The term Rational Preterism is composed of two words; Rational plus Preterism. I will define each. Rational means thinking agreeable and consistent with the formal principles of right thought.
Preterism means past. It is a branch on Christian theology which deals with the end-time ideas of the bible, especially; all the biblical prophecies (eg. Revelation) were completely fulfilled in the generation to whom they were promised in word and writing.
More simply, Rational Preterism is an explanation of Christian end-of-the-world ideas in the first century measured by the rules of right thought. Rational Preterists believe that Preterism has nothing to fear from right thought, and offer the following are twenty-nine conditions of a rigorous and rational end time theory.
These twenty-nine conditions are classified in a taxonomy of ten categories of right thought. How does your explanation compare with the following? How does your preferred explanation score our of /29? Rational Preterism scores 29/29. The best explanation:
A. will follow rational principles.
1. be suggested by observing biblical facts
2. answer more biblical facts
3. predict new relations in the facts and unify biblical systems of knowledge
4. proceed initially by induction, legitimate generalizations from particular facts
B. will supply an authoritative semantic base.
The foundation of any theory is semantics - true meaning. Words containing true meaning are the individual
bricks of which a strong house-theory is constructed. Sentences combine bricks, like courses, to add ideas
and structure. The final product is a complete concept of interlocking relations - a theory. A
reliable semantic foundation should:
5. establish biblically-valid significations of terms
6. establish the objective identity of biblical terms and their properties
7. establish the logical relations between other terms
8. explain that relation
9. extend itself consistently to other synonyms.
C. will adequately explain causes.
10. answer causal connections with both conditions;
11. the cause must be necessary
12. the cause must also be sufficient
D. will obey the formal principles of right thought.
13. True biblical facts
14. Valid logic
E. will have a simpler basis than its rival.
15. The superior explanation will have a simpler basis than others
16. For no more premises should be allowed than those which may be proved by facts.
F. will comply with the Correspondence Theory of Truth: outside mere systems of human logic
17. The only objective test of truth is a correspondence between statement and fact
in the same terms.
G. will answer problems raised by rival theories.
18. it must solve problems raised by rival theories
19. the solutions must be consistent with their own premises
20 . the premises must be the simplest ones able to be offered
H. will be more probable
21. high degree of probability sufficient
22. it is not necessary that certainty be the measure of credibility
I. will be the most detailed
The best theory (t2) will correspond to the facts better than its rival theory (t1). By ‘correspond to facts’ is meant the following five things:
23. t2 describes or explains more facts than t1 in more detail
24. t2 makes more precise assertions than t1, which stand up to more precise tests
25. has unified or connected various hitherto unrelated problems
26. t2 has passed tests that t1 has failed to pass
27. t2 has suggested new tests not considered before.
(From Popper. K. Conjectures and Refutations. p.232)
J. will be able to be able to be falsified.
28. By this is meant that the superior explanation will be able to be shown to be accurate or
inaccurate from the biblical matter itself.
29. Something is not true simply because we lack a method to test its truth. Eg.
Jesus will return because He has not returned so far is not a fact. Or; Saddam must have
WMD because we have not found them yet is not a fact. A theory that cannot be tested, refuted
or proven by facts, can only be ignored.
Beck, S. The Simplicity of Science. p85)
CONCLUSION.
We invite other Christian to consider these twenty-nine rational measures of a rigorous theory, and invite them to measure, without prejudice, their own theory of end times by them. If they can produce such a theory which meets them, we offer to embrace their view as our own, being lovers of the truth.
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