There's a medieval style of castle known as the "motte and bailey." It consisted of the bailey, an open courtyard with buildings, which provided most of the bastle's economic activity; and the motte, a mound with a stone or wood keep on it. The bailey was productive land, but weakly fortified. If an enemy were to attack the castle, the people in the bailey would retreat to the safety of the motte, which was easily defendable, and there the defending forces could wear away at the enemy until they gave up.
Similarly, in rhetoric, there is a form of bad argument known as the motte-and-bailey. Someone puts forward an opinion that is controversial and not easily defended (the
bailey). When he is challenged, he claims he was actually defending a much less controversial opinion (the
motte). When his opponent gives up, he claims victory for the bailey argument.
This is a bait-and-switch. It's a scam.
In this thread, we've seen UGC pull exactly this kind of scam with Dispensationalism. As I said before: Dispensationalism is something I mentioned once, in passing, to point out that the so-called "Lordship Salvation" controversy is an internal debate amongst Dispensationalists. Since I'm not a Dispensationalist, it's pointless to drag me into your in-house debate. So I'm not going to argue
that point. I bring this up only to demonstrate the kind of intellectual dishonesty UGC is dealing out.
Earlier in this thread, UGC wrote:
Dispensationalism is the dominant view held by Baptists as a whole, because we recognize a distinction between national Israel and the church and strive to take the Bible literally when it is literal, without twisting or overcomplicating it to fit our own private desires. (emphasis in original)
UGC has expressed what Charles Ryrie called the
sine qua non of Dispensationalism. If not for the clear distinction between Israel and the Church and the literal interpretation of Scripture, in other words, Dispensationalism could not exist.
But is this the grounds upon which UGC defends the system? Nope. Instead, he appeals to the early Church fathers Irenaeus and Augustine.
Take Irenaeus for example (2nd Century), who in Against Heresies (V.XXIX.1) said "And therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said, 'There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be,'" in defense of a pre-trib rapture thousands of years before Non-dispensationalists imagined the idea that "Darby invented it in the 1800's". (emphasis in original)
See the bait-and-switch? Having told us that the distinguishing mark of Dispensationalism is the distinction between Israel and the Church and a literal interpretation of the Bible (the bailey), UGC tries to prove Irenaeus was an early Dispensationalist because he wrote "in defense of a pre-trib rapture" in
Against Heresies (the motte).
Which makes you wonder how closely this supposed Dispensationalist actually held to Dispensationalism's
sine qua non. Not much, it turns out.
Irenaeus writes, in the same book, interpreting the Parable of the Tenants (Matt. 22:33-44):
God planted the vineyard of the human race when at the first He formed Adam and chose the fathers; then He let it out to husbandmen when He established the Mosaic dispensation. . . . But last of all He sent to those unbelievers His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the wicked husbandmen cast out of the vineyard when they had slain Him. Wherefore the Lord God did even give it up (no longer hedged around, but thrown open throughout all the world) to other husbandmen, who render the fruits in their seasons — the beautiful elect tower being also raised everywhere. For the illustrious Church is [now] everywhere, and everywhere is the winepress dug: because those who do receive the Spirit are everywhere. For inasmuch as the former have rejected the Son of God, and cast Him out of the vineyard when they slew Him, God has justly rejected them, and given to the Gentiles outside the vineyard the fruits of its cultivation. (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. IV.36.ii)
In Irenaeus' allegorization of the parable, the wicked husbandmen represent Israel, entrusted with the vineyard via the "Mosaic dispensation." God the Father is the landlord; his servants and his son, whom the wicked tenants kill, are the prophets and Christ himself. Therefore, God hands over the vineyard to other tenants representing the church, and they are the ones who receive the benefits of God's promises.
Does that sound like a discontinuity between Israel and the Church? On the contrary, Irenaeus understands the relationship between the Old and New Covenants to be one of unity. So much for Irenaeus the Dispensationalist. If UGC actually understood his thought, he'd denounce him for his "replacement theology."
Here's more evidence of UGC's dishonesty: in his citation of Irenaeus, he omits the
very next sentence: "For this is the last contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome they are crowned with incorruption" (
Adv. Haer. V.29.i). What are they contesting? What do they overcome, if they are indeed raptured to escape the Great Tribulation? UGC simply assumes "caught up from this" means "caught up in advance of the Tribulation."
Yet, in the section
immediately following V.29.i, Irenaeus allegorizes the story of Nebuchadnezzar throwing Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the furnace, saying it represents the Antichrist persecuting the church:
Ananias, Azarias, and Misaël, when they did not worship [the golden statue], were cast into a furnace of fire, pointing out prophetically, by what happened to them, the wrath against the righteous which shall arise towards the [time of the] end. For that image, taken as a whole, was a prefiguring of this man's [the Antichrist's] coming, decreeing that he should undoubtedly himself alone be worshipped by all men. (Adv. Haer. V.29.ii).
Irenaeus was indisputably a premillennialist. But he was no Dispensationalist believing the Rapture would rescue the church from the Tribulation.
[continued in next post due to length]