A Roman Raft in Reformed Waters

"My Response to Doug Wilson on Presupp and Preterism"

By Joshua Gipson
Joshua.Gipson14@gmail.com
September 1, 2025

(Published by Permission on BeyondCreationScience.com)
See Gary DeMar Controversy (Archive)

Doug Wilson recently wrote an article ("Presupp and Preterism" here) and (Blog and Mablog Video "Throwing Out the Nicene Creed?" here) stating that Full Preterism contradicts presuppositional apologetics. Since presupp begins with Scripture as the infallible foundation for truth, Wilson argues you can’t consistently affirm the Bible while rejecting the early creeds. Here’s Doug’s logic: the same Church that recognized the canon also produced those creeds — so if you accept one, you must accept the other. And because the creeds (as he reads them) deny Full Preterism, the system collapses.

The very foundation of Presuppositionalism rests on Scripture’s self-attesting ultimacy; it does not elevate post-apostolic works to co-ultimate status.

Doug's argumentation is unfortunate, but not surprising. Still unable to exegetically answer the clear scriptural challenges Full Preterism raises, Wilson yet again sidesteps the issue. He knows the texts but will not engage them. Instead, he reaches for Rome, borrowing their methodology, joining hands with tradition, and elevating the creeds to near-equal authority with Scripture. It’s less a defense of presuppositionalism, and more so a retreat from exegesis, dressed up in Reformed rhetoric.

Let’s examine his argumentation,

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Canon ≠ Creed

Here’s what Wilson says:

“The Table of Contents is the first creed of the Church, and it is our foundational creed… The Church did get it right — and what they got right was our foundational creed. The Table of Contents is the ur-creed.”

This is a category error. The canon is not a creed. The canon is God-breathed Scripture, recognized by the Church because of its self-attesting divine nature and through God’s providence. Creeds, on the other hand, are man-made theological statements. The Church didn’t make the Canon of Scripture infallible; it simply recognized what God had already spoken. Recognition is not creation.

Self-attestation grounds canonicity; providence guides recognition.

The crucial distinction Wilson misses is this: the canon is self-attesting; creeds are not. Scripture bears God’s authority intrinsically; the Spirit testifies to it. That’s why the canon is infallible, not because a council voted, but because it carries its own divine marks.

As Michael Kruger puts it in Canon Revisited:

“The church’s role was not to bestow authority upon these books but to recognize the authority they already possessed.” (p. 95)

And in The Question of Canon:

“From the very beginning, the church regarded certain books as having a divine quality to them that set them apart from other books.” (p. 42)

Summed up: Scripture itself bears divine qualities — apostolic origin, covenantal coherence, spiritual power (Canon Revisited, pp. 89 — 102). The Church recognized these qualities under God’s providence, but it never created the canon.

This was also the very argument made by James White and Michael Kruger at the G3 Conference (2018). In their session on “Biblical Canon,” they stressed that the canon stands because of what it is, not because the church made it so. That is how you affirm an infallible canon without retreating to Rome’s magisterium.

What is most frustrating about Dougs approach is the utter evasiveness of the move. Rather than doing the harder work of biblical exegesis, Wilson (and others like him) would rather slip into Roman categories as a way of escape. It is not a rebuttal but an evasion — Rome as a life raft for those drowning in Sola Scriptura. It’s the kind of maneuver you’ve seen in the workplace: putting more energy into avoiding the real task than it would take to simply do it. That is exactly what’s on display here, by definition.

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Baptismal Regeneration and Rome

Wilson presses further:

“Because the scriptural writers were inspired by God, their infallibility was guaranteed… I don’t believe the Apostles’ Creed is inspired, not at all. But I do believe it is infallible… The truth does not err.”

Notice the assumption. Declaring the Apostles’ Creed infallible — simply because “truth does not err” — is question-begging. Doug hasn’t demonstrated the creed is without err — he presupposes it, begs the question he never sets out to prove, and continues on without ever providing a justification.

