Dr. Jason Lisle "The Ultimate Proof of Creation"

but I'm so blessed to be with you today and it's just an honor for me to be out here and I really admire this uh the folks at this Seminary this is a great school and I'm glad to be here and present the ultimate proof of creation I am with the institute for creation research and what we do is we research those aspects of Origins and we show people that the science confirms what the Bible teaches in Genesis they don't have to modify Genesis to match the latest pseudoscientific claims uh rather we look at science in light of what the infallible word of God says and we find that science winds right up with that it makes sense what I want to do this morning is give you an ultimate proof of creation and I really mean that it's an ultimate proof as we're out there evangelizing making disciples of all Nations teaching people to obey and to observe all things that the Lord commanded there are objections to that right the objections come up no you can't trust the Bible because of this that and the other and what apologetics is all about is helping people over those objections removing those stumbling blocks and of course we can't make people convert that's up to God ultimately but we can help them we can remove stumbling blocks what I want to share with you this morning is an argument that is very very powerful that really blows away a lot of those stumbling blocks and it's it really is an ultimate proof of creation because a lot of times folks will say well is there you know there's all this scientific evidence and and that confirms creation praise God it does of course but is there one argument that I could master that just blows them all away and the answer is there there is it's a little different than what people are expecting I've got a method that works every time in the sense that it I I can present an in a an irrefutable uh proof of the Christian worldview that Separates Me from some Christian Scholars I know but I believe the Christian world is objectively provable it you have to do it in the right way we can't do it by appealing to some greater standard than the scriptures because there is no greater standard than the scriptures but nonetheless the Bible's self-attesting and what I want to present to you therefore is an ultimate proof of creation and the method that I'm giving you is not just a proof of creation it's a proof of the Christian worldview it'll work on any anything that dares to challenge God and when I give you this ultimate proof and you use it on people and I would encourage you to do that you may find that they may or may not convert they might say well yeah you got me there I've got to be a consistent creationist got to be a Christian I've had that happen but they might not say that and we people to get get discouraged and they say well it didn't it didn't work you know well it it did work it accomplished what God wanted it to accomplish but sometimes people Harden their hearts we know that uh there's a difference between proof and persuasion what I'm giving you is proof something that is objectively a good argument where the conclusion follows from the premises the premises are true uh what you can't persuade people in the ultimate sense we want to be persuasive in the sense of urging them I understand that but it's up to the Holy Spirit ultimately to bring ultimate conversion I'm just going to give you an irrefutable argument so they may or may not convert but I can guarantee you this they won't have any logical come back just because you don't cry Uncle doesn't mean I don't have you in headlock right yeah so and people say well if if there's a proof of the Christian worldview is what about faith is that undermine faith and the answer is no people sometimes have a misconception of Faith thinking that it takes over where reason leaves off or something like that no biblically faith is when we have confidence in something that we have not observed with our senses and that comes very close to the definition given in Hebrews for example but uh no faith is necessary for reason in fact that's that's going to be part and parcel of my argument here is that unless we presuppose scripture we can't really know anything about anything else it's and it's a very powerful argument I want to start with some lines of evidence that are good confirmations of creation but are less than an ultimate proof so that by way of contrast we can see how the ultimate proof differs one line of evidence involves information Theory information that studies how information science or information Theory studies how information is transmitted and there are several laws of information science Dr wernerget Who wrote the book in the beginning was information and he's a really brilliant uh Christian scholar but he um he points out that whenever information is transmitted it never you never gain information in the process of transmission and when you therefore when you follow information backwards along those the chain of transmission events it always leads to a mental Source the mind of the sender information always comes from a mind ultimately now inanimate machines can copy information and replicate it and so on but they can't create brand new creative information can't do it computers can copy it transmit it they can't make it Minds create information and that's very interesting because of course in DNA what do we have information the instructions to make you encoded on a molecule very amazing really and uh where did you get your information in your DNA you got it from your parents they got it from their parents it's been copied many times But ultimately it has to go back to a mind according to the laws of information science and that of course is exactly what we'd expect given what the Bible says about creation this idea that mutations accumulate and DNA and gradually add information that's contrary to laws of science it's contrary to the the law of information transmission mutations might convey survival value under certain circumstances that does happen but they don't increase information Dr Lee spetner one of the world's experts on mutation says all point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information not to increase it and in some rare instances that that loss can actually help you survive but but in any case it doesn't help it doesn't it can't be responsible for the information we have in our DNA he says not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome isn't that interesting and so when we study genetics and and information science we find it confirms Genesis creation it's inconsistent with the idea of evolution the millions of years of random processes generating the information in our DNA not possible according to the laws of science as we understand them I like to hit the time scale of uh creation that's something where there's some controversy but there really shouldn't be the Bible's very clear that in six days God created the Heavenly Earth and all that's in them and we find science that confirms that you may have heard that science has proved billions of years well it hasn't in fact there's a lot there are a lot of lines of evidence that are