Conditionalists: How did you come to your belief?

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Michelle
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Re: Conditionalists: How did you come to your belief?

Post by Michelle » Sat Dec 20, 2014 4:22 pm

jriccitelli wrote:I thought that some other avenues, or threads would answer, or follow this same direction. Such as the dual fulfillments of prophecies, etc. I believe I wrote a response once and can't find it on my computer. I sometimes write and don't post till I proofread, then i lose the file :| Would be happy to write here again.
Sure. :)
I wrote:You had a response to Preterism (and your niggling intuition that it leads to universalism), which you now cannot find, but have found something you posted where you made a point along the same line. Your point is that during your reading of prophecy, you noticed that similar wording occurs in more than one prophet's writing, including Revelation. Your response to Preterists is that even though the fulfillment of prophecy might be in the past, since similar imagery is used multiple times, we can be assured that what has been fulfilled will come to pass yet again.

Did I read it correctly?
Is this close?

dwilkins
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Re: Conditionalists: How did you come to your belief?

Post by dwilkins » Sat Dec 20, 2014 7:38 pm

From talking to a number of Universalist preterists, there are two primary reasons they come to that conclusion (there are some other minor ones, but these seem to be the two biggies). First, the end of the age is the end of the Law, and the Law is the power of sin. It is also the time at which death associated with violating the Law is over. Therefore, if there are no grounds for condemnation there are no grounds for a negative personal eschatology (ECS or Annihilation). Second, all of the final judgment terminology is aimed squarely at the time of the judgment at the parousia, and all of it can be accounted for under the Gehenna protocol (meaning that it is associated with being thrown ignominiously in the body pit outside of the city after a military disaster). If, then, there is no language describing a final negative afterlife judgment then there is no basis for such a judgment since it is not found explicitly in other types of language in scripture.

The counter's to these arguments can be complicated. I would summarize these argument by saying, first, that the Law of Moses was designed to make sin seem exceedingly sinful and its removal was not necessarily meant to imply that there was no longer any such thing as sin. Second, I'd say that the physical types of judgment had spiritual fulfillments that began at that time.

Doug

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Michelle
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Re: Conditionalists: How did you come to your belief?

Post by Michelle » Tue Dec 23, 2014 12:00 pm

Interesting, Doug. So adherence to full-preterism can lead to adherence to universalism if one emphasizes certain tenets. I have a few questions for you: 1) you say that you've talked to a number of universalist preterists. Is it a sizable subset of full preterism? 2) Where did you encounter these guys -- in real-life fellowship or in online discussion? 3) Would you be willing to clarify your statement: "that the Law of Moses was designed to make sin seem exceedingly sinful..."? Do you mean that the Law was meant to point out that sin carries an awfully harsh punishment or perhaps that sin is extremely harmful? Sin is sinful, what else would it be? Or do I just lack imagination? And, finally, 4) Do the spiritual fulfillments that you see continue? Could you express what these are?

dwilkins
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Re: Conditionalists: How did you come to your belief?

Post by dwilkins » Tue Dec 23, 2014 3:37 pm

1) From what I understand, Universalism has been part of preterism since at least the early 1800's. Todd Dennis has done a lot of research on this. The earliest Full Preterists in the early 1800's were Universalists. It's my impression that this is because their position was that the GWTJ had already occurred, therefore there is no more negative final judgment. Since then, via various rationales, this has always been part of Full Preterism. Max King, an important Full Preterist who wrote the first systematic books on it in the 1980's eventually became a Universalist (from the point of view of everyone I know, though from what I hear he denies this label for technical reasons). But, early preterists like Eusebius (and from what I can tell he was essentially a Full Preterist with "the end" being associated with the work of Constantine) were not Universalists.

2) Most of the Full Preterists I know are primarily (or at least initially) from online relationships. However, I've met a few hundred of them over the years at events such as Preston's conference he holds every year and the debate that Preston and Steve did last year.

3) That was a reference to Roman 7:13 "Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure." In some way the Law was given to make sin exceedingly sinful. I take that to mean that the conscience was enough to make people aware of sin, but that the Law was given to emphasize the gravity of it to make sure that people understand their need for salvation.

4) The best paradigm of preterism that I've come across asserts that the GWTJ opened for business at the time of judgment just after the destruction of the Temple and complete end of the Old Covenant. The Hadean realm was emptied of people awaiting final judgment (all futurist positions say that the hadean realm is still operational and that everyone who has died up to this point is still there awaiting the time of final judgement). Since that time people are judged as they die. When I say "spiritual fulfillments" I don't mean metaphorical or unreal ones. I mean things operating in the invisible realm.

Doug

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Michelle
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Re: Conditionalists: How did you come to your belief?

Post by Michelle » Tue Dec 23, 2014 6:06 pm

Thank you, Doug.

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