I do not
wish to get into the communal importance of the “we are” societal identity,
however I do want to point out that the strongly Calvinist churches of America
who put so much emphasis on predestination are miserable failures when it comes
to projecting a Christian sense of self onto the society.
One's sense of self can of course be affected by what he thinks. Fatalism is a strong characteristic of the American church, and as a result, self-fulfilled prophecies are causing Christians across the world to suffer both physically and spiritually, and I believe that the inability of Christians today to overcome a fatalistic worldview is based partially in the wide-spread of Calvinism.
Note how all points of the TULIP Calvinism have a negative aspect in one way or another:
Total depravity, or total inability and original sin – is a distortion of the fall, the curse, and today's world.
Unconditional Election – it automatically creates a concept of “others” which are viewed as evil outsiders, as profane individuals unworthy of God's love or election.
Limited atonement – it teaches that Christ only died for the elect and no one else.
Irresistible grace – the elect cannot resist the grace of God and have no choice in rejecting God.
Perseverance of the saints – it is impossible to lose your salvation. Nothing you can do can separate you from God.
Note the
negativism in each point listed above, and note how each point in fact revolves
around the rejection of a sense of self and personal identity. The TULIP points
in Calvinism destroy the God-created distinctiveness in each of us,
distinctiveness meant to separate us from the rest of the creation and
ultimately glorify the Creator by giving us the freedom to make the choices He
would want us to make, or reject the choices He would want us to make. The TULIP
negativism projects both a Creator getting a sense of identity by forcefully
manipulating his creation, and an imperfect, miserable and choice-less world
heading for an inevitable end. Does this not sound familiar? Is this not the
perfect excuse for Christians to avoid interaction with the world and
ultimately create a sense of “we are?” Is TULIP Calvinism in fact not a direct
contradiction of the Preterist position on the
As Preterists we understand that while we continue to experience what we perceive as negative events in our lives, with God, we have the ability to transcend negativism and magnify the glory of God in our lives and in the world. Without a sense of personal identity and individualism, we would be unable to overcome the world, and there would be no glory given to God when negative events become overwhelmingly positive, and when seemingly impossible things become reality.
The Question of Privacy
When we discuss the etymology of the word “person” we know that it is rooted in the two Latin words sonare, which means “to give a sound” and per, which means “through.” These two words give us the understanding that a person is one who “speaks through” as usually referred to in regards to Greek theatre actors who used masks to disguise their identities during a play. One would be hard pressed to find a more clear picture and description of a “person.” As individual beings going by through our lives, we use language to communicate our self to others and also hide our self from others. No matter how hard we try to project or hide ourselves we will fail, and something will always remain hidden inside our being.
What is fascinating about the question of privacy is that it also applies to God, probably because we were made in His image. In the deepest corners of our souls, mankind is “incommunicable.” There is a very real sense in which we are all alone and will always be alone in the world, be it in the midst of a crowd, or in the midst of the ocean. We simply know that we have a very exceptional relationship with ourselves, in that we know things about ourselves that no other man knows or will ever know. In the same manner, it is impossible for us to know the souls of other men and their secrets and desires. So then we can reasonably argue that we are free to choose the level of self we choose to reveal to the world around us, and perhaps even to God, unless of course God chooses to look for himself inside our hearts, which He can freely do. However, note how God related to Adam and Eve after they sinned against Him. He did not actively intrude into their lives; rather He asked “Where are you?” and requested an explanation for their actions.
Another
noteworthy comment to be made is the insistence of today's Christians, who are
mostly futurists, on the physical aspects of the
You see, futurists today expect a physical, public and overwhelmingly extravagant coming of Christ – this physical event being tied directly into the senses of perception of the human body. The problem with this approach is that we know as Preterists that the Kingdom is not of this world, i.e. It cannot be detected with the four senses of the body. In the same manner, one cannot detect the existence of the self as if detecting a physical object. We can then deduce that our sense of self, as shown previously, is “made” of the same “stuff” of which the Kingdom of God is made, the stuff of the spiritual realm, and denying the existence of the self, is as if denying the existence of the Kingdom of God and its spiritual nature. Our sense of self is as real as the Kingdom of God, it can transcend time and space, it can transcend the negative world view created by futuristic Calvinism and it can provide real hope for salvation and a sense of self and worthiness to ALL mankind for eternity.
The Denial of Self
Interestingly enough, Buddhism also denies the self. The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to eliminate the self entirely and eliminate the existence of anything permanent like “the soul” or “the self” aiming to ultimately integrate all the senses of the body into the environment and find The Way through the extinction of the self and the unification with nature and the universe. Note the exclusive focus on the physical and bodily senses of perception.
David Hume also was one of the western philosophers denying the existence of the self, or at least attempting to explain it away as being related to the senses:
“When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perceptions.” - David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 534.
