The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Dr. Jason Lisle

[Music] thank you it's good to be with you this evening and I'm going to talk about the ultimate proof of creation ought to be or it's something right there I'm going to do a lot of what we'll talk is about the science of creation tomorrow and in some on Sunday as well but the ultimate proof creation is a little different from what from the kinds of arguments that most people hear for biblical creation I do believe that Genesis is accurate and the history that it gives and that the science confirms that but we we you can't know everything about science right even in my own field of astrophysics I don't know know everything in my own field there's too much to know and even my specialty field they the correlation tracking of measure granules on the solar photosphere I don't even know anything about I don't even know everything about that topic so my point is you can't know everything about everything and so those people who try to say well my ultimate bulletproof argument will be this particular area of science you got to be careful about that because there's always somebody smarter there's somebody that knows more about it than you do is there an argument therefore that you can learn that it doesn't matter how smart the person is they will not be able to defeat the argument and the answer is yes there is and I want to give that to you this evening and it is different from the kinds of arguments that you've heard before but it is powerful and when you use this ultimate proof on people and I would encourage you to do so you may find that they do or do not convert right away sometimes they do sometimes they don't and you might get discouraged you might think well maybe my arguments not that great if the person didn't convert well not necessarily people are not always converted by a very good argument right people are not always rational that doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with the argument maybe there's something wrong with person and we know that there is something wrong with people people are irrational because we're sinners and we don't we were resistant to God unless he changes our hearts will continue to be that way but my point is there's a difference between proof and persuasion I can't ultimately persuade anybody I can be persuasive in the way that I try to explain things but it's ultimately up to God to change a person's heart all I can do is make an argument and I can make an argument that's bullet proof that there will be no rational response to argument so just keep in mind just because somebody doesn't cry uncle doesn't mean you don't have them in headlock all right and so this is an ultimate proof they will not be able to respond to words might come out of their mouths but they won't be a rational response to this argument I'm going to present to you this evening and that ought to be very powerful and again a whole this whole thing it's not about winning arguments we want to win people we want to see people saved and you know people have said well that's it you know that's a gimmick or something I'm not presenting a gimmick I'm presenting a method of exposing truth that's all that's all it is and it's very powerful because it will expose the truth and that's what I want to share with you this evening I'll start with some lines of evidence that people often use that they think proves creation but it falls short of an ultimate proof so let's start with that and we'll hit these more tomorrow as well because I think there's good science out there that confirms creation but it's less than ultimate there's an entire field called information theory that deals with how information is transmitted and goes from one source to the next and so on dr. Verner get one of the world's experts on information theory says when it's progress along the chain of transmission events is traced backwards every piece of information leads to a mental source the mind of the sender so if you find information it has to come from originally a mind now a mechanical machine like a Xerox machine can copy information it can copy a book and so on but it can't generate new information only a mind can do that and that's very interesting because what do we have in DNA we have information the information to make you is stored on a very long molecule that's in your the cells of your body that DNA and that has all the instructions to make you include in the nucleotide base version we'll see how that that works for those of you they're able to come to the session tomorrow but in any case my point is the information that you got you got it from your parents they got it from their parents and so on and so forth all the way back to Adam and Eve they got it from God and so you see the laws of information confirmed Oobleck all creation they're consistent with what we understand about genetics that that information had to come originally from an author of information that authors God mutations don't help they might increase survival value in certain instances but all point mutations that have been studied on molecular level turnout to reduce the genetic information not to increase it not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome so my point is genetics and information theory confirmed biblical creation they do not confirm evolution that seems like a pretty powerful argument and it is but it's not ultimate and I'll show you why in a minute another one we could use we could talk about the age of things I'm convinced the Bible's right about the age of the universe it's not billions of years old like the secularists want you to believe because they need that for evolution but there's a lot of scientific evidence that confirms that God created thousands of years ago the fact that we find carbon-14 in diamonds now carbon most carbon is c12 it's got six protons six neutrons there's a variety of it c14 that is unstable C 14 will decay spontaneously into nitrogen and it does so with a half-life of 5730 14 would be gone and yet we find it in diamonds diamonds that secularists believe to be one to two billion years old they can't be anywhere near that because the carbon the carbon-14 would be gone and these things are buried deep down in in in in layers of rock that are well insulated from cosmic rays and yet they have c14 in them interesting that would seem to confirm a recent creation as the Bible teaches and not millions of years of evolution as the secularists want to believe in my own specialty field of astronomy we have things called comets they come around the solar system every now and then they have elliptical paths they go out far away from the Sun and then they come back in and they get whiplashed back out so that kind of elliptical orbit and when they're far away from the Sun that ice remains frozen they're made up of icy kind of icy dirt dirty ice balls or icy dirt balls depending on how you look at it and when they come close to the Sun you're probably thinking ice close to the Sun that can't be good you'd be right the Sun heats that up and causes it to vaporize and so when you see a comet's tail that's material being depleted from the comet by solar wind and radiation pressure that's pushing it away and so we know the amount of material that's there a comet nucleus the actual icy source of the material is two miles across four or five miles across the largest one we've ever seen was 40 miles across it it was that was unusual though they're usually just a few miles across we can measure the rate in which the material is being depleted and we were pretty good at math so we can figure out how long comets last and they last about a hundred thousand years maximum some of them less than that but wait a minute the second is believe the solar system's 4.5 billion years old so how can we still have comets when they can't last more than about a hundred thousand years no that would seem to be a good evidence of recent creation there's a lot of things like this and we'll cover more of these tomorrow but as I promised I want to give you an ultimate proof and these are not quite ultimate because for every line of scientific evidence that I present an evolutionist or secularist can always invoke what we might call a rescuing device he can come up with a hypothesis a conjecture that protects his way of thinking his worldview from what appears to be evidence to the contrary so the case of comets my secular colleagues they know about comets they they can do the same math I can do they know comets can't last billions years they know that and so they say well there must be a source of new comets which they call the Oort cloud and so the idea is that it's kind of a big comet generator out there beyond the farthest planets there's this there's supposedly a big sphere of potential comets orbiting out there and every now and then one of them is dislodged from its circular orbit into the inner solar system becomes a brand-new comet so as old comets disintegrate new ones replace them pretty clever now we don't see a word cloud there's no evidence of it if I were to ask a secular astronomer do you have any evidence observational evidence of North Cloud and 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 I've had people say that to me and it's true I can't disprove the existence of an undetectable Oort cloud it's undetectable how am I supposed to disprove that right by design it's undetectable so that's pretty hard to refute yeah there can always be a rescuing device and good rescuing devices are unfalsifiable there's no way to test them that's what makes them good and so when I talk about information and DNA and how information never comes about by chance somebody could always propose a rescuing device well there's some undiscovered mechanism that produces information the DNA we just haven't found it yet well I guess it's possible I mean there's always something undiscovered right or when I point out that there's 14 and diamonds they could say well there's some kind of an unknown contamination there we don't know what's causing it but give us time we'll find it okay well that's a rescuing device and before we're too hard on our