Latest / The HighDive / Ep. 20 | In The Beginning | How Old Is the Earth?

Transcript

Ep. 20 | In The Beginning | How Old Is the Earth? · The HighDive

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so I have a story.
• 0:10
  unknown: Okay.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Story?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Story time.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Hillary and I went, I think it was one of our anniversary trips.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I we were on vacation in San Francisco.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was amazing.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, I remember we were going, I was having to go for a conference planning.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we kind of tagged some vacation days on top.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we're in San Francisco.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's where our meetings were.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she and I drove us a little bit north into the Redwood, the Mir Woods Forest.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I big old trees.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've always wanted to see, you know, from the wet forest to the Gulf Stream waters.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: This land was all right.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I I was I told her, I was like, I gotta see the Redwoods.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Which I did.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we get there really early in the morning, and there were two observations from that trip that just blew me away.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we got up early, we drove up, and I learned later, technically, the park wasn't even open.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a gate or anything.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: We just drove in and parked.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: But you were trying to I guess maybe so, but I didn't know that.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But no one was on duty.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was just a it's a national park.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: You just go in.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we park and we're we're walking down this trail.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's nobody else there.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the first observation that's unrelated to our conversation.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're walking, Hillary grabs me by the arm and she said, Stop.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a snake?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we sat there for just a little bit, and she said, It's absolutely silent.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so we just sat there for, I don't know.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like longer.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was 30 seconds.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: But there was nothing.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was no bird, there was no squirrel.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of the most beautiful, but kind of eerie.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: When you think about it, being in a space, uh a natural space that's completely silent is a rare anomaly.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's just so much noise.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: That has nothing to do with the topic of today, but that was the first observation.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're walking on, we're slowly observing the trees, and a park ranger walks in from the other direction.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently Park's open now.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she was there doing her morning rounds, or maybe she was checking the trail.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so we I don't meet a stranger.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I stopped and had a conversation with her.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're standing in front of this like massive, massive tree.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, while you're here, like tell us, tell us what we're looking at.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is this place?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And she like, yeah, she pointed out this tree here is we've dated it.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's about 800 years old.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wow, I've never to see a tree 800 years old, and this is beautiful.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, this is amazing.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So as she explains the forest, she she said this.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Yeah, this is a virgin uncut forest that's dated to about 8,000 years.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, now, of course, the earth is much older than that, but this forest is a virgin uncut forest that's dated 8,000 years.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, all right, thank you very much.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Have a nice day.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And she walked away, and I was like, well, isn't that just coincidental?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is a virgin forest.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's never been cut.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's never been forested.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it just so happens to date in a line with my uh convictional interpretation of scripture and observation of science to a young earth creation idea.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of a post-flood expression of reality.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it was beautiful.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that being said, here we go.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about how old the earth is.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be fun.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful thing.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Man, we're we're what uh I think five or so weeks into Genesis, still in Genesis one.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the High Dive Podcast.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ricky.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is Alan.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're a podcast minister of Calvary Baptist Church.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we try to take this podcast and reflect back on our Sunday sermons and kind of up to this point, we've had four weeks in Genesis one, and we've not really talked about science at all.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um why do you think that matters?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it uh the Genesis one is not a science book, so I think it's important to teach the scriptures in the context in which they were written, in the context of which the the both the writer and the recipient would understand it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the intent of the context is important.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a science textbook, uh, it's not a science document.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in our modern world, it provides us with some very interesting perspectives that seem to conf conflict with what we understand from science.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it sort of finds its way into that discussion.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's an important observation to make, or for those of you that have been with us on this journey to be reminded of.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like initially, Genesis 1 is not a science lecture, it is more about introducing us to God, introducing us into the relationship between God and humanity, the importance of this partnership.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if secondarily we can learn more about the foundations of the world and about science, it's beautiful that we can learn that, and we should, which is why we're talking about it, but at week five rather than week one.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I I would also add the caveat that although it's not a quote modern science treatise text, you know, whatever, it is a bit of an ancient, like it is combating Egyptian science, if you want to call it, you know, origins, how things came to be.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it is addressing an ancient science perspective, although it's not a modern science textbook with things.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it good, which is why I think it kind of falls into this space.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because it certainly appropriately then and now um I I want to say arms us, because, but I don't like that word because it sounds like we're weaponizing God's word.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it equips us to engage whatever questions culture is asking that competes with God and his authority and his dominion and his purposes.