This ties
nicely into the early church tendencies of self-denial, and punishment of the
self. Because of the predisposition to believing in an active and victorious
Satan in the world, some early Christians became monks (Martin Luther included)
and lived lives of self-denial, attempting to defeat Satan and the desires of
their bodies through physical punishment and self-inflicted pain. This is a
sense of denying the self which has made it into the present, although most
modern Calvinists want to have their cake and eat it too: recognize the total
depravity of the world, but enjoy the full benefits of living in a free country
such as the
With this in mind, recall the very first point of the TULIP Calvinism: total depravity. What a striking similarity between heathens and Buddhists focusing entirely on their bodily senses to perceive physical reality, and the core concept of Calvinism which teaches that all creation is depraved and corrupt, thus giving someone a lens through which a distorted view of the world is presented. American Christians cannot continue to cry for freedom of religion and individual rights while teaching that everything has already been ordained one way or another. Their actions do not match their theology.
Conclusion
Because predestination and election deny the concept of self, and because Calvinism establishes a premise of a totally corrupt physical creation, it must be rejected by Preterists. Since we now understand the nature of Death occurring in Genesis 2, and since we understand the true nature of the curse, we can safely reject Calvinism together with all its points as just another piece of man-made doctrine which has no place in one’s heart. It is understandable why futurists would want to adopt Calvinism in the context of their eschatology, but there is no sense in Preterists teaching and adopting it, an especially making it into an issue of salvation and fellowship. If recognizing the Parousia of Christ as past or future is not an issue of salvation and fellowship for Preterists, why would predestination and election divide us Preterists? Only a fool would use predestination and election to split believers and create controversy. If we as Preterists worship with futurists and do not make the Parousia of Christ an issue of salvation of fellowship, why then is predestination and election an issue?
A rejection of Calvinism does not imply by any means a rejection of God's sovereignty, and God's sovereignty is not associated exclusively with the doctrine of Calvinism. In fact, free-will Preterism strongly reinforces the absolute sovereignty of God. I do not serve a God that intrudes into my self and rips out my thoughts, feelings, and memories.
Only the Creator of the universe, true God Himself would be the one able to keep all His promises, fulfill all His prophecies and offer free salvation to everyone willing. Loving the unlovable sinner, touching the untouchable profane by becoming a Self, Individualized Man, and ultimately expanding the walls of the heavenly tabernacle from Hebrews 9 to encompass the whole world, multiplies the sovereignty of God infinitely more than the doctrine of predestination and election will ever do. As Preterists we know that we all can right now become more like Him, but we also understand that we all right now still are.
It is evident so far that Calvinism robs man of the God-given sense of self, and the sense of spiritual realities given to man by God. Is it not more glorious for God to love a being who already rejected Him than to love a being already predestined to heaven or hell? And was it not the love of the father magnified so much more when he let his son choose to care for pigs, and lovingly accepted him when his son chose to come back?
Note: I
want to thank Dr. Gary Percesepe for his book on philosophy which influenced a
lot of my thinking. This article was heavily based on his chapter titled The
Self as Mind, Body and Machine from Philosophy, An Introduction to the Labor of
Reason.
In my first column contra Calvinism,
I covered some of the philosophical arguments which compel me to reject
Calvinism as a valid theological system. I will now cover Calvinism and some of
its points from a historical perspective, and I will show how historical
development of dogma in the early Church through the 1500s and during
Reformation is responsible for creating Calvinism and how lack of Preterist
influences contributed to serious errors in the development of doctrine.
The pre-Augustinian times
While I don’t want to get into great details about the theology of certain Church Fathers, a key element in the development of Calvinism has to be pointed out. Until the time of Augustine, most Church scholars were happy with simply producing commentaries on the writings of Paul for example. As far as I am aware, there was very little argument concerning free-will and most, if not all Church Fathers did not have an understanding of predestination or did not teach predestination or even any form of it.
The abstract Latin noun praedestinatione was apparently created from the Greek verb proorizo, which has the meaning of “deciding or setting limits of something ahead of time.” Authors like Clement of Alexandria interpreted proorizo as depending on proginosko (fore-know), thus predestination was understood as “those whom God knew would believe, God decided beforehand to save.” In a more clear sense, the concept of predestination was not interpreted as a “divinely set fate or destiny” as it is being understood today, but as the Creator putting in place the rules of existence and salvation: here are the boundaries of the court, here are the rules, now you can play ball.
What is interesting is that many Greek Christians did not bring their Greek understanding of “fate” into their theology. We do not see much evidence of early believers teaching a fatalistic worldview of doom and death, such as the Greek understanding of human fate as being dispersed by Moira, the goddess of fate. This makes one realize that the Greek way of understanding fate as an “irresolvable future over which one has no control whatsoever” was not generally accepted and taught by early Christians and a different, non fatalistic understanding of fate and future was being circulated among early Christians. For example, Origen used the concept of free-will to argue against fatalism and Gnosticism in the third century saying “It is our own doing whether we live rightly or not, and that we are not compelled, either by those causes which come to us from without, or, as some think, by the presence of fate.”
So what we see in early Christianity is a tendency of Christians to reject classical fatalism and the strongly established gentile notion and existence of “a powerful external force coercing and controlling all aspects of life and existence.” Instead we see strong evidence of the free-will concept being taught and popularized in the early Church.
Original Sin and the Pelagius Controversy (Comments RKM: Please read, "Are Men Born Sinners?"