secular colleagues I have to point out that you have your rescuing devices too if I were to ask you about an alleged contradiction in the Bible you know how do you reconcile this maybe it's a verse you're not all that familiar with how do you reconcile this with this over here it seems to contradict your first inclination if you don't know the answer is not to throw this away and say well yeah that's a contradiction I can't be a Christian anymore your first inclination is to say well I don't know what the answer is but I'm sure there is one give me time we'll find it and go and research it there's nothing wrong with that so my point is everybody has rescuing devices because we all have a worldview a way of thinking about how the world works and that affects how we look at the evidence creationists and evolutionists have the same world but we draw different interpretations of the evidence because we have a different foundational way of thinking about it and so I don't blame me the secularist for drawing the conclusion that there's an Oort cloud that's consistent with his belief in billions of years which he requires for evolution his observation that there are comments he must draw the conclusion there's a common generator you see it's consistent on the other hand I'm starting from my biblical creation perspective I say well I don't believe the sources as billions years old I see comments I say yeah that confirms I don't need nor to cloud in my in my worldview I just believe comments are thousands of years old it just fits so we draw different interpretations of the very same evidence because we have a different way of thinking about it and this is something that's if you're new to this if you're new to apologetics it's it's profound creationists and evolutionists have the same facts a lot of times people think the way I win the debate is I get more facts on my side well I Got News for you we have the same facts I have access to the same fossils and DNA patterns as my secular colleagues I look at the same stars and galaxies through my telescope that they look at we have the same facts because we live in the same planet and we have we live in the same universe we have the same facts we do science pretty much the same way when I you know when I mix two chemicals they react the same way as when an evolutionist mixes two chemicals right we do science the same way science is testable repeatable in the present why then do we have such different view about origins and the answer is because we have a different way of thinking we have a different way of looking at the evidence the evidence is out there and it's the same for all of us creationists evolutionists have the same fossils we have the same Grand Canyon we have the same stars and galaxies but we look at the evidence through a way of thinking which you can think of like mental glasses only some of us wear glasses physically but we all have mental glasses we have a way of thinking about the world you can't get away from that if you must except to give up thinking you can be a rock and they don't have a worldview but if you're a human being you have a worldview most people have not reflected adequately upon their own worldview but you do have one it's there and it's constantly processing everything that you see and I like to think of the Bible like corrective lenses that are prescription they're just for you because the Bible gives us the correct view of history you put on those lenses you see the world as it is clearly it's sharp it makes sense I like to think of evolution like ready glasses you put on red glasses and you look around you say wow everything is red well that's not true is it but that's what you see because that's the glasses you're wearing and people have those worldviews they have a way of thinking about about reality that colors what we see and of course and I realized evolution I'll say oh no we're wearing the right glasses you're wearing the wrong glasses we'll have to debate that but my point is we all have mental glasses we all have a worldview which consists of our presuppositions presuppositions are your most basic beliefs about reality and all your presuppositions together form your worldview you do have very basic beliefs about right they're not just any old assumption there are a lot of a lot of things we assume on a daily basis you'd be surprised if you just stopped and think about what are things that I assume that I don't really know but presuppositions are your most basic beliefs about reality things that you would not give up easily your own existence for example or the reliability of your senses that's something that you assume before you investigate the evidence you assume that your eyes and your ears and your fingers and so on are reliable that they're informing you about the actual universe it probably doesn't occur to you that you might actually be a brain in a jar and all this is just an illusion that's being fed you know by electrical impulses like in the matrix or something that probably doesn't occur to you that's a presupposition that your senses are reliable that your memory is basically hybl presumably you think that the events you remember actually happened now how do you know that how you know your memories basically reliable now you might say well dr. Lila I took a memory test to two weeks ago I did really well I got an A on it I'm gonna say how do you know you took a memory test two weeks ago well I remember taking oh yeah you'd have to assume that your memory is reliable in order to argue that you correctly remember that your memory is reliable that's the nature of a presupposition laws of logic or presuppositions you know about law even if you have never recited a law of logic you know about them and you use them on a daily basis like the law of non-contradiction which says you can't have a and not a at the same time in the same relationship they said my car's in the parking lot and it's not in the parking lot you wouldn't rush out to see a car that's they're not there you would assume that I'm mistaken that's a law of logic now can you prove that there are laws of logic I think you can but not without using them because we use laws of logic to prove everything right that's what we use to prove stuff so laws of logic or presuppositions because you have to presuppose them in order to even get started in order to even make an argument we all have these presuppositions that we take with us when we evaluate the evidence people are taught often that science is supposed to be very objective and neutral and I'll grant that we shouldn't make a lot of unnecessary assumptions but there are certain presuppositions you have to make to do science you have to do that when you come along you know there's a rock on the side of the road I'm going to be objective and scientific I'm not gonna make any assumption so I'm gonna do some science and find out what the rocks made of being rigorously objective making no assumptions well you've already made assumptions you've assumed the rock is there because you see it you've assumed that your senses are reliable you've made all kinds of assumptions there and that's not necessarily a bad thing it's my point is we just need to be aware of the presuppositions that we have and see if they can port with other presuppositions some people say not me I don't have beliefs about how do how evidence should be interpreted I think evidence should be interpreted neutrally and I'm going to say well that's a very interesting belief about how to interpret evidence right the belief that we should interpret evidence with no beliefs is itself a belief about how to interpret evidence it's just a ridiculous one because it's self-refuting so these are presuppositions and all your preset positions together form your world view and so I'm going to use those terms interchangeably now the kicker is creationists and evolutionists have different world views we have different ways of interpreting the evidence because we have different presuppositions and so even before we come to the evidence we've already got this worldview we think we know how the world works and that tells us what to make of the evidence that we see and because we have different worldviews different sets of presuppositions we can look at exactly the same fossil and draw very different conclusions about what it means you'll find also that presuppositions are hierarchical some are more basic than others I might be able to get you to trade in one of your less important presuppositions to protect the more basic one and we'll see some examples of that as we go on but your but your presuppositions will ultimately go down to an ultimate standard that you won't give up and for the creationist that should be the Bible the Bible should be really it should be our ultimate standard for everything right I mean if this really is truth from God it would be ridiculous to change this in for guesswork why not start with something that we know is absolutely true written by the God of truth I'm not saying all creationist do have the Bible as their ultimate standard I'm just saying they should it really should be our ultimate standard for the evolutionist what is his or her ultimate standard well it's not gonna be the Bible you wouldn't if the Bible is your ultimate standard you're not gonna believe in evolution ultimately usually it's either naturalism or strict empiricism there's different you know there's different evolutionists out there and they have different beliefs but usually one of those two is the ultimate standard naturalism is the belief that nature's all there is and so if God exists he's part of nature rather than transcendent to it and so everything has to be explained naturally no miracles things like that or strict empiricism which is the belief that all truth claims should be answered by the scientific method by observation and experimentation now I think many truth claims can be answered that way but not all of them so I'm not a strict empiricists there's certain things that can't be demonstrated scientifically like laws of logic for example now the way most people argue is they just throw facts at each other but they