inconsistent with billions of years people think carbon dating gives billions of years it never does carbon dating is our friend carbon dating gives thousands of years even on things that evolutionists believe to be millions of years old or hundreds of millions years old like coal beds you can take a chunk of coal carbon data you'll get thousands of years doesn't matter how deep down you find it is that interesting it still has c14 in it c14 is an unstable isotope of carbon most carbon C12 but c14 has two extra neutrons and it decays into nitrogen in a time scale of something like 5700 years and so it can't last millions of years if the entire Earth were made of c14 in one million years it'd be gone it would all be nitrogen it doesn't last that long yet we find c14 in diamonds that are alleged to be one to two billion years old but you see they can't even be one million years old or they could be gone an evolutionists cry without some kind of contamination how it's a diamond it's the hardest substance how are you going to get new c14 in there and see it doesn't make any sense but it does make sense in light of the the biblical time scale of thousands of years and so we find that geology and and physics or radiometric dating when it's when the proper assumptions are made confirms biblical creation we could move out into the realm of outer space that's my area of expertise talk about things like comets comets are made up of ice and dirt and they orbit around the Sun in elliptical paths they spend most of their time far away but they come close and they get slingshoted back out and when that ice and dirt gets close to the Sun Ice close to the Sun that can't be good right and uh in fact that's what causes a comet's tail that's material being blasted away from the nucleus of the Comet being vaporized by solar heat and pushed away by solar wind and solar radiation pressure and so every time you see a comment it's losing material it's getting smaller and we know the amount of material that's there we can measure that we can see it leaving we can measure the rate at which it's leaving and you can compute a maximum time span and for a typical Comet it's about a hundred thousand years which may sound like a lot but again in the secular view the solar system is supposed to be 4.5 billion years old why do we still have comments then that's what I want to know I think that's very compelling I've seen comments I use the Soho spacecraft in my doctoral dissertation and I've it's designed to look right at the sun and it one of the instruments on it can detect comments as they come close to the Sun they swing by and sometimes they go back behind the Sun and that's it they're totally obliterated in one pass they just don't last that long they're like the ice cream cones of the solar system if you were in a sauna and you saw some ice cream cones sitting there starting to melt you would probably conclude those haven't been there very long right that's what comets are now all these lines of evidence and I could present many more I do other presentations on this where I go through the science and I think it's good to know some of these things these are good lines of evidence and they do confirm biblical creation but they fall short of the proof they're less than approved because for every line of evidence that I've presented an evolutionist can always come up with what we might call a rescuing device he can come up with a hypothesis to protect his worldview from what appears to be contrary evidence and so in the case of comets my secular colleagues are well aware of this problem they know that comets disintegrate quickly they can do the same math I can do they and you'd think they'd come to the same conclusion but they can't because they believe in billions of years and so what they say is well there must be a comment generator that makes new comments to replace the old ones which they call the ort Cloud if you've ever heard of the Oort cloud that is not something that anyone has ever observed it is a rescuing device it's a hypothesis that is designed to protect the uh the world view the secular worldview from what is apparently contrary evidence now if I were to ask a secularist do you have any observational evidence of an Oort cloud if he's honest he'll say well no and if he's clever he'll say but you can't prove it's not there and that's true I can't disprove the existence of an undetectable comment generator see the idea is they've designed it so that we can't detect it the idea is it's beyond the farthest planets you see this big sport swarm of potential comets well beyond our ability to detect them and then the idea is every now and then one of them is thrown into the inner solar system becomes a brand new Comet so as the old ones disintegrate new ones replaced then pretty clever but there's no evidence for it it's a rescuing device and for every line of scientific evidence if you put it up against a sufficiently clever person he will be able to come up with a rescuing device if they can't it just means they're not very clever that's all it means okay so you got to be careful about how you use evidence it does have con confirmatory power but it's not a proof you can say what about information and DNA they could say well sure there's no known process that generates it but give us time there must be some undiscovered process that builds up that information what about the c14 and diamonds they'd say well there's there's some kind of contamination we don't know what would cause that yet but give us time we'll find it right I call that the eschatological cop-out right give give me time in the future I'll have an answer well and before we're too harsh we need to realize that Christians have our rescuing devices too if somebody asks you about an alleged contradiction in scripture maybe a section you're not really all that familiar with and you look at that you say I don't know what the answer is right now your first inclination is not to say well can't be a Christian anymore got to throw that away your first inclination is to say well I know this is the word of God he doesn't contradict himself so I know there's an answer give me time I'll find it right so we all have our rescuing devices that's not the point the point is how do we deal with these competing worldviews because I'm looking at the evidence from my Christian Perspective the Bible's the word of God it's got the true history of the universe I'm looking at I look at comments and I draw the conclusion yet young solar system that's what I expect my secular colleagues looking at the same evidence and he thinks yep ort cloud right I mean it's consistent with his way of thinking and with the evidence we all have if you think about it we all have the same facts creationists and evolutionists look at the same universe we have access to the same fossils access to the same DNA genetic patterns I look at the same stars and galaxies galaxies as my secular colleagues we do science that's pretty much the same way I do you know study Physics and Mathematics and things like that in terms of the way I do my calculations why then do we come to such different conclusions and the answer is because