Roldan
Puritan Board Junior
totareformanda.org
What do you guys think?
Tyler Hicks of tota reformanda
_______________________
An Orthodox Response to Hyper-Preterism
Why No Orthodox Person Should Ever Switch to Hyper-preterism
Introduction:
The orthodox paradigm is held collectively by all who give allegiance to the traditional interpretation of Holy Scripture as found in Christendom´s Ecumenical Creeds. Disputes over eschatology between orthodox theologians, like Postmillennialists and Amillennialists, will eventually be solved through appeals to the common standards of their shared orthodox paradigm. Although orthodox theologians are required to use responsible creativity when they interpret Scripture, one essential component of responsible creativity is that it is directed under the guidance of the Creeds. On first glance it may be tempting to marginalize the mammoth disagreement between the orthodox and hyper-preterists by treating the whole controversy as if it were simply another vexing debate over eschatology, however, a second glace reveals that this temptation must be resisted, for the dividing issues are not so inconsequential. In an unwarranted abandonment of the orthodox paradigm, hyper-preterists have militantly committed themselves to a different paradigm that guides their unorthodox interpretation of Holy Scripture. In the absence of a shared paradigm it is both frustrating and futile to try to solve this disagreement through a list of proof texts. After all, Scriptural proof texts can only be properly interpreted under the guidance of the right paradigm. Which raises the important question, do the orthodox or the hyper-preterists have the right paradigm to interpret Scripture? The answer to this question reveals a profound difference between orthodox Christians and hyper-preterists. As noted scholar Douglas Wilson once remarked, "œ"¦Before we can understand our debates with the hyper-preterists, we have to recognize that it is not fundamentally a debate about eschatology at all. The fundamental question is one of authority" . The real question is not "œshould we read Scripture with or without a paradigm," but "œwhich paradigm should we use?"
Hyper-preterists are not guilty of appealing to the common standards of orthodoxy incorrectly, as Amillennialists think Postmillennialists are, but of using different standards altogether. It is like Postmillennialists and Amillennialists are playing a game of chess, while hyper-preterists are playing a game of tick-tack toe. Now it should be obvious to everyone that there can only be authentic competition between two players playing under the rules of that game. When everyone follows the rules then it makes sense to talk about one person wining and another person losing. Yet, as obvious as all this certainly is, let us suppose for the sake of argument, that with a chess board in hands a tick-tack-toe player, foolishly tried to challenge a chess player to a game of tick-tack-toe without informing her that he wanted to play tick-tack-toe instead of chess. The result of such a match would be nothing short of confusion and frustration.
However, what if the tick-tack-toe player instead of realizing that the chess player was working under the rules of chess, mistook the inability of her to provide "˜three in a row´ as a sign of defeat? No doubt, he would rashly champion his "˜victory´ over the confused and startled chess player. In fact, we can imagine the tick-tack-toe player making such a ruckus that the audience would try to intervene on behalf of the chess player and explain to this silly tick-tack-toe player that "œShe did not provide three in a row because she thought, when you pulled out the chess board and chess pieces, that you were going to play her in a game chess". No doubt, we can imagine the tick-tack-toe player getting enraged at the audience and accusing them of "˜inconsistency´ and dismissing their comments as mere refusals to acknowledge his well deserved victory. As silly as this situation would be, I suspect that it happens way to often in theology. When a hyper-preterists, with a good imagination, is able to reinterpret every verse in the Bible through the lens of his paradigm he often thinks that he has earned some kind of victory over his orthodox opponents. However, in reality, this hyper-preterists has only succeeded in confusing his orthodox debate partner. A hyper-preterists who uses the "˜chess board and chess pieces´ of orthodoxy (i.e. the Cannon of Scripture found in the Ecumenical Creeds) causes an orthodox person to think that the hyper-preterists will be fully consistent and not only use the board of orthodoxy but also follow the rules of that game (i.e. the theological framework found in the Ecumenical Creeds). Just because a creative Hyper-preterists can shove any verse into an unorthodox conceptual box proves nothing and only suceeds in causing more confusion and frustration. It certainly does not succeed in producing theological victory as hyper-preterist´s think. Hyper-preterists are merely using the same tricks that Gnostics and Arians did to undermine orthodoxy, for they too were able to fit Bible verses into their own unorthodox and mutually exclusive conceptual boxes. It is time for hyper-preterists to stop making rhetorical demands like "œThe orthodox just need to use Scripture and disprove hyper-preterism" and for the orthodox to start realizing where the burden of proof really is. The orthodox need to start demanding serious argumentation from the hyper-preterists for their position. Where are the arguments for the hyper-preterist´s interpretative authority or Scriptural paradigm?
At this point someone might object, "œInterpreting the "˜Bible´ does not require paradigms. We can just use our neutral reason to decide what the right interpretation of Scripture is." In response to this objection it must be noted that since the Bible is written in human language, its words and sentences, like every other human language, must be interpreted through the lens of a whole network of beliefs. Reason alone is thus insufficient to interpret language. Unless reason has the tutelage of a whole network of previous beliefs it is a blind and unreliable guide. To illustrate this point consider a senero in which person X, says to person Y, "œShe saw the farmer with binoculars." This statement can be rationally interpreted by person Y to mean either that the women had the binoculars or that the farmer had the binoculars. Reason alone cannot tell person Y what the correct interpretation of this statement is, however, suppose person Y knew in advance that when person X, made this statement, person X was pointing at a women without binoculars looking at a farmer with binoculars in hand. Good sense (i.e. a combination of reason and a whole network of beliefs) would, given these circumstances, easily be able to guide person Y to the right interpretation of person X´s statement. Thus the idea of using reason alone must be abandoned in favor of using "˜good sense´ when it comes to interpreting language and by implication Scripture.
