The Preterist Blog ~ 100% Hyperpreterist Free|we can haz rezurekshun?

This is the consolidated blog of my earlier several blogs.

These posts BTW are called “Mack Truck” in honour of Gene Cook who described hyperpreterists arguments of having holes in them so large a Mack Truck could drive through. I think he is the king of understatement. This one could accomodate a whole fleet.
Roderick Edwards and King Neb (Jason) have produced a mini-series allegedly rebutting points made during my interview with Gene Cook. I have not yet listened to it, but have gotten a sneak peak of what it contains by the mutual wedgies given to each other in the shoutbox at Roderick’s site to see what points they thought were particularly good. And this one was trotted out:

Jason’s point about the 4 mil views contrasted with the definition of orthodox = right thinking was excellent — so which is the orthodox position??? — Only ONE can be orthodox

The logic and sheer ignorance here is staggering. Is THIS one of the supposed good points?? Do they mean the others are worse than this stinker? It is hard to even know where to begin with such equivocation of which the hyperpreterists are masters. Does Neb and Rod really think that when the term “orthodox” eschatology is used, it really means that every point of all four views is equally correct? Do they really think that people are just that freakin’ stupid that it took these two hyperpreterists to figure out that “Duhhhhh, they can’t all be exactly right!!!”????

One brilliant hyperpreterist actually said to me that of course they didn’t mean that they thought everyone didn’t notice the views weren’t identical. This person has always had difficulty figuring out what I am performing a reductio ad absurdum. That is the logical consequence for Neb’s “observation” to have any merit.

As Gene Cook prayed, Lord give me patience with these guys.

But it is hard, because I don’t think either of them are stupid. Neb is incredibly immature and trollish (from what I have seen though he may be putting his best foot forward on the audios, as I have not heard them, I cannot say), but not stupid, and Rod is none of those. So what is the source of this kind of remark? Conscious dishonesty? I don’t think so. The self-deception of heresy? Likely.

(Hint: Here is the explanation of the reduction ad absurdum) So since the above scenario requires that all persons outside the Roderick Hyperpreterist Club, Membership Four, to be beyond retarded, one, if they were interested in trying to fairly understand what people mean rather than making wild diversions, it cannot mean what the Hyperpreterist Hyperliteral Spin Machine says it does. And it doesn’t. In fact the more nuanced way of articulating the status of the 4 millennium positions is that they are all consistent with an orthodox eschatology. That means “orthodox eschatology” is some standard outside the views themselves and consistent with each other. And what is that? It is what the historic faith has confessed for two millennia:

There is a future physical resurrection

There is a future bodily return of Christ

There is a future final judgment

Many hyperpreterists deceptively say that the Creeds ididn’tdeal with eschatology. The fact is that they did, and they articulated only the above. That is orthodox eschatology. Ones, that at a minimum, comport with the above are “orthodox.” This really wasn’t that difficult. One wonders why the hyperpreterists must flail so wildly.

Now after the above was posted, the hyperpreterists decided that simply repeating the absurd point was a rebuttal.

More shoutbox peanut gallery comments from Roderick’s site after trying diversion after diversion:

And orthodox still means “conformance to what is established� & “straight opinion�, which imply ONE acceptable view… no matter how many comments you add to your blog.

And my commentary above delineated what that which is established is. Of course, Roderick’s crowd is so much smarter than the people who actually make statements to know what they really mean for without the hyperpreterists we would all walk around all day contadicting ourselves within words of each other and not knowing what we meant. Thank goodness for those hyperpreterists!! That which is established, which all 4 views are in conformity with is ONCE AGAIN:

There is a future physical resurrection

There is a future bodily return of Christ

There is a future final judgment

Thus the usage is completely inline. It is desparately dishonest to play otherwise. No one who uses that phrase in conjunction with multiple views is claiming that they are all correct on all points. No one. That would be psychotic. (prediction: just like Roderick’s harassers, this quote will be used to quote-mine me to say that the orthodox are psychotice - Roderick has no clean hands to complain about being misquoted, which he is without a doubt by his harassers, but he does it himself)

If hyperpreterists have to paint all those who disagree with them as psychotic to make their point - well that doesn’t speak to well to their point and speaks tremendously about their egos.

