Well Kurt, I'm going to have
to follow you around some more because you're taking me
to some awesome places. This is unbelievable! Isn't this beautiful? Where are we and what do we see? Well we're in a place
called Fall Creek Falls. That particular falls there drops the greatest freefall
distance of any waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains. So we're in Tennessee — eastern Tennessee — not too far from where we were looking
at Richland Creek there, about 20-25 miles
or so by the crow flies — I mean we'd have to drive
further than that. So what would a geologist
and a paleontologist see when you look around here? Rocks and trees. [Laughing]. Oh! [Laughing]. There's something more
interesting… [chuckles]. Well everyone sees that! [Laughs] This sort of thing. Well what's spectacular
about this particular canyon — you could only see
a part of it here — is there's a huge U-shaped
beautiful canyon here. Yeah we're kind of standing
right on the edge of it…. Right on the edge of it. And it goes straight out from here into another canyon
perpendicular to it. And then they've got
this little trickle of water going off the side of this thing in a very
much larger canyon. It's like there's
something funny about this: did that creek actually
cut this enormous canyon? That really doesn't make
any sense at all. It doesn't. This is what we call
an underfit river or underfit creek, meaning that the canyon
itself is made by something much bigger and much
different than the creek that now runs through it because it's the path
of least resistance. So there must have been
a catastrophic event that formed this,
rather than a long, slow process. Something much bigger, something… in fact the shape
of this canyon is consistent with the idea that all of this material
basically slumped out into the main canyon
all in one shot, very quickly. How could that happen? Well, the best possibility is that that canyon — the main canyon across there —
was itself cut extremely rapidly when this whole area
was waterlogged with water. All of these rocks
were full of water. When that canyon's
cut out very quickly, then all of the water
in the rocks in the… surrounding that canyon push in and want
to collapse basically in; and the rocks fail, they will slump
into the main canyon, be washed — all that material
will be washed down the canyon — leaving these U-shaped, wide, deep canyons perpendicular
to the main canyon…. With a dead end in them just
like we see here. Exactly. If you started from the main
gorge and walk this way, you'd hit this huge cliff. That's… that is the beginning
of that canyon. And so this indicates a period of time when there must have
been a huge amount of water that was cutting
the main canyon. And, in fact,
waterlogged this entire plateau. So would… are we talking
about a time during the flood or are we now know dealing
with that post-flood time? The rocks themselves
that are being cut here, that slumped in, are the rocks we were looking
at before that have evidence of the flood itself. Okay. So these rocks
have already formed. They've already hardened
enough to create cliffs and be resistant. So we must be talking about
the period after the flood. In addition, this feature
is relatively small. I mean it doesn't
look small to us here, but if you look at it from
a satellite the flood sediments cross entire continents. But what you find
about these canyons and the sediments that are formed at the same time
is they're very localized — they're in smaller regions. And so it suggests we're
no longer in the global flood; we're in that period
of recovery following the flood. That's part of… that's
that… that exponential curve we were talking
about yesterday where we're… we've got a lot
of tremoring going on — trembling in the earth. Exactly. Whatever catastrophism was
occurring during the flood, it eases off and gets less
and less catastrophic as time passes
following the flood. So we're in that period, then. We're in that period, the Arphaxadian epoch when the earthquakes of the flood — enormous
earthquakes of the flood — are reducing in intensity to
smaller and smaller earthquakes. The volcanoes of the flood — enormous volcanoes of the flood
— are getting smaller and smaller and less
frequent in time and the wetness of the flood — the flood is obviously water
covering the entire Earth that the earth is drying
following the flood. But immediately following
the flood the earth would have been extremely wet, not just from the water
of the flood but, actually, huge amounts of rain. Well, Kurt, I think
a lot of people think that after the flood, you know,
we don't have a lot of rain, but you're talking about kind
of a wet environment then. Yeah the Arphaxadian epoch
that we're talking about has a period of transition
from the time of the flood — the catastrophism of the flood, the destruction of the world
and the present. So you have a transition from
a period with enormous volcanoes that are incomprehensibly huge, to the volcanoes
that we have today. We have enormous earthquakes during the flood to the kinds
of earthquakes we have today. We have enormous rainfall,
it turns out, to cool the oceans
heated up in the flood, to the drying of the earth and the production of deserts
all the way to the present. You've got organisms, for example, the animals
in the ark — you've got just a few basic kinds
of animals on the ark. And this is a period when, in a few centuries, those kinds are
going to diversify so that within each kind
you can produce hundreds or even thousands of species. And then those animals
are going to spread across the earth to get
to every portion of the earth. So this is this is a transition period