A community of interpreters employs "˜good sense´ under the control of an interpretive paradigm. People must interpret Scripture holistically. We do not interpret one verse at a time but we interpret many verses simultaneously. We make assumptions about the reliability of the text translation and we even interpret Scriptures with previous theological doctrines (In fact, those who claim to not have previous theological doctrines before reading Scripture are usually the ones most blined by them). With a whole previous network of theological beliefs we interpret Scripture and these previous beliefs lead us to certain expectations about Scripture before we even read it. An example of a previous theological belief we need to hold to before we can properly interpret Scripture is the belief that God will not lie, only with this belief already firmly held could we ever be able to trust what God says in Scripture. Now when a Scriptural verse fails to meet our expectations we have a whole host of options left to explain what to do before we throw away our previous theological belief. We could for example revise our translation of a text, come up with an auxiliary interpretation of the verse or leave this verse as a puzzle to be solved for another season. Reason alone is powerless to tell us what to revise and what not to revise and so interpreters must employ "˜good sense.´
Under the guidance of the Creeds the orthodox interpreter employs "˜good sense´ when it comes to interpreting Scripture. For example, suppose an orthodox person who expects Scripture to always teach that Jesus will return in bodily form encounters a verse that appears to confirm hyper-preterism and by implication a secret return of Christ in A.D. 70. Suppose for example, she encounters a verse that says "œI tell you the truth, some of you who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew 16:28). Now the orthodox paradigm teaches that the nature of Christ´s return will be physical, final, and public but clearly when we consult the history books we discover that if Christ did return in A.D. 70 then it was not in the nature that the orthodox paradigm expected. Hence, the orthodox interpreter could revise their understanding of the nature of Christ´s return (much as Jehovah Witness´s did when their own prediction of Christ´s coming proved false), if she knew a little Greek she could also revise the translation, or she could just leave this verse to be explained by the more learned in the orthodox faith, or she could just offer an interpretation more consistent with the orthodox paradigm. New Testament Scholar NT Wright, from an orthodox standpoint offers a much more plausible interpretation of this verse when he writes,
Many people have been puzzled by these claims, for the simple reason that they have failed to see the significance of what happens at the end of the story. The phrases about "˜the son of man coming in his kingdom´ and the like are not about what we would call the "˜second coming´ of Jesus. They are about his vindication, fallowing his suffering. They are fulfilled when he rises from the dead and is granted "˜all authority in heaven and on earth´ (Matt 28:18).
NT Wright´s interpretation also explains why Jesus used the picture of the "œSon of Man coming in his kingdom" to describe his vindication, which includes not just his resurrection but also the destruction of the Temple. Jesus was recalling to the Disciples minds the vision the Daniel had about the "œson of man" coming before the thrown room of God to be vindicated, Jesus was thus speaking about these events "˜apocalyptically´ (i.e. he was investing historical events with their spiritual significance). In other words, Jesus was not thinking in Dispensationalists catagories like the hyper-preterists would say, but was thinking in Jewish catagories that was anything but anti-historical or anti-physical. This physical vindication of Christ not only leaves the door open for a physical return of Jesus but makes it so that we would explect Jesus to physically return. Given this list of options the orthodox interpretor is left to make a decision and she can use all the help she can get.
All of these revision options or alternative interpretations are logically coherent and reason alone cannot decide between them. Now the orthodox paradigm teaches that under no circumstance can the nature of Christ´s return be revised (like the Johovah Witnesses and hyper-preterists have done) and so "˜good sense´ would lead the orthodox to prefer NT Wright´s more plausible interpretation of the verse. Interpreting Scripture requires us to use paradigms. Having adequately argued against a naïve view of interpreting the Bible, let us move on to consider more reasons to prefer the orthodox paradigm to the hyper-preterist´s paradigm.
The Battle of the Paradigms
Hyper-preterism did not just spontaneously come into existence. Someone in the nineteenth century did not just go to their backyard one day and say, "œWow, for the last nineteen hundred years, every Christian has misunderstood the edifice of Christian dogma because when I the read the Bible it clearly says to me that Christ returned in A.D. 70." The reason no one could just retreat to the backyard and invent hyper-preterism was because the paradigm in which it makes sense to read the Bible that way had to be invented first. Indeed, it is no accident that no one was a hyper-preterists before the nineteenth century for the paradigm only came into existence in the nineteenth century. During the nineteenth century, the American Church became the victim of a cultural mega-shift. During this period of time, congregations and their theologically trained Pastors were separated. Untrained Pastors emerged and the family unit disintegrated under the pressure of American industrialization. Left without the aid and support of a trained Pastors and family structures thousands of Christians would became the victims of a false movement to "˜restore´ the Church to its alleged former glory. Douglas Wilson described the American Restorationist´s movement as follows, "œIn American [Restorationist] Christianity, it is commonplace to think that "˜pure´ Christianity disappeared from the globe with the death of the last apostle, not to reappear again until a revelation of some kind came to Hobart Jones on a cornfield in southeastern Nebraska. There are many versions of this faith, but the outlines are the same" (Wilson 257). Just as the ancient Gnostics only think that Jesus appeared to be human but was really only spiritual, American Restorationist tend to treat the Bible as if it was a document that only appears to be a human document but in reality fell from heaven and is thus best interpreted without knowledge of the Bible´s history or a historic community of interpreters to draw from. Out of the American Restorationist´s movement emerged the Mormons, Dispensationalists, Jehovah Witness, Seventh Day Adventists and finally Hyper-preterism.
