Doctrine of the Interpretations of History

Doctrine of the Interpretations of History

1. Geographical Interpretation
   1. The theory that topography determines or explains the course of a nation or humanity.
   2. Rivers, valleys, mountains, weather, etc., have influence on a people; e.g., the development of the Greek city-states influenced by the surrounding mountains.
2. Biological Interpretation
   1. The attempt to explain the direction of mankind in terms of competition for food, mates, or power. Man is subject to his heredity and culture.
   2. This theory was expounded by Thomas Malthus in his “Essay on Population” (1798): If human life is too numerous for food supply, nature has three agents to restore the balance—famine, pestilence, and war.
3. Racial Interpretation
   1. The Aryan-Nordic theory: superiority of race (first advanced as a serious concept in writing by the Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and taken to its conclusion by Adolph Hitler).
   2. The twofold fallacy of this theory: purity of race no longer exists; the theory becomes a satanic device to set up one person or people over another.
4. Genius Interpretation
   1. The rise of a super-genius to stabilize a desperate situation in an epoch of history.
   2. For example: great men such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or the Apostle Paul influencing the course of world history.
   3. God raises up men of genius to stabilize a nation—Moses, Jeremiah, Daniel, even Gentile kings such as Cyrus the Great.
5. Morality Interpretation
   1. The rise or fall of nations based on their degree of virtue and morality.
   2. For example: the rise of the Jewish nation due to its laws of morality (Ten Commandments); the fall of the Canaanites resulting from degeneracy; the decline of Greece on the basis of immorality; the rise of Rome through establishment principles. (Although based on observation, this theory must be related to principles of doctrine in order to be valid.)
6. Economic Interpretation
   1. The definition of history in terms of economics in action (propounded by Karl Marx).
   2. For example: the Trojan War explained by the Greek’s commercial control of the Dardanelles; the Crusades explained by Western attempts to capture trade routes to the East; the French Revolution explained by the rise of a middle class, which needed economic and legislative freedom for trade and enterprise. (Fallacy arises when a correct observation excludes Jesus Christ.)
7. Divine Interpretation
   1. Divine sovereignty and omnipotence in the affairs of mankind must be recognized.
   2. While the foregoing human interpretations of history contain elements of truth based on observation, they all fall short because they are improperly applied. They ignore or reject Jesus Christ who controls history and who is the center of history; in fact, who is history.
   3. Only dispensations, or the divine interpretation of history, present the complete picture.
   4. Divine sovereignty and the free will of man coexist in God's plan for history. God's sovereign divine plan in conjunction with the free will of man determine the course of history. Neither human failure nor the satanic confusion of cosmos diabolicus will deter the completion of history in the manner that God has decreed.