Re: [asa] The apostle warns of evolution

I am one of those preterists. Unlike RC Sproul who is what is called a
partial preterist, my beliefs are what is called full preterism.

Without getting into the details of what that means, I can correspond
with
you Ted privately about it if you want, I would like to make a couple of
comments regarding the relationship between preterism and creationism.

Many preterists authors are conservative reformed evangelicals. Ed
Stevens
is one prominent example. He is YEC. Preterists in general are
conservative and literal interpreters of the bible. They like to
interpret
unclear bible passages by using other biblical passages that are more
clear.
They take all of the time statements throughout the New Testament
literally,
such as "this generation shall not pass away" "I am returning soon"
etc.
I have seen no evidence that the YEC folks have been influenced by
preterism
however. In fact Timothy Martin in "Beyond Creation Science" claims
that:
"It is no secret that every leading writer for the Creation Science
movement
supports some version of dispensational pre-millenialism."

What I find ironic is that as I was studying preterism, I found that
preterism is more consistent with old earth views than YEC. For
example,
preterism requires, in my opinion, death to occur before the fall of
Adam,
because if Christ has returned and completed his work, then why is death
still with us? That is because the death that Christ's resurrection
erased
is the spiritual death caused by the fall, not physical death. Another
recent controversy in the preterist ranks, has been over the
publication of
Tim Martin's booklet, Beyond Creation Science. (Available here
http://truthinliving.org/Reformer/Flood.htm) He is a preterist, and in
this book claims that preterism is not consistent with a global flood.

Personally, I am hoping that the TE/preterist view, (and there are
not that
many of us now, unfortunately) which I hold, becomes more common. I
think
it is the most consistent, rational, biblical position regarding
events of
the beginning and the end.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>; <tandyland@earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 9:18 AM
Subject: RE: [asa] The apostle warns of evolution

>>>> "Jon Tandy" <tandyland@earthlink.net> 09/04/06 9:08 AM
>>>> >>>writes, among
> other things:
>
> One of the reasons people like Origen spiritualized away the second
> coming
> was their view that since it hadn't happened by the second or third
> century,
> some of the apparent immediate statements (like "I come quickly")
> in the
> scriptural texts needed to be understood spiritually, not literally.
> Peter
> addresses this by commenting that one day with the Lord is as a
> thousand
> years -- in other words, the timing of those immediate statements
> may be
> spiritualized, but the actual event of Christ's coming will be
> literal.
> The
> important fact was the event, not the timing. Funny that AIG can
> accept
> this idea in the second coming, but not in the creation.
>
> Ted wonders:
> To what extent has mainstream creationism (if that's the correct term)
> been
> influenced (if at all) by the recent emphasis in some
> fundamentalist/evangelical circles on what is being called the
> "preterist"
> view--namely, that Christ returned around the time of the
> destruction of
> the
> second Temple in 70 AD? If I understand this view correctly (and
> I'm not
> sure that I do), it is an effort to take "literally" Jesus' statements
> about
> this generation not passing away until these things are fulfilled.
>
> Does anyone know whether preterist ideas have yet influenced
> creationists,
> at least mainstream creationists such as those at AIG or ICR? Some
> creationists do espouse them. Two examples: RC Sproul and those who
> operate
> theologyweb. How likely is it that this combination (preterism and
> creationism) will become more common?
>
> Ted
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue Sep 5 00:41:46 2006