The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Im not familiar with this

''I hold to the original understanding of Scripture the Early Church was taught, this known as Historic Millennialism. I reject the Gnostic views of Augustine, his views have produced bad fruit in Church history.''... posted from Facebook.

Methinks the writer is referring to "Historic Premillennialism".

See here: The History of Chiliasm.

And here: Evaluating Premillennialism.

The following is from his site and what he holds too, again, I am not very familiar with the theology, other then his referencing a lot to the Gnostics, and I quote '' I do have one on my website votanf.com but I am more incline to a line with the first Ante-Nicene Creed. You will find that all statement of faith has errors in them that does not a line with Apostolic teaching of the first 300 years. Augustine's teaching has done a good job of mudding the waters and teaching things that were considered as heretical to the Early Church.''..

Thank you for the links, I will study this week!

I visited his website... waited several minutes for it to load and read through his BELIEF section. Hmmmm, it's an admixture of Anabaptism, Advent Christian, semi-Pelagianism, and perhaps even Pelagianism. The bottom line is he holds to damnable heresy. Now, as far as his love and promotion of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, it is incontrovertible that there was MUCH confusion, error and heresy held among those early men. That's why, for example, the Nicene, Athanasian and Chalcedon Creeds were written and others, e.g., the Council of Orange in order to refute some of the serious heresies being taught during that time. Is that very surprising? It shouldn't be for if one simply reads through the New Testament, Paul, James and John wrote MANY rebukes, castigations, corrections, etc., to the churches of their own day. Further, the Lord Christ Himself in the first 3 chapters of Revelation has some very harsh words against some of the groups within the existent church due to their heretical doctrines and/or practices.

Thus, the writings of the Ante-Nicene fathers are interesting to read but they are hardly a sound source for determining God's truth. Scripture and Scripture alone is the sole and final authority in all matters of faith and practice. There are LOTS of people similar to this person today who promote their heresies on Facebook, etc. And often they boast that one can trace their heritage back to the Apostles, which they think warrants them having special authority and infallibility over others.

FYI you have up to 6 hours to make corrections, add/delete, etc. for any of your own new posts or a reply.

There were a large group of early Church Fathers who did hold to what we would consider a historical premil viewpoint, as do I, butthere were also many who held to more of an Amil viewpoint also. Amil became the dominent poistion once Augustine way of spiritualizing prophecy by allogories and types became the norm. He also held that the catholic Church was the Kingdom of God on earth. So he was spot on regarding Original Sin and predestination, but not so much in other things!

1. Augustine held to many other orthodox doctrines besides original sin and predestination. A cursory reading of some of his writings will confirm that truth.

2. Re: "spiritualizing prophecy by allegories"... that would be your natural criticism given your hermeneutical presupposition, i.e., "a literal reading of Scripture". However, Augustine nor anyone who holds to either Postmillennialism or Amillennialism "spiritualizes" Scripture nor imposes an allegorical genre on Scripture except where Scripture itself does so, e.g., Gal 4:24.

Perhaps you would benefit from reading Vern Poythress' article here: What is Literal Interpretation?.

You are correct that he had goos theology on many of his positions, byt still was faulty in some, as we all are, and do see that his approach to how to inteprete prophecy led tolarge extent the Amil viewpoint being adopted at large within Christianity.

To me, the essentialtruth is there will bethe Second Coming event, and we will be raised up an resurrected glorified, and godly chrostians will continue to debate/discuss this until that day!