in everything: in geology, biology, anthropology, in climates, everything from the destruction
of the world to the present. So there is… there's a lot
of things changing here. What's the biggest thing that's happening as far as
the earth geology is concerned? Biggest thing there is
that during the flood we believe continents
were moving horizontally, back and forth, smashing into each other
producing mountains moving sediments over large areas dumping eroding in some places dumping
sediment and others. What that did at the end
of the flood is leave the earth unstable out of what we
call isostatic equilibrium. It's going to take a while
for the ice cubes if you wish to bobble back to
where they're supposed to be. And that's… that's the… there's
going to be lots of earthquakes as rocks move
against each other. There's going to be a lot
of effusions of lava until things settle
down — in fact, they're still not settled down. So they're still in that process
of… it's mostly vertical motions and small adjustments, well relative to the flood
bad for us but adjustments that can settle the earth
back down to the way … ultimately to the way it was…
very similar to the way it was before the flood. Would that mean that we have the ocean levels
changing in the midst of that? And what is that? Yeah, there's so much
of the water from the ocean that evaporated out
of the ocean, ends up in ice and it actually
drops the sea level a total of 200 meters long, which is a lot of…. A lot. Yeah. And that… and so that connects
like Europe to England, connects Siberia
to North America, it makes it possible for organisms to spread out
from the ark and get to many places that you would have to swim
to in the present. So that's part
of that distribution, probably, part of what God had in mind and in designing
the world in such a way that it could be filled
with organisms and with people. Well Kurt, the conventional
paradigm would tell us that we have a lot of ice ages, and looking at ice cores
tells us that, oh, we've got all of these layers that means we've got
many many thousands of years from those ice cores. What's your perspective on that? The conventional wisdom is that there are
multiple ice advances. In our model, there's good reason to believe
there's only one ice motion. However the idea is that the ice that's collapsing — surging
out — is surging out in lobes that intersect one another;
one lobe would go out, melt back, another one
would come in. So you've got
a succession of events, but they're probably only
separated by a few years. And so this is actually
one collapse event. So that get an appearance
of several ages. Yes. There's a sequence of time, but it's not hundreds
of thousands of years, or millions of years. Well, Kurt, that also brings
to mind the woolly mammoth that we find frozen in the ice. So those were creatures that are post-flood —
there are not creatures that were caught in the flood. That's correct. They are all
post-flood creatures; they would have — in the case of the mammoths — there
would have been an elephant that got off the ark. There would have been
diversification of elephants producing a whole bunch of series of different species of elephants within
the created kind of elephants. And one of those produced late in that process would
have been a mammoth, a woolly mammoth. And they would have lived
in Siberia and Alaska at a time, again, when the oceans were
still somewhat warm. It's not as warm as
right after the flood, but they've cooled
down considerably. But enough to support a cold, temperate or slightly warm,
temperate climate of plants. So Kurt, after the animals
and the people got off the ark, there must have been
a rapid expansion of life. Yes, the organisms getting off
the ark were relatively few in number compared
to the number of species that we currently have today. So one of the neat things — I think it's cool — about
the Arphaxadian epoch is that during that period each created kind
is going to diversify. You're going to have one species
becoming hundreds or even, in some cases, thousands of species
in the few centuries following the flood. It's a wild and crazy
period of time. At the same time, those animals are actually also
spreading away from the ark. So they're following
the coastlines and choosing a temperature that they like. They're crossing what is
now water barriers because the ocean has been dropped because of
the accumulation of ice. They're crossing oceans on rafts
of vegetation still floating on the… on the oceans
after the flood, and getting to the various
places on the planet. By that point also we
have dropped sea level — it's a couple of centuries
has probably elapsed since the flood. Most animals have already reached all the distant
locations on the planet and now humans move out. So the Apes get there first,
then the humans, so you've got the sequence that some people interpret to be
the evolution of apes to humans. Well, it's not that,
it's the apes got there first, but eventually the humans go
to all parts of the earth going across land bridges — but I suspect — also
probably using ships. I mean, after all,
Noah built a ship. So you've got
ship-building ability. Noah would still be alive at that time — at the time
of the dispersion from Babel. And so probably some humans
dispersed by ship as well. Well that dispersion of people must really
be an interesting story. How do we track that? It is an interesting story and I think it's
probably best to talk to an archaeologist about that. Okay, so I guess we're
off on another trail. Yeah, let's go! Okay [chuckles]. Alright. Well, Kurt, this is all amazing. I mean all of that evidence
points back to the history of Genesis and the flood! But you know and I know that there are a lot of people
