Neither Preterism nor Futurism very useful to apoc mystery

[spauline]

Dear Benadam,

I think the mystery is far more general than merely St. Stephen.

St. Stephen, if he lived a fuller life, would have walked the same spiritual path as all other general saints: Three stages, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive.

And one of my primary apocalyptic theories is that the micro-path model of the individual Catholic saint is not only the intrinsically necessary spiritual path and stages for them, but is, in a macro form, the necessary spiritual path, or stages, for the People of God, both of Old and New Testaments, so that three stages of the Jews that Augustine references in a writing as a prophecy of the Gospel, are themselves the same stages of the Church, and that it is in seeing the Catholic Church and Gentiles traverse the very same spiritual stages that shall open the eyes of the Jews.

read these for more:

4marks.com/blogs/details.html?blog_entry_id=2434
The Nature of the Greater Ages, Part II

4marks.com/blogs/details.html?blog_entry_id=2319
NT History fulfills Jewish OT History

 

[spauline]

Ah, see I had been told by someone that the Catholic Church basically believed that most of Revelation had been fulfilled and that they didn’t really believe in the Great Tribulation and thought the Antichrist was Nero…

Now I was skeptical of that so it’s nice to hear that it’s not true.

well, in one layer of meaning, preterism, that is true.

However, Revelation has at least four different layers of meaning that can all be true in their own right, independent of the others:

Preterism, most of book fulfilled in first century or Early Church

Futurism, most of book fulfilled at very end of world

Idealism, book is a parable about the trials and victories that the Church repeatedly goes through in all generations and ages

Historicism, book is progressively fulfilled across whole Church history.

Catholicism says any and all of these layers could be true, although it is unfortunately true that in modern times, she tends to emphasize preterism to the detriment of the other layers.

Part of this stems from the fact that the traditional historicist interps have tended to lack a systematic approach.

but we are led to believe by prophesies of certain Catholic Fathers that toward the end of the world, certain men shall be given profound insights that unlock its most deepest mysteries. Got that idea from the back of Catholic interp from around 1930 called, “The Book of Destiny”, by Father Kramer. TAN publishes it.

God bless you, Crimson.

 

[Benadam]

Dear Benadam,

I think the mystery is far more general than merely St. Stephen.

St. Stephen, if he lived a fuller life, would have walked the same spiritual path as all other general saints: Three stages, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive.

And one of my primary apocalyptic theories is that the micro-path model of the individual Catholic saint is not only the intrinsically necessary spiritual path and stages for them, but is, in a macro form, the necessary spiritual path, or stages, for the People of God, both of Old and New Testaments, so that three stages of the Jews that Augustine references in a writing as a prophecy of the Gospel, are themselves the same stages of the Church, and that it is in seeing the Catholic Church and Gentiles traverse the very same spiritual stages that shall open the eyes of the Jews.

read these for more:

4marks.com/blogs/details.html?blog_entry_id=2434
The Nature of the Greater Ages, Part II

4marks.com/blogs/details.html?blog_entry_id=2319
NT History fulfills Jewish OT History

Scott, thank you. I understand now a subtle ( to me) conflict I wasn’t aware existed.

I think my perspective makes me a preterist. Correct me if I’m thinking incorrectly . You see human history as having forged a pattern and a pathway to Jesus through the People of God that is repeated, albeit in an elevated way, again by the People of God from beginning to end after Jesus.

We both see the presence of Christ among men causing a dynamic that places His People into a new realm and consequently conditions inherently united dynamically to the conditions experienced at the beginning of history.

You see two Adam’s two beginnings, two ends, that run parallell experiencially but sequencially in time.

I see the two histories that paralell one another experiencially but sequencially in time too.

Now, if I’m seeing clear eneogh, our perspective is distinguished from one another in that I see our history after Christ as moving experiencially toward the beginning where the path started, at the closed doors of the garden. As we approach the end it will be swallowed in a New Beginning because the doors of paradise have been reopened by Jesus.

The Church experienced the end in it’s beginning , and in my view is marching the path of time back to the beginning . “it will be as it was in Noah’s time”

I don’t know yet if that makes me a preterist but I’m wondering if you have ever applied your vision of the pattern of salvation history to the time of Christ to this perspective of it’s unfolding after Him.