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that being said, here we go into science because this truthfully, this idea of how old is the earth is a relatively new, I think as as geological, yeah, as geological science has as we've learned more as a society, it has introduced more questions, as it should.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: The more we learn, I should ask different questions.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So all that's great.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I guess you I really want to lean in and leverage your wisdom and experience from being a science teacher for a long time.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe let's start in two different categorical conversations.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: One from the Christian non-Christian view, like uh evolution and big bang theory where God is completely uninvolved on one side, and those different theories to know God is actively involved in creation.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that Christian, non-Christian view, maybe we can talk about that briefly, and then perhaps spend the bulk of our time within the Christian view.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what are some of the different perspectives and why we land where we do?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe start with that uh non-Christian, Christian competing stuff.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of weeks ago in our conversation, you mentioned worldview, and you kind of gave a very quick sort of overview of what worldview is and and how it answers questions.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that to address this, what we're really looking at are two worldviews: a theistic worldview, a view that says there is a God, he's actively involved in both the creation and separate from it.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then the naturalistic worldview that says the only thing that exists is the physical world, and you got to be able to see it, touch it, taste it, perceive it in order for you to follow and find this.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're really dealing with is opposing worldviews.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And because you're dealing with opposing worldviews, you're never really starting in the same starting point because you come to the discussion with presuppositions.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So this conversation is really a worldview conversation.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you're coming at, if you're looking at this from a theistic perspective, a Christian perspective, then what you're looking at is there is a God that exists.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: He created the cosmos and everything that is in it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then we ask ourselves, how?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're a Jew, you may have a perspective.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a Islam, you may have a perspective.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, you have a perspective, right?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you're looking at those are the three theistic religions primarily.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so how did that come into existence?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: God spoke it into existence, God orchestrated to come into existence.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the paradigm of origins in Genesis 1 specifically, uh, is a question of how God brought that which did not exist into existence.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so you let scripture kind of guide and direct that observation while also using the observable world to help provide insight and information.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which is where the science part comes in.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Which where the science comes in, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're a naturalist, if you come from a perspective of naturalists that says there is no God, all that exists is nature uh in the physical world, everything that you can see, takes, touch, and feel.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you you then have to explain how the world came into existence through natural, scientific, observable processes.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Which means if you land on a place, say the Big Bang, uh, and then you ask the logical question, well, how did the Big Bang come into existence?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: You have to, from a naturalistic perspective, you have to make the argument from some sort of laws of science and nature, natural processes that would cause this thing to happen.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you assume there is no God and that all that exists is the physical matter, then you have to explain the world through that lens.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a theist and you believe there is a God who created everything, you have to explain everything through that lens.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so ultimately the conversation is a worldview discussion.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a naturalist or a theist, it's rare that you will come to a line because you have underlying worldview differences.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: So before before we even get into the varying Christian things, I got I got an evolution question for you.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um there is a difference between macro evolution and microevolution.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning, uh I think it would be you can correct me if my words are wrong, because I I am not the expert in this.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it would be an inaccurate statement for a believer who believes that God created the world and he spoke it into existence from a young earth creation view.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: It would be I don't want to use so far as to say ignorant, but it would be inaccurate to say uh I'm using this word loosely, at a micro level, there is some level of genetic evolution that happens.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can observe evolution happen.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Go look at your dogs.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like you go from St.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bernard to Chihuahua, that is evolution.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's it's technically it is by definition, by the definition of the word, it is.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it is it is human selected as opposed to natural selection, um, but it is evolution by definition.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have selected particular traits over others, and the outpropping of that is is you have labradoodles.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right, which I which is I have a doodle and it's an amazing dog.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that that is an example of microevolution.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I started with a dog and I still have dogs, right?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm operating within a kind of creature.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Where you get into macroevolution is when you go from light to matter, or when you go from uh, well, not light to matter, that's thermodynamic, but when you go from um non-living creatures m you know, to creatures, right?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or when you go from a chimpanzee type of animal to some human being, right.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you when you cross sort of the kind of creatures, right, then you begin to enter into you're entering into this world referred to as macroevolution.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and where the where the logical piece comes into play is that if you observe microevolution happening in nature, and then you assume, well, if it happens and I can observe it, which you can, then if I give it enough time, why couldn't it evolve into other things?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: When I apply those rules.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Here, this will be another example I think that is more environmental.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like um, I have always lived in Georgia, with the exception of going to college in Tennessee, but I am very much adapted.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want to I want to transfer that word oftentimes used in the evolution conversation to just adaptive to the climate.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what feels hot to me or what feel cold to me, right?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: If I visit the north, or someone from the north visits the south, our our reaction to we're, you know, it's kind of like one's warm-blooded and one's hot blooded, but it's just we have, I'm using this word loosely, yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have adapted or we have evolved, if we want to use that, to climatize to where we live.