Without doubt, the discussion over predestination, and original sin was not resolved by early Church Fathers and their critics, or by Augustine and Reformation or by people in our current times, and just as today, the times of Augustine and Calvin were times when Christians did not hesitate to readily insult each other when proper words and logic failed to convince each other of what truth is.
Augustine
was one of the very early proponents of the doctrine of original sin and he was
also one of the first involved in the development of doctrine denying man’s
free-will. In the early 400s, a monk named Pelagius of which we do not know
very much, and whom Augustine called “a Scot stuffed with Scottish porridge
suffering from a weak memory” created a commentary on Paul’s letters (Commentarii
in epistolas S. Pauli – Commentaries on the letters of St. Paul) which
caused quite a stir and created many problems for the Church. In his writings,
Pelagius took the idea of free-will to a whole new level. Without getting into
great details about his writings, Pelagius promoted several radically new
concepts which were later condemned by the Church and became known as the
“Pelagian heresy.”
Among the
ideas Pelagius promoted were the six theses submitted by his friend Caelestius
to the bishop of
Even if Adam had not sinned, he would have died.
Adam’s sin harmed only himself, not the human race.
Children just born are in the same state as Adam before his fall.
The whole human race neither dies through Adam's sin or death, nor rises again
through the resurrection of Christ.
The Mosaic Law is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel.
Even before the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin.
Studying Pelagius is not the point of this article, and while we may not agree with all six theses, we want to make note of the early tendencies of Pelagius to properly interpret Adam’s relationship with God, the nature of Adam's death, and the implications of sin in Adam’s life. It is clear the Pelagius felt strongly that Adam was created to be a mortal human, that each person was responsible for his or her own sin, and that sin was not passed on to children through birth. Ironically, these six theses sound strangely similar to promulgations made by Preterists today; in fact, what we see is very early development of Preterist doctrine and theology. Many Preterists who subscribe to an AD 70 Second Coming of Christ do profess a spiritual death occurring in Genesis 3 at the Fall, but interestingly and contradictory also continue to see a parallel evil permeating all physical creation. The line between Pelagianism and Preterism gets even more blurry when many Preterists indeed confirm that Adam was created a mortal being and that Adam’s sin was not necessarily passed on to future generations until this day.
By the time
Augustine was forced to respond to Pelagius and got involved in this
controversy in 412, the ideas proposed by Pelagius were gaining ground across
Augustine framed his argument against Pelagius around the idea that although Adam was created perfectly good by God, Adam’s sin brought about such a huge change in mankind that all creation has become totally and absolutely incapable of doing anything good. In fact, Augustine was so extreme in his view of the depraved world that he actively condemned even the good deeds of non-Christians, teaching that the good deeds performed by non-believers were deeds done in the spirit of Satan. It appears while his extremist position helped put Pelagius in his place it turned many away from the substance of his message.
The situation became such that a third position appeared in the form of Semi-Pelagianism proposed by Vitalis of Carthage in which a compromise between Augustine and Pelagius was presented. This position distanced itself from the extremes proposed by Pelagius and suggested that free-will is only the beginning of faith, and that justification before God can only be obtained through this faith. In opposition, Augustine believed that without the grace placed inside one’s heart, faith cannot blossom, and therefore free-will cannot be responsible for one’s faith.
Semi-Pelagianism was synthesized in these points:
1. In
distinguishing between the beginning of faith (initium fidei) and the increase
of faith (augmentum fidei), one may refer the former to the power of the free
will, while the faith itself and its increase are absolutely dependent upon
God;
2. The gratuity of grace is to be maintained against Pelagius in so far as
every strictly natural merit is excluded; this, however, does not prevent
nature and its works from having a certain claim to grace
3. As regards final perseverance in particular, it must not be regarded as a
special gift of grace, since the justified man may of his own strength
persevere to the end
4. The granting or withholding of baptismal grace in the case of children
depends on the Divine prescience of their future conditioned merits or
misdeeds.
Augustine
dedicated the rest of his life to fighting Pelagianism, but he was unsuccessful
in exterminating it. The debate over these issues continued for another one
hundred years or more until Semi-Pelagianism itself was declared a heresy by
the Council in
Augustine
was the first to systematically develop and articulate the doctrine of
predestination, and virtually all subsequent discussions on the topic of
predestination revolved around the Augustinian foundation. To sum-up
Augustine’s approach, “he stated that God created humans with the free will
to choose between good and evil. By choosing evil they lost their free will
fully to do God’s will, and thereafter needed God’s grace to be saved and to
live righteously.” (Encyclopedia of Religions, MacMillan; 2nd
edition)
In his “On the Predestination of Saints” Augustine declared that “God’s gift of grace is prepared for by God’s prior decision from eternity to predestine some to salvation.” So Augustine in fact claimed that grace is an effect of predestination, not its cause. He even took it one step further by claiming that “God not only in his mercy predestines some to salvation, but in his justice predestines the rest to damnation or reprobation.” His views were maintained by the Church until the Council of Orange gave them the status of orthodoxy, thus making Pelagianism an unacceptable choice. Later on, the Council of Quiercy in 853 declared Augustine’s “double predestination” as unacceptable and declared that “while God surely preelects some to salvation, he merely leaves the remainder to humanity in their freely chosen sin with its predestined consequences of eternal punishment.”
