Objections to preterism - 3 June 2009 |
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John Owen’s massive seven-volume commentary on Hebrews is hard to avoid if you’re spending much time on that book. It also has some surprises in store.
Owen’s interpretation differs from that of most modern evangelicals: in Owen’s view many of the future-oriented texts refer not the the general resurrection / final judgment / etc., but to the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the Old Covenant order in AD 70. Such a view is called a preterist reading of the text, because it locates their referent in the past (hence preterist). Of course Owen still believes in the general resurrection / final judgment / etc; he just doesn’t think that’s what Hebrews is talking about.
As far as I can see, many of Owen’s exegetical judgments on this subject are pretty solid. But I think it would be fair to say that there’s an underlying anxiety about such a reading among many people, which is grounded not so much on exegetical conclusions but on fears about what such a conclusion might imply.
The same anxieties appear to be evident in relation to other future-oriented texts in the NT, such as Mark 13:1-31 and Matthew 24, which are commonly assumed to be about the final judgment / general resurrection, but which (according to at least some Reformed evangelicals) refer to the events surrounding AD 70.
Here are some of those anxieties, and some initial responses to them.
1. The ’stench of liberalism’ argument. ‘Some liberals have argued that future-oriented texts in the NT refer to AD 70, either because they think that predictive prophecy is impossible (the texts must therefore be written after AD 70), or because they deny a future general resurrection / final judgment, or possibly both. A preterist reading of these texts therefore puts us squarely on the road to Schleiermacher.’
Formally, this argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Less formally, just because some liberals believe some right things for some of the wrong reasons, that doesn’t stop evangelicals believing those same right things for right reasons. For example, you could believe that Hebrews was written before AD 70 (not least because the Temple appears still to be in operation at the time it was written, cf. 10:2, 11), and you could believe in a future general resurrection / final judgment etc (because of 1 Cor 15, for example), and you could at the same time without the slightest shred of contradiction believe that Hebrews is talking about AD 70.
2. The ’slippery slope’ argument. ‘Once you start interpreting Hebrews like that, pretty soon you’ll end up doing the same with every future-oriented passage in the NT, with the result that you’ll end up denying the general resurrection / final judgment.’
Not so. Though some espouse the heresy of hyper-preterism (affirming that every future-oriented text in the NT has been fulfilled, and thus denying the classical orthodox doctrine of a future bodily resurrection), this is not an inevitable result of affirming that some NT texts have already been fulfilled. Each text must be addressed individually.
Indeed, if a preterist wanted to be provocative (perish the thought), (s)he could deploy the same (fallacious) argument the other way: ‘So, you deny that Mark 13 has already been fulfilled? Wow, that’s really dangerous. You carry on like that, and pretty soon you’ll be saying the same about Isaiah 53.’
3. The ‘implied irrelevance’ argument. ‘If the text has already been fulfilled, then it’s not relevant for us, because the future judgment about which it warns lies in the past.’
But it doesn’t follow that a text is irrelevant for us just because its referent lies in the past. True, it might not have the relevance which some think it has, but it will be relevant in other ways. After all, everyone believes that some NT texts have already been fulfilled, right? Like Mark 10:45? Does that make them irrelevant for us today?
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog, Theology