King Neb next had a frightfully unoriginal spiel. Now I know the hyperpreterists with their Handy-Dandy-AD70 Shoehorn^tm approach are going to have a hard time following this but….
Words can be used in different ways but the hyperpreterists are masters either of intentional or unintentional equivocation.
Wikipedia insightfully notes this about the fallacy of equivocation:

The fallacy of equivocation is often used with words that have a strong emotional content and many meanings. These meanings often coincide within proper context, but the fallacious arguer does a semantic shift, slowly changing the context as they go in such a way to achieve equivocation by equating distinct meanings of the word.

So what are the shades of meaning here? Easy. I said on Gene’s show that I use the word “heretic” pretty strictly (if that was the exact word, I do not know, but I have used that exact word in numerous discussion), which implies a different use is possible. What is that different use? Well it is to say that anyone who does not comport with what the Bible actually teaches, rather than what they think it teaches, believes heresy. By the broader definition we are all heretics. None of us believe perfectly (though hyperpreterists should since they know in full with the perfect having come - thus imperfection is proof positive against hyperpreterism).

However, nothing is gained from using it that way. It is a truism, an obvious point. When I use the word “strictly” - it means those views which make one not a Christian, preaching a different Gospel, and having a different faith. Many others use the word in a moderate sense, not always meaning the “heretic” is outside the faith, but errs in an important enough way to deserve the title. Thus there is a broad, strict, and moderate use. All have differing definitions by usage.

The hyperpreterists consistently capitalize on the fluidity of use and try to pigeonhole one use into meaning the first, the broad usage. In other words, they will find any use of the word “heresy” or “heretic” used in the first sense and make that equivalent to the way I use it, and get all a-shiver claiming “Ohhhhh so and so thinks YOU are a heretic” (which is both the genetic and ad hominen fallacy since whether or not I am a heretic is irrelevant to whether or not THEY are). This is basic logic. They apparently hope the audience gets confused. Good points don’t need confusion.
The use of the word “orthodox” follows the exact same pattern. Thus its use in one context cannot by necessity be imported to its use in another context, especially across speakers. One must determine which sense they are using the word in. OBVIOUSLY someone who is using to compare multiple views is NOT using it in the first sense, they are using it in the sense of a gate-keeper to exclude only those views which commit the kind of heresy which places the adherents outside the faith or potentially in the moderate usage for severe errors. The hyperpreterists press the panic button and play their “Roman Catholic” card like mad, but these are facts. To force orthodoxy and heresy to ONLY follow the first usage is a fiction and a strawman of their own creation.

The hyperpreterists also multiply fallacies more than Solomon multipled wives by adding the Appeal to Authority (or more appropriately called the Argumentum via Cherry Picking/Quote Mining). They search and dig for whatever quote they can find that might serve their purpose for the aim is in distorting at whatever cost. They ignore contrary data and common sense. In other words, they are theological pimps on the prowl for a whore or a victim, willing or unwilling. They will prostitue or rape whoever and whatever comment they can find. [hint to the hyperliteral hyperpreterists who thought Sharon Beverly was calling them child molestors - this is called an anology - no one believes you are sexual predators, you are theological predators) The dull fact is that there will ALWAYS be those with whom many would disagree. Such is human nature. I can find hyperpreterists who disagree with each other, I don’t tend to use them to prove a point with others when discussing general hyperpreterist doctrine. The basic movement cannot be defined by its deviants. As Doug Wilson stated, “The fact that there are tall women and short men doesn’t disprove the axiom that men are taller than women.”

So now on to the painfully droll King Neb “come back”:

I see you really got your drawers in a wad on the orthodox bit…lol. Relativists usually do get irritated when you point it out to them.