Your’s in Christ.

 

[spauline]

Scott, thank you. I understand now a subtle ( to me) conflict I wasn’t aware existed.

I think my perspective makes me a preterist. Correct me if I’m thinking incorrectly . You see human history as having forged a pattern and a pathway to Jesus through the People of God that is repeated, albeit in an elevated way, again by the People of God from beginning to end after Jesus.

We both see the presence of Christ among men causing a dynamic that places His People into a new realm and consequently conditions inherently united dynamically to the conditions experienced at the beginning of history.

You see two Adam’s two beginnings, two ends, that run parallell experiencially but sequencially in time.

I see the two histories that paralell one another experiencially but sequencially in time too.

Now, if I’m seeing clear eneogh, our perspective is distinguished from one another in that I see our history after Christ as moving experiencially toward the beginning where the path started, at the closed doors of the garden. As we approach the end it will be swallowed in a New Beginning because the doors of paradise have been reopened by Jesus.

The Church experienced the end in it’s beginning , and in my view is marching the path of time back to the beginning . “it will be as it was in Noah’s time”

I don’t know yet if that makes me a preterist but I’m wondering if you have ever applied your vision of the pattern of salvation history to the time of Christ to this perspective of it’s unfolding after Him.

Your’s in Christ.

Oh, no, I DEFINITELY see it coming back to where it started? And where is this mystery? in the days of creation, the beast, and music.

All three have the same nature: Day eight brings us back to day one. The beast “was” *, and the beast will be again [in the eighth].

And in music, there are but seven notes in a key. When you reach step eight, you are back to the first note where you started.

So also does St. Peter compare the world in the beginning with the one in the end. In both cases, the world is destroyed and recreated. In the first day, or age, by water, a redemptive action, beginning salvation history. In day, or age, eight, by fire, an act of condemnation on a world that has no excuse for its sin historically, for it has experienced the fullness of Divine Truth and Love, and has thrown it in God’s face, as the angels that fell did.

For in day one, before the FLood, the fallen nature of man reigned, and there was nothing that God had done significantly to check it. Therefore, the beast ,or fallen nature of man, “was”. But in the Flood, God slew the first head of the beast, and so the redemption of humanity is under way. For this reason, the fallen nature of man is taking a back seat to the redemptive action of GOd in history. Therefore, the beast “is not.” But that the beast “is not” does not abbrogate the fact that man’s sinful nature continually resists the redemptive stages of GOd. So then also, between the first and eighth manifestations of the fall, does the fallen nature keep rearing its ugly head.

But in the seventh king of the beast, which is our current minor apostasy, its slaying is the minor chastisement, which shews humanity the supreme fruits of their errors and sins, reunites Christians and extends the Gospel to all nations except the Jews. The age of peace, the imperfect sabbath rest, the seventh day.

But the fall that succeeds is no longer redeemable, for as the letter to the Hebrews makes clear in the sixth chapter, after fully tasting the fruits of the age to come, a subsequent apostasy is practically incurable. Therefore, in the eighth head, the beast is back again, he reigns in human history the final time, never to be healed (saving the opening of the Jews eyes, but they are but a remnant of humanity, the rest are departing irrevocably from the Gospel.), so that the beast, “exists again.”

So, as it was in the first day, so also the eighth: sin reigns. In the first day it is yet curable, but in the eighth it is incurable. In both cases the world is destroyed. In the first day, by water, the last, by fire.

And in both cases, a new world emerges: in the first day, a world that is beginning to be remade in the image and likeness of God WITHIN human history.

In the last day, the eighth, it is a New World that is beyond history, that has been utterly remade, and that shall never end, the New Creation.

For more, read these:

4marks.com/blogs/details.html?blog_entry_id=2488
Theology of Beast, Days of Creation, and Greater Ages, Part III*

 

[spauline]

Also, Benadam,

whereas three ages, respectively, are delineated to both the Jews and Church, obviously the total number of stages of humanity is not six (three each for the Old and New), but eight!

