Are anti-preterists all Dispensationalists?

I'm not entirely sure I get your point regarding liberal theology. I definitely do not hold liberal views of theology. Please do not mistake the following questions as accusations, but I would like clarification. Are you suggesting that Preterism is only a view held predominantly by liberals? Are you suggesting that Evangelicals can't also be preterists? (I know, you were not talking about Evangelists, but that just came to me.)

Whether Revelation has a direct application to my future doesn't change my view of the glory of God or my worship of Christ. Those views haven't changed from when I was a Futurist.

 

Rather than going over the same ground that we've covered already, I'll give a nice short answer - I disagree with everything you have said above.

 

Is there any point in you and I discussing this any further? We do not agree on anything, and we keep going over the same points. The best we can do is to agree to disagree.

 

My previous post answers your questions. Unfortunately, as I was typing my finger slipped and hit the pad (which I hate; always use a mouse) and posted before I was ready.

There are evangelical preterists, but preterism is a view easily held by liberals. (I don't know about "predominately.) That is because, as I said, you don't have to interpret literally to believe it. On the other hand, it is impossible to be a dispensationalist and a liberal at the same time. "The theological liberal quite naturally opposes dispensationalism, for he finds completely unpalatable its plain interpretation, which is based on a verbal, plenary view of the inspiration of Scripture" (Ryrie, 14).

 

Yes, I hate those "bad" keystrokes

With your explanation, I do see how it is not possible to be a dispensationalist and a liberal at the same time. Still don't quite get how one's eschatology affects their view of God's glory. Is this because futurists / dispensationalists are looking forward to the Rapture, or is it something else?

 

I would have to actually believe that I was deceived before I could admit it. No need to respond to the rest of your comments, as we've said it all before.

 

At this point, I feel like we are a couple of Billy goats just butting heads. You are going to hold to the futurist view, and I am going to hold to the partial preterist view, and this is not going to change. Since neither of us are coming up with anything fresh, I'd just as soon drop it.

 

Preterism (along with postmil and amil) goes along well and often with Reformed theology. The emphasis of that theology is soteriological. (Remember the TULIP, which is all about soteriology.) This is not to deny a doxological emphasis in Reformed theology, but simply to say it is not the basis for the theology. However, dispensationalism is doxological all the way: how God worked in history for his glory.

When I teach Dispensational Theology in the college here, my second leture is on the glory of God as the basis of the theology. I then personalize it, like this:

II. Living Personally for God’s Glory
A. Each individual Christian is commanded to live for God’s glory (1 Cor. 6:19-20, 10:31).
B. Answered prayer is one important part of living for God’s glory. Lost people and saved people alike glorify God when they see His direct hand at work on the earth (Matt. 9:4-8, 15:31, Acts 4:19-22, etc.).
C. When God helps His people, it glorifies Him (Ps. 50:15).
D. The salvation of souls glorifies God, since only He can change a poor fallen sinner into a saint (John 15:8, Ps. 86:12-13). It is here where soul-winning becomes a vital part of the Christian life, in that it glorifies God.
E. A holy life, impossible without the help of the Holy Spirit, glorifies God. Our good works glorify God (Matt. 5:16).
F. Suffering for the cause of Christ glorifies God (1 Peter 4:16).
G. The glorious death of a saint glorifies God (John 21:18-19).

 

Since Sproul was a Reformed Theologian, that does make sense. (I've studied Sproul, but have never accepted the 5 points of Calvinism.)

From my perspective, both the dispensationalist view and the preterist view are concerned with how God worked in history for His glory.
I like your outline of Living Personally for God's Glory. This would apply to all Christians, regardless of their eschatological view.

 

The only thing I would say here is that preterism is not usually introduced as a theology specifically for God's glory.

One thing that convinces me that dispensationalism as a theology glorifies God (though the dispensational view about God's glory is His working in history for that glory) is that dispensationalism demands a literal interpretation of all prophetic passages. Fulfilled prophecy obviously glorifies God. Yet preterism is predicated on non-literal fulfillment.

When Christ was born in Bethlehem in direct fulfillment of prophecy, God was very obviously glorified. Humans cannot prophesy and then fulfill it. Only God can do that, and if a human tries it and is not 100% accurate, they are condemned by Scripture.

Now, all prophecies of the first coming of Christ were fulfilled literally, so why will prophecies of the 2nd coming not be fulfilled literally? For example, I recently did a thread on the throne of David, which preterists and other non-literalists say Christ will never occupy. Yet it is prophesied in Is. 9:7 right after a literally fulfilled prophecy about the incarnation. To me, that alone shows the complete and total failure of any non-literal eschatology.

 

Preterism is really not that different. In Preterism, God is still glorified by His hand in actual fulfillment of prophecy. Dispensationalism doesn't take as literal a view of time statements as Preterism. We understand the prophecies as fulfilled exactly as Scriptures tell us. Where we differ is in our understanding of "prophetic" language. The futurist view demands a literal fulfillment of events that are described symbolically.