we have a different starting point we have a different world view a different way of thinking about the evidence and you can't get away from that that's that's human nature we have we interpret evidence and you interpret it in light of your worldview your way of thinking about things which I like to liken unto mental glasses only some of us wear glasses physically but we all wear glasses mentally we all have a way of thinking about things and that colors how we observe the world I like to think of the Bible like prescription lenses that are designed just for you they're corrective lenses they give you the correct view of history and when you look out into the world it snaps into focus and you see things as they really are I like to think of evolution like red glasses you put on red glasses you look at the world you say everything is red how about that well it's not red but that's what you're seeing because of those glasses that you're wearing and of course I realized that evolutionists will say no we're wearing the right glasses you're wearing the wrong glass we'll have to argue for that but my point is we all have a world view which consists of our presuppositions our most basic beliefs about reality a presupposition is not just any old assumption it's a very basic assumption that you assume before you investigate evidence and we all have them we all have we all believe for example in the basic reliability of our senses you believe that what you see in here and taste and so on is corresponds to reality you couldn't function apart from that or the reliability of your memory how do you know that your memory is basically reliable that what you remember actually happened now you might say well I took a memory test two weeks ago Dr Lyle I did very well and I got an A on it how do you know you took a memory test two weeks ago right well I remembered oh yeah there's the problem you have to presuppose that your memory is reliable in order to argue you correctly remember that your memory is reliable and so it is with any presupposition it must be assumed at the outset the reliability of census is an example of that if you go to a you know along the side of the road you see a rock and you say I'm going to do an experiment on this find out what it's made of and whatever and I'm going to have totally a blank slate I'm not going to have any assumptions well you've already presupposed that the rock is there just because you saw it you've presupposed your senses are reliable that's a presupposition so people might say oh no not me I don't have these presuppositions I believe we ought to come to evidence neutrally without beliefs but that is itself a belief about how evidence should be interpreted isn't it the philosophy that you should come to the evidence without a philosophy is itself a philosophy it's just a very bad one because it's self-refuting and so you can't get away from that you can't get away from having presuppositions that's an inescapable you can however get away from having correct presuppositions and that's the problem creationists and evolutionists have different sets of presuppositions and all your presuppositions together are your world view it's a network of presuppositions in light of which all evidence is interpreted we have different rules for interpreting the evidence and so that's why we can look at exactly the same fossil and come to very different conclusions about how it got there what it means what is its significance and ultimately our presuppositions were they're hierarchical and some are more basic than others and you ultimately have an ultimate standard everyone does and for the creationist the Bible should be the ultimate standard perhaps it isn't for all creationists I wish it were because it should be the Bible should be our ultimate standard I mean if this really is the inherent word of God it would be ridiculous to start with anything else the god in whom is all truth why start with anything else why start with guesswork when you can start with certainty and by the way I do have secondary standards I do believe that my senses are basically reliable but that's not my ultimate standard because I know my senses can be fooled if you've ever seen an optical illusion you know your senses can be fooled right or have you seen you know somebody puts a beam of wood and water at an angle and it looks like the wood bends when it goes under the water because the way light refracts and so on now you gotta you've got a problem right because why I see it bending but does it really Bend no because you've got a greater presupposition that tells you that thing you know things stay straight under the water or you could even reach in and feel it well it still feels straight now you got a problem because you've got one sense telling you one thing and another sense telling you something else your presuppositions will will decide for you which which of those you're going to believe but the Bible should be our ultimate and unquestionable standard for the evolutionists the Bible is not their ultimate standard we can certainly say that what is their standard and it depends because there are different varieties of evolutionists out there but often the ultimate standard for the evolutionist is naturalism the belief that nature is all that there is it's the whole show there's no God or if there is he's within nature and doesn't really do anything or strict empiricism the belief that all truth claims are answered by observation you want to know something go out and touch it and taste it do an experiment whatever that's often the ultimate standard for the evolutionist and so how then how then can we settle the debate we can't settle the debate simply by throwing evidence at each other which is the way most people try to resolve these things there's a problem with these evidential type arguments and by the way there's nothing wrong with using evidence to start a conversation or using it to to challenge evolutionary ideas but my point is it's not decisive it doesn't settle the issue when it when it's a worldview issue when people have competing World Views and the reason is because your worldview tells you what the evidence means the worldview is superior as it were to the evidence it judges it tells you what what to make of it and I've got a silly example I like to use for this there was a man who thought that he was dead he thought that he himself was dead he's very concerned about this he doesn't like being dead of course he's you know he's perfectly healthy and his doctor's telling him that you're perfectly healthy you're walking and talking and the fella says well yeah but you know bodies can have muscle spasms even after clinical death that could explain my ability to walk and talk the doctor says but look I've got medical charts showing you're perfectly healthy and the guy says yeah but medical charge those can be falsified and maybe the names got swapped on it who knows if you're interpreting it right the doctor says okay I'm going to prove to you that you're not dead do dead men bleed and the guy well you know the circulatory system we've spelled no dead men don't bleed and the doctor very quickly takes a little pen