don't realize because we have a different ultimate standard we're gonna interpret those same facts differently now I I do have other standards besides the Bible but thought the Bible is my ultimate standard because it's unquestionable you see I do believe my senses are basically reliable but that's not my ultimate standard because I know my senses can be fooled have you ever seen like a beam of wood put in water at an angle and it looks like the wood bends when it goes under the water because the way the light refracts now here I have my eyes telling me that wood bends when it goes under the water and yet I don't believe that because if one thing I could put my hand under there in my hand so my hand says is still straight so now what do I do I got one sense telling me it bends again another sense telling me it doesn't Bend how do I resolve that conflict well I have a greater presupposition that solid things remain solid underwater and so on my greater presuppositions tell me how to modify my lesser ones you see and so we all have presuppositions and we all have an ultimate standard but most people try to use evidence to settle the origins debate but the problem is the origins the origins debate is a world you debate and you cannot resolve a worldview debate merely by appealing into evidence now I'm not suggesting it's wrong to bring out evidence so we'll do a lot of that tomorrow I think that's useful but my point is it's not decisive and I have a silly illustration I like to use to demonstrate this there was a man who thought that he was dead he thought that he himself was dead I've kind of a strange problem I've learned that this there this is actually a psychological condition that occurs in folks where they think they're dead amazingly and his doctors trying to convince them look fella you're perfectly healthy you can you can walk and talk and the guy says yeah but you know bodies can have muscle spasms even after clinical death that could explain my ability to walk and talk and the doctor says but look I've got medical charts showing you're perfectly healthy I did a complete workup on you just last week you're perfectly healthy and the guy says yeah but that that might not even be my chart maybe the names got swapped and who knows if you're interpreting that right anyway and the doctor says ok I'm gonna prove to you that you are not dead do dead men bleed and a guy thinks about it for a second with a circulatory system would be know dead men don't bleed and the doctor very quickly takes a little pinpricks the guy in the hand sure enough little blood comes to the surface see you're bleeding - what the man responds well how about that I guess dead men do bleed silly example but makes the point did the doctor have evidence that the guy was not dead absolutely there was nothing wrong with the evidence he presented the guy could walk and talk medical charts the guy could bleed those are great lines of evidence did they persuade the man no because he had a presupposition that told him how to interpret the evidence in each case he was able to come up with a rescuing device to explain away that evidence in light of his worldview you say well dr. Lau that's a read that's ridiculous that would never happen in reality would it yeah it does and if there's one thing that decades and ministry has convinced me of this is exactly how people think it absolutely is because you can present all kinds of evidence for God the Bible tells us the evidence for God is obvious God's hardwired us to recognize creation as that a creation of God and yet people suppress that truth and unrighteousness because they do not want to face a God who is rightly angry at them for their sins and they will come up with rescuing device after rescuing device after rescuing device to explain away any evidence that you present to them that's not that doesn't mean it's wrong to present evidence but just don't expect the person to immediately convert because they have a worldview and so do you it's just my worldview happens to be right that's the difference you see in so much as it's biblical and so I'm looking at the evidence properly through the lens of Scripture this corrective lens that gives me the correct view of history and I look at something like fossils and I see yes of course there's fossils there was a worldwide flood I'd expect to find fossils all over the planet fossils of aquatic organisms on the land on the highest mountaintops Mount Everest has aquatic fossils at the top I'd expect that of course evidence that the Bible is true my secular colleague looks at that very same fossil and says that's not how I see it here's how I think the fossils form I think they fall so they formed gradually over hundreds of millions of years and they actually proved the world's very very old and you say well yeah I guess you can look at it that way so we think well yeah maybe that's not such the best evidence then maybe we need more evidence and so we say but look here's look how canyons can form quickly Mount st. Helens demonstrated that cut out a canyon 140th the scale of the Grand Canyon in a matter of hours because yeah but just because that canyons warm quickly doesn't mean the Grand Canyon form quickly it took billions of years well yeah I guess yeah just because we know how one form that it doesn't prove how they all form yeah okay well we need more evidence right so look rock layers can be deposited quickly I'm out st. Helens laid down all kinds of new sediment some of which have solidified into rock says yeah but just because those ones do doesn't mean these ones do all right he's got his rescuing device there but look animals they reproduce according to their kind kangaroos beget kangaroos exactly what the Bible says it's a sure but given enough time one kind will eventually change into another we just haven't been around long enough to see it but look there's information in DNA information never comes about by chance well there's some undiscovered process that gives time we'll find it but but look there's things out in space like comets that can't last millions of years this is no problem there's an Oort cloud that makes new ones hmm you see the problem here now I'm not suggesting that it's wrong to show people evidence in fact I think we should do some of this because in our culture people have been so inundated with the evolutionary way of thinking that they don't even realize there is another way to look at the evidence and so there is value in presenting science and showing people how the Bible makes sense of it and that's what we'll do tomorrow okay but my point is if you only do that you haven't really made an argument for creation you've just pointed out you can look at it this way but that doesn't mean you must does it you haven't really made an argument for the Bible if you just present evidence and show that the Bible makes sense of it and if you're up against someone who is tenacious and philosophically astute you'll be able to come up with a rescuing device for every line of evidence you can come up with if you're up against somebody clever he'll come up with the rescuing device that's what it comes down to so it's good to show people evidence yes you should do that and how the Bible makes sense of it yes you should do that people need to be exposed to the Christian way of thinking we should do that but this by itself will not resolve a debate over worldviews because a person's worldview tells them how to interpret that evidence every piece of evidence you present if the person's clever he'll find a way of accounting for that in his worldview perhaps by coming up with a rescuing device see not all truth claims are answered in the same way I think one of the reasons we struggle with this is we tend to spend most of our time with people to have the same worldview that we have not true and so if if you and I have a disagreement about whether or not there are crackers in the cupboard we can settle that by going open to the cupboard opening up see their crackers there and because we have the same worldview we agree our senses are reliable and so on we come to agreement yes I was right there are indeed crackers in the cupboard but if I'm arguing with somebody who has a different worldview situations changed if I'm arguing with a Hindu who believes that this is all illusion the world is my illusion and that we have a disagreement about whether or not they're crackers in the cupboard I show them the crackers is he going to be convinced not necessarily because in his world view that's delusion too because there's no distinctions in the Hindu worldview okay so you see if you're dealing with somebody who has a different worldview you can't just throw evidence back and forth because we'll each interpret the evidence according to our respective worldviews so somehow I need to argue that my presuppositions biblical presuppositions are the correct way of looking at the evidence and then my secular colleagues way of looking at it is wrong how do we do that well one before I give you the right answer I want to give you the wrong answer because a lot of times it's very tempting especially for the secularists to say well there have to be some presuppositions that are kind of in between that are neutral neutral ground and we'll meet kind of there in the middle and we'll give up the things that we don't agree on in one thing he says I certainly don't agree the Bible's the Word of God so you got to give that up and leave that out of the conversation and that just sounds so reasonable to people that because they think we should be neutral but there's a problem with neutral ground and the problem with neutral ground is that there's no such thing as neutral ground that's the problem it doesn't exist and the Bible says as much jesus said he who is not with me is what neutral no he says he who is not with me is against me he who does not gather with me scatters is that interesting so if you're not with God you're actually against them you're you're his friend or his enemy the Bible says in Hebrews or in Romans eight eight seven because the mind set on flesh is what neutral toward God unbelievers like to thank the they're neutral