Open-Ended, Duration-Flawed, Event-Invalid
False Prophecy

[The following are Mr. Concern's definitions of an Open-Ended, Duration-Flawed, Event-Invalid False Prophecy from his previous article on the subject.

It is Open-Ended because:  If there is not enough specificity in the nature of the event, it means that the statement is nothing more than an Open-Ended statement.

In other words, because it doesn't say "This event will happen in the year 2026" or "These things will occur after the World Trade Center is destroyed" (a prophecy which one might also argue is Open-Ended since it doesn't say how soon after), the prophecy is invalidated according to Concern's criteria. There are some flaws in this reasoning. Several biblical prophecies can be seen to violate this procedure. One need not look further than Genesis 3:15 to find one prophecy of this nature:

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

We could say that Genesis 3:15 is "Open Ended" because while it says the woman's seed or offspring shall trample the Serpent's head, it doesn't state the time period. Thus it is open-ended. It is also Duration-Flawed according to Mr. Concern's criteria, which he defines as following:

Examples of Open-Ended statements are:

• (Duration-Flawed) America's cities will be destroyed. Yes, it is going to happen, if only because the sun will stop working one day and the earth will not be able to support life any more."

In other words, it is only duration flawed because the prophecy doesn't make clear when its going to happen. Again, given we were in the Garden when we first heard this prophecy, we could argue we don't know when the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 will occur. Maybe it'll occur when a man steps on the head of a serpent (which is self-fulfilling according to Concern's criteria) given its a literal serpent. No way of knowing (given the New Testament was never written).

His definition of "Event-Invalid" false prophecy is as follows:

All Event-Invalid statements contain essentially the same problem: a factual problem with the event itself prevents it from being able to successfully generate Biblically-allowed effects for an attentive audience. The Bible's statements about Faith being required in general does not eliminate the need for Event-Validity in prophecy - - prophecies are supposed to be powerful events which generate specific effects (1 Cor. 14:3). The idea of having Faith does not give the many False Prophets free tickets to say whatever they want and call it a prophecy; it applies to having Faith in God.

His criteria and interpretation of "biblically-allowed" effects is flawed. As I revealed in my previous rebuttal on his article preceding this one, Mr. Concern only allows prophecies that either strengthen, encourage or comfort according to his pre-defined criteria. Those interested in understanding the flaws in this criteria are thus referred to my rebuttal.

Of course, Mr. Concern exempts Revelation from this criteria (and presumably the rest of the Bible) because if he were to use it on the Bible itself, the book would automatically become Criteria-Flawed:

A quick note: the book of Revelations is not Event-Invalid due to being Duration-Flawed (undeterminable start time), and can never be referenced as an excuse by False Prophets for making open-ended prophecies of their own. The book of Revelations (and potentially ONLY it) has a special exemption. The reason for this is discussed at the end of this analysis.

The special exemption is only given because he knows it violates his criteria for prophets.

On the same note, Olive Branch pg. 522 shouldn't be held to his criteria if he's not willing to hold up the Bible to the same criteria. I criticize this criteria in my rebuttal on his first article in this series.] 

This statement does not have enough information regarding its time frame for it to be useful for any of the Biblically-allowed purposes of a Prophecy.

[Again, look at Genesis 3:15. WHEN was the woman's seed suppose to stop on the Serpent's head? If we are going to dismiss OB Page 522 because it isn't time-specific, we need to dismiss Genesis 3:15 and much of the Bible on the same grounds.]

Informationally-Determinable
False Prophecy (Prediction-Failed)

[I have an entire section devoted to debunking this criteria of false prophecy in my previous article which is a rebuttal of part one in this series. However, I do contest the contention that this prophecy failed in the discussion area to the right.] 

Unsubstantial, Missing-Criteria-Flawed
False Prophecy (Prediction-Failed)

[Concern's definition of this is given below:

"Missing-Criteria-Flawed False Prophecies can be further broken down into two categories. Such a False Prophetic Statement could either:

1. have no effect on the audience (Unsubstantial), or
   
2. cause something which is not among the Biblically-allowed effects as seen in 1 Cor. 14:3, but is not necessarily in contradiction with them (Substantial).
   

Examples of these kinds of False Prophecies would be:

• Unsubstantial, Missing-Criteria-Flawed False Prophecy: God says that if you go outside today, you will then see a bird eating a large purple insect. That's nice, but hearing about this does not do anything at all for me, and certainly doesn't strengthen, encourage, or comfort me.
  

Substantial, Missing-Criteria-Flawed False Prophecy: God says, that person you don't like is going to be your opponent in the chess tournament today, and he is going to cheat, and because of that, he will win the game with you, and then he will go on to win the entire tournament. Ugh! and if I believed that, I would feel angry, which has nothing to do with being strengthened, encouraged, or comforted! (Incidently, this would contradict the fruits of the Holy Spirit as shown in Gal 5:22-23)." 