This is an issue of nature: The Scriptures are God-breathed by nature, and therefore infallible. Creeds are not God-breathed; they must be tested by Scripture.

And here’s the bigger problem: if you’re going to call any creed infallible, why stop at the Apostles’ creed? The same Church that handed down the Apostles’ Creed also handed down Nicaea and Constantinople. And if the Nicene Creed is infallible, you don’t just get church history’s Christology — you also inherit its sacramentology.

Take the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381):

“In one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”

Certain Protestants, having placed the Fathers on too high a pedestal, sometimes try to dodge this by disputing the creeds’ use and meaning of “baptism.” But any legitimate study of the Fathers in context will demonstrate that this is just wishful thinking. The early church Fathers were clear: they believed in water baptism as a necessary sacrament for regeneration.

• Justin Martyr (150 AD): remission of sins happens in the water (Apology 61).

• Irenaeus (180): “we are made clean by means of the sacred water” (Fragment 34).

• Tertullian (200): “by washing away sins… we are admitted into eternal life” (On Baptism 1).

• Cyprian (250): “remission of sins can only be given in the baptism of the Church” (Letter 73).

• Athanasius (350): baptism = being born again of water and Spirit (Discourses II.22).

• Augustine (early 400s): baptism is the sacrament of regeneration (On Forgiveness of Sins 1.34).

So if creeds are infallible, then baptismal regeneration is infallible too. And that cuts the legs out from sola fide and forensic justification. Wilson’s method doesn’t just target Full Preterism — if true, it undercuts the very core of the Reformation.

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The Ricochet Problem: When History Bites Back

This is where the logic ricochets: the very weapons Protestants forged against Rome backfire on Wilson.

When confronted with patristic consensus on baptismal regeneration, Protestants reply:

• “The early church was still fleshing it out.”

• “They hadn’t fully worked through the doctrine yet.”

• “They erred here; that’s why we go back to Scripture.”

In other words, Protestants usually respond with one of two options:

1. The church drifted very quickly after the apostles on baptism.

2. Or, the church was still working out its categories and had not yet nailed down the later Protestant distinctions between sign and reality.

One might say the early church understood baptism as covenantal identification with the church, but still spoke of it in regenerative terms because those finer distinctions had not yet been articulated.

But either option you take here actually concedes the point. If (1) is true, then if the church could drift that fast on baptism, it could just as easily have drifted that fast on eschatology. And if (2) is true, and we allow that details and categories weren’t fully worked out this early, then we must grant the same allowance for eschatology as well.

Likewise, Protestants regularly admit that doctrinal clarity often comes later — justification was hammered out in the Reformation, Trinitarian terminology in the fourth century. So why demand that eschatology was fully formed in the second or third?

Add to this the fact that the Fathers often contradict one another. Irenaeus and Justin Martyr on a literal millennium vs. Origen and Augustine’s rejection of it; Cyprian denying Rome’s supremacy vs. Irenaeus affirming it; Justin and Clement on free will vs. Augustine on predestination; Ignatius describing the Eucharist as Christ’s flesh vs. Augustine’s more symbolic language; Irenaeus insisting on apostolic succession vs. Tertullian later dismissing bishops for prophetic authority. Protestants use these contradictions to show Rome cannot appeal to an unbroken consensus. But that same reality applies here: if patristic contradictions don’t bind Protestants to Rome, they don’t bind Preterists to Wilson’s reading of the creeds either.

If those arguments work there, why not here? If the church could miss baptism, miss sola fide, contradict each other, and err in councils (Wilson himself rejects Second Nicaea), then surely it could misstate eschatology. Especially since there has never been an ecumenical council on eschatology.

So when Wilson waves the creeds like a silver bullet, it ricochets. If patristic consensus is fallible elsewhere, it is fallible here too.

The Open-Ended Problem

As noted above, Wilson’s approach also leaves you with no principled stopping point. If creeds are infallible because of their relation to the canon, then:

• Which creeds are binding?

• When does their authority stop?

• Who decides? (By what standard?)