Restorationists attempted to meet the confusion of the times with empty promises of a soon coming of Jesus. Jesus would end the space-time continuum and Christians would escape this world (perhaps through a secret rapture?). The Scriptural message was read as if it was a newspaper, which if read correctly could foretell the next few years. Under the Restorationist paradigm the doctrine of "œChrist´s second coming´ was thought to be about the ending of history and naturally lead to the conclusion that Christians have no responsibility to this perishing world. Dispensationalists, on accident reaffirmed the Creeds, but fitting Scripture into a conceptual scheme of wooden (physical) literalism they managed to distort the Biblical narrative and misinterpret almost every verse in the process. In reaction, hyper-preterists attempted to fight against Dispensationalists using the Dispensationalists own standards. Almost every verse in the Bible that talks about a coming of Jesus was placed in a Restorationist´s style "˜Second Coming of Christ´ catagory. As Restorationists, Hyper-preterists basically read Jesus as if he had thought in dispensationalists catagories. So, when Jesus used words like "˜soon´ and "˜this generation will not pass away until all these things take place´ hyper-preterists mistook Jesus to have been speaking in a wooden fashion like a Dispensationalists. The orthodox paradigm on the other hand places these verses in the catagories that would be fitting for a Jewish apocalyptic prophet which leads to radically different expectations that will be explored latter in this paper.
Hyper-preterists tried to place these time-reference verses in that Dispensational category and argued that Christ must have come within forty years of uttering these statements. Dispensationalists, of course, knew and still know that these verses exist but they explain away these verses by saying that these time references are only spiritual. In response, the hyper-preterists basically projected a Restorationist´s paradigm onto the Apostles. These Dispensationalists Apostles expected Christ to return in their generation just as American Dispensationalists expect Christ to return in their day. The hyper-preterists, to retain this thesis, argued that Dispensationalists have the right categories of Dogma, but they just need to switch from physical woodenism to spiritual woodenism when they interpret the nature of Christ´s coming. Thus the struggle between Dispensationalists and hyper-preterists is really a family dispute. The orthodox should avoid entering this debate at all costs because it is boring and unproductive from an orthodox standpoint.
An old theologian´s proverb says that "œWhen some people invent a new doctrine, it is like they have discovered a hammer and everything around them has become a nail." This proverb captures the essence of the hyper-preterists. They know in advance that the resurrection of believers, the Second Coming, the Day of Judgment, all took place in A.D. 70, yet they cannot agree how. (Their situation is similar to Jehovah Witness who have had to explain how Jesus returned without anyone really knowing about except the Jehovah Witness). Holding on to the Restorationalists paradigm they spiritualize all these doctrines. This fact has been repeatedly observed by various scholars. Old Testament scholar, Richard Pratt, for example writes,
Simply put, because they are convinced that the New Testament proclaims an imminent return of Christ, hyper-preterists revise their understanding of the nature of his return in order to maintain the integrity of the New Testament. They deny that the New Testament predicts a cataclysmic, physical return and renewal of the heavens and earth, and they maintain instead the return of Christ was spiritual in nature and took place during the first century (Pratt 149).
Another scholar, Robert Strimple collaborates Pratt´s observation in the following words
´The necessary first step´ [of hyper-preterists] is to decide that the second coming of Christ and all that was to follow immediately upon it, including the resurrection of "˜those who belong to him´ (1 Cor. 15:23), happened in A.D. 70. Then the second step is to reinterpret all the biblical passages that speak of the coming resurrection in a way that could plausibly have happened at that time" (Strimple 290).
These scholars have correctly noted that hyper-preterism is the result of trying to fit every verse into a previously established conceptual box. The world of Dispensationalism is irrationally devoted to trying to place everything else to the next few years. Hyper-preterism into A.D. 70. Having seen that hyper-preterism and Dispensationalism belong to the Restoriationist paradigm and not the orthodox paradigm, we can now intelligibly ask the question what about the rest of us who do not want to play the game at all? Personally, I find the game boring and fault the two players for lack of creativity. (I mean if you are going to be a Restorationist why not be creative and do something new like Joseph Smith did?)
Comparing and Contrasting the Restorationist Paradigm and the Orthodox Paradigm
If the Restorationists are right about Scripture then there is no way to "˜check and balance´ an individual´s interpretation of the Bible. The Bible becomes simply my individual interpretation. Restorationists thought that they could escape the Pope by reading the Bible autonomously but actually they are merely substituting one pope for a thousand popes. I wager that responsible allegiance to the traditional interpretation of Scripture is the only way to avoid this dangerous individualism. Martin Luther used the traditional interpretation of Scripture to get away from Rome and it is time we follow the Reformers away from the Restorationist movement. Think about it, did God really want His will to be made known by grabbing a Bible and running to the backyard? Has the Holy Spirit really been misleading His Church for the last two-thousand years? If so, then we should stop arguing collectively about what the Bible says and start individually retreating to the backyard to find out what the Bible says. If however, God gave a Covenant document to a community that has its origin in the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, then it makes sense to think that interpreting the Bible as a community is essential, which allows for communal debate. If Jesus really has kept His promise and guided His Church throughout the centuries then it makes sense to look to the Creeds for guidance. To not use the Creeds would be to accuse the Holy Spirit of not being able to save the Church from heresy. A position that I suspect few would really be willing to swallow if they actually thought the matter through.
Hyper-preterists often object to the orthodox use of "˜Creeds´ as a check and balance to interpreting Scripture, on the basis that these "˜Creeds´ have been created by fallible Christians and therefore could possibly be in error. However, if "˜fallibility´ is an argument against the truthfulness of the Creeds then it is equally an argument against the truthfulness of hyper-preterism because hyper-preterists are fallible interpreters as well. Hence, hyper-preterists out of pure preference are inconsistently throwing away the fallible "˜Creeds´ and keeping their own fallible interpretation of Scripture. Yet, what if your preference, like mine, is to trust two-thousand years of consistent Church tradition? After all, hyper-preterists cannot produce one good reason, besides logical coherence (an atribute imitated by Gnostics, Arians and orthodox and so not a determining reason) to accept their fallible interpretation as normative over the fallible orthodox interpretation.