In other words, it is only "Unsubstantial, Missing-Criteria-Flawed False Prophecy" because it personally does nothing for Mr. Concern. I could argue Genesis 3:15 does nothing for me personally, because God is talking about stomping Serpent-heads and maybe He likes to stomp on Serpent-heads (in other words, a big "whoopee-doo".

Problem is, this places the truth of a prophecy on the recepient's reaction to it. Maybe Mr. Concern isn't concerned about the reunification and prosperity of Czecho-Slovakia, but someone else might be, thus making the prophecy "valid" to them.]

Open-Ended, Duration-Flawed, Event-Invalid
False Prophecy

[I debunk this criteria in the box above.]

[Yes, it originally did say this, as indicated by the added words in brackets in the reprint. However, something should be noted. I will do so in my comments below.]

This Prophetic Statement became Prediction-Failed in 1993. In the published Olive Branch book, the author attempts to explain this away by invoking an alternate and unexpected meaning for the word "eventually"in an extensive footnote. There are two issues that invalidate such an explanation.

[Inspite of the footnote, there is a second explanation which I think clears it up even further.

Taken the wording at it is originally stated, the prophecy could be saying one of two things. First, as Mr. Concern asserts, "the nation of Czecho-Slovakia shall [both] eventually prosper and remain [forever] as one state" or (as the corrected OB asserts) "the nation of Czecho-Slovakia shall eventually prosper and [shall eventually] remain as one state." The second statement doesn't mean it can never be divided, just that, in the end, it will remain as it did before, a single nation.

Another way to state this could be the following: "I dropped out of school due to academic probation but I will eventually remain there and get good grades." This means there will come a point where eventually, I will both go to school and get good grades. What if I return to school but get bad grades? This statement would only be invalid unless I never met the second terms of the statement: "good grades". Let's say I got good grades on my last semester of school. Then the statement would be completely valid because not only did I "eventually" go back to school, but "eventually" got good grades. So I can word it as I did originally or also clarify it to read "I dropped out of school but I will eventually remain there and eventually I will get good grades."

The OB likewise could be arguing that there will come a time when both Czecho-Slovakia will not only prosper, but regain its reunification. It may have eventually "prospered", but it hasn't eventually "remained as one state". The prophecy will only be invalid so long as the second part hasn't been met. Just because it isn't unified now doesn't mean "eventually" it won't be.]

First of all, his explanation in the extensive footnote is incorrect based upon the logical construction of the statement, regardless of which definition for 'eventually' he uses. The way he describes it in his footnote invalidates it as a prophecy since it would be logically ambiguous. The phrase, from a pure, propositional logic viewpoint, would be that the after the "shall" comes the compound which applies as a single combination. For this statement to hold true and not be ambiguous, you must have "eventually prosper" hold and "remain as one state" to hold.

If he claims that he meant "eventually prosper" and "eventually remain as one state", then it must be stated that way in the first place, since they would have different truth values and the claim produces two statements that are not logically equivalent.

[The original wording is fine as it is. It could be either/or and can only be invalidated if the second value is never met. Again, you could discredit several biblical prophecies following this logic since many of them have not yet been met either, especially things in relation to the Second Coming.]

In logic, you do have a name for an argument where all hypotheses are not states; this is called the "enthymeme." However, the vast majority of readers of the statement would have the same additional phrase in mind so that there would be no confusion and they would insert the phrase. This is not the case here.

The enthymeme second "phrase missing but understood" is not one that the vast majority of readers would insert. Indeed, the vast majority would insert no additional phrase. Logically, the first form without the additional "eventually" would be that understood by human beings, in general, and one that does not lead to confusion.

[However, if one is careful to read the underlying text of the Bible, one will find that usually prophecy comes based upon the thought-forms of the receiver. Thus, each prophecy is unique in vocabulary. What is important is what was MEANT and not so much how it was PRESENTED. While it is true there could be some leeway for deception, because the prophet could argue he didn't mean that when he did, I think even when we take the prophecy at face value, it isn't invalid just because both arguments can be maintained from this ambiguous phrase.]