Wilson admits councils can err, but he has no principle for knowing when they do. Basically, it boils down to “the creeds are authoritative… until they contradict my theology.” That’s not presuppositionalism. That’s arbitrary, as demonstrated below —

Doug Wilson on Full Preterism:

“The early creeds are authoritative and infallible. They don’t teach Full Preterism. Therefore, Full Preterism is wrong.”

Doug Wilson, moments later, remembering he is not Roman Catholic:

“I accept the authority of the ecumenical councils, with my enthusiasm rolling to a stop shortly before Second Nicaea. And the reason I don’t accept Second Nicaea is because the Second Commandment trumps Second Nicaea.”

If you didn’t catch it, read it again. This is where Doug single-handedly discarded his own argument through self-refutation. After insisting creeds carry binding authority, he abruptly reverses course the moment a creed contradicts his theology. His argument turns on its head. What he labels presuppositional consistency is actually selective convenience whereby Pastor Wilson becomes Pope Wilson, making himself the arbiter of truth.

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Presuppositions, Solipsism, and the Typical Straw Man

Wilson claims that if we presuppose Scripture, we must also presuppose the whole “package”: Paul’s personality, parchment, early councils — especially “faithful creeds.” Otherwise, we fall into “biblical solipsism,” treating the Bible as if it dropped from heaven on ropes, to be read in isolation from history, tradition, and the church.

But this is a misrepresentation. Full Preterism does not reject the value of the historic church. As a Full Preterist, I do not deny the value of creeds. Church history is indispensable, weighty, and beneficial. I’ve often said on this topic that we stand on the shoulders of giants. But said “giants” were fallible men, capable of error, who themselves warned us not to read them as apostles. To say that early creeds might contain error in areas the church had not yet wrestled with is not to discard history — it is to put it in its proper context under Scripture. As James White has often said, “the reality is, church history is messy.” Many of the same Fathers Wilson appeals to would have no doubt anathematized today’s Protestants. We have to own that, and submit all tradition to Scripture. If Protestants can admit that and still hold to the ultimate authority of Scripture, then Full Preterists are perfectly consistent in doing the same with eschatology. The creeds are valuable, but not infallible, and therefore not ultimate. So in an attempt to finally bury the tired “solo Scriptura” cliché: Full Preterists aren’t saying “me and my Bible,” we’re saying what Protestants have always said — nothing stands on equal authority with Scripture, including even the earliest creeds. That’s Sola Scriptura, not “solo.”

Far from ignoring history, Full Preterism insists on it: audience relevance, covenantal categories, apocalyptic idioms, first-century context. What we reject is confusing the witness of history with binding authority.

The irony is this: Wilson accuses us of “biblical solipsism,” while he’s the one subordinating Scripture’s authoritative, clear timing of eschatological events to later non-ultimate creeds. That’s not contextual exegesis; that’s eisegesis — forcing the Bible to fit inherited expectations. Affirming the sufficiency of Scripture is not solipsism. Elevating creeds as co-ultimate with revelation is not Van Til. It’s Rome in Reformed clothing.

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Creeds Confess, Scripture Decides

Even the Fathers Doug appeals to don’tactually help his case:

• Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 350): tied the fall of Jerusalem directly to prophecy fulfilled (Catechetical Lectures 15).

• Athanasius (c. 350): said the Jewish state ended in AD 70 just as Christ foretold (On the Incarnation 40).

• Eusebius (c. 325): described Jerusalem’s destruction as God’s judgment fulfilling Christ’s prophecy (Eccl. Hist. 3.5.3).

• Chrysostom (c. 390): affirmed that the words of Matthew 24 were fulfilled while some who heard Christ were still alive (Homilies on Matthew 24).

• Origen (c. 250): said the prophecy of the gospel being preached in all the world “has been fulfilled” (Against Celsus 2.13).

These Fathers repeatedly connect the prophecies of Christ with events culminating in AD 70. And if we take the totality of their statements together, one could easily conclude Full Preterism — much like the case with today’s scholars, who ironically still condemn us while echoing our very arguments.