Hence, there are two more, the preeminent stages.

I don’t see this as arbitrary. The false prophet fills in the other two, in my humble opinion. For as the author Ecclesaistes asserts, there is no new sin that did not exist in the times before Abraham. Hence, the pre-Flood wickedness and Tower of Babel summarize all sin henceforth in history. So also do I see the dragon’s lies from the beginning in the garden the same lies that are recycled throughout history.

In short, the meaning is highly appropriate in Catholic Theology: the Lamb has seven horns, the FP two, like a Lamb. Tertullian taught the dragon plagiarizes the sacraments. Horns are many times in the Bible symbols of power. Christ’s power of Redemption is supreme in the seven sacraments.

Heretics retain only two, Baptism and Marriage. The diabolical twisting of Baptism and Marriage form the supreme lies of the dragon.

the first lie was sowed in Noah’s day, anti-Baptism, who cares about faith and repentance? And God healed it through a Baptism, the Flood.

the second lie was sowed at Babel, anti-Marriage. For Marriage is the supreme sacramental sign of what shall be, the eternal spousal joining of the Church, God’s Ultimate People, and the Bridegroom Christ. But the children of the devil seek not the eternal marriage with God but only to figuratively “fornicate with the Creation”, the Whore of Babylon, where man does not seek his ultimate fulfillment in the eternal marriage to come, but only in the superficial things of this world. For such does Babel prefigure all subsequent types of the devil’s kingdoms: where seeks a selfish and glorious material utopia, secular messianism, at the expense of giving and receving love, which is our ultimate calling.

And God healed the anti-Marriage Whore of Babel with a spiritual Marraige, His betrothal to the first People of God, the Jews and Abraham.

So the first two ages are the lies of iniquity in succession, anti-Baptism, anti-Marriage.

The remaining three ages, the way of the saint for the Jews. And the last three ages, the way of the saint for the Church.

So that five ages come in the Old Law. Of the beast, the angel says to St. John, “Five kings have fallen.”

So also does St. Methodius ascribe five ages to the Old Law, and Augustine echoes it, as I have pointed out, and even delineates the ages similarly as above.

Here are the quotes in the next post:

…

 

[spauline]

Quote:
St. Methodius of Olympus, Ecclesiastical Writer (+300 AD):
Writing on the eight ages of the world: “Five are the ages of the old law, the sixth age is designated to the Church, the seventh is the millennium of rest [when Christ will reign over the earth], and the eighth designates the eternity of heaven” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 742)Now leaving the book on the Millennium by Father Iannuzzi above, the following quote I discovered by St. Augustine concerning the “six ages of the world” to correspond essentially exactly as I had attempted to partition the “five kings who have fallen” (Rev. 17:9) and the “five ages of the old law” of St. Methodius and St. Hypollytus above:

St. Augustine, On the Catechising of the Uninstructed
CHAP. 17.–THE SPECIMEN OF CATECHETICAL DISCOURSE CONTINUED, IN REFERENCE SPECIALLY TO THE REPROVAL OF FALSE AIMS ON THE CATECHUMEN’S PART
CHAP. 22.–OF THE SIX AGES OF THE WORLD. 39. "Five ages of the world, accordingly, having been now completed (there has entered the sixth). Of these ages the first is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood. Then the second extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called the father indeed of all nations which should follow the example of his faith, but who at the same time in the way of natural descent from his own flesh was the father of the destined people of the Jews; which people, previous to the entrance of the Gentiles into the Christian faith, was the one people among all the nations of all lands that worshipped the one true God: from which people also Christ the Saviour was decreed to come according to the flesh. For these turning-points of those two ages occupy an eminent place in the ancient books. On the other hand, those of the other three ages are also declared in the Gospel, where the descent of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh is likewise mentioned. For the third age extends from Abraham on to David the king; the fourthfrom David on to that captivity whereby the people of God passed over into Babylonia; and the fifth from that transmigration down to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. With His coming the sixth age has entered on its process; so that now the spiritual grace, which in previous times was known to a few patriarchs and prophets, may be made manifest to all nations; to the intent that no man should worship God but freely, fondly desiring of Him not the visible rewards of His services and the happiness of this present life, but that eternal life alone in which he is to enjoy God Himself: in order that in this sixth age the mind of man may be renewed after the image of God, even as on the sixth day man was made after the image of God.