Take two: The Reformation
By the time the Reformation arrived, no major developments took place on the topic of free-will and predestination, but because of Luther’s adoption of predestination, Erasmus wrote his own On the Freedom of the Will in 1524. To this, Luther responded with On the Bondage of the Will, in which he concluded that there isn’t “any possibility of cooperation between God and human will.” Later on, The Lutheran Formula of Concord (1576) adopted Augustine’s basic position on predestination, but interestingly joined predestination and election into a single concept: “The predestination or eternal election of God extends only to the good and beloved children of God and the cause of their salvation.” This statement on predestination is obviously overcautious, and that is because of Calvin’s earlier work on the topic.
By 1559, Calvin redeveloped Luther’s view of predestination into what Augustine came up with towards the end of his life: double-predestination. In Institutes Calvin wrote: “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every person. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation.”
As I
already showed here, there was nothing new in Calvin’s view of predestination,
and the problem with it was not necessarily its substance, but its cultural and
historical context which I believe predisposed Calvin to such theology. Clearly
a futurist (eschatologically speaking), Calvin was a theocrat and saw nothing
good in the world and people around him, and much, if not ALL of his theology
grew out of his futurism and the method in which he framed the world around
him. He tried and was successful in creating a strong theocratic government in
In Book 2
of Institutes, Calvin wrote: “...our nature is not only destitute of all
good, but is so fertile in all evils that it cannot remain inactive. Those who
have called it concupiscence have used an expression not improper, if it were
only added, which is far from being conceded by most persons, that everything in
man, the understanding and will, the soul and body, is polluted and engrossed
by this concupiscence; or, to express it more briefly, that man is of himself
nothing else but concupiscence.” (Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 1)
Calvin had
such a negative view of the world, that in Institutes, he dedicates an entire
chapter to his idea of how Adam’s fall negatively affected all subsequent
generations for eternity. In Institutes Calvin writes: “After the heavenly
image in man was effaced, he not only was himself punished by a withdrawal of
the ornaments in which he had been arrayed--viz. wisdom, virtue, justice,
truth, and holiness, and by the substitution in their place of those dire
pests, blindness, impotence, vanity, impurity, and unrighteousness, but he
involved his posterity also, and plunged them in the same wretchedness. This is
the hereditary corruption to which early Christian writers gave the name of
Original Sin, meaning by the term the depravation of a nature formerly good and
pure.” (Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 1, Section 5)
Calvin continues: “This timidity, however, could not prevent the rise of a Pelagius with his profane fiction--that Adam sinned only to his own hurt, but did no hurt to his posterity. Satan, by thus craftily hiding the disease, tried to render it incurable. But when it was clearly proved from Scripture that the sin of the first man passed to all his posterity, recourse was had to the cavil, that it passed by imitation, and not by propagation. The orthodoxy, therefore, and more especially Augustine, labored to show, that we are not corrupted by acquired wickedness, but bring an innate corruption from the very womb. It was the greatest impudence to deny this.” (Institutes, Book2, Chapter 1, Section 5)
Calvin was heavily sold on Augustine's theology of original sin, predestination and total depravity. It is evident to anyone that Calvin was simply resurrecting an old argument: Augustine vs. Pelagius, and that his view of an utterly corrupt world stems from his Augustinian view of original sin: “We thus see that the impurity of parents is transmitted to their children, so that all, without exception, are originally depraved.” (Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 1, Section 6) And just as it happened during Augustine’s times, there was no Preterist to counterbalance his views of original sin and the depraved world.
Calvin
also sees Paul as teaching his view of original sin: “And the Apostle most
distinctly testifies, that "death passed upon all men, for that all has
sinned," (Rom.
Now folks, I cannot guess another’s feelings, but just about now, as a Preterist reading these statements, I might very well throw my hands up in the air, smash my computer to pieces and walk away from this ridiculous argument which we are involved in. But I will do no such thing. Instead, let me try to synthesize what many Preterists believe today:
1. Adam
would have physically died even if he had not sinned.
2. Adam’s sin only harmed himself, not the entire human race.
3. Since sin causes death, and since Children do not sin, Children are born the
same as Adam before his fall.
4. The Parousia of Christ restored the world to a pre-Adamic state.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Conclusion
To any honest observer and reader, a historical analysis of predestination and Calvinism brings to light many questions which have never been answered to this day, yet millions of Christians continue to subscribe to Calvinism. Even many Preterists continue to buy into Calvin’s views of a totally corrupt world. And how could anyone answer these questions if the more important issue of the Parousia of Christ has never been resolved until Preterism stepped up to the plate and proclaimed that “everything has been made new” and that Adam’s death, and therefore its consequences have been dealt with finally and completely in A.D. 70 at the fall of the Jewish Temple?
Indeed,
Calvin was a powerful name in the development of doctrine and dogma and much of
his theology has merits and value. But let us all, as Preterists look at the
whole structure of Calvinism, which unequivocally appears to be built on the
foundation of “original sin and total depravity.” If any other argument would
be considered inadequate if its premise is wrong, why then would Calvinism be
exempt from severe criticism, and why should we then not put the argument over
Calvinism into its proper place: Augustine and Pelagius? And should we do so,
how can we then allow Calvin to build systematic theology that affects much
theology today without questioning its roots and motivations? Surely you would
agree with me that a house with a cracked foundation needs to be torn down and
rebuilt!