puts the guy in the hand a little bit of blood comes to see you're bleeding to which your man responds well how about that I guess dead men do bleed huh silly example of course but did the doctor have evidence for his position absolutely it was good evidence there's nothing wrong with the evidence the guy could walk and talk medical charts the guy could bleed those are good lines of evidence that's not the problem the problem is the guy had a world view a presupposition that told him how to interpret each of those lines of evidence in all cases he was able to come up with a rescuing device to explain that evidence in such a way that it would fit in with his worldview do people really think like that yeah if I wasn't convinced of that before going into Ministry I certainly am now there's no doubt about that you might have a great evidence that the Bible is true and the world is full of lines of evidence that the Bible is true in fact if you really understand my argument every evidence isn't evidence that the Bible is true and you show that to somebody you say see how fossils are we all over the world we find fossils that were formed by you know rock layers laid laid down by water that a worldwide flood would make sense of that of course you'd expect to find fossils all over the Earth that's what we find but is the secularist going to be convinced by that probably not because he's not going to look at it the right way see I'm looking at that evidence properly through the lens of scripture my secular colleague looks at that same evidence and he says well that's not how I see it he says here's how I think those fossils before I think they were deposited over millions of years by local floods and so on no worldwide flood after all and the funny thing is the Christian sometimes is inclined to think well yeah I didn't convince them so maybe that evidence that evidence isn't as good as I thought it was in reality the evidence is fine it's the person's glasses that need to be adjusted so we but we throw that away we said well how about now here's this other evidence let me show you this look how Canyons can form quickly we know that Mount St Helens proved that carved out a canyon 140 at the scale of the Grand Canyon in a matter of days at most we know Canyons can form great he says yeah but just because that one did doesn't mean the Grand Canyon formed quickly it took millions of years we said well yeah I guess it doesn't prove it does it well let's try something else how about now we know rock layers can be laid down quickly they don't take millions of years Mount St Helens proved that as well he says yeah but just because those ones do doesn't mean these ones do the most of these ones we think take millions of years oh but but look animals reproduce according to their kinds right dogs always beget dogs and so on that's what we'd expect in creation he says sure but given enough time one kind can change into another just you know you just haven't observed it long enough but look we find evidence in DNA it's got information in it information always comes from a mind confirms Genesis he says well there could be some undiscovered mechanism that produces information give us time we'll find it but but look we find you know on Space things like comets that can't last billions of years he says no problem there's an Oort cloud that makes new ones you see for every line of evidence there is a rescuing device if the person's sufficiently clever you might be able to uh bully someone into believing something you know if they're not able to come up with a rescuing device but even that first of all I'm not sure that's ethical and secondly they could go off to somebody who is an expert and get a rescuing device from them so it's better to have good arguments and by the way I'm not suggesting for a moment that it's wrong to show people evidence I think it's good to show people some evidence for one thing people have been so trained so brainwashed to think about things from this perspective they're not even aware that there is another way to look at it and so I think it's good to do some of this I think it's good to show people some scientific evidence that confirms creation and challenges their worldview it's good to make them come up with a few rescuing devices okay so they can see what they're doing but my point is a philosophically astute person will not be persuaded by mere evidence when it's a worldview issue nor should he be so it is good to show people evidence and how the Bible makes sense of it this by itself will not resolve a debate over World Views because your worldview tells you what to make of the evidence and I think the reason that people don't often get this is because we spend most of our time with people that have the same worldview that we do and when you have the same worldview evidence does persuade right if you and I had a disagreement about whether or not there are Crackers In The Cupboard we could settle that by going over to the cupboard opening up there's the crackers I was right and because we have the same worldview you'd say yeah okay we come to agreement if I'm arguing with somebody who is a Hindu who believes the world is illusion it's all Maya could I open up the pantry and persuade them that way well no because I said well yeah I see it but that's illusion too you see if you have a different world view the evidence by itself is not going to settle the matter okay it's not decisive useful but not decisive and that's the problem a lot of creationists and evolutionists talk past each other they because they assume that the other party ought to interpret the evidence the same way they do and they get frustrated when they don't so how do we settle this debate then it's not about the evidence really it's about how it should be interpreted how do we settle that I'm going to give you the wrong answer before I give you the right answer because I want to show you what often happens it's usually the the person who has these secular presuppositions he'll propose this solution he'll say well what we can do then because you're interpreting the evidence that way and I'm interpreting it this way surely there are some things we can agree on and we'll meet in the middle then we'll meet on neutral ground okay so you give up the presuppositions that I don't agree with and we agree on things like science right and so that's neutral and so we'll meet in the middle and but you I don't believe in the Bible he says so you got to give that up um a lot of Christians fall for that but what does the Bible say about neutral ground when it comes to a worldview issue no such thing Jesus says he who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters you're with Christ or you're against him uh the mindset on the flesh is what neutral toward God no no it's hostile toward God it does not subject itself to love God it's not even able to do so so forget this neutrality idea do not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God therefore whoever who wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God there is a dichotomy here these are two antagonistic worldviews there is no neutral position the fact that Jesus says there's