The First Principle of the Last Days


I began to search the Bible for the elementary ideas that may have imprisoned my mind as a child, (even though I attended Christian schools).  I found that Peter predicted how mockers in the last days will think.  II Peter 3:3 - 4. “Know this first of all that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue just as it was from the beginning of creation.’” The phrase “know this first”  means that this knowledge is very important.  The context of II Peter 3 is earth-history, the age of the stars and the watery history of our planet.  The “last days” refers to the end of this present age. Our translators have rendered these words as though the speakers are theologians arguing about the creation. These mockers are certainly not believers since they follow their own lusts and mock the coming of Jesus.

The statements predicted for the last day mockers contains words used by the Greek philosophers. During the first century, school children were expected to study and debate the elementary ideas from the philosophers.  If Peter intended for us to understand these words with their school meaning, then the text could read like this:
Since the fathers slept (died), everything is and has continuously remained the same in being or relation, since substance was formed, the first law ( arches ktiseos).

One difficulty with the standard translation is cleared up in this rendition. The end time mockers do not believe in creation so they are unlikely to refer to how things have continued since that event. The word translated creation (arche) meant first principle in the world of the philosophers. The philosophers debated first principles: primary ideas used to understand the world of nature.  Perhaps the phrase archés ktiseôs refer to an elementary principle with the force of law.  Peter mentions two areas of earth-history that they interpret with this idea.

 The standard interpretation associates this text with uniformitarianism: the idea that present existing causes and rates can account for all geological changes. My translation goes beyond this by questioning the elementary assumption that matter does not change itself. The early Greeks considered things that changed in their being - their fundamental nature. Things that change in being, change as part of a relationship.

I noticed that I always interpreted ancient evidence with this very assumption. As I looked around, I noticed that everyone around me used this principle all the time. I noticed that this little assumption was so much of a part of my thinking that I always held it as self-evident.  Could this little assumption really be false? How could science be founded on a false principle? Don't scientists test all their ideas with mathematics, logic and careful measurements? Oh Lord, give me wisdom that I might understand your Word and interpret it according to true principles.


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This document is under a Creative Commons License by Victor McAllister.
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Last edited 10/23/2008