Hoedemaker On the Myth of Neutrality — Advocate for State with the Bible

“After all, science is not an abstract concept. It does not have a life of its own. It varies in accordance with the Scriptural and worldview in which it is rooted. It becomes what it is through what its representatives may or may not believe. This is true of science considered as a whole, as well as in terms of separate parts. Men like Lombroso and Ferri arrive at different criminal law that Gratama or Groen.

But we hereby declare that the modern state, which by its basic principle must keep itself neutral, cannot establish or maintain schools of science, nor even act as its patron. Science cannot and should not be colorless. Neutrality here means unbelief. He who rejects the authority of the King is a rebel. Science that denies its guiding principle is unbelief.

This is not widely recognized in Christian circles. It is believed that the state as we know it cannot have theology taught; but it is forgotten to add that on the same ground and with the same right, no branch of science can be entrusted to it, and the less so, the less it shows the character of an auxiliary science. If the state with the Bible is rejected, then the University has been given its death warrant.

I am now considering the matter entirely in the abstract. But one arrives at the same result if one considers things from a practical point of view. The university is a fortress controlling the entire field of thought and action. It follows that no group in popular life will be able to leave it in the hands of those hostile to its principle. Here we have the key to the position.

P. J. Hoedemaker
The Politics of Antithesis — pg. 75-76

Hoedemaker makes the point here that Thomas Kuhn’s was lauded for when Kuhn’s wrote, “Structures of Scientific Revolutions.” Kuhn’s point there as Hoedemaker’s point here is that Science is not worldview free and does not exist in some neutral vacuum where it is unencumbered by apriorist convictions of the Scientists doing the “science.”

Of course the greater point here is that as long as either the University of the State operates apart from the compass of God’s Word in favor of a idealized but never realized “neutrality,” the consequence will be, as sure as night follows day, that the people of the nation will become pagan. If we cannot have God’s Word as our Lodestone in the University, and indeed in all our government education, than the result will be that our churches will soon become pagan as a result of our children being catechized by a different faith in the school system that is being covered with the fig leaf of neutrality. Having been catechized in the State religion in the school system, — all the time being convinced that they have not been since all their education was “neutral” — at least some of them will then return to the Church and via their “neutral education” reinterpret Christianity to comport with their “neutral education” that was never really neutral.
In my estimation this perhaps the chief problem of the Church in America. As long as the Education centers remain in the hands of the “neutral” statists, just so long Christianity will be a begging religion.

And R2K loves it so.

Just remember the words of Hoedemaker here. “He who rejects the authority of the King is a rebel.”

A Book Review — “The Life & Character of Abraham Lincoln; Monster or Messiah?

Last night I finished George L. Christian’s nifty little booklet entitled, “The Life & Character of Abraham Lincoln; Monster or Messiah”? Most of this I’ve come across before but there were one or two morsels that I had not come across before. One of those morsels was the incredible extent that men, who were previously Lincoln’s enemies, went to in order to grant apotheosis and deification to Lincoln upon death. Though the book does not go into this, connecting the dots allows one to realize that one reason they did that is that by doing so it covered their tracks as perpetrators of Lincoln’s murder. Another reason Lincoln’s deification was pursued by his previous enemies was that they understood that they needed a hero in order to cement both their Republican rule and their recreation of the nation into something that had not existed previously. By deifying Lincoln the narrative of the new USA became untouchable. So ridiculous had the Yankee mob been stirred up by the propaganda of the godlike Lincoln that Lincoln’s oldest friend Ward Lamon could write;

“For days and nights after his assassination ‘it was considered treason to be seen in public with a smile on the face. Men who spoke evil of the fallen chief, ventured a doubt concerning the ineffable purity and saintliness of his life, were pursued by mobs, were beaten to death with paving stones, or strung up by the neck to lamp posts.'”

The author takes pains to suggest that sane people no more grieve Lincoln’s murder than they grieve the state sanctioned murder of Mary Surratt (look her up).

Perhaps the best work in the book is where the author puts to rest the old chestnut that had Lincoln survived he would have certainly treated the South with a far greater kindness than the Black Republicans who were left in power upon his death. Author, Christian, powerfully demonstrates that such a notion that Lincoln would have been a friend to the South after its defeat is pure hagiography.

Anyway … the book is only 50 pages and so it is a quick read. If you’ve read others longer works on Lincoln this supplements that reading well. The longer biography of Lincoln one should read is Edgar Lee Masters, “Lincoln, the Man.”