On the other hand, the orthodox camp is not as impoverished and has a few good arguments to present to us. First, the fact that the "˜Creeds´ were formulated by fallible Christians says nothing about their trustworthiness, as even hyper-preterists inconsistently agree in practice. Hyper-preterists do not worry about the fact that fallible men formulated which books were in the Cannon? They, thus assume the trustworthiness of the "˜Creeds´ every time they open the Bible. In fact the Church Fathers recognized the books sixty-six books of the Cannon because of their conformity to the orthodox way of understanding the Gospel. Hyper-preterists are just being inconsistent, if the Creeds cannot be trusted to sum up Scriptural teaching then they cannot be trusted to tell us which books are in the Bible. Hyper-preterists should also be aware that outside of the orthodox paradigm´s conceptions of a traditional interpretation of Scripture and the Holy Spirit´s consistent guidance though out Church history there is no good argument for why these sixty-six books are in the Cannon. Yet, if tradition can be trusted to get the Cannon right it can be trusted when it summarizes the Cannon´s teaching.
Of course, hyper-preterists have another option open to them. If they do not want to follow the traditional interpretation of Scripture they can consistently reject the traditional interpretation of what books are in the Bible. Once this is done they could just create their own community and their own Bible. You see, unlike Dispensationalists and hyper-preterists, Joseph Smith was a very consistent Restorationists when he invented a new cannon. Sure hyper-preterist could just arbitrarily choose the sixty-six books, but my question to them is why would you artificially restrict yourselves to that? How unoriginal is that? Why not just put some of Samuel Frost´s books in the cannon? Why not make Frost Pope? You can do whatever your wish. I mean if you have to reinvent the wheel every time you open Scripture why not also reinvent the cannon every time you go to read your Bible. Invent your own Church Fathers, your own cannon, and your own culture. Place the fate of your own families, the fate of your accomplishments, and the fate of your own money in a movement that had its origins in a corn field. Risk everything to side against the last two-thousand years of the Holy Spirit´s guidance. If you are going to sin against tradition you might as well sin against it all. If you would rather side with the God of the Church families, and with the Church´s cannon, then be brave and adopt both its Cannon and tradition. If you reject its tradition because it´s fallible and you think you have a better interpretation then reject the Cannon because the adoption of that Cannon was motivated by the very tradition you unjustifiably abandon. The risk is yours, as are the consequences. Yet, from my perspective, the God of the Church Fathers, the Bible and the Christian community has proven Himself over the years to be trustworthy. The universal Church has been around for two-thousand years and is only getting stronger, I know of hyper-preterists churches that have only been around twenty years and have already fractured and disintegrated. I doubt if hyper-preterism will be around five hundred years from now, so when you pick between these two paradigms choose wisely.
Why Proof Texting will not Solve the Debate
The implications of the above paragraph cannot be missed for if the argumentation employed above is sound then it is impossible for an orthodox person to absolutely falsify hyper-preterism with a proof text. This can be illustrated through a simple thought experiment. Suppose that I have been able to convince a hyper-preterists that there is no way a verse that says that "œThe Lord Himself will come down from heaven"¦and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds"¦ will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) could not have been fulfilled in A.D. 70 because the death spoken about in v.16 is clearly physical, because being spiritual dead in Christ makes no sense, and so v.17 teaches that those who are physically still alive when Christ returns never die. Now, I am sure that some hyper-preterists can explain this verse away though reinterpretation but let us suppose for the sake of the thought experiment that these arguments persuaded the hyper-preterists. Does that mean that the hyper-preterists has to convert to orthodoxy? If he held to the orthodox paradigm then yes, but then again if he held to the orthodox paradigm he would not be a hyper-preterists to begin with. Since the hyper-preterists is a Restorationist´s the answer is "œabsolutely not!" Using the Restorationist paradigm they would have the option of throwing 1 Thessalonians out of the Cannon. After all, it was the orthodox tradition that put it in the Cannon and if a hyper-preterists is committed to holding his interpretation of Scripture as supreme then they, to be consistent with Restorationism, would have to reject the orthodox Cannon. So it is impossible to logically disprove hyper-preterism with a verse. So it is just a waste of time to use logic and verses when engaged in debates with hyper-preterists. The only thing you can do is show them what the correct interpretation is and hope that God´s spirit convicts them, but do not be surprised if they are able to reinterpret any verse you give them (Gnostics can do the same thing).
Conclusion
The orthodox paradigm rules-out from the start hyper-preterists conclusions. As Wilson writes, "œIn short, the only eschatological position that the universal church has been able to agree on thus far is that hyper-preterism is wrong" (Wilson 259). The Restorationist´s paradigm, which fathered Mormonism, Dispensationalism and hyper-preterism is also at odds with orthodox conclusions (although, like Dispensationalists, a Restorationist might accidentally end up one). There is not one good reason to prefer the hyper-preterists paradigm to the orthodox paradigm. However, many reasons can be advanced to show the orthodox paradigm should be preferred. Even Restorationist´s rely on the trustworthiness of tradition when it comes to the question of which books are in the Cannon. The orthodox are just consistent and embrace the rest of tradition as well. Hyper-preterists and orthodox both use paradigms to guide their interpretation of Scripture. It is true that hyper-preterists can, with an overactive imagination, reinterpret any verse to fit its conceptual box (something it shares in common with Gnosticism and Arianism). It must be pointed out that hyper-preterists cannot show that the orthodox paradigm is irrational. Remember, so long as there is one verse that could logically be interpreted as still referring to a Second Coming then reason alone cannot decide which paradigm to choose. Given these facts, I can only conclude that there is not one rational reason to prefer hyper-preterism to orthodoxy, but there are plenty of reasons to continue to trust the Holy Spirit´s guidance of the Church, as revealed in the Creeds.