 

[Benadam]

Again, thank you Scott.

Are you familiar with the Samaritan woman who became a doorway of conversion after speaking to Jesus at the well?
How the pattern of her life was one with the pattern of history lived by the nation of Samaria?

The whole journey experienced by Samaria over the centuries is experienced by a particular woman in the span of a lifetime.

I think this is why so many believed on her word before ever knowing the presence of Jesus.

In this kind of way the archetypes of humanity, they are the true stars and subjects of celebrity, and their particular histories is the history of entire peoples. All of them are one in certain people like the woman at the well. These are the prophets of the OT who are living the whole journey , sons of man from Seth to Enoch, to Abraham and Elijah. I think this is the meaning of the naval of the world.

Around Jesus it happened in such power and sublimity it could only be revealed to those heaven decided to share it with.

Anyway, getting a bit sidetracked. So, in that way I see all has happened already in Christ, is happening now and is yet to be complete.

I think that makes me a preterist.

 

[JasonHC]

Catholicism says any and all of these layers could be true, although it is unfortunately true that in modern times, she tends to emphasize preterism to the detriment of the other layers.

Uhm… I beg to differ (as you can probably guess! hehe) anyway, it seems apocalypticism has caused far more problems in Christianity than preterism. Christianity has an unfortunate history of people trying to determine when the end would happen, to the point where groups like Mormons, and JWs sprung up.

Preterism, in my mind, is a breath of fresh air that does away with a lot of unnecessary confusion (though I don’t doubt it raises more questions), but it certainly does try to do justice to the NT texts. I think Scott Hahn’s explanations of Revelation (which lean towards preterism) demystifies a lot of unnecessary apocalyptic fervor in protestantism.

but we are led to believe by prophesies of certain Catholic Fathers that toward the end of the world

I must admit, despite the fact that the Fathers have preached about the end of the world, I’m not fully convinced there will be one: Scripture makes it clear that the earth would remain forever. Verses like Ecclesiastes 1:4 and Psalm 78:69 come to mind.

Thankfully, I am not the magisterium, so I prefer to leave this issue up to the Church to explain, but eschatology is the one area which I have not had my questions adequately answered. I’m just glad I have access to the Real Presence, which is what I had been looking for as a former heretical preterist. This alone gives me comfort that I do not need all the answers about the End to experience the divine

 

[spauline]

Uhm… I beg to differ (as you can probably guess! hehe) anyway, it seems apocalypticism has caused far more problems in Christianity than preterism. Christianity has an unfortunate history of people trying to determine when the end would happen, to the point where groups like Mormons, and JWs sprung up.

Preterism, in my mind, is a breath of fresh air that does away with a lot of unnecessary confusion (though I don’t doubt it raises more questions), but it certainly does try to do justice to the NT texts. I think Scott Hahn’s explanations of Revelation (which lean towards preterism) demystifies a lot of unnecessary apocalyptic fervor in protestantism.

I must admit, despite the fact that the Fathers have preached about the end of the world, I’m not fully convinced there will be one: Scripture makes it clear that the earth would remain forever. Verses like Ecclesiastes 1:4 and Psalm 78:69 come to mind.

Thankfully, I am not the magisterium, so I prefer to leave this issue up to the Church to explain, but eschatology is the one area which I have not had my questions adequately answered. I’m just glad I have access to the Real Presence, which is what I had been looking for as a former heretical preterist. This alone gives me comfort that I do not need all the answers about the End to experience the divine

I agree that Protestantism is bad and flaky, but i give an exclusively Catholic interpretation that looks at bigger spiritual history. Oh, yes, the world will end, the Church already teaches that. The issue is not literally when in terms of literal day and hour, but why humanity will be mostly spiritually incurable at that time, and how the Church will know this at that time. The analysis of such questions must depend on the whole of salvation history and the spiritual stages.

if there is no bigger spiritual structure to the ages of salvation, it will be impossible for the Church to know when the world is at its very end.