After reading this book you will realize what a hypocrisy it is to have a Temple built to Lincoln in Washington DC.

Really good at exposing the charade that Lincoln was some kind of American hero. This myth continues to modern times as a reading of Alan Guelzo’s “Abraham Lincoln; Redeemer President.”

We complain about the current gaslighting that goes on in Washington DC, but the gaslighting that continues to this day on the matter of one Abraham Lincoln continues to be some of the greatest gaslighting in world history.

A few recommend reads on Lincoln. Remember, I am challenging the hagiographic Lincoln.

1.) Edgar Lee Masters — Lincoln the Man
2.) Walter Kennedy — Red Republicans and Lincoln’s Marxists: Marxism in the Civil War

3.) Al Benson — Lincoln’s Marxists
4.) Thomas DiLorenzo — Lincoln Unmasked
5.)Webb B. Garrison — Lincoln’s Little War: How His Carefully Crafted Plans Went Astray

McAtee Defends Stephen Wolfe Against Ehrett

“It would seem that antique paganism does a better job of underpinning his (Wolfe’s) political theory than does Christianity itself. Considered abstractly, what belief system could better reinforce one’s natural love of home and family and kin than a religion grounded in that natural love, a religion forming overlapping chains of unbroken continuity back through the generations of one’s particular family and polis, a religion with father-rule at its very core? In view of Wolfe’s claim that the Western mind has a “universalizing tendency” which it ought to reject, coupled with the fairly clear historical datum that this ‘universalizing tendency’ has its roots in Christianity, paganism seems to have some crucial advantages here.”

John Ehrett
Critiquing Stephen Wolfe’s book on Nationalism

Now, I’m no fan of Wolfe’s recent book on nationalism and I don’t know John Ehrett from Adam, but this critique by Ehrett is mind-boggling dense.

Ehrett tells us, in this critique that ancient paganism, with its ancestor worship, better reinforced one’s natural love of home, family, and kin because it was a religion grounded in natural love. First, understand that when paganism had this kind of religion the natural love that Ehrett speaks of instantly became natural love in service of idolatry. The ancient pagans who worshiped the family were guilty of familolatry. As such, whatever natural love that was present in the end was not love at all. Any love that is owned that does not find its meaning in love for God and in submission to God is no love at all. Because the kind of pagans the Ehrett speaks of practiced familolatry therefore it was not possible for pagan religion to be superior to Christianity when it came to love of kith, kin, and place. Second, is Ehrett not familiar with some of the kinds of antique paganism who had this superior natural love for family above that of Christianity? Is Ehrett not familiar that many indigenous peoples across Mesoamerica had altars in their houses or patios and these were used, in part, to communicate with the ancestors? Is this the kind of superiority over Christianity in the matter of kith, kin, and place, that Ehrett speaks of? Has Ehrett ever considered the Mexican holiday of the “Day of the Dead” which stretches back centuries and which is closely connected to the pagan respect for kith, kin, and place? Does he really want to argue that the Day of the Dead is superior to Wolfe’s proper insistence that Christianity is a religion that is better at reinforcing love for kith, kin, and family than paganism?

In making this critique I have to wonder if Ehrett has ever heard of covenant theology with its promise from God that “I will be your God and you shall be my people?” Does Ehrett realize that the Scriptures are all about Father rule so that Christians are constantly accused of that dreaded thing called patriarchy? Has Ehrett ever considered the idea of a promised land. Has Ehrett Revelation 21 where the Nations as Nations are filing into the New Jerusalem? How about Micah 4 or Isaiah 2 where all the nations as nations are streaming to the Mountain of the Lord?

Is Ehrett actually arguing that Paganism gives a better foundation for the idea of family, polis, place, and Father rule than Christianity?

As to the matter of Ehrett’s support for what he believes is Christianity’s “universalizing tendency,” let us keep in mind that a “universalizing tendency” can come in a couple of varieties. The first variety seems to be what Ehrett is pushing. It is the variety that has Christianity working to be a faith that he imagines results in no countries and where all colors bleed into one. This kind of Christianity that Ehrett envisions is one where the universalizing tendency has swallowed whole the particularity that Christianity also embraces with its doctrine of “The One and the Many.” The second variety of a Christianity with a healthy “universalizing tendency” is the kind of universalizing tendency that bespeaks confederation. This kind of universalizing tendency allows for unity in the faith while embracing particularity in peoples and places. This kind of Christian universalizing tendency allows for every tribe, tongue and nation, in their tribes, tongues, and nations, to come around the throne of the lamb to give glory and honor and praise.