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: It it becomes an evolutionary principle when there's genetic markers that indicate this thing has happened.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when the genetics have changed, then we would definitely identify that as an evolutionary process, right?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: But adaptation is a underlying principle that the things that have adapted survive, the things that can't adapt die, which means the things that have adapted get the opportunity to pass off their genetics.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: The things that die don't get to pass off their genetics.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's sort of the basically, that's kind of the driving mechanism for evolution.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you are an organism or an animal that goes into a new territory and you are incapable of hiding because your camouflage doesn't mask you very well, then you're likely to die off before you have the ability to have offspring.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you migrate into an area and your patterning on your, you know, your fur, your whatever helps you blend in really well, then it is more likely that you being adapted to that environment will be more likely to pass off your genetic material.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that principle of adaptation, survival of the fittest, those are the mechanisms by which that drive, quote, evolution.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I think is it, is it say, and I'm engaging, okay?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is an unscripted conversation, if you can't tell.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because there are some observable adaptations in the world, um, there are some things that have survived, so therefore can pass off.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, those phrases start to feed the observable science that starts to prop up this evolutionary, macroevolutionary level for the origin of the world.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, if I if I have a preconceived natural bias, naturalistic bias in my worldview, I I can't give credit to God for this.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have to explain it because there are some observable things, therefore, I can use that as fuel to build that out further.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is that accurate?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's accurate.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I think that it's important to also state that that is true for Christians as well.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I look at the world from a theistic perspective, I can't help but see God involved.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I look at things, the way I explain how things came to be is going to be filtered through that worldview perspective.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to attribute things, so as I explain them, I will attribute those things to a theistic approach, whereas a naturalist is going to attribute those to a purely natural process without the intervention of or interaction with some kind of God.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that that quote bias is baked into our worldview.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can't get around it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think when we begin to look at the observable information, the question is how do we best explain the observable information?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, that's what we try to look for when we talk, which we talk about this conversation from a Genesis 1 perspective.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do we describe what we see in a way that aligns with our understanding of scripture?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think the reason this matters first and foremost, to start with this, we're gonna call it non-Christian versus Christian comparison from an apologist standpoint, is if 1 Peter 3 is encouraging me to always be prepared or to be ready to give a reason for the hope that lies within you, but do it with gentleness and respect.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm engaging someone in conversation and I'm listening to them, and they are coming from a naturalistic type worldview, or they're coming from an evolutionary macro level model framework, it would be if I just say, Well, I think evolution is crazy, right?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, just listen, be respectful, maybe even acknowledging at a micro level, I can I can I can see where there has been adaptations, or I'm using, you know, uh genetic manipulation of a dog.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um, or but also respectfully observing the differences though when we move from one kind to another kind, one thing that scripture has repeated is eat according to his kind, eat according to his kind by God's design and in his image.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So in our perspective, in my perspective, our perspective, a young age creationist perspective, the boundary line for evolution is at the kind level.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Evolution can happen within a kind, it cannot go beyond that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so as long as you're dealing with the same kind of creature, then evolutionary processes can happen, which allows things to survive changes in environment, changes in or location.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like it allows organisms to survive um without going extinct, unless they're you know interrupted by some natural process of some type.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: But like a hunter.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: A hunter, yeah.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people killing them will cause them to go extinct.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big deal.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't if you kill them faster than they can reproduce, that's what leads to extinction.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got those ideas, and as with every cultural philosophical influence, this is I'm even uh I'm reminded of Paul's encouragement to Timothy.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophies that are based upon the tradition of men.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like in every category of thought, we've got to wrestle with the tension of how culture and different modern philosophies starts to weave in.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So now as we shift into the varying, we would call them Christian views of the origin, inevitably Ben, there have been attempts to fuse these ideas together.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh, okay, well, then you know, uh when theistic evolution, yeah, God created it, but He used He used the evolutionary process through billions of years to get us to where we are.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um what it's an attempt to resolve two things that seem contradictory to one another.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's an attempt, all of the answers, all of these ideas are attempts to resolve.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible seems to suggest it's young.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Science and observation seems to suggest it's old.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: How do we, with good intentions and good integrity, how do we reconcile those two things that seem to be described?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Depend divergent of one another.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do we reconcile them?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of the Christian approaches that are that are out there are attempts to reconcile those two seemingly contradictory approaches.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let's kind of we won't hit through all of them.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe we can hit some of the big ones for what are the differing viewpoints from the Christian perspective on the age of the earth?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I've already mentioned generally about theistic evolution.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else you want to add to that one?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, the the general idea is that the evolutionary process that we understand through natural selection is the mechanism that God created in the cosmos that allowed these things to occur.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: What about gap theory?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, gap theory is an idea that says, okay, we're going to take Genesis one literally, to where it literally happened in these six consecutive days, 24-hour periods.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the thing.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: But to account for the perceived millions of years, we're going to insert between Genesis 1, 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and Genesis 2, and the earth was formless and void, we're going to put, we're going to put an undefined period of time in that between those verses called the gap theory.