[Note by Axroot on the use of the word "enthymeme":

I suggest nccg_concern looks up the terms he uses before he puts them into his writings. Adding a half-implied "eventually" does not make that word an enthymeme because an enthymeme is a statement/condition which is LOGICALLY DEDUCTED from the aforementioned. If I say, for example, "I will fix the garden when the weather is good, and I will go for a walk", turning the phrase into "I will fix the garden when the weather is good, and I will go for a walk [when the weather is good]" does not make that an enthymeme. As any logical person can see, in the statement "The nation of Czecho-Slovakia shall eventually prosper and remain as one state, though she will have to make sacrifices, that all things may be made equal.", the "shall eventually" condition can easily apply to both the verb "prosper" and the clause "remain as one state". Definitely NOT an enthymeme. A much more sound example is an excellent one I found in Wikipedia, which I happen to agree with: "There is no law against composing music when one has no ideas whatsoever. The music of Wagner, therefore, is perfectly legal"]

(Of course, the term "eventually" means absolutely nothing since no other describable events are given that would allow one to determine this "eventually", so it's nothing more than an Open-Ended, Duration-Flawed statement, but if you read the prerequisite article, you already know this).

[And I debunked this critieria under "What it represents" under "Prophetic Statement: Olive Branch pg. 522"].

Second of all, it is difficult for me to accept that a genuine prophecy would be so confusing in regard to a prophesied event as to allow the event to progress in the exact opposite direction of what the prophetic statement most clearly indicates (which is the continued status as one unified country). There are much clearer ways that the original statement could have been said. For example:

is a statement which would not have prediction-failed but, it's still Unsubstantial, Missing-Criteria-Flawed and Informationally-Determinable. There is no way to fix this 'prophecy'.

[This presupposes prophecy is in a vacuum. Informationally determinable? What if said prophecy was given write when Czecho-Slovakia is about to have a missle dropped on it in five minutes. Is it informationally-determinable then?]

The final statement in the author's explanation is "Though the country divided, this was not the majority of the people in the Czech and Slovak Republics overall." This would have very little bearing (if any) on the concept of "remain as one state" in the context of one country splitting into two separate ones. As mentioned earlier, it is difficult for me to accept that a genuine prophecy would be so confusing in regard to a prophecied event as to allow the event to progress in the exact opposite direction of what the prophetic statement most clearly indicates (which is the continued status as one unified country).

[And yet, it depends upon how you read said prophecy. I asked Christopher Warren, who received the said prophecy, the INTENT of the prophecy when he received it and he said it was as it is currently worded in the OB.

What Mr. Concern does not understand (and as we detailed elsewhere on the old NCCG site) is that prophecy is not so much spoken in words as it is concepts and the prophet must take those concepts and put them into words.

You know, given the numerous typoes in the OB, I wonder if we could discredit the Bible for any scribal errors? If we are going to do that, why are we criticizing Warren for a mistake in grammar?]

This statement would have the effect of making the audience be afraid if it had been believed. [And we all know that God is all about not hurting our feelings.] The short statement at the end does not alleviate this and is actually a continuation of threats contained one paragraph earlier, essentially saying that bad things are coming because God loves you and wants you to repent now. [A constant theme in apocalyptic literature -- a reminder of Yahweh's love. Read the last three chapters of Revelation for some understanding regarding this.] 

Fear is one of the many different things which are counter to one of the three allowed effects (comfort). This renders this statement Oppositive-Criteria-Flawed.

[I debunk this in my previous rebuttal.]

It is also completely Prediction-Failed. These statements have a specific month and year associated with them that is over 7 years old, and nothing resembling the predicted event has occurred.

[According to Warren, they are still going to occur. He admits he just got the date wrong. This doesn't invalidate the number of true prophecies Warren had before then and since then. Likewise, as I detail in my article "False Prophets and the New Covenant", if we are going to throw out Warren as a false prophecy using this criteria, we must throw out Peter and others.]

Christopher Warren obviously knows that it has  Prediction-Failed, and my understanding is that he has indicated several different reasons why it should not be considered a Prediction-Failed False Prophecy. 

One stated reason may have been that it was not effective as a prophetic statement to it's audience due to linguistic technicalities regarding which statements may have come from God (as opposed with which were the author's own interjected opinions). Quite to the contrary, this piece of writing happens to be very effective at setting up the belief and expectation, through the first two paragraphs, that all of the predictive type statements were the result of having received visions and revelations from God. The first sentence of the third paragraph (which contains the D-day statements and threats) follows these paragraphs directly. Additionally, the directness and consistency of these characteristics throughout this long statement lead me to believe that this implication was deliberate on the part of the author.

[Maybe. But thing is, he repented.]

Another stated reason may have been that he made a mistake in his understanding of the message that was sent to him by God, and something else actually happened other than a the described catastrophe (financial or otherwise). There is no allowance in the Bible for mistakes of this type regarding Prophecy.

[Which is why its better to deliver the prophecy at its bare minimum than to try to interpret it {or if you do interpret it, seperate the interpretation from the actual prophecy). This wouldn't make one a false prophet, even if the interpretation were off.]