Progressive Illumination?

[Andrew P.C.]

Today, I went to the Tim Lahaye conference and no, I'm not a dispie. In fact, going to this conference was very fruitful for me. It reminded me how wrong the dispensational view really is. They slaughter the scriptures when coming to their view. I'm actually leaning more toward the Amill position because of my recent studying of the scriptures and this conference.

In the opening session, Dr. Gary Fraizer from Dallas said:

"We understand the bible differently then they did 2000 years ago."

He believes in something called "Progressive Illumination." He explained that we, now, know what the bible teaches about the end times. He was implying that historical teaching must be thrown out, and we must now embrace the dispensational view. (He did explain how scripture is closed, so he does not believe in "progressive revelation.")

Has anyone else heard of this view? Is this a normal dispensational doctrine?

 

[Herald]

It's not unique to dispensationalism. Cults use it too. If I understand correctly, those who believe in progressive illumination believe that some parts of eschatology have been hidden in a mystery to be revealed in the end times. My opinion on that?

AFLAC!

 

[Andrew P.C.]

It's not unique to dispensationalism. Cults use it too. If I understand correctly, those who believe in progressive illumination believe that some parts of eschatology have been hidden in a mystery until the end times. My opinion on that?

AFLAC!

Picture didn't show brother...

I did paste it to my url though...

 

[Herald]

Mmmmm...try again. Showing on my computer.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Mmmmm...try again. Showing on my computer.

Darn those links.... It's showing up.

 

[Puritan Sailor]

Progressive Illumination itself is a correct concept. We do understand things better than before. For instance, we do understand the doctrine of justification or predestination with more clarity than before. There is doctrinal development in church history. The problem with dispensationalism and their eschatology is that it forces something new on the church and makes the church take two steps back and contradict it's earlier more basic beliefs about the unity of the church in both testaments, or the unity of Scripture, or even more fundamentally the sovereignty of God in history, just to name some examples. We can have doctrinal development but not such that would contradict our more basic and clear doctrines from Scripture.

 

[Herald]

Patrick, I'm not saying that there is no possibility that we may learn new things from God's word; I believe it is highly unlikely. There are certain areas of theology that are always in a state of flux. Eschatology is probably the leading contender. I doubt it will be settled before our Lord returns.

For the sake of discussion, can you provide an example of progressive illumination in the present or recent past?

 

[Puritan Sailor]

Patrick, I'm not saying that there is no possibility that we may learn new things from God's word; I believe it is highly unlikely. There are certain areas of theology that are always in a state of flux. Eschatology is probably the leading contender. I doubt it will be settled before our Lord returns.

For the sake of discussion, can you provide an example of progressive illumination in the present or recent past?

I already provided two. Justification and predestination. We could look at others; Sanctification, Sacraments, Covenant theology, Biblical theology, social consequences of the gospel, etc. The early church especially hammered out the doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, Scripture, and the necessity of grace. The Reformation simply began building and harmonizing the rest of our theology with those more basic doctrines. And it still develops more.

One modern example of this development is the abandoning of racism by the Protestant churches. It used to be held that blacks had the mark of Cain or the curse of Ham. But the abolitionists/civil right movement forced us to go back to the Scirptures and see how stupid and unbiblical such a view is. All men are made in the image of God.