no neutral position ought to settle that matter in fact the nature of the claim makes it impossible to have a neutral position and my mentor on this topic Dr bonson like to call this the pretended neutrality fallacy the idea that okay we're going to pretend there's neutral but there is no neutral see the Bible claims there's no neutral so if you say well yes there is neutral and I'm neutral you've just said the Bible's wrong in which case you're not being neutral you see the claim of neutrality is a non-neutral claim it's immediately self-refuting and you're going to have to point that out to people people will not get that at first because if secularists like to think they're very objective and very neutral and all I would I would be a Christian if only I were if only there was evidence for it well the Bible tells us there's abundant evidence for it but they suppress the truth and unrighteousness they're not neutral and you're gonna have to explain to them that by making the claim you're neutral you've already decided the Bible's wrong because the Bible says there is no neutral you've already made a stand that's that's the issue you see when the secularist says let's meet on neutral ground there are things we can agree on and so on there's this middle position the Bible disallows that and if Christians agree to that yeah we can give up the Bible well neutral ground is secular ground the Bible disallows that possibility and if you agree to those terms you pretty well lost right at the outset because isn't the debate really about whether or not this is true isn't that what it's really about and if you start the debate by saying this isn't true at least about neutrality you've lost at the outset you cannot defend biblical Authority by abandoning biblical Authority that's not a good debate strategy to just concede defeat at the first moment that doesn't work evolutionists like to think they're very neutral they're going to want you to be very neutral two things to remember when people ask you to be neutral one they're not two you shouldn't be no one is neutral when it comes to a worldview issue you shouldn't try to be neutral when it God hasn't called us to be neutrals called us to be Christians no one can approach scientific evidence without presuppositions one way or the other you can't be neutral the best thing you can do is to be aware of what your presuppositions are and see if they make sense the man of God is to hold fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching so that he will be able both to exhort and sound Doctrine and refute those who contradict we stand on the word even when we're challenging people who are not standing on the word and the funny thing is Evolutions will say well that's circular reasoning you can't stand on what you're trying to defend meanwhile they're standing on Evolution trying to defend it uh it seems to me when it comes to an ultimate standard you have to stand on what you're trying to defend because there's no greater standard upon what you could stand if you see what I'm saying in battle you can stand on a hill while you're defending the hill that's the best place to be you ever had something in your eye and you go to a mirror and you can you know examine your eye using your eye and even correct your eye using your eye so there's nothing fallacious about that what's the right answer then how do we show that biblical presuppositions are the way to go and the answer it comes from scripture itself is what I want to suggest to you is that biblical presuppositions and only biblical presuppositions will make it possible to know anything at all or to have any kind of argument about anything so these presuppositions are self-defeating these ones are self-attesting that's what it comes down to and the Bible itself teaches that Proverbs 1 7 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge you want to begin to know anything you got to start with God and therefore his presuppositions you reject that the Bible says you're a fool fools despise wisdom and instruction all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ deposited in Christ not some all you want to know anything it's got to be through God God is the sender of all possible knowledge he's the source of all knowledge we're the recipients of some and there's an objection to this people will say but wait a minute non-christians do know some things that's true they do so how do we explain that if if in Christ if in God is all knowledge how is it that these unbelievers who don't even believe in God know things and the answer is they really do know God they're made in His image too and God's revealed himself to them they suppressed that truth and unrighteousness that's the issue God's revealed himself inescapably to people Romans 1 teaches that the wrath of God's revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and the righteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness it doesn't say they just don't know any better it says they suppress what they know to be true because what may be known of God is Manifest and then for God has shown it to them God has hardwired people to know that he exists and to know some some of his presuppositions and I grant we can't know everything about God just from the innate knowledge that he's given us I mean you couldn't know necessarily that he made in seven days apart from or six days and rested one apart from the scriptures but we can know the basics of God for since the creation of the world is invisible attributes are clearly seen God's hardwired us to know something about him and therefore even unbelievers can have knowledge because they know God are they just inconsistently reject him as their lord and savior so my argument is see is that only the Bible can make sense of those things that are necessary for knowledge and I'm going to spell this out to show you how this works but my main argument that for the truth of the Bible is that if the Bible weren't true you couldn't prove anything is true it is the absolute foundation for all knowledge and I want to give some specific illustrations of this in order for us to know anything about anything the universe would have to be a certain way and it turns out it's the way the Bible says the universe is if the universe were different from the way the Bible says it is we couldn't know anything let me give you some examples of this I think laws of logic would be one example we some of the things we know we know by logical reasoning we conclude them from pre from certain premises and so on uh but you've ever thought about where laws of logic come from why they exist why they have the properties they do why do they not change with time and so on the laws of logic stem from the mind of God really they're a reflection of the way God thinks and therefore the way we're supposed to think the Christian has a standard for correct reasoning and that standard is God and so we can have laws of logic but you see in a chance Universe why would there be any laws at all why would there be laws of logic in particular why would they have the properties that they do who decides what they are right why is it that laws of logic for example