I don’t think poor King Neb even knows what a relativist is, he apparently likes to spout off whatever buzzwords his heros are using. Nothing above is remotely akin to relativism.

You really should listen to the audios before commenting because if you had you would be aware that you are not only arguing against me but are arguing against Postmillennialists like Gary North who said the following, which i quote on the audio:

“There are three main rival views of evangelical eschatology — four, considering dispensationalism. Either all are in error, or all but one is. It is always the task of Trinitarian theologians to discover what is biblically correct. When a theologian has concluded that a particular view is correct, he should seek to make his discovery a test of orthodoxy — if not in his own era, if that is premature, then someday. The goal of the Church should always be an increase in confessional precision. A large part of the Church’s confession deals with eschatology. Orthodoxy means straight speaking. One cannot speak straight with a four-way tongue.

It is time to stop believing in theological pluralism as anything more than a temporary stopgap. It is time to reject the idea of the equal ultimacy of incompatible theological positions. Premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism are theologically incompatible. God cannot be pleased with all three.� Eschatology and Social Theory,� Christianity & Society 4, no. 2, April 1994:11

Multiple things could be said. North is speaking in the first sense, and it is bald equivocation to import that into the other senses in which other speakers use the term. He would not consider those who were not postmill to be heretics in the other usages of the term, and if he did, he would be a deviant, and my response is easy: He would be wrong. Movements aren’t defined by their deviants. But he doesn’t.

He is advocating to moving closer in our confessions to Biblical truth. He calls those of us who have a position to move beyond claiming that are consistent with orthodoxy as if they are all equal and deserve equal voice amongst us all. All Protestants believe that. All Protestants also believe that these are built upon the foundation of established orthodoxy. Thus the fallacy of equivocation. Hyperpreterism is not called a heresy in JUST THIS SENSE but in ALL senses. That is the issue. The other views are consistent with orthodoxy in the way described above, as the gatekeeper against foundational heresy. North wants us to move beyond this - but the greater does NOT exclude the lesser. Sheesh. Also, North is not spokesperson for the mainstream by any stretch. Just as Chuck Missler lost credibility with the dispensational crowd with his Y2K bilking, so did Gary North, and as such, is still considered a bit of a loose cannon at times, and an extremist at times. Gary North had some very strong words to say about hyperpreterism, I wonder if Neb gets the warm fuzzies about them to. Let’s look at some of them:

Heretical preterism offers no eschatology, if we define eschatology as “the doctrine of last things.” For heretical preterism, there are no last things for the church militant. There is only eternity: the permanently sin-cursed world of the church militant and the incorrupt world of the church triumphant. In place of eschatology, heretical preterism offers either Manicheanism or perfectionism-Pelagianism. In our day, it offers mainly Manicheanism: the equal ultimacy of good and evil forever, world without end, amen. It offers a vision of

a church that forever will receive a grim answer to its prayer, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” That answer is simple: “Not a chance.”
It is Satan who gives this answer, not God.

Emphasis mine. http://www.preteristsite.com/docs/manichean.pdf

Why do I have a feeling that this mini-series with King Neb is simply going to be “count and identify the fallacies“?

Really if this was one of the good points, the hyperpreterist crowd appear to have their brains hoovered out.
The other boogeyman that is brought out is that Catholics define orthodoxy differently. That is why they are Catholics, and I am not. I accept that I am unorthodox to THEM (heretical is up to them). I don’t deceitfully trot myself into a Catholic setting and try to claim otherwise. That is also a truism and irrelevant to the conversation. It reminds me of the way pro-abortion folks try to trot out some religious person who claims that life doesn’t begin at conception and claim that the lack of consensus denies ultimate truth. That is also fallacious, yet it is at the heart of the hyperpreterist Argumentum Ad Roman Catholicum.

Andrew Sandlin’s article on orthodoxy:
http://forerunner.com/puritan/PS.What_is_orthodoxy.html
is a good place to start.