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that in that gap is where the millions of years took place.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what is happening after.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you got the general idea is that Genesis 1 is a sense a statement where God created everything.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then obviously, if God creates anything, it's going to be good.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're told that it's formless and void.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So somewhere along the lines, it got corrupted and destroyed and damaged.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this the rest of chapter one, God is refixing it to be good again.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the thing is you then kind of go to revelation, you say, see, God has already done this.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in Revelation, He does it again.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: He builds a new heaven and a new earth.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: See, it's consistent.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of an incredibly abbreviated version of this gap theory.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And some more information about it too.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is this attempt where, okay, we want to look at Genesis 1 and we want to keep the literal days.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: But um kind of the history of this gap theory, it really became popular in the 1800s when geological research, carbon dating, which is proven to be inaccurate.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh, and now we got to create this tension.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I I want to keep the literal time and days, but I want to put geological time before them.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I, you know, it was uh Thomas Chalmers popularized this view in the early 1800s.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: It you even mentioned this, I think, episode one or two.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Schofield, baby.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the early 1900s, that Schofield reference Bible was enormously popular.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I still have mine in my home office.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: In the in all of the footnotes, this was this was the percentage.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: This was the answer, right?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um all right.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: So what about um any other kind of age theory?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want to talk about?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Day age.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Day age theory is the idea of the meaning of the Hebrew word for day, yom.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it it can literally a variety of things depending on the context.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Consistently in Hebrew, yes.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like the day of the Lord, right?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a defined period of time.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is a period of time.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then if you go to the New Old New Testament, a day is a thousand years, a thousand years is a day, Paul.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Paul makes this statement.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the implication from it is to use the word day, and this was the first day and the second day and the third day, that it is inappropriate, the argument we make, to assume that that means 24-hour periods of time, when all throughout the rest of the scriptures, that word could mean an undefined period of time.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: The day of days.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when you read Genesis 1 and it says on the first day and the second day and the third day, a more reasonable way to read that would be in the first period of history, in the second period of history, in the third period or the third fourth, and so by by interpreting it that way, you add an undefined amount of time in that six-day period so that it becomes as much time as you need to achieve, which then it gives you the ability to correlate the science perspective, the observer observed world with a biblical treatise.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I did a little, I did a little digging.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: You we we should be listening to some consistent patterns here.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a guy named Hugh Miller, who just so happened to be a Scottish geologist in the mid-1800s, yes, became the influential advocate for day age, which uh I think history has recorded it it became as Darwinism was on the rise, this became the popular alternative, maybe because there was fear or ignorance on how to disprove Darwinism, right?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to figure out how to fit them together.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So interestingly, both the day age theory and the gap theory and the theistic evolutionary model, uh kind of all tempt attempt to do the same thing, and all came about at about the same time.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it is a it is all of these ideas come about as a result to harmonize what do we understand about scripture, what are we learning about the world we live in, and how do we how do we put those together in a s in a in a harmonious way when these two things all of a sudden sound contradictory, how do we merge those?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that's what's happening.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: When since we don't have to merge them, I don't think we do, if we want to go back to uh what we believe the original author's intent, where Moses through God's revelation was telling this this story intentionally competing against no, this is not the way Egypt has said, this is not the way Babylon has said, this is a completely different way that God has done this.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't have to try to kick amalgamate.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Was that our good word?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you used a really good word last week.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to use a big word this week.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't have to kind of force this fusion.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, I can just call that wrong and look at this as truth rooted in God's word, which is arguably where um, and I'm gonna suggest consistently through scripture, this young earth idea has come about.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: So um I kind of started with this story anecdotally about you know the age of this forest, yeah.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So at least post-flood.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah uh generally talk to us about young earth creationism.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: So young earth creation is gonna hold to the idea that the cosmos is less than 10,000 years old.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: A super conservative young age person would put it in the six thousand-ish year.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Could I even go up to 15-ish and still be a you could, you could, I guess, if you wanted to.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: You could push it, but it's that usually it's that six to ten thousand year range um in terms of when things came into existence.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I think that scripture supports that idea, um, both exegetically and explicitly in the text.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so what the young age model says is that God literally spoke the world into existence in over a seven, six-day period, um, and then rested.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um from the time that God created the cosmos until today was about six to eight, ten thousand years ago.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the abbreviated version.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think scripture supports that that perspective explicitly and implicitly.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so let's talk about some of those explanations.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one, you mentioned a moment ago the Hebrew word yawn that can certainly mean different periods of time.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: It can represent an age, it can represent a day.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think uh one thing when we look at its consistent use of scripture, whenever it is attached to a number, correct.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It is consistently throughout scripture and consistent with the language, talking about a 24-hour period of time.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it I'm so grateful that scripture doesn't just stop it there.