toward God atheists like to say that oh I'm very neutral I just haven't been persuaded that God exists no the Bible says you're and you're actively hostile to God your thinking is hostile to him because he's made creation so abundantly obvious that you should all believe it everyone should believe it so the but the mind set on the flesh does not subject itself to the law of God it's not even able to do so unbelievers are not even able to be neutral the very thing they claim to be James 4:4 you adulteresses do you not know that friendship with the world is what neutrality toward God hostility toward God whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God the biblical picture is you're God's friend or you're his enemy you're with him or you're against him you're gathering or you're scattering there is no neutral when it comes to an ultimate faith commitment and the very attempt to be neutral therefore is unbiblical we're going to call it the pretended neutrality fallacy as the way dr. Bahnson liked to put it my mentor on this topic since the Bible indicates that there is no neutral right as what the Bible says we read the verses the very claim of neutrality is unbiblical isn't it and so when somebody says all know there's neutral and I am neutral that person has effectively said the Bible is wrong in which case they are not being neutral isn't that interesting the the belief in neutrality isn't is a non neutral belief because it's anti biblical and by the way you will have to explain that to somebody at some point so make sure you get that because people think they're neutral they really do and they want you to be neutral but the fact is there's no such thing the attempt to be neutral is anti God because God says there's no such thing so neutral ground is not really neutral and if you agree to those terms you say yeah we can leave the Bible out of the discussion because you don't agree you know you don't agree with it I guess I can't use something you don't agree with and we step onto what we think is neutral ground neutral ground is really secular ground and at that point you've lost because isn't the debate really about whether or not this is true isn't that what it's really about ultimately whether or not the Bible is true and if you start the debate by saying well the Bible is not true about neutrality you started your debate for the truth of the Bible by saying the Bible is not true that is not a good way to start a debate by immediately conceding defeat right that is not logical secularists like to think they're very neutral and objective and they're gonna want you to be neutral and objective two things to remember when people ask you to be neutral one they're not - you shouldn't be okay nobody's neutral and you're not supposed to be you're supposed to be Christians you're not supposed to be neutral nobody can approach scientific evidence without presuppositions you can't escape that and you shouldn't try so the man of God according to Titus 1:9 is to hold fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teachings so that he will be able both to exhort and sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict yes we do stand on the word of God even when we're refuting people who deny the Word of God they say but I don't believe the Word of God and I said well that's your problem right you should you should believe the Bible if you don't that's your mistake I'm not gonna make it my mistake just because you're being irrational doesn't mean I should be irrational if somebody didn't believe in the existence of err would you hold your breath that's their problem right people say but you wait you can't stand on the Bible while you're defending it that's circular reasoning meanwhile they're standing on evolution while defending that there's nothing illogical about standing on the thing you're defending I'm not just saying the Bible's true because it's true that's not my argument that would be vicious circular and that would be silly but nonetheless I'm not going to abandon the Bible for the sake of somebody who doesn't believe in it that's his problem and so in battle you can stand on a hill while you're defending the hill right that's the best place to be have you ever had something in your eye you can go to a mirror and use your eye to examine your eye and correct your eye there's nothing illogical about that and there's nothing illogical about standing on God's Word while you're defending it if it really is the ultimate standard you have to because there's nothing greater upon what you could stand you see so how do we get anywhere then how do I show that my biblical presuppositions are the right ones so we can't just throw evidence back and forth because we'll each interpret the evidence in light of our respective worldviews right we can't just meet on neutral ground because there's no such thing so how do I demonstrate biblical presuppositions are correct you know presuppositions are kind of like your kidneys you can't live without them and they're constantly working and doing things and yet most people are not aware of their own is that interesting just as most people are not aware of their own kidneys and the functioning of their kidneys that they need to live so most people are not aware of their own presuppositions which they also need to live until something goes wrong if you've ever had a kidney stone you are suddenly abundantly aware of your kidneys I've had one they're not fun and you're abundantly aware that something is horribly wrong so what I want to do is show that secular presuppositions will not make knowledge possible they're inconsistent with each other and with knowledge basically I want to give the unbeliever the intellectual equivalent of a kidney stone okay it's going to be painful for him but he's going to be better off in the long run because he's gonna realize that those secular presuppositions don't work secular presuppositions do not make knowledge possible I know that's true because it's something the Bible tells us proverbs 1:7 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge you want to begin to know anything it starts with a submission to God and therefore his presuppositions biblical presuppositions and there's a flipside of this proverb you reject God's wisdom you reject his presuppositions you're a fool the Bible says you're reduced to foolishness you can't have knowledge you can't have wisdom because in Colossians two three we find in Christ our hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge everything that is known or knowable is in the mind of God everything and it's only by revelation from God that we know anything and God's revealed himself in many different ways but nonetheless it's only because God exists it's only because the Bible is true that we're able to know things that you see is the ultimate proof of creation and I'm gonna flush that out a little bit because some of you might be thinking but wait a minute I have I have non-believing friends non-christian friends and they do know some things and that's true but then again they do know God my argument is not that you must profess Christianity to have knowledge my argument is that Christianity must be true in order for you to have knowledge as Christianity is still true for the belieber yeah you might deny it but it's still true and he knows God everybody does romans 1:18 through 19 right the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who what you just don't know any better know who suppress the truth in unrighteousness that's interesting because to suppress the truth you would have to know the truth in order to suppress it that's interesting self-deception is a real phenomenon the Bible talks about it those who go away they look at God's Word and they don't their life has not changed they're self-deluded like a person looking in the mirror and going away and forgetting what he looks like that's the analogy the Bible gives says their self deceived self deceived weird but true to human nature fallen human nature because to be self deceived you'd have to know the truth and you'd have to convince yourself of a lie it's very strange but it's it who said human beings were rational right in our fallen nature we're not because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them God has made himself obvious for since the creation in the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse so yes unbelievers do know God and they rely upon God's presuppositions albeit inconsistently and in a way that is not thankful to God are grateful to him so you see my argument that the Bible must be true and I'm not just arguing for creation I'm really arguing for the Christian worldview which begins with creation my argument that the Bible must be true is that it alone can make sense of those things that are necessary for us to have knowledge that's a different kind of an argument so I'm going to flesh that out but my point is if the Bible were not true you couldn't prove anything is true because in order for us to know that something is true the universe would have to be a certain way and my argument is the universe would have to be exactly the way the Bible says it is in order for us to have knowledge of things that's a different kind of an argument isn't it well what are some things that we use to have knowledge well let's consider laws of logic you use laws of logic every day even if you don't even if you can't consciously recite one use the law of non-contradiction you couldn't get up in the morning without using laws of logic ever woken up in the morning and you're in bed you think I think I'll get a shower do you ever stop and think well wait a minute maybe I'm already in the shower it doesn't occur to you right because you know if I'm here I'm not there and so on you use logic and so you have knowledge of something you know I'm not there because you know you know I'm here and so on and so that's we use laws of logic to have knowledge of things that's something that we we use and we need that to have knowledge about mathematical truths and certain things like that but laws of logic are based on the character of God the reason we have laws of correct