Christianity has through the centuries embraced both the idea of a universalizing tendency and of a particularizing tendency when it comes to peoples. Listen to Charles Hodge on the particularizing tendency of Christianity;

“It is moreover a historical fact universally admitted, that character, within certain limits is transmissible from parents to children. Every nation, separate tribe, and even every extended family of men, has its physical, mental, social, and moral peculiarities which are propagated from generation to generation. No process of discipline of culture can transmute a Tartar into a Englishman, or an Irishman into a Frenchman. The Bourbons, the Hapsburgs, and other historical families, have retained and transmitted their peculiarities for ages. We may be unable to explain thus, but we cannot deny it. No one is born an absolute man, with nothing but generic humanity belonging to him. Everyone is born a man a man in a definite state, with all those characteristics physical, mental, and moral, which make up his individuality. There is nothing therefore in the doctrine of hereditary depravity out of analogy within providential facts.”

Charles Hodge

Systematic Theology

And listen to Abraham Kuyper on how particularity can exist within the universal;

“The Javanese are a different race than us; they live in a different region; they stand on a wholly different level of development; they are created differently in their inner life; they have a wholly different past behind them; and they have grown up in wholly different ideas. To expect of them that they should find the fitting expression of their faith in our Confession and in our Catechism is therefore absurd.

Now this is not something special for the Javanese, but stems from a general rule. The men are not all alike among whom the Church occurs. They differ according to origin, race, country, region, history, construction, mood and soul, and they do not always remain the same, but undergo various stages of development. Now the Gospel will not objectively remain outside their reach, but subjectively be appropriated by them, and the fruit thereof will come to confession and expression, the result may not be the same for all nations and times. The objective truth remains the same, but the matter in appropriation, application and confession must be different, as the color of the light varies according to the glass in which it is collected. He who has traveled and came into contact with Christians in different parts of the world of distinct races, countries and traditions cannot be blind for the sober fact of this reality. It is evident to him. He observes it everywhere.”……

Abraham Kuyper:
Common Grace (1902–1905)

And so, we must conclude that this critique of Ehrett’s insisting on the idea that Christianity is a faith that levels all previous cultural distinctions so that men from different cultures and races, once becoming Christian can all live in harmony in the same social order just because they are all Christian is just not accurate.

 

Hoedemaker and McAtee on the Relation of Reason to Revelation

“What is this (human) reason, to the guidance of which, in the opinion of the majority of our voters, we cannot surrender ourselves (to) in the area of statecraft?

The understanding is the ability to form correct ideas, to distinguish them, to compare them, and to join them together in new judgments, whether in the form of conclusions or of compound and generic concepts. Reason is sometimes regarded, in distinction from understanding, as the ability of man to come in contact with the transcendental world, to form and apply ideas. However, if, as happened in the debate of the Lower House, reason is set against revelation, then this distinction is lost, and besides that, everything that does not stem from revelation is attributed to reason, giving rise to confusion of concepts which with an eye to all kinds of Romanist errors, has it dubious aspects.

Here reason is 1) a capacity for knowledge: the eye of the spirit with which man perceives, and the hand with which he processes what he perceives; 2) an area of knowledge under which to allocate everything that a natural man, a heathen, an unbeliever, in a word, someone who does not allow himself to be illuminated by the light of revelation, becomes acquainted with.

Let us not for the moment forget that because one can also speak of general revelation, the word ‘revelation’ is equivocal and restrict the use of the word either to the speech of God, by which He makes Himself known, His plan and will, or to Holy Scripture, in which that knowledge is contained, for this word is used in all three meanings. It is purely Romish to make it (revelation) so independent of reason as the organ of all human knowledge that it falls outside the forms of thought of our understanding, is independent of the laws to which our thinking is subject, and that, with respect to investigation of Holy Scripture, reason has no function to fulfill.

Now then, if were to set everything that man comes to know apart from Scripture against the knowledge which is the fruit of special revelation, and thus obtain, as it were, two areas indicated by the contrast ‘reason or revelation,’ ‘nature or grace,’ then we would already be on our way to Rome. It is in this connection that the proposition ‘revelation corrects reason’ becomes very questionable: one forgets that it is not reason but the misuse of reason, not the natural knowledge of God but the mutilation of that knowledge, of which this can be said. Revelation supplements reason.