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's pretty specific, explicit statements, evening and morning a day.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Evening and morning a day.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the our day even still is marked by the sunrise and sunset.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: That defines a 24-hour day.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: If if if if the text simply said and he did this on a day, or even if he said he did this on the third day, I think you can make a linguistically powerful argument that that doesn't necessarily mean a 24-hour period with the word yam.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: But he gives multiple qualifiers.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: He it's not just the third day.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if he if he would have said, but by using evening and morning and then a number and then the word yom, there is an over-emphasis on the fact that from the biblical author's perspective, this is to be understood that this happened within a daytime period, a period that we would attribute to a 24-hour cycle of time.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: An evening and the morning, and then an evening, like those two 12-hour windows.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the text in Genesis 1 is pretty intentionally explicit.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: The objective is for us to understand that what God is doing on these days happened in a day period.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think Exodus 20 revalidates that when God, when God commissions the Sabbath and he explicitly states in six days he works, and on the seventh he rested, as the justifying means for the Sabbath.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: If those days weren't really to be understood, or if the original intent of them was not to be understood as six literal 24-hour windows of time, the rationale from Exodus 20 then no longer makes sense.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: He reinforces that again in Exodus 31.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: The rest of the Pentateuch reinforces that perspective from Genesis 2.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the text is written in such a way that it explicitly communicates these were literal 24-hour windows of time, seven days total from the beginning.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, six days and then a day of rest.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because of the seven days, the seventh day is the only one that it has that doesn't have that evening-morning cycle to define the quantity, which we've talked about in a previous podcast.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Rest.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then rest, amen.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then the rest of the Torah reinforces and it builds arguments on that it were that it was 24 periods of time.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if the if it wasn't 24 periods of time, those arguments fall apart and therefore makes the rationale for the Sabbath or some of these other things as as mere principled as opposed to grounded in reality.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the other thought, too.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: If if there is a an expected consistency in the measurement of a day from Genesis 1, reinforced exactly who you know you just described in Exodus 20, Exodus 31.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's further consistency then of how they would have measured time, even the genealogies come into play.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Of you know, Adam lived for 130 years and he's fathered so-and-so, and Seth lived for 100.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, as early as Genesis 5, we start to see those genealogical markers that are consider consistent throughout pre-flood.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because I could develop, one could develop the argument based upon my anecdotal evidence.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but that's post-flood.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it's been six to eight thousand years since the flood.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: How many billions of years before that?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh exactly how I just have have argued from Genesis one through five, all pre-flood, because that comes in Genesis six, the way, the way the text consistently measures time.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: There are two genealogies in Genesis 1 to 11 that are unique.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there, let me there are two genealogies in all of Scripture that are unique, and they're in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 or 10.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, they're two genealogies.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're referred to as chronogenealies because they're the only genealogies in all of scripture that both include the descendant order and a number.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um compared to Matthew 1.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Compared to Matthew 1.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just the names.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just the names, right?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: So Matthew 1 is a typical genealogy.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: This person begot that person, who begot this person, who begot that person.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: These genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 give specific ages.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you start at Abraham, which is a person in time where we can get a pretty good idea about when he lived, within a margin of error, because we understand the Mesopotamia area and where, then if you if you put him at a period of time in history, then from the genealogies of Genesis 5, you can work backwards to know, well, when was Adam?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, it puts you in this six to eight thousand window, maybe ten on a couple, like depending on how you do.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the scriptures are telling us a story that puts the cosmological origins at a very specific time frame based upon the text.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not ambiguous about it.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like it has gone, it has it has added some information and detail in the text that's unnecessary unless there's a rationale for it.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that the chronogenealogies are there only for this purpose.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're also combating a Babylonian age of kings, which have these hundreds and hundreds of years in the Babylonian perspective.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's some conversation ancestrally happening in that line too.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the fact that they're given these years, I think is an important.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now that adds a whole nother question.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: How in the world can somebody live 900 years old?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't I don't have answers to the question.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there there are questions that come up.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, are these hyperbolic?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are they hyperbole?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is it like what?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if it's hyperbolic, then that means the air the age of the cosmos is even younger than we anticipate.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or does it make it older, right?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that is an important textual argument.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that if we're going to hold to scripture as an authority in our life, that has to be a part of that conversation.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: All right, this is an interesting thing.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just remembered.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't forgotten this before.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so what I'm trying to think through somebody listening who may say, maybe they have a theistic evolution or a gap theory or day age theory, or they're not believers at all.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: They have a naturalistic worldview and they believe in evolutionary theory, and they'll say, but what about this?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: What about this?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so some may say, but what about the um the bones that we have found of Crow Magnum man?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it is this is clearly the skull of some part ape, part human because its skull structure looks completely different.
