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Monday, September 10, 2018

144,000

I believe dispensationists think the 144,000 in Rev 7:4 refers to ethnic Jewish converts. Bracketing the usual exegetical debates, that raises some philosophical and theodical issues. Some dispensationalists are Calvinists while others are freewill theists. Let's consider each in relation to that identification:

1. Reformed dispensationalism

This means God regenerated 144,000 ethnic Jews during the great tribulation. Freewill theists often allege that unconditional election is arbitrary. I've argued that their allegation is confused. The fact that God doesn't elect people based on foreseen faith or merit doesn't mean God is randomly choosing who will be saved or damned, like throwing dice to pick winners and losers. 

Humans are agents. The elect make different choices in life than the reprobate. Depending on who's elect or reprobate, that generates alternate world histories. 

In addition, it may well be the case that God made a multiverse in which alternate histories play out. It's not as if God is forced to choose one outcome to the exclusion of others. 

If, however, the Reformed dispensational interpretation of Rev 7:4 is correct, then who's saved and who's damned is based on numerology. Some ethnic Jews didn't make the cut because that would mess up the nice round number. God didn't save 144,303 Jews because that's not a pretty number compared to 144,000. Picking winners and losers to make a nice round number. Isn't numerical aesthetics an awfully frivolous criterion for salvation and damnation? 

2. Libertarian dispensationalism

On this view it's unclear how there can be exactly 144,000 ethnic Jewish converts. God can't zap 144,000 Jews to believe in Jesus, for faith is an independent variable. Human agents are the ultimate source of their choices and actions. So it's out of God's hands how many Jews will be saved during the Tribulation. 

But in that event, what are the odds that the number of converts just happen to add up to that nice round number? Consider all the different numerical possibilities. It's a vanishingly improbable coincidence that the raffle of freewill theism will pull that particular figure out of the hat.

6 comments:

  1. I'm not sure there is any problem God predestining 144,000 Jews. All the dispensationist texts say after the rapture the spreading the gospel goes back to the Jews.

    The big problem is it says they come from 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel when the tribes disappeared thousands of years ago.

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    1. I explained what there's a prima facie problem.

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  2. I'm not a Reformed dispensationalist, or any kind of dispensationalist, but, I would't see the problem with 144,303 if I was. Surely a dispensationalist can accept some rounding of the numbers? i.e. There's nothing inherent in dispensationalism that commits you to the view that numbers in the thousands aren't subject to any rounding whatsoever?

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    1. In my reading, they regard the numbers in Revelation as exact figures.

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    2. In my experience too, they tend to be that sort of precisionist. But what I'm wondering is if that's really required by their principles, or if it'd not be that painful for them to modify it without hurting their core principles. It doesn't seem to me that they'd lose that much.

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    3. I suppose it's coming from the "read with maximum literalness that does not result in something absurd/impossible" principle, so, perhaps it is difficult for them to let go.

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