A friend of mine pointed me to an article by my favorite author, Greg Bahnsen. The title of it is: “The Prima Facie Acceptability of Postmillennialism,” and it can be found here.
I haven’t finished reading it yet, but one part of it stuck out to me as so very funny. I’ve never heard this before, and I post this more as a “for fun” discussion than something serious. Most people that know me, understand that I haven’t done the tough study to have come down hard and firm on where I stand on this issue. If you check my original post, found here, you’ll see that I am open to amill still. But if I finally do the study and come down in the postmill camp (as most of my friends suspect I will), then at least I will have one area in my theology I can point to and say that I fall in the middle of both extremes! LOL
A further criticism which cannot be applied uniquely to postmillennialism is that it interprets biblical prophecy both figuratively [19] and literally.[20] The premillennialists see symbolic interpretation as a failure of nerve, and amillennialists take literal understanding of prophecy as crude and insensitive. But the fact remains that none of the three schools interprets biblical prophecy exclusively in either a literal or figurative fashion. (And, by the way, nobody really adheres to the rule, “Literal where possible,” as is evident from the respective treatments of the beast of Revelation, which could possibly be a literal monster but obviously is not.) All three schools end up finding both kinds of literature in the prophetic passages, and it is dishonest to give an opposite impression. If anything, the fact that postmillennialism is seen as too literal by amillennialists and too figurative by premillennialists perhaps suggests (certainly does not prove) that it alone has maintained a proper balance. The upshot is this: the charge of subjective spiritualization or hyperliteralism against any of the three eschatological positions cannot be settled in general; rather, the opponents must get down to hand-to-hand exegetical combat on particular passages and phrases.
February 7, 2008 at 10:03 pm |
Amill vs. postmill is really not that important of a debate.
What’s at stake, honestly? What you think is going to happen in the future? Surely we aren’t in the business of predicting the future, so who cares?
I’m training to be a minister. Whether postmill is correct or amill is correct, I’m still going to preach the gospel. Neither affects me one way or the other.
But some say that postmills are more optimistic than amills. Maybe, but I’m not going to preach the gospel half heartedly because of my amill position, or sit around feeling sorry for myself. So again I ask, who cares? What’s at stake? Not much.
Sure, there are questions about whether your hope is on earth or in heaven, in this age or the age to come, and there are questions about whether the church is ultimately going to win or something to that effect, and ministers would care about this much more than laymen, but honestly, all the differences put together don’t really add up to that much.
I don’t care what you think about how successful the church is eventually going to be. I care about how successful you think Jesus was in accomplishing your salvation 2000 years ago.
I’m glad the OPC allows both.
February 8, 2008 at 4:29 pm |
Echo,
Would you agree that what one believes comes out of his hands, that is to say, ones doctrine affects his practice? For instance, the unwillingness of the ten spies to go in and conquer the land God had given them was the result of their disbelief that God had indeed given them the land. Likewise, if God has given the Earth to Jesus, and by extension, His Church, our belief or disbelief that this is the case will affect our decision whether to go about conquering the nations or to continue wondering about the wilderness. This is why postmillennialists are almost always theonomists and vice versa.
February 8, 2008 at 5:53 pm |
So if His Church doesn’t believe that the Earth (taken in your sense) was given to Jesus, then the church is going to be WONDERING all over the the wilderness?
Hmmm, I wonder if I should baptize my infant.
I wonder is God’s law is a perfect model of justice for all times and places.
I wonder….
LOL
Kazoo
February 9, 2008 at 10:56 am |
February 9, 2008 at 11:52 am |
So Ron, what you’re saying is that I’ll be less bold in preaching the gospel if I’m amill, and more bold if I’m postmill? is that what you’re saying?
E
February 9, 2008 at 4:55 pm |
No, not necessarily. I am saying that one will have a smaller view of the gospel as an amil. So the postmil and the amil can be equally bold in their preaching of the “gospel”, but the “gospels” they preach will be different. The amil will tend emphasize an individual, internal gospel (Jesus died and rose again to reconcile sinners to God), while the postmil will tend to emphasize the salt and light aspect of the gospel (Jesus died and rose again to reconcile all things to God (Col 1)).
February 9, 2008 at 5:49 pm |
Is Amillenialism extreme? From anecdotal evidence, I can tell you that Gene Cook and Dennis Johnson have personal histories of Pre–>Post–>A, and consider the Post phase of their life to have been an overcorrection to Pre. Mike Horton and Kim Riddlebarger would agree about the overcorrection comment, and I know they both started as Pre, and are currently A-, but I don’t know if either of them ever sojourned through Post.