reasoning is because there is a mind that's sovereign over the universe and that's the mind of God laws of logic don't change with time do they it's not like well contradictions can't be true on Fridays but on Saturdays all bets are off right feel free to contradict yourself on a Saturday it might be true well it's ridiculous right we know caught we know laws of logic don't change with time why because God doesn't change with time cuz he's beyond time he made time after all he says I the Lord do not change therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed right so laws of logic don't change with time they don't change with space laws of logic work just as well on the moon as they do on the earth or in the Andromeda galaxy right I mean if I go into a room I've never been in before am I worried that boy I hope laws of logic work in this room I might be in trouble I might be there and not there at the same time when the astronauts landed on the moon they had a lot of concerns but one of them was not boy we hope laws of logic work on the moon they assumed that why because God sovereign over the entire universe instead of laws of logic work on earth which they must because God's mind controls the earth and they work everywhere else too so you see the nature of laws of logic the fact that they're the fact that there is a standard of right reasoning makes sense because that standard is the mind of God God determines what right reasoning is the fact that laws of logic don't change with time makes sense in light of the fact that rooted in the nature of God the law of non-contradiction exists why because God doesn't deny himself the Bible says as much he cannot deny himself and all truth is in God therefore truth will never contradict true that can't because God's sovereign over all truth CC laws of logic which we all use whether Christians are non-christians only makes sense in the Christian worldview if it's just a chance to universe why would you have laws at all if there's no lawgiver who decides what they are why would they not change with time why would be how could you possibly know that they're the same everywhere you couldn't know that based on your own experience because you don't have universal experience you've never been everywhere in fact cosmically speaking your experiences are very limited most of you have not even left the planet right this is a small planet so you see all the assumptions that we make about laws of logic are predicated on the Christian worldview you could not defend them apart from the Christian worldview uniformity in nature not to be confused with uniformitarianism which is the idea that rates and conditions are constant I don't believe that there was a worldwide flood that changed lots of rates but nonetheless there are things in nature that there are patterns in nature that don't change arbitrarily with time because nature is upheld by the mind of God the seasons for example God's promised us that the seasons will continue in the future as they have in the past Genesis 822 there it is the day/night cycle and there other cycles in nature that I would argue that science is all about trying to discover the patterns that God has placed in nature particularly the ones that don't change with time science is about this because God allows some things to change but then other thing other cycles he doesn't allow to change and science is about distinguishing those two that's really what it's all about so uniformity of nature is what makes science possible but why would there why would you assume that there would be any uniformity of nature in a chance universe why it's a chance of universe anything can happen have you ever gone to start your car and it doesn't start I had that happen once it was unpleasant it's not fun right now but here's here's the thing though I didn't say well I guess the laws of chemistry and physics don't work anymore that didn't even occur to me I assumed that conditions had changed that maybe the battery's dead or there's a bad solenoid in the starter or whatever right if if the result is different you would automatically assume that conditions have changed it wouldn't occur to you to think well I guess laws of physics and chemistry don't work anymore frankly I'm surprised their laws all in a chance universe right see doesn't even occur to us to think that way because God's hardwired us theistic aliy to understand that he exists and that he pulls the universe in us in a consistent way babies are born knowing about uniformity they burned their hand on the candle they don't touch the candle again because they assume that will hurt again how do they learn that God put that information right in them from conception you all assume that when you get up the middle of the night to get a drink of water and it's dark and you're fumbling around you've ever stubbed your toe on something ah now the next night when you get up to get a drink of water you're very careful not to stub your toe again right because you assume it will hurt again but in the chance universe how could you know that in a chance of universe anything can happen maybe the next time I stub my toe it'll be the most enjoyable experience of my life right it's chance universe anything can happen why would I assume uniformity in the chance of universe it makes no sense it's based on the character of God as revealed in Scripture morality see I think those two are kind of abstract most people haven't thought about laws of logic or what makes science possible but people have thought about right and wrong and people have very strong opinions on what's right and wrong but the point is how would right and wrong makes sense in a chance universe because if we're just chemical accidents what one chemical accident does to another chemical accident is morally irrelevant right I mean you don't scold your motor oil for doing what it does when you spill it it just does what it does it's chemistry if we're just chemical accidents there is no morality I mean well what you should behave this way why if I'm a chemical accident why should I behave it well because it benefits people why do I care what benefits people there's chemical accidents in your worldview all right so I'm gonna kind of zoom in on that one because I think that's one that is easiest to understand if you're new to this way of thinking that's the one to start with because we have thought about morality but my point is in a chance universe morality makes no sense let alone absolute why would it be the same for everybody and the Christian worldview I can explain that because we're all made in the image of God and God has the same standard for all of us he's revealed that in his word and I have a very good reason to obey God's law because there are consequences if I don't and frankly out of gratitude for salvation but you see my point absolute morality makes sense and the Christian worldview all of these things do these are the things that we we use to have knowledge we use laws of logic to know things about if this then that you know these if-then statements with your logical truths uniformity by which we have knowledge of the universe morality by which we have knowledge of right and wrong in order for us to have knowledge of anything the Bible would have to be true beginning with creation now my point is not that secularists don't believe in loss Falacci informative nature morality my point is they do and yet on their professed worldview they shouldn't so when my atheist friends says but but dr. Lisle I believe in laws of logic I would say what you shouldn't because in your worldview there's no basis for having laws at all let alone laws of reasoning and why do you assume they're the same everywhere and that they don't change with time you haven't been everywhere and you haven't seen the future right how do you know that on his worldview he can't make sense of it he assumes it because he's made in God's image and he can't escape that so what you need to do then to expose the fact that these presuppositions that everybody has our Christian presuppositions as you point out they make no sense in a secular worldview you do an internal critique an internal critique is where you examine the worldview on its own terms to show that it's self destructs so on the surface it might seem like you know people just choose their worldview arbitrarily like they pick colors of cars you like blue you like flame color take your pick you like the Bible you like the second ruled you whatever right or whatever my parents held or in some cases the opposite of whatever my parents held right I just get to pick what I want well except when you examine it carefully the biblical worldview works it can lead to knowledge it can go somewhere the secular worldview on the examine it carefully can't possibly work it cannot lead to knowledge it would not make knowledge possible so let me show you how to do this with a couple of real examples relativism relativism is the belief that all things are relative there are no absolutes and you'll hear people say well that's true for you but it's not true for me and so on relativists very easy to refute on its own terms because you want to all you have to do to ask the relativist when he says all things are relative there are no salutes is to say are you absolutely certain mmm how's it gonna answer that if he says yes he's refuted himself if he says no then he hasn't demonstrated anything as he I'm when in that debate aren't I all I have to do is ask that question boom the absurdity of his world was revealed in one question well strict empiricism a lot of evolutionists are strict empiricists they believe that all truth claims are proved by empirical observation that is a common belief that the way you know something is scientifically if you can't demonstrate something scientifically by observation and experimentation that you shouldn't believe it and the problem with that is it's self refuting I'm gonna ask him how do you know the statement itself is true did you prove it by empirical observation see follow this here the statement all truth claims are proved by empirical observation is itself a truth claim one that has not been