“This will be their line of argument: ‘So Jesus promised to come back, did he? Then where is he? He’ll never come! Why, as far back as anyone can remember, everything has remained exactly as it was since the first day of creation'” (2 Peter 3:4 NLT).
The assertion that “the world remains unchanged” here in 2 Peter 3:4 predates a contemporary theory regarding the processes that have helped shape our present world. That theory asserts that “the present is the key to the past.” The following commentators discuss its relevance to our text from this passage…
“This argument against the second coming of Christ is based on the theory of uniformitarianism, which says that all natural phenomena have operated uniformly since the beginning of the earth. The false teachers were also implying that God is absent from earth affairs.
In effect, they were teaching that, ‘There will not be a great cataclysmic judgmental event at the end of history, because that is not how the universe works. There never has been such a judgment, so why should we expect one in the future? Instead, everything in the universe is stable, closed, fixed, and governed by never varying patterns and principles of evolution. Nothing catastrophic has ever happened in the past, so nothing catastrophic ever will happen in the future. There will be no divine invasion, no supernatural judgment on mankind.'” (1)
“Their conclusion is based on the careless hypothesis that ‘since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ They say that nature invariably follows uniform laws, that there are no supernatural interventions, that there is a natural explanation for everything. They believe in the law of uniformitarianism. This law states that existing processes in nature have always acted in the same manner and with essentially the same intensity as at present, and that these processes are sufficient to account for all the changes that have taken place.” (2)
By studying the processes of the present, we can often gain valuable insight into the past. However, it is hazardous to presume that all such processes are solely the result of natural causes. The Scriptures tell us that God has previously intervened in world history in a significant manner and will do so again in the future. Our final source guides us toward a better understanding of this concept…
“A valid application of the principle that ‘the present is the key to the past’ is that ‘the kinds of causes known to produce certain kinds of effects in the present can be assumed to produce similar kinds of effects in the past.’ But… this principle does not rule out a credible belief in past miracles, even if no such miracles exist in the present. This use misapplies the principle.” (3)
Image Credit: Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
(1) John F. MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006), 2 Pe 3:4.
(2) William Macdonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary Edited by Arthur Farstad, Thomas Nelson Publishers [note on 2 Peter 3:4]
(3) Geisler, N. L. 1999. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Baker reference library. Baker Books: Grand Rapids, Mich. See Troeltsch, Ernst