And when it comes to the creeds themselves: “He will come to judge the living and the dead” affirms judgment — but neither when nor how. It doesn’t settle whether fulfillment was first-century or future. Protestants often argue the early church “hadn’t yet worked out” baptism; the same could be said of eschatology. The creeds confess what Scripture says — Christ comes to judge — but they do not decide the timing, any more than they decide the mechanics of baptism.

Gary DeMar has noted this well:

“To say that the creeds deny Full Preterism because they say Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead is a stretch. The creeds do not deal with the timing texts that are central to the debate… They do not define the ‘when’ of Christ’s coming; they only affirm that He comes.” (Still Looking for That Slam-Dunk Verse)

Wilson reads futurism into the creeds, then acts as if the creeds settled the question. They didn’t. The debate still rests on Scripture.

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Prooftexts Without Exegesis

Finally, notice Wilson’s use of Scripture. He cites Martha in John 11, Paul in Acts 23, Felix in Acts 24, and Jesus in Matthew 11 and 23. But what he never does is engage the text itself. He simply quotes it, assumes a futurist conclusion, and moves on as if his position were self-evident.

Even more revealing: notice what he doesn’t touch. Where is his engagement with the actual texts that form the backbone of the Full Preterist case? Where is the exegesis showing how:

• Daniel 12 and Matthew 13 do not connect the end-of-the-age resurrection with the tribulation and temple-destruction in AD 70?

• 1 Corinthians 15, which explicitly draws from Hosea 13 and Isaiah 25 — 26 (spiritual resurrection texts about covenant restoration), is not about covenantal resurrection life but instead about corpses climbing out of graves?

• Paul can tie the resurrection directly to “the end of the law” (1 Cor. 15:54 — 56), and yet Wilson can still push it thousands of years past the law’s fulfillment in Christ?

• Daniel 9’s seventy weeks are fulfilled in the first century (as Wilson himself admits), and yet somehow we didn’t receive the “end of sin” and resurrection Daniel includes?

• Daniel 9 and Daniel 12 can be separated, when both end at the destruction of the city and sanctuary, and Daniel 12 explicitly includes resurrection?

• The Bible speaks of one coming, one resurrection, one judgment — and yet Partial Preterism carves that into two comings without any exegetical warrant?

• The parallels between Matthew 24 — 25 and 1 Thessalonians 4 — 5 can be severed, when both describe the same resurrection/judgment event?

• Revelation can be split down the middle — with chapters 1 — 19 and 21 — 22 fulfilled in AD 70, but chapter 20 conveniently shoved thousands of years out, even though it’s part of the same storyline?

• The time-texts — “soon,” “at hand,” “this generation” — can be pressed consistently in some places, but redefined in others, without rendering them meaningless?

These are just some of the real questions Wilson and others never touch. Not only do they avoid them, but the irony is that if you take the collective admissions of today’s partial preterist “scholars” — where one says, “That’s future,” while another says, “No, that’s AD 70” — you end up with Full Preterism. What one hand refuses, the other grants. Put it all together, and their own concessions form the very system they condemn. They either can’t deal with these issues, or they won’t. You decide.

So in the spirit of “showing your work”, let’s look at the prooftexts Wilson does bring up.

John 11 and the Resurrection

Doug appeals to Martha in John 11 — interestingly enough though, not to Jesus. Regardless of what Martha thought about the nature of resurrection, she knew that it would occur “on the last day” (John 11:24). But where did she get this concept? What is this “last day”? It is the last day of the last days — the same last days Doug Wilson himself admits belong to the first century (cf. Acts 2:16 — 17; Heb. 1:1 — 2).

These “last days” were not the end of human history, but the end of the Old Covenant system. The prophets consistently tie them to the climactic judgment and transformation that brought the Mosaic age to a close (cf. Heb. 8:13; Heb. 9:26; 1 Cor. 10:11). And that system formally ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70 (Luke 21:20 — 24).