don't change with time you know that the law of non-contradiction right you can't have a and not a at the same time in the same relationship we all assume that works just as well on Thursdays as it does on Saturdays now why is that as a Christian I can account for that because God doesn't change he's Beyond time and if laws of logic a reflection of his thinking they're not going to change with time either God's consistent but from in a chance Universe how do you know that laws of logic will work tomorrow it's chance Universe Anything Could Happen so you see laws of logic are predicated on the truth of God's word or uniformity in nature the idea that uh in basic ways Nature's uniform if you know if there was gravity today there'll be gravity tomorrow presumably when you got up this morning you didn't embrace yourself just in case gravity should send you hurtling toward the ceiling presumably you assume that gravity pulls down as it has in the past now that makes sense in a Christian worldview because God has promised us a certain degree of uniformity in nature Genesis 8 22 he promises the basic cycles of nature will be in the future as they have been in the past until Judgment Day and so I can count on a certain degree of uniformity and yet all science is predicated on that all science is predicated on the fact that God upholds the universe in a consistent way in a way that the human mind can at least partially understand because our minds made were made in God's Dimensions so we have a limited degree limited ability to be rational and to observe the evidence our senses are reliable because God made them and so they can probe the universe if we're just rearranged Pawn scum science makes no sense at all why would you expect one chemical accident would be able to understand all other chemical accidents makes no sense you go out and start your car in the morning and it doesn't start ever had that happen yeah it probably doesn't occur to you to think well you know it's a chance universe so frankly I'm surprised at work this long yeah I guess the laws of physics and chemistry don't work anymore it doesn't occur to you what what does occur to you is some the situation has changed right the battery maybe is dead or there's a solenoid that's bad or something like that it doesn't occur to you to think that the basic cycles of nature are different now and yet in a chance of universe there's no reason why that shouldn't be the case and chance the universe Anything Could Happen you get up and stub your toe in the middle of the night you're gonna drink water and it's dark and you stub your tail on something oh that hurts right now the next night when you get up to get a drink of water you're very careful not to stub your toe again you say this time I'm going to take it really slow this time I'm going to turn on the lights okay why because you assume if you stub your toe again it will hurt again and as a Christian you have the right to assume that because God upholds things in a consistent way but in a chance universe Anything could happen it's a chance Universe why should you expect any kind of unicorn at all maybe the next time I stub my tote will be the most enjoyable experience of a Lifetime right you see all the things we take for granted to know anything about anything are predicated on scripture on the biblical worldview I think the easiest of these three to understand is absolute morality by which we have knowledge of right and wrong right and wrong that doesn't even make sense in an atheistic Universe in a chance Universe what happens simply happens there's no right or wrong about it it's just chemical reactions Adam's knowing what atoms do who decides what morality should be in a chance universe and why should I behave in a particular way see it makes it makes no sense you can't be defended but in a scriptural worldview yeah God made us he's got the right to make the rules he's going to hold me accountable for my actions and so I have a very good reason to behave in a particular way I can account for absolute morality and it's objective it's the same for all people because God is Sovereign over the entire universe and in fact all these things are that way as well the reason laws of logic we assume work just as well in the Andromeda galaxies they do here is because God is Sovereign over all his thinking permeates the entire universe and and controls the entire universe or uniformity in nature we assume that laws of nature work the same on Mars as they deal on Earth and every time NASA has a success it's because they've assumed that because they've assumed the laws of physics work the same in space and as a Christian we have the right to assume that now my point is not that secularists don't believe in these things my point is they do and yet on their worldview those things would make no sense whatsoever secularists have no logical foundation for logic itself or for uniformity in nature or for any absolute morality and so when when my secular colleagues will hear me say things like you know absolute morality is based on God's word they'll say hey but I'm you know I'm basically moral and so on and I said hey I'm not saying you don't have a sense of morality my my point is you shouldn't if your worldview were true you shouldn't he says but I can use laws of logic I believe in logic my point is you shouldn't if your worldview were true you shouldn't I believe in the methods of science yes but if your world you were true you shouldn't because science makes no sense in a chance universe see on the surface it may seem like you've just got these two competing World Views and it's just personal preference do you like blue do you like flame color you want you like the Bible you like the second worldview take your pick but what we're going to find when we examine these worldviews carefully when we open them up we're going to find the biblical worldview can lead to knowledge it makes sense it makes knowledge possible the secular world view and we examine it carefully cannot possibly go anywhere it can't work it can't lead to knowledge it's it's self-contradictory and one way you can reveal that is an internal critique where you examine the worldview on its own terms and show that it blows itself up relativism is an example of this you've heard relativists will say Everything's Relative right there are no absolutes that's true for you it's not true for me at the sorts of things and all things are relative there are no absolutes of course the question you want to ask is are you absolutely certain the uh the statement there are no absolutes is an absolute statement if it's true it's false therefore it's false easy to refute these World Views uh strict empiricism now I mentioned earlier many evolutionists are strict empiricists they believe that all truth claims are proved by empirical observation if you can't observe it with your own eyes or in with your own senses then you shouldn't believe it and the interesting thing I'm going to have to ask is how do you know the statement itself is true Did you prove it by empirical observation now think about that the statement that all truth claims are proved by empirical observation is itself