We confess, it is true, that the understanding has been darkened by sin, but add in distinction to the Roman Church and to Luther: just as much in the area of natural as of the spiritual life! Our fathers used to say that, with man as with a fish, the corruption caused by sin manifests itself first in the head. Consider the Dreyfus affair and the English with regard to South Africa.

How, then, does reason stand in relation to revelation? Article 1 of our [Belgic] confession of faith gives us the answer. According to our confession, there is a natural knowledge of God which nevertheless needs to be supplemented. ‘But God makes Himself known even more clearly in His Divine Word.’ Natural and supernatural revelation are not mutually exclusive. **Armed with the latter, man sees not differently, but only better and further.

With this view, now, both nature and Scripture come into their own.

It goes without saying that in our investigation into the realm of minerals and plants, it is not Scripture to which we primarily turn, although we do not neglect the data that Scripture offers us. We operate this way in the sphere of state life as well. There have been excellent regents, well-appointed states in ancient times, the former walking by the light of nature, that latter established according to the data that all men possess.

Now, then, what place does the Bible occupy in the entirety of this human knowledge? God reveals Himself, and the way of redemption. He acts in Israel as King, Lawgiver, Judge. This revelation spreads its light on man’s origin and destination, and on the various relations in which he acts. It teaches us to see that the state and life in the state are not supreme; that Christ founded His church, why He did so, etc.

All this compels us, then, not to give up nature, experience, or history to unbelief, not to have any part of a division between nature and grace, reason and revelation: and with regard to reason, only contest the sovereignty which leaves the most important part of our knowledge out of consideration. Like Groen (van Prinsterer), we do not fight against reason on the behalf of revelation, but against the philosophical systems that seek to fashion constitutional law after they have first mutilated and falsified the concept of God.

I conclude this part of our investigation with a quotation from Groen’s Verspreide Geschriften (Scattered Writings), where he says ‘Revelation opposes the supremacy of the understanding (Reason) which does not recognize a higher principle outside itself, and itself must oppose everyone who believes in Revelation…. The main question is: does one have to submit to a higher Being who desires respect for His own laws, or is one bound to nothing and no one but oneself, which must end in arbitrariness.’ 

We therefore run no danger of looking in the Bible for a handbook of constitutional law or of giving up the independence of science to which it is dedicated. What the Bible means for that constitutional law, we will discuss in the next chapter.”

P. J. Hoedemaker
The Politics of Antithesis; The Antirevolutionary Government of Abraham Kuyper 1901-1905 — p. 53-55

1.) Reason cannot operate apart from revelation of some God or god concept. Even if reason is said to be operating independently of some revelation at that point the revelation that reason is operating in submission to is the revelation of man as autonomously considered. At that point, man, serving as his own god, melds both his revelation that he provides for himself with the reason he uses to engage that self-revelation. Revelation thus, like reason, is seen as an inescapable category. It is never a matter of whether or not revelation is being appealed to. It is, instead, always a matter of which revelation is being appealed to. That revelation can be explicitly appealed to or it can be implicitly present. The Biblical Christian is more likely to explicitly appeal to Scripture as the basis of his revelation while the humanist will typically try to hide the fact that he has a revelation that his reason is pinioned upon. The humanist will typically say something like; “this is just the way things are.”

2.) Reason is thus only as good as the Revelation that it is based upon. Where “reason” gets matters right when based on a Revelation that is in hostility to the God of the Bible and His Word, that reason is only getting it right by way of coincidence. After all, very few people have been able to be 100% in error, 100% of the time. Also, we should say that sometimes pagan reason can get matters right because it is using borrowed capital from the Christian revelation it denounces generally speaking and it generally uses this borrowed capital without even realizing that it is doing so. One glaring example of this is when the haters of Christian revelation dare to talk about the categories of “right,” and “wrong.” Those who are haters of Christian revelation, were they consistent, would never use those categories.

3.) Hoedemaker points out the difference between Rome and Protestantism on this matter. Rome sees that “reason” and “revelation” are two paths to truth. “Reason” is used in non-spiritual areas whereas “revelation” is appealed to for truth in the realm of grace. This is where Natural law finds its logical appeal, though there have been many Protestants who have embraced this bifurcation of reason and revelation.

