According to Mal Couch, a person needs to be smarter than he is. In an article entitled, “A Review of the Book ‘The Rapture Question Answered Plain & Simple’,” Mal Couch,[1] in what may be one of the nastiest reviews written to date, made the following statement:
What is so interesting about the pre-wrath rapture argument presented by both Rosenthal and Van Kampen is how complicated their teaching is in order to arrive at their position. Some who are critical of this school of thinking have even jested that it is so complicated, even the apostles Paul and John would have difficulty explaining how this teaching works!
Couch’s statement is a classic example of arguing ad hominem. An ad hominem argument is an argument based on the failings of an adversary rather than on the merits of the case. It’s a logical fallacy that involves a personal attack. Basically, Couch is saying that the prewrath position is so difficult to understand that inspired writers like Paul and John would not be able to get it. Yet the history of the position suggests just the opposite.
I offer as exhibit A the following:
I actually came to [adopt] a pre-wrath perspective a year or so ago [even] before I had read any books or articles about it. After 30 years as a Christian reading through the complete Bible many times, I became increasingly uncomfortable trying to understand the whole counsel of the Scriptures in terms of the pre-trib paradigm that I had accepted. (Actually my Campus Crusade staff leader in college was Tommy Ice, [who later went] to Dallas seminary [before he became the eschatologist for Tim LaHaye in the “Left Behind” series, and is now the director of the Pre-Trib Research Center at Liberty University]. I thought…if I really sat down and did a personal study focused on all the major prophetic Scriptures [then] perhaps I could better see how the pre-trib model would fit, but to my surprise when I did that study, it seemed to me that harmonizing the gospels, [1 & 2] Thessalonians, and Revelation seemed to point towards a time of tribulation…that Christians would [first] go through, followed by the rapture at the Day of the Lord which seemed to line up with the sixth seal in Revelation. I didn’t even know what to call this viewpoint since it didn’t seem quite consistent with the mid-trib or post-trib positions that I had heard of. Since then I’ve found your website and a few others, [and also have read] “Before God’s Wrath”. Our pastor at a large Southern Baptist church is personally pre-trib, but is careful to be open to other perspectives on rapture timing, and even some of the seminary professors…that attend our church do not accept the pre-trib position….
Regards,
D.T.
This is a note I recently received from a man who confined his prophetic study to Scripture alone and came to the same conclusion that Van Kampen and Rosenthal did. We can offer one letter after another telling this same story. Perhaps someone should tell Mal Couch that ordinary people are understanding it rather easily with little effort expended. Maybe the problem is not the position but Mr. Couch’s attitude. If one doesn’t understand something, the problem may be in the mind of that person. It is often difficult for people with a “Dr.” in front of their names to understand simple things. This is a matter without the need of illustration. Most of us know this to be the case!
[1] Mal Couch, “A Review of the Book ‘The Rapture Question Answered Plain & Simple’,” CTJ 1(December 1997) p. 236ff.