a truth claim isn't it and it's one that you cannot prove by empirical observation because nobody has observed all truth claims in fact you can't really observe a truth claim anyway it's abstract but even if you could you can't observe all of them because there's an infinite number of Truth claims so he says if you can't observe it you shouldn't believe it well that statement is something I can't observe and therefore I shouldn't believe your statement it's self-refuting secular worldviews are always self-reviewed and not just secular abuse any worldview apart from Christianity inevitably blows itself up on its own terms all of them do that and I know that's true because God's told me that that his word alone is what makes knowledge possible all truth is in Christ right and so it's only in the biblical worldview all worldviews Circle that's that's inevitable the Bible circles in such a way that it makes all knowledge it makes knowledge possible and it comes back and confirms itself it's self-attesting every alternative to the Bible blows itself up when it comes back around I think that's a pretty good proof of the Christian worldview the fact that no other worldview is logically possible no other worldview makes knowledge possible the Bible alone does that and it claims that itself so I'm not departing from Biblical Authority when I make that claim it's a Biblical claim so it may seem at first like there's no way to resolve the issue I'm standing over here on my biblical presuppositions the Bible's true their absolutes from God laws of logic stem from the mind of God morality uniformity in nature by which we have induction my secular colleague is standing on maybe some combination of those things maybe not all of them but some combination he believes in nature is all that there is or empiricism a relativism neutrality the Bible's irrelevant to science it may seem at first like we can't get anywhere because we've already seen you can't just throw evidence at each other if the person's clever he'll just reinterpret it according to his own worldview anyway there's no neutral ground can't meet in the middle but one of the things we need to recognize is that secular presuppositions are sinking sand they will not support a worldview they are self-refuting and when that sand dissolves away the unbelievers left in a rather awkward position he cannot stand on his own worldview so what do unbelievers do they do that unbelievers will stand on Christian presuppositions because they have to they have to see all non-Christian worldviews are like that they cannot stand on their own worldview and so all non-Christian worldviews to some extent must steal Christian presuppositions it's inevitable and they're able to do that because they have they do have knowledge of God it's a suppressed knowledge of God but they do have it they know that God's real in their heart of hearts they know that they might not like being made in God's image but they can't escape being made in God's image they have to live in God's universe and therefore they're going to have to play by God's rules if they're going to survive and so they will inconsistently borrow Christian presuppositions they can't help themselves I like to think of unbelievers like presuppositional kleptomaniacs they just compulsively steal from the Christian worldview they can't help themselves they have to in order to survive and of course they're going to deny that right they're going to say oh no laws of logic that's not a Christian presupposition well really it is there's no basis for laws of logic apart from the Christian worldview why you'd have these absolute unchanging Universal standards of truth that doesn't make sense in a chance universe so we do have common ground we don't have neutral ground we do have common ground but it's not neutral because it belongs to God unbelievers must stand on Christian presuppositions so my point about creation and Christianity in general is that it must be true because it provides the intellectual ground on which everyone must stand whether they acknowledge it or not you can either be consistent and be a Christian or you can be inconsistent be irrational and rely on inconsistently Christian presuppositions by way of analogy you can think of a debate over biblical creation or Christianity a lot like a debate on the existence of air can you imagine two people debating whether or not air exists what would the critic of air say he's making all these long-winded arguments about how air doesn't exist all the while breathing air and expecting that we can hear his arguments as the sound is transmitted through the air you see the critic of air has to use air in order to make a case against air the very fact that he's able to make his argument proves that his argument is wrong and so it is with Biblical creation or any aspect of the Bible the critic of the Bible must use biblical presuppositions in order to argue against the Bible and so the fact that he's able to make his argument at all proves he's wrong he's got to use God's laws of logic or uniformity in nature by which we get science or he's going to make some kind of moral argument against the Bible he's got to borrow Christian principles to do it and they'll deny that of course I'll say but wait a minute I don't I don't even believe in the Bible and and I can use laws of logic well it'd be like the critic of air saying wait a minute you're saying I need air to breathe I don't even believe in air and I can breathe perfectly fine right I'm not saying you have to profess a belief in air to breathe but you do need to breathe I'm not saying you have to profess a belief in the Bible to think or be rational but you need the Bible to be true to think or be rational and so the secularist is standing on God's grounds stealing Christian principles arguing against Christianity using those very principles but if it succeeds all he's going to do is blow up his own position we had we had a fun time thinking of ways to illustrate this I kept thinking of those old Road Runner coyote cartoons where he'd end up getting in his own trap and that's really what it comes down to it really is the the secularist has to stand on Christian principles to argue against Christianity and I'll just uh I'm going to skip a few of these for time's sake I wish I could do this all but our time is limited I'll just uh to drive this home morality I think is the one that people get get the most easily lawsologic kind of abstract principles of science most have those people haven't thought about how science is possible but most people have thought about right and wrong and yet that makes no sense in a chance Universe consider an evolutionist who's outraged and seeing a violent murder on television he says I can't believe that man shot that little girl that's terrible he should go to jail now I'm glad the guy's angry but my point is it's inconsistent with his beliefs in evolution right because in his view it's just one chemical accident rearranging another chemical accident what's the big deal right you mix uh vinegar and baking soda it fizzes that's what it chemistry does you don't get mad at the baking so bad baking soda you shouldn't