proved by empirical observation because nobody has observed all truth claims right in fact you can't observe a truth claim it's abstract so you see if the statements true you shouldn't believe it it's self refuting and that is true for all non biblical worldviews all of them self-destruct on their own terms you just have to push the unbeliever to be consistent with what he professes to believe and it'll eventually circle back and self-destruct all of them do that we know that because the Bible says that God is what makes knowledge possible all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Christ not some all you give up Christ you give up knowledge so at first that may seem like we're on our two little islands isolated from each other we can't get anywhere but the problem is secular presuppositions do not make knowledge possible they're sinking sand is the way the Bible puts it they will not support knowledge and yet people need knowledge you need it to survive so what is the unbeliever to do when that sand dissolves away he's got a problem he cannot stand on his own presuppositions and have knowledge and so what's he gonna do is gonna do this unbelievers will stand on Christian ground on Christian presuppositions because they have to if they're gonna survive in God's universe they got to do it God's Way so yes non-christians will believe in laws of logic and uniformity in nature as if God is upholding the universe in a consistent way they'll believe in absolute morality is if there's a God who sovereign over everyone they will believe in in that laws of logic absolute because God's mind is sovereign over all truth and yet bill denied a very God that makes those things meaningful is that interesting they're compulsively stealing from the Christian worldview to support their own they can't help themselves they're their presuppositional kleptomaniacs they're constantly stealing from the Christian worldview now they're gonna deny it we pointed out you're standing on God's ground and say no it's not laws of logic that's not a Christian presupposition we all have laws of logic and then I'm gonna have to point out but you can't account for them you can't make sense of them on your own worldview and ultimately again we can't change the person's heart that's up to God all we can do is point out being consistency we can say look I hope you'll get saved I really do I'm praying for you but I have to point out you're standing on God's ground you either need to get saved or stop trespassing right that's what it comes down to you can think of the debate over Christianity or biblical creation like a debate on the existence of air can you imagine two people arguing whether or not air exists or the critic of air say he's making all these elaborate arguments oh there's no such thing as air all the while breathing air and expecting that we can understand his argument as the sound is transmitted through the air would that be rather strange you see the critic of air would have to use air in order to make a case against air the fact that he's able to make his argument proves that his argument is wrong and it's exactly the same with folks who argue against the Bible because the critic of the Bible must use biblical presuppositions in order to argue against the Bible the fact that he's able to make an argument at all proves that his argument is wrong because any argument against the Bible is going to use what logic they're going to say the Bible is theological it costs it contradicts itself oh really you believe in the law of non-contradiction how do you how do you account for that in the chance universe or it'll be something about science in which case they're relying on uniformity of nature which is not guaranteed apart from Scripture there's no reason to believe it or they'll say the Bible is morally flawed in which case they have a sense of absolute morality as if we're not just chemical accidents you see any argument against the Bible has to first the truth of the Bible in order to get off the ground and if you understand that principle boys are powerful because you'll realize that all unbelievers have to stand on Christian ground even to argue against Christian ground and that's not going to work out well for them because if they were to succeed then they'd lose the very ground on which they must stand to make the argument and again I like to focus in on those three those are not the only three things that we use for knowledge we assume we presuppose the reliability of our census but that makes sense in a Christian worldview God's designed my census they're not just an accident of evolution they're designed by creator so they work properly perhaps not perfectly because of sin and the curse and so on but we our senses are basically reliable things like that or are predicated on God's Word being true and again I like to kind of zoom in on morality because that's the easiest for people to grasp if you haven't heard this before if God created us morality makes sense he's got the right to make the rules if Adams in your past God made you he owns you he makes the rules and you're accountable to God and you will answer to God someday so I have a good reason to behave in the way that God has prescribed if I'm just to rearrange pond-scum if I'm just an ape God doesn't owe me I own myself I make my own rules and some people might say that they might say that's right morality is relative I get to make up my own rules and so do you I say Oh interesting well if I make up the rule that it's okay to kill you would that be okay if I were to pull out a gun right now say go ahead make my day can you give me a reason why I shouldn't pull the trigger what's he gonna say now if he says well you can't do that because that would be objectively wrong then he's made my day because he's demonstrated that there's an objective morality that's that's true over everyone and I'll make sense in the Christian worldview it says well yeah I guess I can't come up with a reason I pulled the trigger and I win the debate that way right because there's no I mean there's no laws of logic in the secular worldview so as far as I can tell there would be no reason why you couldn't win a debate by simply shooting your opponent I would never do that because that's I'm a Christian so you understand but I'm just pointing out its inconsistent isn't it but people are so inconsistent you shouldn't enforce your morality on other people what did you just do you enforced your morality on an interesting yeah you can't escape that we we understand morality subjective it's the same for everyone even people who deny it cannot live that way and if you pull a gun on them they will very quickly change their position on the issue that that hypothetical was used in the in the Bahnson stein debate very effectively and the atheist did not have a good comeback how do you decide right from wrong apart from the biblical god morality can only be relative but people cannot and will not live that way there's not too many responses to this really well no you don't need God to be good good is what brings the most happiness to the most people and I'm going to ask why in your view happiness is just a chemical reaction in the brain of a chemical accident why should I expend energy to try and achieve that do you go to your can of motor oil and say are you happy I want to make sure you're happy it's a chemical accident who cares right if this makes no sense and even here because some of you are thinking well yeah we should be concerned about others yes we should be in the Christian worldview where people are made in the image of God but you see even here he's subtly borrowing on the Christian worldview isn't he he's effectively saying what you don't need to you don't need the Bible or God or anything just just do unto others as you would have them do unto you and I'm thinking I've heard something like that somewhere before in the Christian worldview yes we should be concerned about others not not that their happiness is paramount but their holiness is we should be concerned about others because they're made in the image of God but if you're chemical accident it makes no sense to be concerned about other chemical accidents I debated the PhD neurologist one time he's an expert on the brain this was his response he said the morolto simply electrochemical impulses in the brain I was asking about morale what is morality in your view what's a section of your brain it tells you how you should behave but in your view the brain is just a chemical accident so you're just saying I'm just following random chemistry I've got chemistry going on in my stomach should I use my indigestion to tell me how to behave does it be interesting wouldn't it or if it you know fitting you mix some chemicals together and whatever the response is that's how I decide what I'm gonna do because that's all he's saying really it's just chemistry well chemistry is amoral there's no morality to it chemistry just does what chemistry does there's no right or wrong about it some people say laws of morality are conventions adopted for the benefit of society very dangerous view self-refuting view convention is something we all agree on and it works right driving on the right side of the road in which case some cultures would say well you know there was a culture that said let's kill the Jews and everybody agreed on that except the Jews they didn't like it so much well we say that's yeah that's good no that's not good who decides what benefits society Hitler had some ideas about what benefits society that I don't think we'd agree with I hope you wouldn't agree with that so I mean this is this is ridiculous even the benefit of society benefit already assumes a standard of goodness that's objective right otherwise it's just arbitrary well we need we need laws of morality dr. Lisle otherwise people go around acting like animals and you say but in your worldview isn't that what people are why would we have these laws that and you know animals don't have morality in that sense and just to drill at home consider an evolutionist who is outraged at seeing a violent murder on television so I can't believe that man killed