• 38:45
  unknown: Right.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this goes back to um you said something about people living 900 years.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I I saw this.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I haven't been able to I saw it on TV.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's like some documentary years ago.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I need to find this again.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: But they were using the same technology, and uh, if someone is missing as a child, yeah, and they have their picture, yeah, and they can put them in you know this software to say them.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, now they're 45, and this is what and they get pretty accurate, they get pretty stinking accurate.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: So one guy was playing around with that sometime, and obviously my my bone structure is different today than it was when I was it's similar, but it's different.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody went in that software and ran it up to 900 years, yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: And this the skull structure was strikingly similar to Crow Magnum man.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: Which so some may say, but we found this missing link.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe you just found the skull of somebody that lived 900 years pre-flood.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: That could still be there.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but um, but I'm also my brain is trying to think through how some people may respond looking at the science, but I could get these ice cores, I could go to Antarctica and I could dig into these ice cores and I could see the layers.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Man, this is not, and it's dating X number, so it's got to be more than 8,000 years.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or I can look at the geology and the strata.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Did I use the right word?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Good word.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, look at you.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I can look at the strata, and that I'm telling you, this is this is more um, you know, radiometric dating, or this, you know, the strata, the sedimentary records, um, or or like the distant starlight, uh, we know we can measure how fast light travels.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there's just no way that this happened in 8,000 years because we know how far that star is.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do you respond to that?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: That argument or very valid data.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when we look at the cosmos and the earth, the science, observable data strongly supports the earth and the cosmos being millions and billions of years old.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: It strongly supports that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does that mean?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: How do we resolve that?
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: If it's only eight or ten, why does it look that old?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um let me tell a story.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I love stories.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's stories, right?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can we have animal crackers?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so remember this the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I believe he did.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: So he and the disciples go on the hill.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's 5,000 men with him, plus women and children helps to be there.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, we need to feed everybody because they've been with us for hours and hours and hours.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: We need to feed them.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, we don't have enough money, feed them.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter's like, or Andrew's like, hey, there's a kid over here that's got a basket with some fish and bread in it.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is like, well, bring it to me.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is like, there's not enough, like, this is not gonna do anything.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so he be he blesses it.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus just begins to take out fish and bread to the disciples, and they just and they literally feed everybody.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then when everything is over, Jesus tells disciples, now go collect all the fragments, all that's left over.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when he does, there's 12 baskets filled with leftover fish and bread.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when we started, we had two fish and five, is it two fish and five loaves?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Five loaves, two fish.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Five loaves and two fish.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um, when that little boy brought that up, his mom had probably made that bread that day.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Friday.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I remember those, I remember those stories in Sunday school.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, here's your little snack lunch, buddy.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Go see Jesus.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so he had his little basket with some bread in it, and that bread would have probably had some kernels of wheat or barley or whatever.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if it was cornbread.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Cornbread.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: That would have been good.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Man, praise the Lord for cornbread and fish.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hush puppies, I bet it was hush puppies.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he had.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: A fish fry with hush puppies.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was catfish and catfish and hush puppies.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I don't know.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, Satra.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: If if um if if a if in if this were in modern times, we could go to those baskets and grab a piece of that fish and one of those pieces of bread, and we could take it back to our lab.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in that lab, we could pull out a grain out of that bread and pop that open.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we could grab the genetic material out of that germ and that kernel of C, run it through a genetic stair, and we could actually extrapolate out the DNA of that grain.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: We could take uh the bone of that fish, open up that, pull out some of the material in that fish, run it through a genetic material, and actually get the genetic makeup of that fish.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: And any If you know anything about genetics, every organism's genetics is composed of both male and female gametes that come together to produce the offspring.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: So your genetics, that fish's genetics, has DNA from its mom and DNA from its dad.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that grain that was used to make that bread has DNA from its mother tree or grain and its father grain.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so from a genetic, a geneticist could do a research of that and tell you the family lineage of that fish.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Could tell you what genus, species, what kind of fish it is, could tell you if there were any genetic defects in it.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Did that likely come from a paternal or maternal line?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: You could look at the mitochondrial DNA, which would only come from mom, and you could pull all kinds of information about the mother's history, genetic history.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: You could interpret all kinds of things about that fish and its history.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: But just 20 minutes ago, 30 minutes ago, that fish didn't exist.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like that fish that the boy brought to the lunch is long gone.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever God is creating, He's creating fish that has genetic material that was also cooked, skinned.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: The way God creates, I think in your sermon you mentioned the story of God turning water into wine.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was the best wine.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was the best of wine, right?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it tells an entire, you have an entire genetic history, uh, an age of that wine that was just water a few minutes ago.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't really have any age, but it does have age.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: I see where you're going.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the age is baked into the creation.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if we are going to operate under, well, Jesus is God, let's start with him.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: How does God create?