What do you guys think?
Tyler Hicks of tota reformanda
_______________________
An Orthodox Response to Hyper-Preterism
Why No Orthodox Person Should Ever Switch to Hyper-preterism
Introduction:
The orthodox paradigm is held collectively by all who give allegiance to the traditional interpretation of Holy Scripture as found in Christendom´s Ecumenical Creeds. Disputes over eschatology between orthodox theologians, like Postmillennialists and Amillennialists, will eventually be solved through appeals to the common standards of their shared orthodox paradigm. Although orthodox theologians are required to use responsible creativity when they interpret Scripture, one essential component of responsible creativity is that it is directed under the guidance of the Creeds. On first glance it may be tempting to marginalize the mammoth disagreement between the orthodox and hyper-preterists by treating the whole controversy as if it were simply another vexing debate over eschatology, however, a second glace reveals that this temptation must be resisted, for the dividing issues are not so inconsequential. In an unwarranted abandonment of the orthodox paradigm, hyper-preterists have militantly committed themselves to a different paradigm that guides their unorthodox interpretation of Holy Scripture. In the absence of a shared paradigm it is both frustrating and futile to try to solve this disagreement through a list of proof texts. After all, Scriptural proof texts can only be properly interpreted under the guidance of the right paradigm. Which raises the important question, do the orthodox or the hyper-preterists have the right paradigm to interpret Scripture? The answer to this question reveals a profound difference between orthodox Christians and hyper-preterists. As noted scholar Douglas Wilson once remarked, "œ"¦Before we can understand our debates with the hyper-preterists, we have to recognize that it is not fundamentally a debate about eschatology at all. The fundamental question is one of authority" . The real question is not "œshould we read Scripture with or without a paradigm," but "œwhich paradigm should we use?"
Hyper-preterists are not guilty of appealing to the common standards of orthodoxy incorrectly, as Amillennialists think Postmillennialists are, but of using different standards altogether. It is like Postmillennialists and Amillennialists are playing a game of chess, while hyper-preterists are playing a game of tick-tack toe. Now it should be obvious to everyone that there can only be authentic competition between two players playing under the rules of that game. When everyone follows the rules then it makes sense to talk about one person wining and another person losing. Yet, as obvious as all this certainly is, let us suppose for the sake of argument, that with a chess board in hands a tick-tack-toe player, foolishly tried to challenge a chess player to a game of tick-tack-toe without informing her that he wanted to play tick-tack-toe instead of chess. The result of such a match would be nothing short of confusion and frustration.
However, what if the tick-tack-toe player instead of realizing that the chess player was working under the rules of chess, mistook the inability of her to provide "˜three in a row´ as a sign of defeat? No doubt, he would rashly champion his "˜victory´ over the confused and startled chess player. In fact, we can imagine the tick-tack-toe player making such a ruckus that the audience would try to intervene on behalf of the chess player and explain to this silly tick-tack-toe player that "œShe did not provide three in a row because she thought, when you pulled out the chess board and chess pieces, that you were going to play her in a game chess". No doubt, we can imagine the tick-tack-toe player getting enraged at the audience and accusing them of "˜inconsistency´ and dismissing their comments as mere refusals to acknowledge his well deserved victory. As silly as this situation would be, I suspect that it happens way to often in theology. When a hyper-preterists, with a good imagination, is able to reinterpret every verse in the Bible through the lens of his paradigm he often thinks that he has earned some kind of victory over his orthodox opponents. However, in reality, this hyper-preterists has only succeeded in confusing his orthodox debate partner. A hyper-preterists who uses the "˜chess board and chess pieces´ of orthodoxy (i.e. the Cannon of Scripture found in the Ecumenical Creeds) causes an orthodox person to think that the hyper-preterists will be fully consistent and not only use the board of orthodoxy but also follow the rules of that game (i.e. the theological framework found in the Ecumenical Creeds). Just because a creative Hyper-preterists can shove any verse into an unorthodox conceptual box proves nothing and only suceeds in causing more confusion and frustration. It certainly does not succeed in producing theological victory as hyper-preterist´s think. Hyper-preterists are merely using the same tricks that Gnostics and Arians did to undermine orthodoxy, for they too were able to fit Bible verses into their own unorthodox and mutually exclusive conceptual boxes. It is time for hyper-preterists to stop making rhetorical demands like "œThe orthodox just need to use Scripture and disprove hyper-preterism" and for the orthodox to start realizing where the burden of proof really is. The orthodox need to start demanding serious argumentation from the hyper-preterists for their position. Where are the arguments for the hyper-preterist´s interpretative authority or Scriptural paradigm?
At this point someone might object, "œInterpreting the "˜Bible´ does not require paradigms. We can just use our neutral reason to decide what the right interpretation of Scripture is." In response to this objection it must be noted that since the Bible is written in human language, its words and sentences, like every other human language, must be interpreted through the lens of a whole network of beliefs. Reason alone is thus insufficient to interpret language. Unless reason has the tutelage of a whole network of previous beliefs it is a blind and unreliable guide. To illustrate this point consider a senero in which person X, says to person Y, "œShe saw the farmer with binoculars." This statement can be rationally interpreted by person Y to mean either that the women had the binoculars or that the farmer had the binoculars. Reason alone cannot tell person Y what the correct interpretation of this statement is, however, suppose person Y knew in advance that when person X, made this statement, person X was pointing at a women without binoculars looking at a farmer with binoculars in hand. Good sense (i.e. a combination of reason and a whole network of beliefs) would, given these circumstances, easily be able to guide person Y to the right interpretation of person X´s statement. Thus the idea of using reason alone must be abandoned in favor of using "˜good sense´ when it comes to interpreting language and by implication Scripture.
