Alternative to the Biblical Creation - 180011

0:04 [Music] 0:31 welcome to the creator reveal my name's 0:34 Tim Standish and by profession I'm a 0:36 scientist but I'm also a human being 0:39 that means that I think about the 0:43 theological implications of the science 0:46 that I do you know it is so interesting 0:50 to me when you see we're both Bible 0:54 believing Christians MA we believe this 0:56 word is inspired by God and we believe 1:00 that God created the earth in six days 1:04 because he said he did but today we want 1:09 to welcome you and we're so glad you're 1:11 joining us because we will be talking 1:14 about alternative ideas that are out 1:17 there in the world to the biblical 1:21 account of creation exactly and as you 1:23 can imagine there are actually a fair 1:25 number of these ideas that we could talk 1:28 about during the course of this series 1:30 we've made frequent references to 1:34 Darwinian evolution this materialistic 1:38 view this kind of atheistic 1:41 understanding of of reality and in this 1:47 episode I would like to talk about the 1:52 sort of spectrum of things in between 1:55 but that would take an awfully long time 1:57 because there are people who have all 2:00 kinds of interesting ideas out there I 2:05 think it would be best for us to 2:07 concentrate on one of the most popular 2:11 alternative views this is an attempt to 2:14 reconcile the claims these mists 2:19 materialistic philosophy with the clear 2:23 record of history that's contained in 2:26 God's Word in the Bible so what you're 2:28 saying is this is the one where people 2:30 believe in an a type of evolution but 2:34 they they claim to believe the Bible 2:36 precisely and it's called theistic 2:38 evolution before we do that though 2:42 let's take a look at one of the things 2:44 that the Bible says about the creation 2:48 okay this is in Exodus 2:51 it's Exodus 31 and a lot of people don't 2:56 realize that the fourth commandment is 2:58 actually repeated here let's let's read 3:01 exactly what it says therefore the 3:05 children of Israel shall keep the 3:08 Sabbath to observe the Sabbath 3:11 throughout their generations as a 3:13 perpetual covenant so this is this is 3:16 not a covenant that is going to go away 3:19 the children of Israel the descendants 3:22 of Abraham 3:24 I would include Christians in this 3:26 because obviously we are adopted we are 3:29 all Abraham's seed yes as Christians so 3:34 this Sabbath is somehow important for 3:37 Bible believing Christians this Sabbath 3:39 is the seventh day of the week which in 3:42 the creation account says that at the 3:45 end of six days God said all is very 3:47 good and on the seventh he rests exactly 3:50 and just to make sure that we get that 3:51 this Sabbath that is a memorial to the 3:54 creation the fourth commandment goes on 3:57 and it says it is a sign between me and 4:03 the children of Israel forever for in 4:07 six days the Lord made the heavens and 4:09 the earth and on the seventh day he 4:12 rested and was refreshed and then Moses 4:15 puts this in just to make sure that we 4:17 understand how important this is and 4:19 when he had made an end of speaking with 4:22 him this is Moses on Mount Sinai he this 4:26 is God gave Moses two tables of the 4:29 testimony tablets a stone written with 4:33 the finger of God so God actually wrote 4:38 himself in stone that he created in six 4:43 days this is clearly recorded there in 4:46 the Bible so what do we do when we're 4:49 Christians and we're looking for some 4:51 kind of compromise that allows us to 4:54 feel like we 4:56 scientists and we are Christians at the 5:00 same time well I am a scientist and a 5:04 Christian and I can assure you that 5:06 there is no reason to abandon what the 5:11 Bible says because of the false claims 5:15 of Darwinism so you believe in 1/6 a 5:20 literal well what else would I believe I 5:23 believe Dada I obviously wasn't there I 5:28 have to believe the witnesses that we 5:31 have in the Bible has proven to be a 5:33 reliable witness about everything else I 5:36 mean how would you know how long it took 5:38 anyway there is there is no practical 5:41 way that science can really answer these 5:44 questions so let's look at theistic 5:48 evolution and we have to be careful here 5:51 because the evolution explain what that 5:53 means theists do you think evolution I'm 5:55 gonna actually give you a definition 5:56 here ok but the reason I want to be 5:58 careful about it is because there are 6:00 many different definitions that people 6:03 make of this but at its core this 6:05 definition really kind of explains it 6:09 theistic