 

I take it back about Wikipedia. There is a brief bio of him in Wikipedia as "J. Stuart Russell"--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Stuart_Russell.

The rest of my post is accurate. He is not in Moyer's book or any other book in my library on prophecy. None of my systematic theologies mention him, though Erickson (the most recent) mentions preterism very briefly.

All throughout the 20th century--in other words anything after Russell--preterism was the extreme minority view, not discussed anywhere that I know of. I never even heard of it until the 21st century on the Internet, and eschatology is a specialty of mine. Along comes Sproul, a well known scholar who accepted it. After that, it has spread on the Internet.

lodic, you said you did not get your preterism from the Internet, but I'm curious. Where, then, did you learn about it? Did you get Russell in book form or something?

 

This is not accurate.

1. Actually, I take every single time statement literally, as do all dispensationalists. I simply have a different exegesis than the preterist. I've already asked you how 14 years can be "soon," and you were vague and speculative, not directly answering. So preterism is not superior in this area. You are assuming without asking. You have still not asked me about "quickly."

2. The futurist view does not demand "a literal fulfillment of events that are described symbolically." What we do is ask for clarity on what is symbolic. The preterist (and other non-literalists) is vague about what is symbolic. I read David Chilton's commentary on Rev. and came away thinking, "Nothing whatsoever is literal to this guy." You can't say the book of Rev. is completely symbolic without saying there is no limit to symbolic language, which is linguistic nonsense. (I'm a linguist, so I can say this. )

The truth is, literal interpretation teaches one to carefully recognize figures of speech. (A whole book simply cannot be figurative. It's impossible.) Go back to my recent thread on figurative language, and watch the non-literalists try to figure out exactly what a figure of speech is.

Again, a question. How do you know if a symbolic prophecy is fulfilled? By its very definition, there must be literal fulfillment of a prophecy, or it is not prophetic. Study the OT prophets for proof of this.

 

Concerning the book of Revelation, it is apocalyptic literature (something few people here seem to recognize). This type of literature is known for figures of speech, true. However, it is not completely symbolic. That is simply impossible. It has symbolic language to illustrate the very real and literal prophecies in it.

 

Absolutely. We'll hammer out our differences with honesty. First priority is God's word, however.

 

I should clarify that statement. I had seen the term before, but never paid any attention to it. I first started digging into the preterist view around 2008. To back up, I'd been having doubts about the dispensationalist / futurist view since the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991). Books by "end times experts" turned out to be disappointing. Already skeptical - due in large part to Tim LaHaye, Harold Camping, etc., I wasn't sure how to interpret Biblical prophecy, but I was sure that I had not been interpreting it correctly.

One day I researching something on the American Vision when I ran across an article by Gary DeMar. The article was about the "end times", and I was intrigued. Skeptical at first, I prayed, studied, and researched this "preterist" view that I'd only seen passing references to before. I bought DeMar's book "Last Days Madness - Obsession of the Modern Church". In this book, DeMar did a thorough study of the Olivet Discourse in a way that I'd never seen before - and it all began to make sense. Later, I bought Sproul's "The Last Days According to Jesus" and Ken Gentry's "Before Jerusalem Fell", where he makes a very strong case to show that Revelation was written in the late 60s, not the mid 90s.
I only learned something of Russell later on, and I still haven't read "The Parousia". Honestly, I'm not sure I ever will get around to it. As much as eschatology does interest me, I also love apologetics and other Christian topics. I've got several books by Lee Strobel that I still haven't even started on yet. (When we buy books, we also assume we will have time to read them. I find this to be a myth. )

So, you can see that I love to read. However, I take the Berean approach, and compare what I read (or hear) to Scripture. No conflicts from the guys that I've mentioned, but I did reject some of the findings of Full Preterists such as Don Preston and Charles Meek.

 

1. If dispensationalists take every time statement literally, why do words like "soon", "at the door", "near", and "quickly" change their meaning when it comes to prophecy?

2. I don't see where preterism is vague about the symbolic. Revelation contains a lot of symbolism, but quite a bit is easily interpreted literally. We even have angelic assistance on interpreting some of the symbolism. . I'm pretty sure that Chilton is a Full Preterist, so I haven't read anything by him. While you are a linguist, I'm just a poor boy from the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. It's easy for you to get over my head, as I do good to know a noun from a verb. However, I'm pretty sure I know as much about reading the Bible as the average guy, so I won't worry about it.

How do you know if a symbolic prophecy is fulfilled? We see what it points to. The events described in Revelation make it clear that John's original 1st century audience knew that these events pointed to the coming destruction of Jerusalem. They were the ones told to calculate the number of the Beast.