Now, the efficacy of Preterism is its power to offer answers to futurism’s assertions concerning a depraved world and in doing so we do not apologize and shy away from the obvious truth of the matter. Preterists fearlessly engage futurists frequently when debating these matters. We all agree that futurism, because of its misunderstanding of “the death” and its nature, presents us with a defeatist and fatalistic picture of the world.
You will surely ask me, “How can you dismiss all Calvin’s arguments in their entirety?” My friends, I am not doing such a thing. But on the same token, how can you as Preterists ignore all the common sense you employed when you accepted Preterism as truth and continue to submit to a doctrine built solely on the misconceptions of futurism? Can a futurist come to some valid theological conclusions, as Calvin did? Yes, of course. Can a futurist accurately articulate God’s relationship to the world, the nature of death and salvation? Absolutely not!
Let us all
in my next installment discuss the theological and scriptural issues of
Calvinism and see how as Preterists we already have in our possession much more
gold than we thought Calvinism could ever offer us.
This is my third and last part of my contra Calvinism series of
articles. If you are newly involved in this controversy, you might want to read
the first and second article before you continue with the
third part. You may not get a full context on what I am talking about in this
last part without reading the entire series.
For the last several days I have been fending off a barrage of questions from supporters of Calvinism here, so time has been very scarce. But I was finally able to get around to my last article on this topic in which I will go over a few key Scriptural points that I consider important in dealing with Calvinism. I will show how Preterism forces us to rethink and reconsider everything, especially Calvinism.
As I have shown in the two previous columns, the issue of Calvinism has deep philosophical and theological implications. The heavy involvement of many people in the discussion of these articles also shows that there is a lot of theology left to be synthesized and exhaustively developed by Preterists. For hundreds of years, futurists have had almost exclusive reign over the development of doctrine, so we have our work cut out for us. Yes, as many have pointed out, Preterism affects virtually every aspect of Christianity, so what I am experiencing, is that just when I think I have something figured out, something else becomes more obvious or more obscure. We should therefore all look at Preterism as the means to a fuller understanding of Scripture, not the end of the trip. Until one of us will sit down and develop a systematic theology volume from a Preterist perspective, some confusion will continue to reign, especially since many of us Preterists still appear to be stuck in the ways of tradition and creeds.
The bogus idea of total depravity
In my eyes, the strength of Calvinism rests almost entirely on the issue of total depravity, or the concept of man’s “utter depravity” and the perceived notion that man is wholly unable to do anything good. This is based on the notion of “sin nature”, which is supposedly a “substance” of some sort (be it spiritual or physical) which appeared with the fall of Adam. Since that time, until our present day, this “sin nature” has been passed on to children by birth. This “sin nature” is what “mostly” causes us humans to sin and this is why humanity is totally depraved.
Other Christians even take the concept of sin nature one step further, saying that all matter on the planet or in the universe has been affected by sin nature, and generally speaking, many things which go wrong in the world are associated with the sin nature of the world. How many Preterists subscribe to this is impossible to know, but I do know that quite a few continue to subscribe to the notion of Adam’s sin being passed on to all humanity through birth.
Many Calvinists use Paul’s discourse in Romans 7, 8 and 9 to “prove” that the world is indeed depraved. There are two fundamental problems with this approach: Paul’s discourse is taken out of its covenantal context of Law (death and sin) vs. Christ (life and righteousness), and a predilection is brought to the text which reads into it something that is not there.
In Romans 7 Paul goes through several comparisons and pictures of the two covenants, and explains how one brought to life sin, and therefore death. In verse 9 Paul writes: “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.” The English of the passage is very clear; therefore there is no need to get into the Greek language. This is the classic antithetical approach taken by Paul across his letters, in order to demonstrate the huge contrast between the Law and Christ, or the Law and lack of it. Paul is evidently saying that in his life, there was a time when he was alive, yet once the commandment came, he died due to the sin which came along with the commandment.
The core of this argument is Paul’s claim of being “once alive.” Regardless of how a Calvinist chooses to interpret the meaning of “once” unless Paul was lying, the obvious conclusion is that Paul was alive at some time in the past, and not just that, but he was alive apart from the Law. Now Paul was in fact always a Jew, born under the Law, so the question to be asked is “when was Paul APART from the Law?” Of course, the only time when Paul was apart from the Law was when he was a child and he lacked the understanding of the commandments, and ignorance of the Law was indeed a justifiable excuse not just for Children (Deut: 1:35-39) but also for Gentiles “who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” (Romans 2:14, 15)
So it stands to reason that since Gentiles were not being held to the standards of the Law, so much less would Children be held accountable for something beyond their understanding and beyond their doing, because “all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.” (Romans 2:12)
Paul is
using the same antithetical approach in Ephesians 2 where he writes: “remember
that you were once separate from Christ, excluded from the
Those subscribing to the idea of total depravity also reference Romans 5:12, as the ultimate text in support of their views. In fact, I remember discussing this issue with someone, and this individual, in his eager anticipation to prove that all men inherit Adam’s sin only quoted half of Paul sentence as follows: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men.” The problem is that he left out the most important part of Paul’s statement. The verse in fact reads: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because they all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) According to Paul then, why did death spread to all men? Because they had children? Of course not. The cause of death is clear: because they all sinned. So then, in Romans 5, Paul is not teaching that sin is perpetuated and inhabits all men through their physical birth; he is in fact teaching the opposite of this notion. Paul is making two key statements here:
1. Sin
entered the world through Adam; therefore death entered the world through sin.