4.) The only place I take exception to Hoedemaker above is indicated by the **, where he offers, “Armed with the latter (supernatural revelation), man sees not differently, but only better and further.” I would contend that when fallen man is viewing natural revelation through the prism of a false “supernatural” revelation man does see differently. Conversely, the Christian does see not only better and further vis-a-vis those who despise God’s special revelation, but he does see differently.

5.) The Groen van Prinsterer quote gets at everything. We do not fight against  reason as it exists within a Christian construct. We only fight against “reason” so called as it exists in a God’s revelation hating construct. One can not genuinely call “reason,” reason if that pseudo reason is arising out of a philosophical system context wherein the concept of God has first mutilated and falsified. Any putative reason arising in that context is referred to as reason only out of politeness. Such a reason poisons everything that it engages.

6.) Of course this quote, especially the last Groen van Prinsterer quote completely demolishes R2K.

Considering the Renewed Push Towards Consistent Preterism

With the advent of Gary DeMar of American Vision platforming Kim Burgess there are now quarters of the Church that are being are going all verklempt over DeMar and Burgess’ pushing of Consistent Preterism (also known as Full Preterism, Hyper-Preterism, Eschatological Gnosticism, Hymenaenism, etc.).

By way of introduction it should be noted that while the Church creeds and confessions have seldom spoke on matters eschatological the Apostles Creed (AC) as put Consistent Preterism outside the boundaries of the Christian faith. The AC does so when it puts in the mouths of God’s warrior faithful  that they believe that “Christ shall come again to judge the quick and the dead,” and further when  we confess in the AC that “I believe in the the resurrection of the body.” If a Consistent Preterist is honest he cannot confess the Apostle’s creed without doing all kinds of mental gymnastics.

Now, as of late some Preterists have taken to calling those who cite the AC as proof of the future 2nd advent of Christ and as proof of the resurrection of the body as “creedalists.” They accuse us of this as if we might think they are accusing us of something that we would recoil at. Indeed, they are spitting this out at us much like a WOKE Karen might wail about us being “racists.” Another example of the Zeus like hurling of a lightning bolt compliment in our direction. We are glad to be labeled as a “creedalist” — especially when coming from a anti-creedalist. We understand perfectly that the Reformed creeds and confessions are perfumed with the odor of Scripture since those who assembled the creeds and confessions only desired to confess that which was consistent with Scripture.

It is also interesting, that the push for Full-Preterism came especially from the Cambellite (Restorationist) movement and to this day many of its advocates remain “Church of Christ” chaps. Now, I’m sure the Church of Christ has many nice people who belong to it, but it has never been acccused of being particularly orthodox by the Reformed faith.

Now, before going into a cursory overview regarding full Preterism we should note that while we can in no way countenance Hymeneanism we do indeed embrace partial Preterism. Further, I personally have profited greatly by reading some of the full Preterists. For example, James Stuart Russell’s, “The Parousia: The New Testament Doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming,” and David Chilton’s “Days of Vengeance,” are both books that have aided me quite a bit. Also, my long relationship and many conversations with Kim Burgess have, on the whole been edifying. However, one has to learn where to get off the train with these Consistent Preterists so one does not fall into their error. The reason that these chaps were so beneficial is that they excelled at exposing how many of the prophecies in the Scripture are past to us, and the reason that aspect is so refreshing is that for the last 165 years or so Church has been awash in the silly futurism of Dispensationalism. The reason that these same chaps are so dangerous is that they absolutized their Preterist eschatology allowing it to drive the train of all their theology. In a fit of irony, in destroying the Hal Lindsey futurism of the Church where all prophecies are yet future they have destroyed themselves by embracing the idea that all the prophies of the Scripture are past and were fulfilled in AD 70.

With the arise of DeMar and Burgess pushing Full Preterism I’ve had to go back and do some quick review as it has been 15 years or so since Tony Pomales came knocking on my study door piling up books for me to read advancing full Preterism while seeking to convert me to Hyper-Preterism. At that time I read probably a dozen to 15 books on the subject on all sides of the subject. I walked away a convinced Partial Preterist while at the same time being decidedly anti-full Preterist. Tony Pomales was disappointed as I was the fish that slipped his net. Sorry Tony.

Having offered all that by way of introduction, let us consider an overview of full Preterism and its attendant problems. Remember, this in no way offers to be exhaustive.

All expressions of Full Preterism impacts the following doctrines;

1.) Denial of a yet future 2nd advent of Christ. The return of Christ spoken of in the NT occurred with Christ’s judgment coming in AD 70.