This “last day” also corresponds to what Daniel was promised at the close of his prophecy:

“But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.” (Daniel 12:13, ESV)

Daniel was told that he himself would rise at the “end of the days.” And what did that “end” entail? Verse 2 speaks of the resurrection of “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth.” Verse 1 places this at the time of “a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation,” which Jesus applies directly to the great tribulation of AD 70 (Matt. 24:21). Verse 7 then seals the timing: “when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished.” That destruction of Israel’s covenantal power in AD 70 marked the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy.

This means Daniel himself became one of the “dead ones” who would rise in that resurrection (Dan. 12:2, 13). And Lazarus, likewise, would belong to that same category — those awaiting covenantal resurrection at the climax of Israel’s history.

So while Martha’s assumption was that resurrection was still a physical event to come “at the last day,” her timing could not contradict the prophets. The last days were the last days of the Old Covenant, culminating in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

And here is where Jesus corrects her assumption:

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25 — 26, ESV)

Notice carefully: the resurrection Jesus describes is one in which “everyone who lives and believes will never die.” Clearly this cannot mean physical death, because New Covenant believers still physically die today (cf. Heb. 9:27). Jesus either meant “never die” as spiritual death (separation from God/outside covenant), or He was wrong. He was not wrong — it’s not physical death. If the “never die” is not about physical death, then the corresponding resurrection cannot be a physical resurrection either. Jesus is speaking of spiritual death and spiritual life — covenantal restoration with God through Him. That is Jesus’ doctrine of the resurrection.

This coheres with Paul’s teaching:

• “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:56 — 57).

• “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1).

• “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” (Rom. 8:33).

In other words, “the death” that Christ overcomes is the death brought by the law’s condemnation (Rom. 5:12 — 21; Gal. 3:21 — 22). Resurrection, then, is covenantal life in Christ — a life in which believers can never again be cut off from God’s presence, because Christ overcame the law, and therefore the sin, that brought forth the death.

Isaiah 59:2 — “but your sins have made a separation between you and your God,”

Romans 4:7–8 “”Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.””

Wilson argues through Martha’s assumption, but never touches what Jesus Himself actually said. And Jesus’ words make the point simple: the resurrection He brings is not a future biological resuscitation, but a present spiritual reality grounded in His victory over sin and the law, which came to its New Covenant fullness on the last day of the Old Covenant.

Matthew 11 and the Day of Judgment

Wilson points to Matthew 11:23 — 24, where Jesus says Capernaum will be “brought down to Hades” and that “it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” Wilson insists this “has not yet occurred.” But Jesus was not predicting a yet-future end-of-the-world judgment; He was pronouncing covenantal judgment on that generation.

This is confirmed throughout Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus explicitly ties judgment to “this generation” (Matt. 23:36; 24:34). He compares it to Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon as illustrations of severity — not as participants in a literal courtroom scene thousands of years later. The “standing shoulder to shoulder” language is prophetic idiom, the same type of comparative idiom used throughout prophetic judgment texts (e.g., Isa 34:10; Ezek 32:17 — 32). The imagery here was not meant to be taken as literal, but as apocalyptic ways of declaring the gravity of covenant judgment.

Capernaum’s judgment came in the very generation Jesus warned (cf. Matt. 10:23). To force a still-future resurrection into this text is to miss Jesus’ entire rhetorical point.

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Acts 23:6 — 8 and Matthew 23:1–3 — Jesus, Paul, and the Pharisees on Resurrection

Wilson cites Paul’s trial before the Sanhedrin, where he declared he was on trial “concerning the hope and the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 23:6). The council was split: the Sadducees denied resurrection, angels, and spirits, while the Pharisees affirmed them. Wilson then appeals to Matthew 23:1 — 3, where Jesus told the crowds to heed the scribes and Pharisees because they “sit in Moses’ seat,” and argues this means we are to side with the Pharisees about resurrection.