2. Death spread to all men, because they all sinned.
Paul very clearly equates sin with death, so we can safely deduce that lack of sin equates life. This is very consistent with Paul’s statement of “once being alive apart from the Law” and the general understanding of Christian salvation coming through Christ’s removal of sins which consequently gives us life.
Nowhere is
Paul teaching or introducing the notion that physical birth somehow causes
humans to inherit Adam’s sin or some portion of it. Judaism rejects this notion
as well. In Jewish thought, the view of total depravity is rejected and man is
born as a neutral being, with the ability to choose both good and evil. As far
as I can see, Augustine was the first to come up with the notion of total
depravity, which has been perpetuated with the help of Calvin to our days.
Preterists should understand that inserting sin into the birth process of
mankind warps our understanding of the fall. Either Adam’s fall was purely a
spiritual event, or it has universal physical implications that continue past
AD 70, in which case God failed in his plan to restore us back to an
“Adamic state” and His presence as promised.
Another
interesting instance that is relevant to this discussion is Deuteronomy 1 where
Moses explains to
The “evil
generation” of Moses would not enter the
It is
evident now that Jesus was simply translating the Mosaic requirements for
entering the Promised Land, i.e. “no evil,” into the spiritual
requirements for entering the
Additionally,
should our Calvinist friends choose to put Paul’s idea of “sin” in its proper
covenantal context, they would understand that while the words “sin nature” really
bastardize the concept which Paul was trying to get across, sin nature is
accurate in the sense that Paul would have made “sin nature” analogous with
“the Law,” the two of them being almost indistinguishable in that context. The
Law, i.e. “the commandment” has become the stumbling stone for
A noteworthy comment to be made is the fact that the idea of “sin nature” infesting all creation is in fact the result of overemphasizing the physical outcome of the fall. Most, if not all futurists believe and teach that the very structure of matter itself was changed at the time of the fall. Rather than viewing the fall as a purely spiritual event, when Adam spiritually died because of his sin, they translate Adam’s spiritual death and misconduct into the changing of the physical universe via the notion of sin nature. So, according to them, man’s main problem became physical death, thus man’s main concern is looking for a solution to his physical death: a physical resurrection.
Clearly, total depravity becomes an empty doctrine when confronted with the problem of children’s sin. If total depravity is a valid position, then children have sin, and if they do die in their sins before they profess their faith, they are in theory lost for eternity. The same goes for the millions of aborted babies over the years, and infants dying during delivery. Interestingly enough, this puts children in a double standard position: children have to profess faith to be “saved” but they don’t have to “profess sin” to be lost. When confronted with this situation, Calvinists cannot and should not be allowed to make an emotional argument which I’ve heard so many times: “God will not let children go to hell.” If their callous theology does not allow for the non-elect to be saved and for children to be sin-free, then they should face their own music when it comes to comforting the many parents who sob at the graves of their children and tell those parents that their children, unless elected, could be “tormented in the Lake of Fire forever and ever.” How do you think this would go with the Calvinist congregations in America and how will the bank accounts of churches be affected when nobody shows up on Sunday mornings?
The elect
And if according to Calvinism my six month old daughter Sophia happens to be part of the elect, and if she dies tomorrow in her “Adamic sin”, consequently she will go into God’s presence regardless of her sin or sin nature. This conclusion is borderline sacrilegious, and it negates the teaching of “the elect” being irresistibly drawn unto God. A six month old infant is not drawn to God. Elmo may be an attraction, but certainly God is not.
On the
other hand, if we put “the elect” into the covenantal context of the first
century, we will be able to build a more accurate picture of what “the elect”
was all about. Let’s look at just a few passages and consider their relevance:
In 1 Peter 1 we read: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.”
Paul wrote in Titus 1: “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness– a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and at his appointed season he brought his word to light.”
In 2
Timothy
And
finally, in Romans he again writes: “What then? What
What is
absolutely fascinating about these passages is that they seem to contain some
very obvious time-statements and they appear to define “the elect” only as a
first-century occurrence, and more specifically as “the remnant” which Paul
describes in Romans 11. When Paul explains the nature of the elect in Romans
11, he does it in the context of defining the “remnant of
Paul knows
he is talking to gentiles in Rome ("I am talking to you gentiles"
v.13) so he has to go into greater details in order to make gentiles understand
who this “elect” group of people was comprised of. He goes on to describe
The
first-century believers, both Jews and Gentiles, the elect, were to
usher in the arrival of Christ. The typological relevance of
The idea of “first fruits” of course comes from the Feast of First Fruits when the harvester would turn over to God the very first and very best of his wheat, by “electing” which wheat was to be given to God. Of course, the election was based on the merits of the wheat itself, not on random choice made by the harvester.