evolution is the belief that 6:11 God used the process of evolution to 6:14 create living things including humans 6:18 and so instead of this creation account 6:20 that's in the Bible God used a different 6:23 method the death driven process of 6:26 evolution that's the basic idea here now 6:30 once once you sort of agree on that if 6:34 you want to be a theistic evolutionist 6:36 then there are many other little details 6:38 and that's what twists around the 6:41 definitions in lots of different ways 6:43 and sometimes people come up with 6:45 something almost identical that they 6:47 call evolutionary creation but all of 6:51 these things sort of get wound up 6:53 together into this basic idea that God 6:56 his method of creation was evolution 7:01 here is a group called BioLogos and they 7:04 they put it this way they say we fully 7:06 affirm that the Bible is the inspired 7:08 and a thorough 7:09 native word of god and of course all 7:10 Bible believers would be saying Amen at 7:13 that point but then they go on and they 7:14 say we also accept the science of 7:17 evolution as the best description for 7:20 how God brought about the diversity of 7:21 life on Earth and many many many very 7:24 eminent scientists and so on actually 7:26 belonged to this group including Francis 7:28 Collins who led the effort to sequence 7:32 the human genome so these are eminent 7:34 guys and they're thinking very hard 7:36 about this I don't want to mock them I 7:38 just disagree with them because you know 7:40 what this idea is simply absolutely 7:43 incompatible with the scripture let's 7:45 let's look at what scripture says 7:47 scripture starts out by talking about 7:50 the good creation effect God called it 7:52 very good and then sin comes into the 7:55 world the fall occurs and the result of 7:58 sin the wages of sin death and this 8:02 broken creation that we live in but the 8:04 Bible doesn't stop there it goes on and 8:07 it provides the solution and the 8:09 solution fits the problem so we have 8:12 Jesus Christ who wins that victory over 8:16 sin and therefore victory over death and 8:22 thus there can be a good new creation 8:26 and eternal life it's the gospel that's 8:29 right that new creation so this is what 8:31 the Bible says it's kind of the opposite 8:33 of theistic evolution obviously you you 8:37 can't get those two things in there 8:41 together well let's look at how it is 8:45 that some Christians can somehow other 8:49 shoehorn evolution into some kind of 8:55 belief in Jesus Christ saving us by 8:57 dying on the cross okay and so here is 9:02 the idea of evolution that these 9:04 particular Christians believe now bear 9:08 in mind this is not what I believe I 9:10 believe what the Bible says I don't 9:12 believe that this is actually true but 9:14 the idea is this you start out with some 9:16 kind of single-celled organism it 9:18 evolves into something like a fish and 9:21 then that fish of 9:23 into something that crawls out and 9:24 becomes a land animal and that land 9:27 animal develops some more and becomes a 9:31 brute of some kind a brute and then 9:35 something amazing happens remember this 9:38 is not in the Bible 9:39 this is this theory of how this could 9:42 have worked that is unbiblical and I 9:44 don't believe I just want you to see it 9:46 so the idea is that God somehow are the 9:50 Zapp's 9:51 a soul into this into this brute now 9:55 let's look at look at that again whoops 9:57 we start out we keep involving we keep 10:00 evolving we get to the brute God sticks 10:03 a soul into the end of the brute and the 10:07 brute becomes a human being there is 10:12 this kind of progress that we see with 10:15 it and there is this event this 10:18 insolvent event that happens in the 10:21 course of history and that's when we get 10:24 human beings how that is just totally 10:30 can contradictory to the Word of God 10:32 exactly because obviously I think most 10:36 people who really seriously look at this 10:39 in the Bible understand that the idea 10:44 that the body and the soul are two 10:47 separate things that that they they can 10:51 have a existence separate from one 10:54 another really is not what the Bible 10:56 says what the Bible says is God breathed 11:01 into the body that he had formed and man 11:06 became a living soul or a living being 11:09 in some translations something it's it's 11:13 this combination of things that is 11:16 required we could call it the breath of 11:18 life or something sometimes we do hear 11:20 about the breath returning to God that's 11:23 talked about in the Bible but that Bible 11:25 doesn't talk about some sentient 11:28 immortal