that little girl that's terrible he should go to jail but my point is he's an evolutionist in his worldview it's just one chemical accident getting rid of another Kimmel while chemical accident why should he be angry that's what we call a behavioural inconsistency the way he behaves is not consistent with what he says he believes he says people are just chemical accidents but he gets upset when one is murdered why if they really were chemical accidents you don't get upset at chemistry you mix the vinegar and the baking soda into fizzes you don't say bad baking soda you shouldn'ta fizzed that way right that's just what it does chemistry does what chemistry does there's no right or wrong about it the fact that he's angry shows that he understands there is an objective moral code set by God that's that a person has violated because that person has freedom of choice chemistry does not have freedom of choice we're just a ball of chemicals you don't have any choice on what you do so again he's standing on the Christian world using Christian principles to try and argue against Christianity folks if you understand this every argument against Christianity must stand on Christianity to get started if you understand that that is powerful all you got to do is learn to see where the unbeliever is standing on Christian ground inconsistently while denying the very ground that he's standing on is true and that is a very powerful and very useful approach in apologetics I'm going to skip some of these for times sake so we can do some QA but I hope you get the point if you understand this you can agree with the Apostle Paul and say where is the wise man where is the scribe where is the debater of this age has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world you see it's it's the Bible that gives me confidence in defending the Christian faith because God tells me knowledge is not possible apart from him apart from biblical presuppositions that's the argument I stand on the science is secondary I'm a scientist but I know that there's always different ways of interpreting the evidence but the only reason evidence is interprete belit all is because the bible is true we have reliable senses basically we're able to think rationally to draw logical conclusions consider the options choose the best and so on things that make sense in light of the Christian worldview and that's why I'm not afraid to debate people I do debates at times I don't love debating but I'll do it and I'm confident in my position because the Bible is true from the beginning Peter of course says but sanctify Lord God in your hearts that's the key see how everything depends on God and then you'll be ready always to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason of the hope that's in you and all the more important to remember this last part with meekness and fear with gentleness and respect because I learned this method of defending the faith it is powerful and you can refute any argument that dares challenge God and so it's all the more important that we do it graciously I've been kind of blunt in the hypothetical answers I've given because I want you to get the point but obviously we need to temper that with with gentleness never at the expense of truth though never at the expense of truth but we do need to be gentle because after all we've been the critic at one point all of us we were against God and unless God changed her heart would still be against God and and because critics are deserving their main image of God they deserve respect on account of that even if they deny it they still are made in the image of God so again it's not our job to open people's hearts that's up to the Holy Spirit as dr. Bahnson liked to put it it's our job to close their mouths and that's what this method does it's not a gimmick it's not a trick it was use this to prove anything to prove other thing can I use this to win an argument with my spouse no unless it's on whether or not Christianity is true that's the only thing it does is it reveals truth it's not a trick or gimmick all it is is a way of revealing what's true by showing people that only the Christian worldview can make sense of those things necessary for knowledge like laws of logic and science and what you know which is based on uniformity of nature and morality and things of that nature so it's it's a powerful powerful method and always to be used with gentleness and respect so the key is to stand on God's Word while you're defending it and never depart from that somebody says I don't but I don't believe in the Bible well that's your problem you should it's the Word of God it's ridiculous for you not to believe in it and then we can talk about we can talk details and so on that's fine the book I've written on this topic the ultimate proof of creation I encourage you to pick that up we do have it over there along with some other resources and I know I talk too fast so I wrote the book really slowly so you can take your time with it and and there's examples in the back too I've got some appendices on actual conversations that I've had with folks where I've used this method and you see how effective it is it's devastating on anyone that dares challenge that challenges God we have some follow-up DVDs on this topic nuclear strength apologetics which just follows along what I've talked about although we go into science and logic and show all those depend on the Christian worldview that's a two-part set nuclear strength apologetics part 1 - what about folks who are Christians but they read the Bible differently and they say I'm not sure the Genesis is literally true and so on understanding Genesis and I'll hit that for those of you that are able to come Sunday morning that's little be talking about during the the main service they're discerning truth how to spot logical fallacies in arguments that evolutionists make that's a valuable skill knowing something about logic and being able to spot errors and reasoning and it's a short book you can read that easily in a day and I think it'll really equip you to better defend the Christian faith we have DVDs we have created cosmos takes you on a tour of the universe that's a neat little program it's the planetarium show I wrote for the Creation Museum years ago and I'm just really really happy with the way it turned out it's a lot of fun we have books on astronomy I'll go through those some probably Sunday afternoon Sunday's our astronomy day actually and so I'll talk about about that but stargazers guide to the night sky just how to better enjoy the night sky from a Christian perspective and what can you see this time of year when's the next meteor shower when's the next solar eclipse and and things like that well if you wanted to get a telescope what kind you might want to get how to use it but even naked eye stuff there's a lot of stuff you can see a naked eye or binoculars you see Saturn's rings and binoculars did you know that you just gotta know which ones Saturn and that's where the book will yeah so there you go it's not simple okay taking back astronomy this is the more apologetic book this is going to show you how the heavens declare biblical creation and not billions of years it refutes the Big Bang and things like that and so I actually will hit this for those of you that are coming Sunday afternoon and that'll be kind of the topic I'm talking about then keeping faith in an age of reason talks about these alleged contradictions in Bible in in the Bible where critics have said well there's hundreds of contradictions in the Bible and there's a list that goes around the internet of over 400 contradictions and I thought okay I'll look into it and I wrote a book that responds to each not one of them as a legitimate contradiction not one and so the book shows you how those can be made sense of and when you just study the text carefully it's most of them are pretty easy to answer but there's some where I had to go back to the Hebrew to look at the language there physics of Einstein that's exactly what you think it is it's a layman's introduction to the physics that Einstein discovered just because it's cool and I think it's the answer to the distant starlight issue too but again we'll deal with that on Sunday afternoon relevance of Genesis all kinds of DVDs that you want to check out there that we have you can get all the DVDs together for a discounted price you get all the books together for a discount price you get all the books and DVDs for an even more discount price that will probably be put me out of business but that's okay we want to get that we want to get the information out there we have a logic curriculum I didn't put a slide for it apparently but that's brand-new and it's designed for home schoolers but you might pick it up if you want to learn about logic and and how logic is predicated on the Christian worldview and we do have a free monthly newsletter please sign up for that there sign-up sheets over there and it's it's an electronic newsletter you'll get it in your email if you don't have an email address you'll get nothing because it's just it's just electronic okay so make sure you put your email address legibly it is free and they're not very not very many free things in this world right just the salvation and our newsletter so there you go and check us out Biblical Science Institute if you want to partner with us we have a partnership program where you can donate a little bit to us we try to keep I try to keep the website free and everything like that we do have an online forum that's the only paid section but you got a couple million dollars you drop us that'd be great so but I try you have not because you ask not right so there you go anyway it's a it's a great website encourage you to check that out when we take a few minutes and do some Q&A just some good hi so when you're talking about from a secularist worldview the different sources of relative morality that rose stood out to me because I was thinking back to a debate I was having with another young man in high school who uh very well-spoken very friendly person very adamant in his secular worldview and that came up where you know he first tried to you