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's, how did Jesus create?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the way in which Jesus created is he created things to achieve a purpose.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to achieve the purpose, he also created all of the necessary age that was required in order for that thing to achieve its purpose.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: So whether it's wine or whether it's fish and bread, when God creates something, he creates it for purpose.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, he creates all of the history and all of the necessary parts to complete its purpose.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: So then if you go back to Genesis 1 on day four, when God says, let He puts the sun, moon, stars, the greater light to rule the day, and less light to rule the night.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in that text, which you mentioned this a couple weeks ago in your sermon, the on the day of the rest sermon you talked about.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: Moadim.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Moadim.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: He made them for a purpose, for signs and seasons, days and years.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if the stars and the sun and the moon are placed into the sky for these purposes, if we understand how God creates, then we also have to assume that he created them so that you could see them to be able to read them for signs and seasons and for days and things, right?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Which means if God created a star that's 17 million light years away, and it is in somehow another in the galactical whatever to point to a signs or seasons, I have to be able to see that.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which means on day four, when he created that star or that nebula or that whatever, he had to also create the light from that to earth at the same time, which means it was new, but it's 14 million years old at the same time.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's new and it's old.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's old, it's new and old.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if God is going when God created the garden and put Adam and Eve in the garden, it says, All the trees in the garden you may fruit truly eat.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if there weren't trees that were mature that had fruit on them, then that's kind of a a moot statement to make.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if it was a a seedling that was having to grow, Adam and Eve would die before there was fruit on it.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, right?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when God created the trees in the garden for food, he created them for purpose, which means if you would have taken a boar through that tree of the knowledge of good and evil and pulled out a boar, you would have tree rings.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you could count how old is this tree?
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't exist yesterday.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the tree has material that says it's 45 years old, 120 years old, 8,000 years old, and it has it has history and it is producing fruit.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we know that it takes X number of months or X number of years for that kind of a tree to produce this kind of fruit.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that it was created on day five, or and it has fruit on it, that requires that when God creates, he creates with purpose.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: So on the day that it was created, it had age.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: On day six, when God formed Adam and Eve in the garden, if at if you Adam would have taken his uh 23andMe or uh one of those genetic things, you take the swab and you send it into the left, right?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they would have sent him back.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you are here's your ancestry.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're part of this and part of that, and you have 70%, you know, Caucasian or 27% whatever.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like you would have, it would, whatever Adam's genetic makeup, but it would have come back with a report of here's your mother and here's your father, and here's your he doesn't have a mother and a father.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have a history, he was created today, he didn't exist yesterday, and yet he has all of the same genetic markers that you and I have, which tell us he has age, but he doesn't have age.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was born, he was created at an age capable of reproducing.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, which means he wasn't created as an infant.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: So he had, he was created with age baked into the orange.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when God creates, it is apparent that when God creates something, he creates it with all the necessary pieces and parts to achieve its purpose.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the necessary pieces and parts are also age.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is reasonable to argue from a biblical perspective that the earth is six to eight thousand years old, while at the same time it's millions and billions of years old.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, and not be inconsistent or contradictory.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Simply stated, uh God created, and instantly, as he spoke, all things came into being, fully developed and formed in in an adult equivalent form producing.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the the lemon tree, when it was produced, already had lemons on it.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: But it all it had seeds in it that would produce the next thing.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it was instant.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um when God spoke, light, as you just said, the stars were placed in the sky while also emanating all of the light to make it visible.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: Assuming then that our measurement at the speed of light is accurate and how far that is away, that means the light that um was emanating from the source that the day of creation has not yet gotten to us yet.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Has not gotten to us, it's still out in space somewhere.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it it takes it takes a level of faith to believe uh as the mountains are formed, yeah, all of that strata.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: I could scientifically see the layers.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think I'm gonna interject.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I think geology accelerates rapidly uh when we look at the flood and the impact of it and the sediments.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think geological shapes, yeah, they move a lot faster than we often think.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: However, um uh that's the power of God's creation, that he spoke and it was and it produced and it fulfilled its purpose.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's tremendously beautiful to me.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's a theological issue, too, that I have with the idea of evolution or even theistic evolution as a means by which God created.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Paul makes the argument in Romans that when sin entered into the world, death entered into the world as well.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: That sin brings about death, the wage of sin is death.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Paul makes the argument that all of creation suffers because of Adam's sin in the garden.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the theological argument that Paul makes seems to rest on the idea that before Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve ate of the tree, and Adam ate and sin came entered into the world, before that point, there could not have been death, decay.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that would not be a reality.