When I first read this, I thought: what’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Matthew 23? Most would answer, “that’s the chapter where Jesus absolutely tore into the Pharisees and leaders of Jerusalem.” So are we really supposed to believe that Jesus was saying, “follow the Pharisees’ teaching wholesale,” only to spend the rest of the chapter cursing them with a series of woes and announcing their imminent judgment? Such an interpretation is not only deeply ironic — it is forced, out of context, and illogical. Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:1 — 3 were not a blanket endorsement of Pharisaic doctrine, but a recognition of their covenantal role as law-teachers within Israel. Far from validating their theology or eschatology, He immediately dismantled their authority by exposing their hypocrisy and announcing the impending judgment that would fall upon that very generation.

Likewise, it’s important to recognize that when Paul identified with the Pharisees on resurrection, he was not affirming their physical, biological concept of corpses rising from the grave. What, then, was he affirming? He tied his hope directly to Israel’s covenant promises — specifically the resurrection foretold in Daniel 12, a resurrection linked to Israel’s great tribulation and the shattering of the holy people at the destruction of the temple (Dan. 12:1 — 7). Paul himself declared:

• Acts 26:6 — 7 — “And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king!”

• Acts 28:20 — “It is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain.”

This Hope of Israel was not a distant dream; it was covenantal resurrection, the restoration promised in the prophets and fulfilled in Christ. And when Paul stood before Felix, he affirmed this very hope as “about to be” — which brings us directly to Acts 24:15.

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Acts 24:15 — The Resurrection “About to Be”

Lastly, Wilson ironically appeals to Acts 24:15. The reason I say it’s ironic is because this is where Paul affirms before Felix that there “is about to be [mellō] a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” Wilson knows this, yet dismisses any application to AD 70 because, according to Doug — “the unjust were not raised then.”

But this misses Paul’s actual language. The Greek mellō means “about to, on the point of, impending.” Paul did not say “someday, far off”; he said it was imminent. The mellō construction routinely signals imminence throughout the New Testament; Paul’s courtroom claim reads “about to be” unless context forces otherwise — here it doesn’t. That timing matches the framework of Daniel 12: resurrection at the time of tribulation, when the temple and city were destroyed (Dan. 12:1 — 7).

As for the unjust — resurrection does not mean every wicked individual must physically rise up from their graves. The unjust were “raised” into judgment, just as Jesus said would happen in that generation (Matt. 16:27 — 28; John 5:28 — 29). Remember also that Daniel himself had been promised participation in this resurrection at the end of Israel’s days (Dan. 12:13). The unjust in Israel were judged and “cut off” covenantally in AD 70, while the just were raised into the new covenant life in Christ.

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Summary

Wilson’s use of these passages relies on assumption rather than exegesis:

• Matthew 11 uses prophetic judgment idiom, not a future biological resurrection.

• Acts 23 ties Paul’s hope directly to Daniel 12, which partial preterists themselves place in AD 70.

• Matthew 23 does not promote Pharisaic eschatology; it exposes their hypocrisy and announces judgment on their generation.

• Acts 24:15 explicitly teaches imminence (mellō), pointing to the resurrection at the end of the Old Covenant system, not thousands of years later.

Ironically, the very texts Wilson cites actually reinforce the Full Preterist position when handled in context.

It comes with no surprise that yet again all we got were proof texts without exegesis. And that’s why Doug and others in this boat lean so hard on tradition. When the text itself won’t support you, you import authority from outside.

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Conclusion

Doug Wilson’s case against Full Preterism doesn’t accomplish what he thinks. By equating canon with creed, he commits a category error. By treating creeds as infallible, he imports baptismal regeneration and undermines sola fide. By leaving creed-authority open-ended, he has no principle for stopping the slide back into Rome.

Full Preterism isn’t the contradiction here — Wilson’s method and partial preterism is. He claims to defend presuppositionalism and Sola Scriptura, but in practice he hands final authority to tradition. That’s not Van Til; that’s Rome dressed up as Reformed.

The reality is simple: when the waters of Sola Scriptura get too deep, Wilson grabs for a Roman raft. But a raft borrowed from Rome won’t keep you afloat in Reformed waters.

Joshua Gipson can be reached at: Joshua.gipson14@gmail.com

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