Full-Preterism and the Problem of Infinity w/ Dr. Sam Frost

The Apologetic Dog

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Consistency is everything, and we hopefully can see at this point full preterism is a different worldview, okay?

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And so when we deal, when I evangelize the atheist, I want to think very presuppositionally.

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I want to show internal defeaters for any worldview that rivals the knowledge of God, right?

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We were to tear down strongholds, destroy arguments that rival these things, and take every thought captive to Christ, and so one way we do that is by saying let's hypothetically grant your worldview, and if it's internally contradictory to itself and breaks its own standards, then it must be false.

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If we hypothetically say it's true, then by its own standards, if it self -contradicts, then it must be false.

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So I want to talk about this idea of internal defeaters for full preterism, and this was one of the things that intrigued me most about your paper,

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Full Preterism and the Problem of Infinity. I actually think that this is a true defeater for full preterism.

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Now, I do want to return back to some of their proof texts in a moment, but since we're talking about consistency, and then kind of some of the things that you started noticing that things had to go on forever, and in my conversation with full preterists, we start talking about the last day, the end of the age, and they make everything covenantal, it seems.

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Well, this is talking about covenantal Israel, and so it has to be talking about the end of God's covenant with these people, which every time they see the word end, it has to mean 70

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AD, okay? So I wanted, in a moment, I want to talk about at least two verses that mention the end in the

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Old Testament, but we do see in the Olivet Discourse the end of the age, then in the Great Commission, I'll be with you and lo, even to the end of the age.

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Well, the full preterist is thinking that's 70 AD. That's the end that Jesus has in mind there, but I think it's because if they leave the door open for this being the end of time, then their position is less compelling.

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Remember, Jesus says that no man can come to the Father unless the Father draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

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Well, classically, we understand this to be the end of time, where God is going to judge the living and the dead and set up this brand -new kingdom, essentially, but like I said, they redefined the word end, right, to be the end of 70

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AD, and then... Every time you say end, it's 70 AD. Yes, and so then you have mankind procreating into infinity, right?

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And so tell us the problems of that. I want to encourage people to go read and check out

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Dr. Frost's paper, Full Preterism and the Problem in Infinity, but please give us some highlights.

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How does that implode in on itself? How does mankind's infinite procreation actually damage some of God's attributes?

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There's numerous books, philosophers in history philosophy, with Greek culture and how it's a peron in Greek, which you translate as unbounded or without bound, without limit, and so it was always being added to at infinitum, so it's for infinity, so it's a numeric, and it's chronological, and it never ends.

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Unfortunately, nothing can be defined. If there's a true infinity, then eventually everything is going to mean everything.

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Now, the Greeks, this was what one philosopher called the problem of infinity was a wrecking ball of Greek philosophy, and they hated it because they couldn't...

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How do you get around it? If you think about it, lay in bed at night, think about it. Unfortunately, the

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King James Version translators used infinity, or God is infinite, and some of the divines used the word infinite, but they weren't, as Dr.

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Talbot and many others have shown, they weren't defining it the way the Greeks defined it. Instead, with Augustine, who wrestled with this, is that God is not infinite, as the

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Greeks suppose. He's eternal, so it's not a quantity, it's quality.

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And then, like everything else of the attributes of God, we leave it at that, because I can't go beyond, but I can logically state that God is not infinitely progressing.

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Now, here you get into process theology with Whitehead and the others.

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See, they took infinity, literally, and then applied it to God, and so God is in process, naturally, but that's heresy.

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We don't believe that. The Scriptures are clear.

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God is not in process. He does not learn. There's nothing that he does not know.

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The Scriptures are clear that he knows everything from beginning to end.

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To 70 AD. That's how absurd it is, from beginning to 70 AD, and some of them will actually say that, because they realize if you go beyond 70

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AD with the knowledge of God, you've lost. See, you can't stranglehold all of this into one bit of a period of time.

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It's these issues that have kept men to the frustration of hyper -preterists, full preterists.

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You know, why doesn't Ken Gentry, why doesn't Gary DeMar come out and say, they're so close, they're so close.

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It's because of these issues and the absurdity of them, that they won't go.

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And plus, the Scriptures are unanimously clear on what resurrection from death is and means.

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You just have to look to Jesus and say, empty tomb. Now, they get around that by saying, well, he was the exception, which is absurd.

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The whole resurrection of the dead to come is based on the first fruit, resurrection.

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He's not the exception, he's the rule. He's what it will look like.

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He demonstrates it. He says, I am the resurrection. He's the definition of it. Empty tomb, self -same body, however transformed.

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Doesn't matter how blown in the wind of the dust or how many thousands of years eaten by lions and crapped out by rhinoceroses 5 ,000 years ago.

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It doesn't make any difference. That is not an obstacle to God, to raise the body out of the dust of the earth.

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So, infinity, if God knows all his people, everyone written in the book of life, to which you could add one more.

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Okay, now he knows, to which you could add one. Okay, well, now he knows. So, he could never know his elect.

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He would never know those. Can't use the word all. Can't use the word all. So, I had a conversation with, we wrote a book,

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I co -helped write an article for House Divided with Mike Sullivan, David Green. These are two reformed guys, so -called

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Calvinist full predators. And then, it was in that year, I actually was seeing these problems.

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And I was talking to them about it. Look, I've got a problem here, guys. I know I just wrote a book with you, but I might have to change my mind.

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And I said, you know, infinity. Well, the answer was from them.

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I'll never forget this conversation. I said, that's an antinomy.

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It's a contradiction. You can't say God knows all his people, each and every one, because you can always add another one to that.

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And they said, well, it's an antinomy or a paradox to our mind.

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And I said, but not only is that bad, hereby Gordon Clark kicks in, and Van Til, that kicks in.

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I said, but our whole foundation of being full predators is logical consistency.

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The whole reason why we've started on this is because he said that it's near in all of Matthew 24, 70

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AD. Therefore, logically, without contradiction, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1

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Corinthians 15, all of Revelation. You can't just pick and choose and, you know, pick out what you want.

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So, our whole thing was, we were called consistent predators, full predators.

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And yet, you want to end it in an antinomy. I'm not buying that automobile.

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It's a lemon. So, this was a mind -numbing time for me that year before I did finally state.

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And I prayed. I was agonizing because my whole reputation was built on this.

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I sold my house and my business. And Dr.