As for Bahnsen, well everybody wants to feel balanced by pointing to extremes on both sides, no?
February 11, 2008 at 1:43 am |
Ron,
Define what you mean by “all things”. Because I’m amill, and I don’t believe that the gospel is restricted to my individual justification.
E
February 11, 2008 at 1:45 am |
PS Note: I understand that Col uses the language of “all things”. Yep. And I think I know more or less what it means. So I’m asking you to interpret what you think it means, and why you think it means that my understanding of the gospel is necessarily deficient somehow because of my eschatological view.
February 11, 2008 at 12:10 pm |
If we believe with our dispensationalist brothers that the earth has to go to hell in a hand basket before the end, then the sooner the better, we say. And then we get gospel minimalism that seeks to merely “convert” as many as possible before the imminent end, while neglecting the need for discipleship and forgetting that Jesus called us to effect change real in the world by being salt and light.
But if we believe that Jesus is not going to destroy this creation, but rather, destroy the destroyers of this creation (Revelation 11:18), and thereby renew this creation, then our gospel outlook stretches forth to thousands of generations.
I think one main difference between the postmil view and the two extremes is that the postmil view sees this creation continuing on forever, culminating in a glorified, re-created state, “world without end” as we sing. While the other views see this creation being annihilated and replaced with a new creation. I don’t think these views can be separated from the practice that typically accompanies them. Revivalism was born out of faulty eschatology.
February 11, 2008 at 12:11 pm |
I believe “all things” speaks to the renewal of all creation, btw.
February 11, 2008 at 8:52 pm |
Oh, ok, I see what you’re saying. Well, look, amills don’t believe that the world must go to hell in a haybasket prior to the end. In fact, we believe that there is no sign for the coming of the END of the age, but that there are signs that characterize the age.
I know that there are some who think that there will be an Antichrist crisis at the end of the age, and the more immoral the world gets, the closer that point becomes. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. I’m not sure about that.
But what I can tell you for absolutely certain is this: I do not wish to see the world go to hell in a haybasket. I don’t look at our current environmental problems (if they’re real), and say, “Bring it on, let the earth be destroyed!” I don’t look at the UN and say, “Bring it on, let’s have one world government, long live Antichrist!”
I think you are right to characterize dispensationalists this way. There is almost a morbid fascination with the coming of Antichrist, and they’re secretly desiring to see his advent. It’s like they’re being entertained by the destruction of humanity at its own hand or something like that. It’s deplorable.
Whether this earth will literally be destroyed by fire and made fresh all over again, or whether as you say the evil doers will be removed I cannot say. I don’t know. I think a decent case can be made for both sides of that debate.
But since I take no side in this, and since I don’t want to see the world get worse than it already is, therefore I don’t think that your accusations of a deficient gospel actually stick, at least when you consider my own view.
For example, I recognize that our culture influences the church. I’d like it not to do so, but it does. We should strive to be free from the influences of our culture, but we shouldn’t pretend that culture is irrelevant to what goes on in the church. Look at what feminism has done to the church! Look at what today’s homosexual friendly culture has done to the church! So no, I don’t want to see the culture get worse and worse, as I look to the underworld and say, “come Antichrist” as some dispy’s tend to do. Of course, they don’t want to worship the Antichrist, but they want to see HIM come, because they know that that means the end is near. So they’re really just rooting and cheering for the return of Christ, but I think their theology has distracted them.
I think you’re right, we should be salt and light in the world, but not because we want to see the whole world become better through our influence, at least not primarily. No, the point is to bear witness to our faith in Christ by our deeds, in the hopes that we will win some of them for the kingdom.
But I see the church and the culture being at war with one another. It is the battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. These two will always be at war. That’s what characterizes this life. God promised as much in Gen 3. There WILL be enmity between the two.
Nonetheless, we have no idea who is elect and who isn’t, so the gospel needs to be spread as far and as wide as it can be.
I think there are some who want to see Christian morality spread as far and as wide as possible, in order to make the world a better place. Well, that’s a worthy project, I suppose, but it’s actually not a Christian project. Rather, the good news of our redemption in Christ should be spread as far and as wide as possible, so as to claim as many for the kingdom as possible. All the Christian morality in the world does no one any good if their hope is not in Christ alone for their salvation.