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: The cosmos would not suffer from it.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: But in order for evolution to exist and to occur, even from a theistic evolutionary perspective, you need time, but you also need death in order to pass off genetics and for adaptation and natural selection and survival fitness.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, it is essential for evolutionary processes that things live and die.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a theological problem I have too from accepting an evolutionary approach because it requires death.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if I hold to the position theologically that death is the byproduct of sin, send in and into the world, into the cosmos, not just into our human beings, but into the cosmological reality until Adam sinned in the garden.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis three.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis three, then whatever took place in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 could not include evolution.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's very valid.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which means the gap theory goes away, the day-age theory goes away, theistic evolution goes away.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things go away from a theological perspective.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so because of those things, that's why I, with a biology science degree, even hold to a young age creation model.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that the cosmos is six to 10,000 years old, probably closer to six and a half or eight.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: But God created it with purpose, which means it has baked into it things that we see and observe.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the flood completely turned everything back to a Genesis 2 condition, formless and void, covered in the fountain of like the Spirit of God hovering over the surface of the water, chapter Genesis 1, 2.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think the flood reverted.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think the world that we see today is a post-flood world, which is why the sedimentary rocks, the formations that we see, um did not exist prior to.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the world we see, at least planetarily speaking, the planet that we live on did not exist in its current structure pre-fall.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um things have changed significantly.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: How they changed, what they changed, there's a lot I don't know.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just know that the flood was a catastrophic event where it deconstructed and the the time after reconstructed things in a way that gives us the world that we live in today, which is we can see the evidence of it in the rock stratification.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I believe the earth is young.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that when we when we give evolution and the old age account over, when people begin to read the Bible, if they look if they begin to operate on that, I can't trust page one, then why can I trust the gospel?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: If page one is to be understood figuratively, then that says that why God created humans would be understood figuratively.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: If I have to understand, if I'm supposed to understand Genesis one just as an allegory, then God didn't create me with purpose.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's allegorical, it's spiritualized, it's something else.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we if we allow Genesis one to just be wrapped up into an evolutionary, non-real sort of thing, uh I think that's a dangerous proposition for people when they begin to wrestle with scripture because they go, I can't trust the first page.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: How can I trust any of it?
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I have I've had conversations, I have listened to podcasts and listened to conversations of people who have deconstructed.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have a really good friend of mine I went to college with who has deconstructed.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's deconstruction is it goes back to, I don't believe Genesis 1.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the cosmos, and I believe God lied to me.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: And because that has no grounding to them, they've deconstructed and abandoned their faith.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a dangerous proposition to for the Christian to operate under the paradigm that Genesis 1 is a fanciful story of poetry.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't matter.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: It does matter because if you can't trust page one, how can you trust page whatever?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, agreed.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's fun to me, it's it's really, really important.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now we don't have to always agree on all the details, and we don't have to agree on all this, all the ins and outs of things, but I think it is important for for us to hold to a theologically sound understanding of Genesis one.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the scriptures provide us with the framework and the guardrails, and we need to stay inside those guardrails.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is that's helpful.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that with us.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of borrowing a phrase that we've introduced a couple of weeks ago.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's something worthwhile for us to meditate on.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it is also possible, especially if you're listening to this, maybe you grew up in a more modern um, I'm gonna use a stereotypical phrase, public school education, and you've only been taught the evolutionary uh approach without God involved at all.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of what we've said today that be like, what, what did you just say?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: It may be completely uh different than your framework or your experience or the education that you have received.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I just want you to know if you're listening to this, we we would love to help you.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: We would be more than happy to entertain whatever questions, even if there's as you're listening, yeah.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: But what about email us, let us know.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you're if you're in our area and part of our church, you probably have our phone number, or go to our website, contact us, send us an email.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you're somewhere else in the other part of the world, we are grateful that you're being encouraged by our podcast.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Go to our website, send us an email, and we will try to answer your question and also reply with the helping you find a local church in your area.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: But um, this is some significant stuff for us to meditate on because it does matter.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you've been in blessed and encouraged.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is the High Dot Podcast, the ministry of Calvary Baptist Church in Columbus, Georgia.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: Please give us a review.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: Please share, like, subscribe.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you see this on social media, uh share it with your friends or your neighbors so they can be encouraged and maybe they can also learn with us.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, anything else to add?
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think that covers most everything we want to talk about.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, until next time.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.