A community of interpreters employs "˜good sense´ under the control of an interpretive paradigm. People must interpret Scripture holistically. We do not interpret one verse at a time but we interpret many verses simultaneously. We make assumptions about the reliability of the text translation and we even interpret Scriptures with previous theological doctrines (In fact, those who claim to not have previous theological doctrines before reading Scripture are usually the ones most blined by them). With a whole previous network of theological beliefs we interpret Scripture and these previous beliefs lead us to certain expectations about Scripture before we even read it. An example of a previous theological belief we need to hold to before we can properly interpret Scripture is the belief that God will not lie, only with this belief already firmly held could we ever be able to trust what God says in Scripture. Now when a Scriptural verse fails to meet our expectations we have a whole host of options left to explain what to do before we throw away our previous theological belief. We could for example revise our translation of a text, come up with an auxiliary interpretation of the verse or leave this verse as a puzzle to be solved for another season. Reason alone is powerless to tell us what to revise and what not to revise and so interpreters must employ "˜good sense.´
Under the guidance of the Creeds the orthodox interpreter employs "˜good sense´ when it comes to interpreting Scripture. For example, suppose an orthodox person who expects Scripture to always teach that Jesus will return in bodily form encounters a verse that appears to confirm hyper-preterism and by implication a secret return of Christ in A.D. 70. Suppose for example, she encounters a verse that says "œI tell you the truth, some of you who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew 16:28). Now the orthodox paradigm teaches that the nature of Christ´s return will be physical, final, and public but clearly when we consult the history books we discover that if Christ did return in A.D. 70 then it was not in the nature that the orthodox paradigm expected. Hence, the orthodox interpreter could revise their understanding of the nature of Christ´s return (much as Jehovah Witness´s did when their own prediction of Christ´s coming proved false), if she knew a little Greek she could also revise the translation, or she could just leave this verse to be explained by the more learned in the orthodox faith, or she could just offer an interpretation more consistent with the orthodox paradigm. New Testament Scholar NT Wright, from an orthodox standpoint offers a much more plausible interpretation of this verse when he writes,
Many people have been puzzled by these claims, for the simple reason that they have failed to see the significance of what happens at the end of the story. The phrases about "˜the son of man coming in his kingdom´ and the like are not about what we would call the "˜second coming´ of Jesus. They are about his vindication, fallowing his suffering. They are fulfilled when he rises from the dead and is granted "˜all authority in heaven and on earth´ (Matt 28:18).
NT Wright´s interpretation also explains why Jesus used the picture of the "œSon of Man coming in his kingdom" to describe his vindication, which includes not just his resurrection but also the destruction of the Temple. Jesus was recalling to the Disciples minds the vision the Daniel had about the "œson of man" coming before the thrown room of God to be vindicated, Jesus was thus speaking about these events "˜apocalyptically´ (i.e. he was investing historical events with their spiritual significance). In other words, Jesus was not thinking in Dispensationalists catagories like the hyper-preterists would say, but was thinking in Jewish catagories that was anything but anti-historical or anti-physical. This physical vindication of Christ not only leaves the door open for a physical return of Jesus but makes it so that we would explect Jesus to physically return. Given this list of options the orthodox interpretor is left to make a decision and she can use all the help she can get.
All of these revision options or alternative interpretations are logically coherent and reason alone cannot decide between them. Now the orthodox paradigm teaches that under no circumstance can the nature of Christ´s return be revised (like the Johovah Witnesses and hyper-preterists have done) and so "˜good sense´ would lead the orthodox to prefer NT Wright´s more plausible interpretation of the verse. Interpreting Scripture requires us to use paradigms. Having adequately argued against a naïve view of interpreting the Bible, let us move on to consider more reasons to prefer the orthodox paradigm to the hyper-preterist´s paradigm.
The Battle of the Paradigms
Hyper-preterism did not just spontaneously come into existence. Someone in the nineteenth century did not just go to their backyard one day and say, "œWow, for the last nineteen hundred years, every Christian has misunderstood the edifice of Christian dogma because when I the read the Bible it clearly says to me that Christ returned in A.D. 70." The reason no one could just retreat to the backyard and invent hyper-preterism was because the paradigm in which it makes sense to read the Bible that way had to be invented first. Indeed, it is no accident that no one was a hyper-preterists before the nineteenth century for the paradigm only came into existence in the nineteenth century. During the nineteenth century, the American Church became the victim of a cultural mega-shift. During this period of time, congregations and their theologically trained Pastors were separated. Untrained Pastors emerged and the family unit disintegrated under the pressure of American industrialization. Left without the aid and support of a trained Pastors and family structures thousands of Christians would became the victims of a false movement to "˜restore´ the Church to its alleged former glory. Douglas Wilson described the American Restorationist´s movement as follows, "œIn American [Restorationist] Christianity, it is commonplace to think that "˜pure´ Christianity disappeared from the globe with the death of the last apostle, not to reappear again until a revelation of some kind came to Hobart Jones on a cornfield in southeastern Nebraska. There are many versions of this faith, but the outlines are the same" (Wilson 257). Just as the ancient Gnostics only think that Jesus appeared to be human but was really only spiritual, American Restorationist tend to treat the Bible as if it was a document that only appears to be a human document but in reality fell from heaven and is thus best interpreted without knowledge of the Bible´s history or a historic community of interpreters to draw from. Out of the American Restorationist´s movement emerged the Mormons, Dispensationalists, Jehovah Witness, Seventh Day Adventists and finally Hyper-preterism.
