Originally posted by HankD:
what is the point of all this research and what does it really prove?
Hi HankD,
I sort of answered this above, when I said it reveals attributes about the view. In other words, a doctrine that was completely missed by Christ's church for 1800 years should not be called "clear", "fundamental", etc.
The purpose of this thread is two-fold:
First, it is mainly for my own interest and the interest of others. I have been looking for such quotes for quite a while, and am very interested in church history.
Second, it is to provide some much-needed perspective for many people. There are several well-known pretrib authors who are claiming and "producing" pretrib quotes from before 1800. All quotes so far have been proven to be bogus. Whether these mistakes are intentional or not, I cannot fully tell (though the track-record of some authors is really not a good sign). I think people need to know this. Also, there are churches today (mostly Baptist and Pentecostal) that are so entrenched in the pretrib view that they allow for no leeway on the subject. Many such churches refuse to ordain people (or put them in any position of authority) who do not subscribe to the pretrib view. This is their right, but in my opinion that is a big mistake. Many churches go so far as to not fellowship with other churches who are not as strongly pretrib, or even grant membership to people who hold different views on the rapture. Even groups like AWANA will not even let you use their materials in your church unless you sign a form saying your church holds the pretrib view! This is utterly ridiculous. I was raised in such churches, and it was not until my mid-twenties that I even found out other views existed, and I find that most pretribbers I talk with think the posttrib view is strange at best, and heresy at worst. Yet here we have 1800 years, or 90% of church history, where not only was the pretrib view totally non-existent, but the basic opposing viewpoint was the only view the chuch ever held. You mention searching through 20,000 pages of early church fathers. There is also the countless confessions, creeds, catechisms, lectionaries, commentaries, apologies, theologies, doctrinal statements, sermons, theses, letters and other books and writings across the centuries. We also have thousands of hymns, poems, paintings, sculptures, stained glass windows and other art forms. In short, we have *millions and millions* of pages and other witnesses of doctrine, across nearly two millennia, and not one shred of pretrib can be found. Does this not bother any pretribbers, even a little bit??? I realize this doesn't "prove" the view is false, but I can think of no other examples where such an overwhelming mountain of evidence is brushed aside for a new doctrine which is called "clear" and "fundamental". Maybe I'm not starting this thread to prove pretrib wrong so much as I am trying to prove posttrib is not the big bad enemy.
You mention the Trinity took 300 to 400 years to develop. This is not a good analogy in my opinion, because clear Trinitarian theology can be found in many writings prior, it's just that the church never sat down and "formalized" an explanation of the theology or coined a term for it. It's not like one day the Trinity doctrine appeared out of nowhere while all of prior church history was the opposite of Trinitarian.
I think if people took a step back and considered the big picture, it would be immediately obvious why pretrib quotes prior to 1800 have been found.
Anyways, enough ranting.
Back to the topic at hand. I have been able to dig up some more info on Benjamin Keach (DocCas mentioned him, but then disappeared when I asked for context and information). It appears it is not a pretrib quote either (surprise). I'll post more info later about this, when I have my notes with me.
Brian