soul that goes up there and 11:31 lives in heaven without a body and those 11:34 sorts of things and just in fact in 1st 11:36 Corinthians 11:37 15:53 357 Paul clearly says that we are 11:43 not given immortality I mean he tells 11:45 Timothy that only God alone is immortal 11:49 right now and we don't get immortality 11:52 until the last trumpet exactly so anyway 11:56 with this this unbiblical belief system 11:59 then you can have death being a kind of 12:01 different thing than it was before the 12:04 insolvent death becomes the separation 12:06 of body and soul and all of a sudden you 12:10 can make sense of what Jesus was doing 12:11 on the cross he wasn't dying for what 12:14 normal people would call sin and death 12:16 he was dying for this kind of made-up 12:19 kind of death this this kind of idea of 12:23 separation of body and soul there and 12:26 you don't have to believe me 12:29 it's the the Pope talks about this in 12:32 fact this is a papal encyclical that I'm 12:34 showing you here by Pius the 12th he 12:37 wrote the teaching authority of the 12:38 church does not forbid that in 12:40 conformity with the present state of 12:42 human sciences and sacred theology 12:44 research and discussions on the part of 12:47 men experienced in both fields take 12:49 place with regard to the doctrine of 12:52 evolution in as far as it inquires into 12:55 the origin of the human body as coming 12:59 from preexisting and living matter for 13:01 the Catholic faith obliges us to hold 13:03 that souls are immediately created by 13:06 God so you can see here that the Pope 13:09 himself saw this as a way of solving the 13:14 tension between Darwinian evolution and 13:17 biblical Christianity I might add that 13:20 prior to this Catholics agreed with 13:23 other Christians and many Catholics 13:25 continue to agree with other Bible 13:28 believing Christians that in fact 13:29 theistic evolution is a false doctrine 13:32 that is unbiblical anyway let's continue 13:34 if we believe that evolution is true 13:37 then either God chose to create animals 13:42 to suffer and die over the eons when he 13:44 could have created animals perfect from 13:46 the start or God is incapable 13:50 of Fiat creation that would avoid the 13:52 evils of death struggle and suffering or 13:56 animals like souls and thus feel no 13:58 suffering at all which is obviously not 14:00 true if you've ever had a pet so 14:02 atheists they deny God's hand in 14:05 nature's suffering theistic 14:07 evolutionists actually blame him for it 14:10 it's really not a very attractive idea 14:13 and when we compare it with what the 14:15 Bible says the Bible promises that God 14:17 will wipe every tear from our eyes 14:19 there'll be no more death or suffering 14:22 that's the promise this is not the 14:24 process that has made us this is the 14:28 process that Jesus Christ died on the 14:30 cross to stop so yea the Creator is 14:34 revealed even by alternatives of the 14:37 biblical creation because they show that 14:40 the biblical truth reveals God's 14:43 goodness so God's goodness is shown in 14:47 the Bible and it's clear when it's 14:49 compared to these other ideas boy our 14:51 time is gone for the first segment 14:53 please join us we'll be back in just a 14:55 moment 14:57 [Music] 15:02 welcome back we have been exploring 15:05 theistic evolution and the issues with 15:08 that and now we're going to go just a 15:11 little bit deeper into some alternatives 15:14 and we have a special guest Tim would 15:16 you like that's right this is dr. Jim 15:18 Gibson dr. Gibson is the director of the 15:21 Geoscience Research Institute you're our 15:24 boss my boss so I have to be on my best 15:26 behavior and yes as you as you as you 15:30 said you know we've been looking at 15:32 theistic evolution but is that really 15:36 the only alternative out there that we 15:41 see among Christians or among other 15:43 people what precisely is up with that we 15:47 obviously we have things like 15:52 [Music] 15:54 materialistic Darwinism biblical 15:57 creation those can be considered to be 15:59 sort of opposite ends of a spectrum I 16:01 guess theistic evolution would would say 16:04 all know whether we're the happy 16:06 compromise in the middle but what other 16:08 things might be on that spectrum that's 16:10 why we have dr. Gibson here to help us 16:13 explore at least one possibly two other 16:16 alternatives so welcome dr. Gibson hi 16:19 dr. Gibson thank you and so let me ask 16:25 you this if it's not theistic evolution 16:27 if it's not materialistic Darwinism if 16:29 it's not biblical creation what else 16:32 might a person believe well