Restorationists attempted to meet the confusion of the times with empty promises of a soon coming of Jesus. Jesus would end the space-time continuum and Christians would escape this world (perhaps through a secret rapture?). The Scriptural message was read as if it was a newspaper, which if read correctly could foretell the next few years. Under the Restorationist paradigm the doctrine of "œChrist´s second coming´ was thought to be about the ending of history and naturally lead to the conclusion that Christians have no responsibility to this perishing world. Dispensationalists, on accident reaffirmed the Creeds, but fitting Scripture into a conceptual scheme of wooden (physical) literalism they managed to distort the Biblical narrative and misinterpret almost every verse in the process. In reaction, hyper-preterists attempted to fight against Dispensationalists using the Dispensationalists own standards. Almost every verse in the Bible that talks about a coming of Jesus was placed in a Restorationist´s style "˜Second Coming of Christ´ catagory. As Restorationists, Hyper-preterists basically read Jesus as if he had thought in dispensationalists catagories. So, when Jesus used words like "˜soon´ and "˜this generation will not pass away until all these things take place´ hyper-preterists mistook Jesus to have been speaking in a wooden fashion like a Dispensationalists. The orthodox paradigm on the other hand places these verses in the catagories that would be fitting for a Jewish apocalyptic prophet which leads to radically different expectations that will be explored latter in this paper.
Hyper-preterists tried to place these time-reference verses in that Dispensational category and argued that Christ must have come within forty years of uttering these statements. Dispensationalists, of course, knew and still know that these verses exist but they explain away these verses by saying that these time references are only spiritual. In response, the hyper-preterists basically projected a Restorationist´s paradigm onto the Apostles. These Dispensationalists Apostles expected Christ to return in their generation just as American Dispensationalists expect Christ to return in their day. The hyper-preterists, to retain this thesis, argued that Dispensationalists have the right categories of Dogma, but they just need to switch from physical woodenism to spiritual woodenism when they interpret the nature of Christ´s coming. Thus the struggle between Dispensationalists and hyper-preterists is really a family dispute. The orthodox should avoid entering this debate at all costs because it is boring and unproductive from an orthodox standpoint.
An old theologian´s proverb says that "œWhen some people invent a new doctrine, it is like they have discovered a hammer and everything around them has become a nail." This proverb captures the essence of the hyper-preterists. They know in advance that the resurrection of believers, the Second Coming, the Day of Judgment, all took place in A.D. 70, yet they cannot agree how. (Their situation is similar to Jehovah Witness who have had to explain how Jesus returned without anyone really knowing about except the Jehovah Witness). Holding on to the Restorationalists paradigm they spiritualize all these doctrines. This fact has been repeatedly observed by various scholars. Old Testament scholar, Richard Pratt, for example writes,
Simply put, because they are convinced that the New Testament proclaims an imminent return of Christ, hyper-preterists revise their understanding of the nature of his return in order to maintain the integrity of the New Testament. They deny that the New Testament predicts a cataclysmic, physical return and renewal of the heavens and earth, and they maintain instead the return of Christ was spiritual in nature and took place during the first century (Pratt 149).
Another scholar, Robert Strimple collaborates Pratt´s observation in the following words
´The necessary first step´ [of hyper-preterists] is to decide that the second coming of Christ and all that was to follow immediately upon it, including the resurrection of "˜those who belong to him´ (1 Cor. 15:23), happened in A.D. 70. Then the second step is to reinterpret all the biblical passages that speak of the coming resurrection in a way that could plausibly have happened at that time" (Strimple 290).
These scholars have correctly noted that hyper-preterism is the result of trying to fit every verse into a previously established conceptual box. The world of Dispensationalism is irrationally devoted to trying to place everything else to the next few years. Hyper-preterism into A.D. 70. Having seen that hyper-preterism and Dispensationalism belong to the Restoriationist paradigm and not the orthodox paradigm, we can now intelligibly ask the question what about the rest of us who do not want to play the game at all? Personally, I find the game boring and fault the two players for lack of creativity. (I mean if you are going to be a Restorationist why not be creative and do something new like Joseph Smith did?)
Comparing and Contrasting the Restorationist Paradigm and the Orthodox Paradigm
If the Restorationists are right about Scripture then there is no way to "˜check and balance´ an individual´s interpretation of the Bible. The Bible becomes simply my individual interpretation. Restorationists thought that they could escape the Pope by reading the Bible autonomously but actually they are merely substituting one pope for a thousand popes. I wager that responsible allegiance to the traditional interpretation of Scripture is the only way to avoid this dangerous individualism. Martin Luther used the traditional interpretation of Scripture to get away from Rome and it is time we follow the Reformers away from the Restorationist movement. Think about it, did God really want His will to be made known by grabbing a Bible and running to the backyard? Has the Holy Spirit really been misleading His Church for the last two-thousand years? If so, then we should stop arguing collectively about what the Bible says and start individually retreating to the backyard to find out what the Bible says. If however, God gave a Covenant document to a community that has its origin in the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, then it makes sense to think that interpreting the Bible as a community is essential, which allows for communal debate. If Jesus really has kept His promise and guided His Church throughout the centuries then it makes sense to look to the Creeds for guidance. To not use the Creeds would be to accuse the Holy Spirit of not being able to save the Church from heresy. A position that I suspect few would really be willing to swallow if they actually thought the matter through.
Hyper-preterists often object to the orthodox use of "˜Creeds´ as a check and balance to interpreting Scripture, on the basis that these "˜Creeds´ have been created by fallible Christians and therefore could possibly be in error. However, if "˜fallibility´ is an argument against the truthfulness of the Creeds then it is equally an argument against the truthfulness of hyper-preterism because hyper-preterists are fallible interpreters as well. Hence, hyper-preterists out of pure preference are inconsistently throwing away the fallible "˜Creeds´ and keeping their own fallible interpretation of Scripture. Yet, what if your preference, like mine, is to trust two-thousand years of consistent Church tradition? After all, hyper-preterists cannot produce one good reason, besides logical coherence (an atribute imitated by Gnostics, Arians and orthodox and so not a determining reason) to accept their fallible interpretation as normative over the fallible orthodox interpretation.