have fizzed up like that chemistry does what chemistry inevitably does there's no choice in the matter if it's just chemistry or for that matter if we're just evolved animals animals kill each other all the time the line kills the antelope you don't put the line in jail you better think about what you did right animals do what animals do there's a strategy to reveal this inconsistency that I must cover very quickly because of almost out of time it's called the don't answer answer strategy this is this revolutionized the way I defend the Christian faith when I discovered this it's right in scripture Proverbs 26 4 do not answer a full according to his father unless you be like him it's telling us we're not to embrace the presuppositions of the unbeliever because if we do we'd be like him we'll be foolish too so if somebody comes to you and says uh let's leave the Bible out of the discussion that's a foolish presupposition but especially if they're talking about Origins you know we can talk about Origins but you got to leave the Bible out of it because I don't believe in the Bible well that's absurd that's ridiculous let's leave the Bible out of the discussion now you don't want to agree to that because if you do you'll be like him and you can't really get anywhere you both rejected biblical Authority then and now you're reduced to foolishness on the other hand the Bible says answer a fool according to his folly so he can't be wise in his own eyes it may sound like a contradiction at first but the sense is different on the one hand we shouldn't embrace the presuppositions of the unbeliever on the other hand we should show where they go so that he can't be wise in his own eyes lest he think well I really proved a good point there I won that debate we want to show him that his own presuppositions are self-refuting so somebody comes along and says there are no absolutes you want to point out actually you just made an absolute statement you see how silly that is you reflect back his own philosophy to him so he can see the absurdity of it you never put on the outfit but you do show the absurdity of it by reflecting it back to him so somebody for example is a silly example somebody says I don't believe in words prove to me that creation is true but you can't use words to do it because I don't believe in words wouldn't that be silly wouldn't it be ridiculous to agree to those terms and say Well yeah if you don't believe in words I guess I can't use words no no use the don't answer answer strategy first of all the don't answer part you're going to say something like this I don't accept your belief that words don't exist okay make it clear I don't buy into your standard you may not have to explicitly say it but it needs to be there you need to show that person I don't I don't accept your standard but for the sake of argument hypothetically if words didn't exist you couldn't argue anyway because you need words to do that the fact that you're able to make your case demonstrates you wrong you just used words to tell me you don't believe in words you see you're reflecting that back what's he gonna say now if he's if he says nothing my point stands unrefuted I win if he says anything he proves my point that words exist I win you see that this is a brilliant strategy and the Lord knew that that's why he put in scripture for us if you want to see somebody who used this idea this this strategy masterfully take a look at Jesus in his Earthly Ministry he knew how to do this and Jesus was not the sort of person you wanted to debate against he knew how to do it and I want to suggest to you that we can all learn how to do that and it's I wish I had more time to cover these but we're out so I'm just going to uh close with first Peter 3 15. you know this verse I'm sure but but sanctify the Lord God in your heart so that's the key is to recognize how how God everything depends on him and then you'll be ready to give a defense and to do it with gentleness and respect and it's all been more important that we remember that gentleness and respect because you can slice and dice your opponents using this method we need to do it graciously and the the books that I've got we've got we've got some we got free books out there for you I hope that you'll pick those up on the way out now some of the stuff that I would encourage you to get we don't have here but we'll have it at the conference that's coming up in a couple weeks the unlocking the Mysteries conference and I hope you'll get those the ultimate proof of creation my book on this topic I hope you'll get that and read through it it really will give you a very powerful and irrefutable defense of the faith and I would encourage you to check that out lots of others uh Discerning Truth how to spot logical fallacies in evolutionary arguments very helpful for the Christian apologist this one we're going to give you today and this is one of the best books on creation written by all of our scientists at icr on different fields and it gives you just the basics of science on these issues it is helpful to know that even though that's not my ultimate proof of creation it is good to know the basics on these things and I won't go through all these for time's sake but there we have some wonderful resources I encourage you to check out if you're you're getting acts and facts everybody getting accent facts magazine okay if you're not we sign up sheet out there it's free and uh we want to just bless you with that it's a monthly magazine that will just encourage you uh with the latest confirmations of the Christian worldview and check us out on the web as well icr.org is our website all of our books you can get on the website there uh your originsmatter.com is our student Ministry but we'd be we'd be happy for you to get on there and interact with some of the students that we geared it mainly for high school and college students but anybody can get on there really and I have a Blog as well you might want to check out where I use what I've shown you today and I let evolutionists comment on my blog and it's we get a lot of fun on that blog so they tell me how stupid I am and then it's interesting so you might want to check that out as well so thank you very much for having me out to speak let's go ahead and close in prayer heavenly father thank you so much for this day thank you for uh thank you for the the blessing that I've got to experience here today Lord I pray that you would just let this message permeate in that we could recognize just that your word is true from the beginning that it is our ultimate foundation for all things and that we would stand boldly confident that your word is true from the beginning and learn to see science as secondary something that's confirming of scripture but not something that's Superior to it it's the word of God it's your word Lord that is Ultimate and we pray this in Jesus name amen

Channel: The Master's Seminary

Views: 168,105

Keywords: Joshua Crooch, Creation, ICR, Institute of Creation Research, The Master's Seminary, TMS, God, Truth, Bible, Proof of Creation, Evolution

Id: hPDYHZeP6pA

Length: 51min 25sec (3085 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 29 2014