From this
first-century angle, the first fruit elect were to prepare the world for the
return of Jesus, and for the entrance in the post AD 70 spiritual Promised
Land, at which time they were to finally enjoy, with the rest of the world, the
promises they have been awaiting for forty years. This is why the coming of
Christ was in fact a first-century event: “Unless those days had been cut
short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days
will be cut short.” (Mark
Make a
note that just being part of the elect did not mean exemption from the perils
of the first-century circumstances: “For false Christs and false prophets
will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if
possible, even the elect.” (Matthew 24:24)
Fortunately, Jesus was to return soon and gather them back to Himself: “And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.” (Matthew 24:31)
Another thing worth mentioning in relation to predestination and election, is the total inability of Augustine and his followers in dealing with what they called “perplexing” passage of 1 Timothy 2:3, 4 which states: “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Jaroslav Pelikan's excellent research on this matter brings great benefit to us in this instance. When discussing Augustine's inability to reconcile predestination with 1 Timothy 2:4, Pelikan wrote: “Augustine's teaching that the will of God must always, in sovereign grace, achieve its intended purpose was not easy to harmonize with the biblical assertion that universal salvation was the will of God. If not all men were saved, did this mean that God had not willed it or that the saving will of God had been frustrated? Augustine resorted to various devices to square his position with 1 Timothy 2:4 . . . 'All men' meant all the predestined, because every kind of human being was represented among them.” (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), page 321)
Just like many Calvinists today, Augustine was tap-dancing around the issue. The early church recognized the plain teaching of the Scripture that universal salvation was the will of God. But rather than reconsidering his own position, Augustine took the route of manipulating the meaning of “all men” so that ultimately the passage was forced into his “predestinationalist” mold. “All men” becomes “some men” which eventually becomes “the elect” which is being stretched across centuries and linear time until some future return of Christ. This is a total lack of perspective on Augustine’s part. It follows then that if Augustine failed to see “the elect” as a first-century occurrence, his views, and therefore Calvin's views of predestination, election and salvation have to be viewed very cautiously, with a high level of suspicion.
Pelikan
himself commented on Augustine's position and Gottschalk's similar attempts to
circumvent the meaning of 1 Timothy 2:4 saying: “This statement of Paul's,
the predestinarians had to admit, was 'extremely perplexing and much discussed
in the writings of the holy fathers and explained in many different ways.'
Therefore its interpretation was 'not to be settled precipitately, but very
cautiously.' They rehearsed Augustine's various attempts to circumvent the
text's affirmation of the universal salvific will of God. From the use of the
identical word 'desires' in 1 Timothy 2:4, 'who desires all men to be saved,'
and in Romans 9:18, 'He has mercy upon whomever he desires,' Gottschalk strove
to demonstrate that 'truly God has not in any way desired to save with eternal
salvation those whom, as Scripture testifies, he hardens.' The 'all men' in the
text must mean 'all men who are saved' rather than 'all men' in general.”
(Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of
Doctrine, Volume 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300), page 90)
It is truly fascinating to me to see overwhelming scriptural evidence of a God willing salvation for all mankind, and see the same mankind creating doctrine that attempts to limit the will of God to a smaller number of people. We should not follow in Augustine's steps when looking at 1 Timothy 2, and we should take the text at face value. We see Paul royally screwing up the works for our Calvinist friends here. He is not only asking that “prayers be made on behalf of all men” but he is unequivocally stating that God “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.” Both statements of Paul deny the Augustinian view of election and predestination: not surprisingly, prayer can change God's mind concerning men, and secondly God actively desires for all man to be saved. God's desire of salvation for all man puts the burden on “all men” to choose God, not vice versa.
At last by placing the elect in a first century framework, we are true to the time-sensitive nuances of the passages describing the elect, and we are also enforcing the basic truth of Preterism: Jesus did come back in AD 70, for the sake of His elect! You are hard pressed to say that you are a Preterist, if you continue to claim that there is still a group of “elect” people today – that is utterly inconsistent. Placing the elect into a first-century frame destroys the idea of Calvinism’s elect as being a post AD 70 concept!
His death shall bring...God dwelling with man.
Some of you may remember that about a year ago or so I wrote a column discussing the water baptism in the pre and post AD 70 world. I concluded back then that I see enough evidence to suggest that water baptism was a first-century occurrence which had the very important significance of taking an individual from a status-quo, non-covenantal state of existence (or from under the Law) into a New Covenant state of being, i.e. in Christ. Typology in this instance is the equivalent of a 250 pound army drill sergeant screaming out to us how the various baptisms presented in the Bible are relevant to our conversation.