On the other hand, the orthodox camp is not as impoverished and has a few good arguments to present to us. First, the fact that the "˜Creeds´ were formulated by fallible Christians says nothing about their trustworthiness, as even hyper-preterists inconsistently agree in practice. Hyper-preterists do not worry about the fact that fallible men formulated which books were in the Cannon? They, thus assume the trustworthiness of the "˜Creeds´ every time they open the Bible. In fact the Church Fathers recognized the books sixty-six books of the Cannon because of their conformity to the orthodox way of understanding the Gospel. Hyper-preterists are just being inconsistent, if the Creeds cannot be trusted to sum up Scriptural teaching then they cannot be trusted to tell us which books are in the Bible. Hyper-preterists should also be aware that outside of the orthodox paradigm´s conceptions of a traditional interpretation of Scripture and the Holy Spirit´s consistent guidance though out Church history there is no good argument for why these sixty-six books are in the Cannon. Yet, if tradition can be trusted to get the Cannon right it can be trusted when it summarizes the Cannon´s teaching.
Of course, hyper-preterists have another option open to them. If they do not want to follow the traditional interpretation of Scripture they can consistently reject the traditional interpretation of what books are in the Bible. Once this is done they could just create their own community and their own Bible. You see, unlike Dispensationalists and hyper-preterists, Joseph Smith was a very consistent Restorationists when he invented a new cannon. Sure hyper-preterist could just arbitrarily choose the sixty-six books, but my question to them is why would you artificially restrict yourselves to that? How unoriginal is that? Why not just put some of Samuel Frost´s books in the cannon? Why not make Frost Pope? You can do whatever your wish. I mean if you have to reinvent the wheel every time you open Scripture why not also reinvent the cannon every time you go to read your Bible. Invent your own Church Fathers, your own cannon, and your own culture. Place the fate of your own families, the fate of your accomplishments, and the fate of your own money in a movement that had its origins in a corn field. Risk everything to side against the last two-thousand years of the Holy Spirit´s guidance. If you are going to sin against tradition you might as well sin against it all. If you would rather side with the God of the Church families, and with the Church´s cannon, then be brave and adopt both its Cannon and tradition. If you reject its tradition because it´s fallible and you think you have a better interpretation then reject the Cannon because the adoption of that Cannon was motivated by the very tradition you unjustifiably abandon. The risk is yours, as are the consequences. Yet, from my perspective, the God of the Church Fathers, the Bible and the Christian community has proven Himself over the years to be trustworthy. The universal Church has been around for two-thousand years and is only getting stronger, I know of hyper-preterists churches that have only been around twenty years and have already fractured and disintegrated. I doubt if hyper-preterism will be around five hundred years from now, so when you pick between these two paradigms choose wisely.
Why Proof Texting will not Solve the Debate
The implications of the above paragraph cannot be missed for if the argumentation employed above is sound then it is impossible for an orthodox person to absolutely falsify hyper-preterism with a proof text. This can be illustrated through a simple thought experiment. Suppose that I have been able to convince a hyper-preterists that there is no way a verse that says that "œThe Lord Himself will come down from heaven"¦and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds"¦ will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) could not have been fulfilled in A.D. 70 because the death spoken about in v.16 is clearly physical, because being spiritual dead in Christ makes no sense, and so v.17 teaches that those who are physically still alive when Christ returns never die. Now, I am sure that some hyper-preterists can explain this verse away though reinterpretation but let us suppose for the sake of the thought experiment that these arguments persuaded the hyper-preterists. Does that mean that the hyper-preterists has to convert to orthodoxy? If he held to the orthodox paradigm then yes, but then again if he held to the orthodox paradigm he would not be a hyper-preterists to begin with. Since the hyper-preterists is a Restorationist´s the answer is "œabsolutely not!" Using the Restorationist paradigm they would have the option of throwing 1 Thessalonians out of the Cannon. After all, it was the orthodox tradition that put it in the Cannon and if a hyper-preterists is committed to holding his interpretation of Scripture as supreme then they, to be consistent with Restorationism, would have to reject the orthodox Cannon. So it is impossible to logically disprove hyper-preterism with a verse. So it is just a waste of time to use logic and verses when engaged in debates with hyper-preterists. The only thing you can do is show them what the correct interpretation is and hope that God´s spirit convicts them, but do not be surprised if they are able to reinterpret any verse you give them (Gnostics can do the same thing).
Conclusion
The orthodox paradigm rules-out from the start hyper-preterists conclusions. As Wilson writes, "œIn short, the only eschatological position that the universal church has been able to agree on thus far is that hyper-preterism is wrong" (Wilson 259). The Restorationist´s paradigm, which fathered Mormonism, Dispensationalism and hyper-preterism is also at odds with orthodox conclusions (although, like Dispensationalists, a Restorationist might accidentally end up one). There is not one good reason to prefer the hyper-preterists paradigm to the orthodox paradigm. However, many reasons can be advanced to show the orthodox paradigm should be preferred. Even Restorationist´s rely on the trustworthiness of tradition when it comes to the question of which books are in the Cannon. The orthodox are just consistent and embrace the rest of tradition as well. Hyper-preterists and orthodox both use paradigms to guide their interpretation of Scripture. It is true that hyper-preterists can, with an overactive imagination, reinterpret any verse to fit its conceptual box (something it shares in common with Gnosticism and Arianism). It must be pointed out that hyper-preterists cannot show that the orthodox paradigm is irrational. Remember, so long as there is one verse that could logically be interpreted as still referring to a Second Coming then reason alone cannot decide which paradigm to choose. Given these facts, I can only conclude that there is not one rational reason to prefer hyper-preterism to orthodoxy, but there are plenty of reasons to continue to trust the Holy Spirit´s guidance of the Church, as revealed in the Creeds.