2.) The great last judgment likewise was fulfilled in AD 70. It is a mistake, per Consistent Preterism, to look for a future great last judgment since that referred to God’s judgment on covenantal Israel which was fulfilled in AD 70 and so did not refer to a yet future to us judgment event where the lambs and the goats will be separated.

3.) The NT language about a future resurrection does NOT refer to a bodily resurrection of the saints who have lived throughout time, but rather the resurrection of the saints refers to a spiritual resurrection. As Consistent Preterist, Kim Burgess, once told me; “The person will be resurrected but not the body.”

As a consequence of this hyper-realized eschatology Consistent Preterists either believe that the world/cosmos will never end or they are agnostic as to the question of the final teleology of all things.

Full Preterists love to camp on Luke 21:22 where Jesus is predicting the destruction of the Temple;

“For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.”

The Consistent Preterist will point to this verse and say; “See, the text here explicitly says that “all things which are written may be fulfilled,” and so this text explicitly tells us there is no more to be fulfilled.

The problem with that is that the Full Preterists are forgetting that when Jesus says here “the things are written may be fulfilled,” He is referring what was referring to the things that were written in the Old Testament since the New Testament had not even been inked yet. Therefore, any prophecy that occurred after Jesus spoke this is not part of the things that were written that were fulfilled in AD 70. That in turn means, that anything written prophetically after Jesus spoke these words could yet refer to future matters, like the His second advent, the final judgment, and future resurrection of the saints, that are still yet to happen.

In addition to the paragraph above there is the issue of the word “all” in Luke 22:21. We have to realize that there are times in the NT when the word all does not mean all without exception. For example in Matthew 3:5 the text reads,

“Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him”

Clearly, Matthew is not intending to teach that every single person in Judea went out to Jesus. The word “all” could be working in that same way in Luke 22:21.

Now consider potential implications of this Hyper Preterism. One implication is the possibility that there is no further need for the sacraments. We can deduce that as a possible implication because of the language of I Corinthians 11;

26For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

Now, if Jesus has come in the way that the Consistent Preterists insists that He has come in AD 70 then I Cor. 11:26 would imply that there is no longer any need to “eat this bread and drink this cup,” because Jesus came in AD 70. Pushed even further, to a logical implication, there would therefore also be no need to gather for Church since the Church’s existence without the sacraments would become very tenuous.

The error of Consistent Preterism in its claim that the saints will not bodily resurrect is perhaps most clearly pointed out in I Cor. 15:20

“But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

The inspired Apostle speaks of Christ’s resurrection which was/is clearly physical as seen in Jesus urging doubting Thomas to put his finger in his hands and side. Also as seen in Jesus claim that in three days He would raise himself up again should his enemies destroy him (John 2:19). Christ bodily resurrected and Paul in I Cor. 15 says that Christ was the firstfruits of those who are dead (fallen asleep). Now, if a bodily resurrected Christ is the firstfruits of those dead then by necessity the latter fruit following the firstfruit is going to resurrect bodily just as the Lord Christ did. The idea that Christians will have their persons resurrected and not their bodies or that our resurrection is only spiritual is not supported by the weight of Scripture. Indeed even the OT saints figured out what the Hyper Preterists are missing. Hebrews 11 teaches us the way that our Father Abraham reasoned about the sacrifice of Isaac;

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[a] 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Now, to argue that Abraham reasoned that God was going to spiritually raise Isaac and not physically is to reason as only an ideologue can reason.

Upon taking a step back in assessment one might label Hyper Preterism as Eschatological Gnosticism. For the Consistent Preterist there is little to no continuity between our corporeal life now and our life to come. It is all discontinuity. The spiritual is all. The corporeal is nothing.

How serious of an error is Consistent Preterism? Well, I suppose that depends on how much it bleeds into and so alters other theological disciplines. Some of the full Preterists can get pretty whack-a-doodle. At the very least I think we would have to say the best expressions of it are heterodox. Having said that I would be more comfortable with a genuinely Reformed Preterist as a non-voting member than I would be comfortable with a Arminian being a non-voting member. In the end I think we have to take these full Preterists one by one to see exactly where they are not only on eschatology but also on soteriology, ecclesiology, theonomy, hamartiology, epistemology, etc. etc. etc.

Having said all that if you are a laymen you would be wise to drink from the well of Full Preterism with a very very long spoon.