Doug Wilson, Preterism, and Biblicism

A friendly response to Blog & Mablog on the authority of creeds and confessions

Typically, whenever I hear people talk about Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, there is usually somewhat of an “arm’s length” approach. Some people have basically a derangement syndrome regarding Doug, reading everything he has to say in the most negative light possible. Even those who want to say something positive about Doug usually do so with a prefatory list of qualifications, the obligatory, “Now I don’t agree with him on everything, BUT…” Personally, I have always found this to be unnecessary, or even just silly, because obviously you don’t agree with any person on every possible thing! I can’t think of a single theologian (living or dead) with whom I align with on every conceivable issue, and so my joke in regard to Doug has always been to say, “Now I don’t agree with him on everything, I mean, he baptizes babies for crying out loud!”

However, Doug’s latest blog post on Blog & Mablog (which I make sure never to miss) forces me to add another thing to the list. Now, admittedly, when we get into it here, this is going to sound like a really minor issue—as though I was nit-picking or something, but oftentimes (especially in theological discourse) history shows us that even the most subtle nuances of language can have catastrophic implications. Homo or heteroousias?

Context

One of the things that has been nagging postmillennial circles (the eschatology I happen to hold) for the past number of years has been the issue of hyper-preterism. To help break this down, preterism comes from the Latin praeter which means “before” or “prior”. And so in discussions of eschatology and Biblical prophecy, preterism is when you believe a particular prophecy in the Bible to have already been fulfilled. For example, many postmillennials (and amillennials as well) will take a preterist view of the Olivet Discourse (Jesus’ prophetic speech in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21), seeing the bulk of Jesus’ warnings (like the destruction of the Temple) as having already been fulfilled in AD 70.

Now, hyper-preterism (and usually when the prefix “hyper” is attached to a word, it is intended to have a negative connotation) is when someone takes the view that all the prophecies contained in the Bible have already been fulfilled. And so a hyper-preterist is someone who denies the bodily return of Jesus Christ at the end of world history, and a bodily resurrection of all men. Because of the fact that many post-millennials take a partial-preterist position (as I myself do) it is our camp that usually sees people go off into this error.

Gary DeMar, a student of Greg Bahnsen and president of American Vision, has been accused over the past 5 years of being a hyper-preterist. This charge is no small matter. Recently, this came into popular attention because of Gary’s appearance on CrossPolitic where these issues were discussed. For most of us, this interview essentially confirmed that this is where Gary is at.

Now, what does this all have to do with today’s article? Well, in Doug Wilson’s response to this whole scenario wherein he (rightly) identifies hyper-preterism as the error that it is, I do not believe that his argument was very good, and as a matter of fact I think that there is a glaring issue with it. To make matters worse, the way that Doug argues here, sadly, makes the hyper-preterist’s case for him.

The Issue of Authority

Essentially, Doug argues that the Christian faith is a unit; it is a total world-and-life view that cannot be atomized and broken apart. “When I presuppose Scripture, I need to presuppose the whole package.” Doug comes at this with the same Van-Tillian perspective that I myself advocate for. When we defend the faith, we defend the whole faith. However, the application that Doug makes here is not one that I would share, and I don’t think Van Til would have either. The idea is that the Christian faith, as a unit, includes the fact that the Christian church has drafted various creeds and confessions that, while not inspired, are infallible, because they contain truths and do not err.

I personally would not define infallible this way, and think Doug should be using the term inerrancy instead. Infallible means that something, due to its nature, cannot contain error. Inerrancy is a descriptive term, which means that something does not contain error. The two are related, of course, and Christians believe that the Bible is both infallible and inerrant. Again, in theology, these subtle details can mean a whole lot. If the creeds are infallible, then what that would mean is that they cannot be wrong, and you would have to accept whatever they say no matter what. I want to assume that what Doug means by infallible is what I mean by inerrant, but as we will see later on, this is an important distinction to make. And so, I believe that something can be inerrant without being infallible. Doug’s example of a book that says, “two apples added to two apples will result in four apples” would classify as inerrant. I am happy to say that something like the Apostle’s creed is inerrant, though not inspired or infallible, however my issue is with the seeming level of authority Doug wants to give the creeds and confessions, appearing to say that it is on their authority that he accepts the canon of Scripture.

Here is a citation from Pastor Doug’s blog post:

“I don’t believe the Apostles Creed is inspired, not at all. But I do believe it is infallible . . . because the truth is infallible. The truth does not err. In the same way, I believe that the Table of Contents for the Scriptures is not inspired, but it is infallible. God in His providential kindness guarded the Church as she worked through the issues surrounding the canon. Consequently, the canon of Scripture is a confessional issue for me. I accept the doctrine of the canon that is taught by the Church (WCF 1.2). But if you don’t accept the authority of creeds then there is no fundamental reason why you shouldn’t include the Shepherd of Hermas into your eschatological reasoning—which would make things quite a bit more festive.” - Douglas Wilson, Presupp & Preterism, Blog & Mablog, 2025