Since this
article is getting quite lengthy, I will not go into the great details of each
baptism, so I will only discuss the general aspect of typology of Noah's flood
and what happened in AD 70. There are only two passages in the New Testament
which speak about “the baptism of fire.” In both instances, it is John
the Baptist describing Jesus as being the one who “will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16) We know that the baptism
of the Holy Spirit was the time of the Pentecost. Many futurists believe the baptism
of fire is synonymous with the “tongues of fire” at Pentecost. It is obvious to
me, for reasons that would take too much time to elaborate, that the “baptism
of fire” to which John the Baptist was referring, was actually a reference to
the destruction of
With that said, we know that each past instance of baptism, be it the baptism into Moses – which Paul referenced in 1 Corinthians 10 – or the “baptism” of Noah's flood, was the precursor and the initiator of a new covenant between God and man. The baptism into Moses resulted in the Law; the baptism of the flood resulted in life for Noah's family. In both instances, the wicked were destroyed, and the “elect” remained (Pharaoh’s armies and Noah’s contemporaries were destroyed and washed away) In the same manner in AD 70, the wicked were destroyed, and the “elect” remained and were gathered to Christ.
Now relative to Noah's flood and its timing, it appears that Methuselah’s name means “his death shall bring” and also it appears that Methuselah died on the very year in which Noah’s flood came. The flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights after which salvation and life came to those left, Noah's family. I propose that Methuselah's name should not to be taken as much as “his death shall bring judgment” as it should be taken as “his death shall bring life.” Translate this into the first century environment, and we have Jesus (YHWH delivers) dying, after which a 40 year period of time a severe judgment on Israel ends, and all God's elect is saved. Thus Christ's death brought life, and His baptism of fire brought the world into a New Covenant with God.
A New Map of the World
The questions over this scenario are not as much over the obvious similarities between Methuselah and Christ, but more or less over how wide the implications of the baptism of fire of AD 70 were. It is evident to me that the baptism of AD 70 led to a New Covenant being instituted, and the whole world being reconciled to God.
Before
jumping to conclusions, make note that I do not see “reconciliation” as being
equal to “salvation.” The two concepts are being presented as separate ideas or
processes as far as I can see. In 2 Corinthians Paul writes: “Now all these
things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us
the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has
committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18, 19)
This is consistent with God describing His presence in the midst of Israel in Exodus 25: “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them...there I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.” (Exodus 25)
The similarities with Revelation are striking: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.” (Revelation 21:3)
Would God be willing to dwell among men if reconciliation with mankind was not a reality? If not so, then how can we claim as Preterists that God now dwells among us?
Paul said “...through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”(Col. 1:20)
The traditional thinking of both Arminianists and Calvinists is that reconciliation and salvation is one and the same thing, and generally they both mean “not going to hell.” This thinking doesn't resolve the apparent universal applications of many passages throughout the Bible. The doctrines of “total depravity” and “the elect” were built on this model and they still stand on this foundation.
Under the old paradigm the dilemma remains unsolved; in two thousand years the Church has been unable to settle the dispute. Preterism inevitably leads us to the creation of a new proposal which makes more sense and makes this debate irrelevant. We either continue to limit the will of God by continuing to teach Calvinism or Arminianism, or we reject both views in favor of a new understanding of reconciliation and salvation founded on Preterism, and on the understanding that “reconciliation” and “salvation” are not a matter of geography and the thermostat settings, but they are a matter of God as already having reconciled the world to Himself.
For a very long time, the Covenant Theology folks have been trying to define the Church as the New Israel of God, and in a sense, Covenant Theology has been doing well at answering critics. However, with the arrival of Preterism on the scene, I see a total lack of both interest and ability to answer the questions raised by us. In what appears as blatantly paradoxical, many Preterists with a reformed background continue to see “the elect” as a post-AD 70 phenomenon. They continue to teach predestination and despite God's will to save all men; they limit his universal willingness to a narrow willingness to save only “the elect.”
By taking
the position that AD 70 reconciled the entire world and all things
both on earth and in heaven with God, Calvinism and Arminianism become
irrelevant. If the world has indeed been fully reconciled to God, then God's
new
The definition of “kingdom” is that area over which a king has full dominion. As Preterists we often proudly claim that “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." (Revelation 11:5) Yet today, we are still confused over how far God's sovereignty extends; if it goes as far as the walls of the New Jerusalem or what it all means. I propose that true to Revelation 11:5, the Kingdom of our Lord encompasses ALL creation. God has already reconciled the entire world to Himself, and therefore His Kingdom is now encompassing all creation on earth and in heaven. I have heard Preterists explaining that God’s Kingdom is “ever expanding.” Sorry folks, that’s not good enough. Either his Kingdom has replaced the world kingdom or it has not. Either the stone seen by Daniel grew into a mountain that occupies the whole earth or it did not. We can’t have it both ways.
Now what
does this do for salvation? Oh, I am sure that someone out there will use the
“u” word. Don't bother, I will say right now, I am not a Universalist –
universalism has nothing to do with Christ, and I see no evidence of all
humanity being saved. Clearly, those standing outside of the New Jerusalem are
not bearing a “saved” status in the eyes of God. They have been reconciled to
God, they are in
If the
To wrap
this up, I believe Preterists need to reconsider where they stand in their
analysis of the world around them. The ideas of Calvinism are not compatible
with Preterism. Either the world has been reconciled to God according to His
will, or it has not and He failed. Either God wills for “all men” to be
saved, or only for “the elect.” Let all of us sit down and take a new look at
this thing. If I said I was not struggling with this I would be lying – maybe
if we all put our minds together, we can make some sense of it and with prayer
and positive debate, and we can all benefit from God’s real and present Kingdom.