there are 16:36 several alternatives but I think one of 16:38 the most interesting ones is a theory 16:41 that is really based on the fossil 16:43 record the fossils are based 16:46 if the fossils occur in layers in the 16:48 rocks in a sequence and there's one one 16:52 theory that says well that sequence is 16:55 the sequence in which God created them 16:59 on this world so we could call that 17:01 progressive creation okay so say then 17:04 the idea would be the idea would be okay 17:07 you go down to the bottom of those 17:08 layers of rock that have fossils in them 17:11 and and you see things like maybe 17:13 something like fish down there and you 17:16 see you don't see giraffes so the idea 17:20 would be okay God created all kinds of 17:22 fish and then he stopped creating and 17:25 then what some eons later he created 17:28 some more things yes yes that would 17:32 that's the basic idea and it 17:36 incorporates both these discreet act of 17:39 creation along with some evolutionary 17:42 ideas so in the fossil record if you 17:46 find the sudden abrupt appearance of 17:50 some new kind of fossil you explain that 17:53 by saying well that must be a new 17:55 creation if you see a kind of a 17:58 graduated series of fossils you would 18:02 say well that must be where God unguided 18:04 evolution for a while so gods 18:06 alternating between these creation and 18:09 evolutionary episodes and then then what 18:11 I understand a mean by recive creation 18:14 so then because these are fossils 18:18 obviously you would have things dying 18:20 because fossils are made from dead 18:23 things right yes yeah so that that 18:30 introduces a theological problem there 18:33 are problems with the theory that are 18:35 there are theological problems there's 18:37 problems with the science and there's 18:40 problems with the the biblical standards 18:43 well let's let's look at these science 18:46 okay weekly with the science well what 18:51 is the scientific evidence that God 18:53 created in this pattern there isn't any 18:56 it's entirely made up so you can't 19:01 really call this a scientific theory at 19:04 all in fact science tries to explain 19:10 things without appealing to God's action 19:12 so the minute you put God in there 19:15 saying that God created and God guided 19:17 evolution you have gone from what most 19:20 people want to call science to kind of a 19:25 philosophical interpretation a kind of a 19:28 religious 19:29 kind of an idea and I guess that if 19:32 you're a scientist you would say okay 19:34 with the biblical creation you have one 19:37 big miracle whereas with this 19:41 progressive creation you have many 19:43 miracles that you have to have so that 19:47 would be probably very problematic I 19:49 would imagine to somebody who didn't 19:52 like to have too many miracles going on 19:55 well if not only then how would you test 19:58 such an idea there isn't any way to test 20:01 that idea it's not a scientific idea at 20:03 all does it make it off addictions if 20:05 you want to get into it 20:07 no I can't imagine what it would predict 20:09 I mean 20:10 suppose I want to explain the fossil 20:13 record a different way 20:14 instead of saying God created in this 20:16 sequence let's say God arranged the 20:19 fossils in that sequence during the 20:21 flood that's just the way the flood put 20:24 them that isn't scientific either but 20:27 it's just as scientific as to say he 20:29 created in that order 20:30 yeah it's just made up and and does the 20:35 sequence of the fossils match in some 20:38 way things like the days of creation or 20:41 something like that well that's the 20:43 that's a biblical problem oh that 20:46 flowering plants occur early in the 20:49 creation week perhaps among the first 20:52 things created on day 3 in the fossil 20:55 record you don't see any flowering 20:57 plants until a lot of layers have 21:00 accumulated that have marine animals and 21:03 terrestrial animals and birds and fish 21:05 all kinds of things so they just it just 21:09 doesn't match yeah so biblically it 21:12 doesn't work scientifically it doesn't 21:14 work theologically it's very problematic 21:18 because it incorporates the idea of 21:21 death and evil and suffering and 21:25 violence all occurring before humans 21:28 ever appeared in the fossil record and 21:31 why would that be a precedent well if 21:35 Jesus came to to pay the penalty for our 21:39 sin by dying in our place 21:43 as the Bible is pretty pretty clearly 21:45 teaches them that theory just makes it 21:49 plateless it just makes it pointless 21:51 what's the what was Jesus doing here on 21:54 the cross