Now this of course stuck out to me as I have been writing on the issue of canon over the past month or two (my theological case for canon can be found here). He makes the statement, “But if you don’t accept the authority of creeds then there is no fundamental reason why you shouldn’t include the Shepherd of Hermas…”

Note the language here: “no fundamental reason”. If the Westminster Confession of Faith is the fundamental reason why Doug Wilson accepts the canon of Scripture as he does, then I believe he has a major defect in why he accepts the canon. Because of the very nature of Holy Scripture, as the voice of God, it cannot establish its authority on the basis of anything else, for there is no higher authority than God’s own voice. It is for this reason that Reformed Protestants (especially in the Van Til tradition) have made the case for a self-authenticating canon. Michael Kruger has done so in his excellent work Canon Revisited. But when Doug says that the fundamental reason he accepts the canon of Scripture is the Westminster Confession of Faith, he is subordinating the authority of the Scriptures to the authority of the confession! And I don’t think a single divine present at the Westminster assembly would’ve thought that they had the authority to tell us, infallibly, what the canon was.

Furthermore, if Doug is going to say he accepts the canon on the basis of creedal authority, then that means he would not have been able to evaluate the canon until 1646! For the canon of Scripture was not outlined in any of the early church creeds, and the Western church did not define the canon until the Counter-Reformation, a canon which Doug rejects. My suspicion is that this line of thinking is closely related to Doug’s view of the textus receptus as being the “confessional text” over and against the critical text, which is also, in my view, an improper application of confessional authority.

Now, the purpose Doug has in saying all of this is to identify the hyper-preterist rejection of the early creeds as an error. (Interestingly enough, DeMar claims to affirm the Nicene Creed, but of course he does not interpret it in the traditional way.) But the glaring issue with Doug’s argument is that it makes the hyper-preterist’s case for him. You see, the strength of the hyper-preterist polemic is its relentless claim to want to stick to the truth of the Bible over and against all teachings and traditions of men. And so when Pastor Doug comes along and says, “you can’t be a hyper-preterist because you are going against the creeds and confessions” rather than making a Biblical argument, all the hyper-preterist has to do is say, “see!”

Biblicism

When we are defending the faith, we must defend the whole faith, as has been noted already. But our testimony is that the Word of God is inspired, infallible, inerrant and sufficient. And so the question is, do we believe that the Bible, alone, is sufficient to refute hyper-preterism? Desiring to read Doug charitably and not assume the worst, I have to believe that he would say, “yes and amen” to this question. And so my confusion is why we, confessional Reformed Christians, have not handled this issue as if we believe this. Doug is not the first, and probably won’t be the last, to try to argue against hyper-preterism on the authority of the creeds. What this reveals is that while we may be confident in the Bible, we are not confident in our ability to handle the Bible with regard to this issue. I do think that much more work needs to be done in this area, and teachers of the Word ought to be equipping the saints to defend the return of Jesus Christ and the bodily resurrection of the dead Biblically. In my view, Jeremiah Nortier has been doing a good job at this, from what I have seen. And while this is not the focus of my article here, I believe (along with others) that the key passage is 1 Corinthians 15, with the timeline of verses 20-26 being of central importance (perhaps I’ll write in more detail on this in the future.)

For now, I want to talk about Biblicism. Now, Biblicism is a term with a thousand definitions, and it is usually used as an insult. However, it is a term that I, with Greg Bahnsen, wear as a tag of honor (so long as I get to define it!)

It is usually said that the Biblicist is the one who rejects all Church History, and all creeds and confessions. But my readers will know that this cannot be descriptive of me, given my many articles and teachings on church history (see here). Rather, the Biblicist is the one who wants to say that the Bible, always and in every case takes precedence over the creeds and confessions. Doug himself says that he rejects the Second Council of Nicaea due to the fact that it contradicts the second commandment. But how can he use the Bible to critique the creeds if he says he needs the creeds for the canon?

This is why the subtle distinction between infallibility and inerrancy matters so much. Doug has placed an unwarranted a priori authority to the creeds and confessions before he even reads the Bible (depending upon them for the canon) which is an indirect denial of Scriptural sufficiency, if only in practice and not word. The way Doug argues here, I believe, undermines the way we understand Scripture’s authority, and consequently the way we defend its truth.

Since the hyper-preterist rhetoric is to attack those of us who believe in a future bodily return of Jesus and bodily resurrection for not depending enough on Scripture, then the strongest arguments against hyper-preterism are those that are Biblical in nature.

Before I Go

Let me just say that I have benefited greatly from the teaching of Doug Wilson and hold him in high esteem. Though I’ve been polemical, hopefully by God’s grace I have been charitable and brotherly. If perchance someone reading this is able to get it before Doug’s eyes, I would really love to hear his thoughts on what I have said. Not to start a constant exchange of blogs going back and forth for the rest of 2025, but simply to either clarify if I’ve misunderstood, or at least expound upon any points of disagreement that I have understood.

For more on hyper-preterism and a Biblical response to it, I recommend this video from Eli Ayala and Jeremiah Nortier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt48t4AeH5M

May the church of Jesus Christ be strengthened to offer a Biblical defense against all opposition.