know I accused the Christian faith like you know how dare you guys need a book to tell you what's wrong I'm right the rest of us no one in our head so I was asking okay then what is the source of morality and he gave an answer that wasn't too similar 20 of the ones that you add elicits I suppose would be closest to both the second and the third where he was saying it was a process of natural selection where in you know members of you know the the protoman bill I erectus it doesn't matter where those that did not follow the these laws be these societal norms would have been ousted or would have been killed you know and it it it sounded all nice and pretty from a secular perspective but that eventually led to me refuting that by you know in essence saying well in a different scenario if man was in a different habitat if the circumstance was different if he was on a different planet where these morals you know evolved differently where a man was no longer ousted from the Society for you know murder or rape or what-have-you would that change from rowdy and he didn't really have a response for that but just looking back I did feel that that response was almost sloppy and you know basically saying whoa in a different world that wouldn't necessarily be evil what would be your response to him where he would be saying in essence that it was a hybrid of the second third reasons were natural selective sure's board gave us our morality yep I would say with respect you're confusing morality with behavior because evolution if you for the sake of argument let's buy into evolution just put our evolution hats on for the sake of thinking through the issue he's trying to say here's why we behave this way here's why we have this moral code okay but that doesn't mean I should behave that way there's a difference between behavior what people actually do and morality which is what people should do now his hypothetical scenario of evolution might account for why people do behave in a particular way but it doesn't explain why I should be behave in a particular way and another way I could answer is I could give some examples that would not make sense in his worldview because ultimately he's saying the reason that it's good for me to help my neighbor is because it might eventually help me survive okay as a community we might help each other okay and so in that case what is right is what ultimately benefits my survival value okay well let's take that and think about that so shoot er comes in and I'm here with my grandmother and he's gonna you know I'm gonna shoot one of you and if I'm if I'm really a good Christian and I'm feeling really noble I step in front of my grandmother and I take the bullet right but according to his worldview I should do the exact opposite the thing I should do is take my grandmother and user as a human shield to protect me from those bullets you see and so it would end up generating behavior that we would say that's not so noble we know that's wrong and yet by his worldview because he's confusing what people do with what people should do he but he would have a problem answering that I would think so there's a couple different ways you could answer that those would be one of the two that I would I would pick it's a helpful yeah very much thanking so you've been talking about secularism versus Christianity God's Word and I'm just curious have you encountered people of other religions that you've used this kind of beyond who have their own holy books yeah absolutely this this method will work on anything that challenges God's Word because it's not the Bible doesn't say the fear of some concept of deity is the beginning of knowledge it's the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and all other religions effectively reject the Lord they make up their own gods instead okay and so that tells me that this method will work on them the specific questions I might ask might be a little different but the same methods gonna work so somebody has a religious worldview okay I'm gonna ask them how do you know anything about your God okay well I've got this book okay well how do you know the books accurate I was inspired but it was you know Muhammad wrote it well okay anybody else oh just him okay Bible is written by many different people they all confirm each other and so on I could point out that for example in Islam there's no justice there's no ultimate justice all offer gives some people but there's no payment for sin because they don't hold to the crucifixion of Christ being the payment for for sin you see and so morality doesn't really make sense in that worldview there's no ultimate justice there God is unjust so how does how does that work out so you can use the same you can laws of logic morality uniformity you can do the same thing with that with that world you'll work on them it's just the nuances might be a little different it's interesting because I I've focused in on creation and how you might argue against an evolutionist especially one who's has a secular atheistic worldview and because the examples I give for that hopefully that's clear if I'd done the same presentation but arguing against Islam probably people would say yes I see how that works against Islam but how would you use it on the Atheist it's it's just the specific examples you want to pick are going to be different but the method works just as well just a simple question on the context of the atheistic evolutionist huh if I were to be able to reach down to the center of the earth and touch the core I would burn my fingers okay now what's the explanation that the evolutionist gives for who's keeping the heat on down there over these millions and billions of years they would say radioactive decay is what produces that heat and the problem with that is I don't think anybody knows how much radioactive materials are actually in Earth's interior so I do think that's an assumption I don't use that as an argument for a young earth because I don't know either how much radioactive elements or the earth so they might be sufficient to keep the earth warm for that long I don't know I can tell you that it doesn't work for the big planets like Jupiter will hit this on Sunday but Jupiter also has excess internal heat and Jupiter does not have radioactive elements because it's made of hydrogen and helium and they're they're stable and so that won't work with Jupiter that's a problem Jupiter's an indication of a young solar system for the earth I don't use it as an argument one way or the other because nobody knows as far as I know nobody knows the the amount of radioactive materials and if they would be sufficient if there's a sufficient amount of them to keep the earth warm over that long period of time I really try to be careful I think we all should do this to make sure that if we're using argument it's a good one and you know we don't ever want to Bluff or anything like that it's tempting to do that sometimes when you don't know the answer but yeah just one comment on the first Peter 3:15 version and it's probably just a rendering by version but the new American Standard that we use but sanctify Christ as Lord which probably is you know a a person kind of intention there of Christ of Scripture yeah being sanctified as the Lord exactly the Lord I think that's right oh yeah yeah i my question is the obvious that goes on in the news today about the global warming and those kinds of things and my pre my pre supposition would be that most people in this room would agree that there's not enough data to support that is is there a quick answer to the the global warming hype right now yeah I think it's I think the hype is it's overhyped there is some evidence that the Earth's temperature has gone up in the 20th century from what it was in the in the 19th but aside from that that's all been it's not a huge difference like a degree and a half it's a very small change and upward that has not happened in the last two decades there's been no evidence of global warming at all for the last 20 years or so none your temperatures not gone up if anything gets dropped a little we would expect that because there are natural cycles in nature God's promised us that Genesis 822 we can be assured that there cannot be any sort of catastrophic global warming on earth until Judgment Day and you're not going to stop that one but because we have a promise from God in Genesis 822 that the basic cycles of nature the summer and winter he uses the season specifically will not cease as long as the earth remains so until Judgment Day you're not gonna have any catastrophic climate change does the climate change a bit sure is it man-made doubtful alright we've probably contributed a little bit to it but not very much again if you just if you just look at the science it doesn't support catastrophic or man-made global warming the the times the decades in which human beings were putting the most carbon dioxide in the atmosphere do not correlate with the decades where the earth's temperature was higher there's not a good correlation there they Earth's temperatures do correlate with sunspots when the Sun has more sunspots it actually puts out a little more energy and naturally there's temperatures a little warmer and there was a period of time called the maunder minimum where it was a couple centuries ago where there were very few sunspots on the Sun for several decades and that corresponded with lower temperatures on the earth and we might be feeling that now because the last solar cycle had relatively few sunspots and so that means cooler temperatures on the earth and so that's why they don't call it global warming anymore they call it climate change that way no matter what happens they can say we were right but yes we would expect the climate would change slightly over time because is in control of it and he's promised us that nothing catastrophic is gonna happen until Judgment Day okay thanks dr. Lisle [Applause]

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Length: 72min 55sec (4375 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Footballthoughts]

This. Wouldn't want to go out any other way.

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