well because in other words 21:55 what you're saying is that if you're 21:58 going by the fossil record there's a 21:59 death and destruction before sin before 22:05 men create or no committed sin so the 22:10 Deaf is have come from sin at all it's 22:12 just part of the order that God intended 22:14 so the way I see it Jim is that it's not 22:17 just them it's not just death it's also 22:21 violence and suffering yes so the way I 22:26 see it is that you just have to pretty 22:28 much throw out all the body or a good 22:32 portion of the Bible and including the 22:35 plan of salvation in order to believe 22:37 this progressive creationism yes 22:42 it's basically I make it up as you go 22:44 along kind of theory 22:45 so then what you're saying it seems to 22:49 me is that something like progressive 22:51 creation really has the same fundamental 22:54 problems that theistic evolution has but 22:57 possibly even more because it claims to 23:02 to have these kind of arbitrary 23:05 interventions by God every now and again 23:09 yeah it it solves the problem of 23:12 theistic evolution in the fact that it 23:14 provides a mechanism for unusual things 23:17 to happen but it does so at the expense 23:20 of God's character because it brings in 23:23 a Creator who is as one person said he 23:27 creates and then destroys and then he 23:29 creates and then he destroys and then he 23:30 creates and then it destroys over and 23:33 over again now what kind of a God is 23:35 that well I guess that we'd have to be 23:37 worrying that he might be doing some 23:39 more destroying in the near future 23:40 instead of coming back and saving us 23:43 doing a new creation does seem 23:49 problematic 23:50 yeah well and then in in the fossil 23:53 record if the flowering plants don't 23:55 show up until the deposits of the 23:59 animals and in this what were they 24:01 eating well yeah that would be that 24:04 would be a major problem I know I know 24:06 that you do find you do find in the 24:08 fossil record some plants but not 24:10 necessarily the flowering plants with 24:12 organisms that might have have eaten 24:14 them so there are probably solutions to 24:17 these problems it's just that you have 24:19 the flowering plants showing up much 24:23 later in the fossil sequence than you do 24:28 in the sequence of creation days so in 24:31 other words this isn't biblical at all 24:34 it's not going off the biblical account 24:37 it's simply divorced from the Bible 24:40 completely you're making up your own 24:42 religion as you go along 24:44 well it's also divorced from science yes 24:48 except for the fact that we do observe a 24:50 sequence in the fossil record but the 24:52 explanation for that sequence is just 24:55 made up well thank you so much for 24:58 helping us explore progressive creation 25:00 dr. Gibson it's been a pleasure 25:02 I appreciate your insights bye-bye 25:06 you know dr. Gibson really sort of 25:10 bought out what to me is a fundamental 25:13 problem with many of these ideas they 25:17 are neither biblical nor scientific and 25:22 certainly not scientific in the 25:25 materialistic understanding of things 25:28 and you're the very people who and I 25:31 know you've been criticized as I've been 25:32 criticized for having faith in the 25:36 biblical account of creation to me it 25:39 takes more faith to think look at what 25:42 they're saying plus suddenly the whole 25:47 God's whole character everything that I 25:51 want to believe about God is completely 25:53 changed exactly it says God into some 25:55 kind of monster 25:57 and a creator at the same time because 25:59 he's sort of creating and destroying and 26:01 creating and destroying and yeah I don't 26:06 know is that a God that I would want to 26:08 worship 26:09 and how should I live my life in 26:11 response to to something like that God 26:14 might decide to do a new creation and 26:15 I'll be wiped off the face of the earth 26:17 as a result of that how much how much 26:20 more attractive the God of the Bible is 26:24 you know the God who not only created us 26:29 and everything else but the God who came 26:33 to save us and has promised a new 26:36 creation something that we can have 26:38 faith in because we have seen that he 26:43 can create in the first place 26:45 and with lo we've certainly seen that he 26:47 can recreate when you see conversions 26:49 and we've learned we've learned some of 26:52 the things from that creation well I 26:54 want to thank you for joining us on this 26:56 episode this is not the only one I look 26:59 forward to seeing you again I hope that 27:01 you'll join us in the future 27:04 [Music]