who just see the same evidence, but they don't;
they don't get it. Why not? It's easy to understand why
unbelievers don't get it; second Peter tells us why. Second Peter tells us
they want to live in their sin. And so they are willingly
ignorant of all this, because I think you have
to be willingly... If you can see it —
not everybody can see it, okay? It's when it's pointed out,
they can see it. But once… those people
who can see it, the reason they don't get it is because they
don't want to get it. They're willingly
ignorant of it. The real question
that you're asking, though, is well,
what about believers? Those who would
want this knowledge and would want it to be true? And that's what's
frustrating isn't it? Is it. Is frustrating. And part of that, I think, in this particular society
where we're living — I see far too much science
worship in our society. It's the way we even teach
about what science is. You learn in school
that science — I can remember the… a picture
in my mind of a grade school. I was probably what? Three or four… third
or fourth grade. I'm picturing this page
in the textbook and there's a boldface word: “science,” and in
parentheses following it: "derived from the
Latin word scientia, meaning knowledge,"
close parentheses. Ooh! Knowledge! Truth! So from [an] early age we're taught
in the school that science equals
knowledge, equals truth. People — I talk to people
all over the world — they associate science
with something you could prove. You'd think proof and science could be used
in the same sentence, but it's not true. You can't prove
anything in science! We can't prove anything! We can… we have some educated
guesses called theories, but you can never know for sure
if the theory is actually true. You can't check around
every tree and every planet and every star
and ever really know. So the real status of science — which is exciting to me —
is you never really know. You keep discovering, you keep hoping
you're getting closer, but you really
don't know for sure. But most people learn
that science is proof. That whatever scientists
say is proof. So I see Christians all
over the world saying, well the scientists said
it; it must be true. I've got to believe it. And so they themselves close
their their minds, their hearts to the…
to what God has put in the Creation very
evidently to teach us about himself and to confirm what he's claimed in his Word. So when you say
worshipping science, we essentially are turning away
from the source of real truth and we're substituting
for that source of truth not only
the creation around us — as we see in Romans 1 — and the Word of God itself, and then we turn to science
to be that source of truth. Is that what you're saying? That's right. That's right. That's dead on. We've got the God
of Truth who wrote, who inspired the Word of God. It is the word of truth. It is the truth, the eyewitness, the one
who was there. It ought to be, it is… in Scripture, it is
to be the our highest authority. It's where we go first. In the Garden of Eden,
God said don't eat of the tree. It should have…
that should have done it. That should have
been enough, okay? But Eve used her observation
in her brain and says, well, looks good, smells good, it's got
to be good tasting, good for making me wise so [she] overrode
the word of God and went with human reason — got us
into a lot of trouble. I mean we see
that thousands of years later, Jesus is tempted by
the same serpent — the same Satan — and his response is
to quote God's word. Jesus has the ability
in that… he created Satan. He can outthink Satan. He could have the ability to
outmaneuver him intellectually. He doesn't choose to do so. He simply quotes
the Word of God. That's what we ought
to be doing. That's what believers
ought to be doing. But for some reason, we just don't believe —
we don't trust God's Word. We trust human observation
and reason — and that's what science is. All science is
human observation, human reason coming
to conclusions based upon those things. We should be first — as it was supposed
to be in the beginning as it will be in the end
— trust the Word. Trust God's Word. Then from there,
fill in the blanks, complete the understanding
of God's creation. It seems, Kurt, that there is also another piece
of that as well; and that is that the believer who is indwelt
by the Spirit of God — the Spirit of Truth
— that part of it is that the only side of the story
they hear is the science side. And for a lot of them, they've never heard the evidence
like we see here and someone to talk
to them about that. Do you think
that may be part as well? Absolutely. Absolutely. We get it in schools. We've got public schools — they've kicked the prayer
out of the public schools, they kicked God out
of the public schools, the Bibles out of the… so what do you… what do you hear
in the public schools? You hear supposedly secular things —
in other words, the science. That's all you hear. That if you go to the library
and take out books, they are increasingly
kicking the Christian books out of the library, too. The internet full of… right. There's much more available
on there from unbelievers and from science. So there's many people
who never hear the truth. There's a whole lot
of pastors scared to death of this particular question. They don't understand science, so they don't mention
in the sermons. Sunday school teachers
aren't comfortable with it, so it's not shared there. So you could potentially grow up all of your life
in the church, a believer, and never hear the truth. Yeah, it'd be like in a trial where the jury only hears
the prosecution's case and they never get to hear
from the defendants. Well, the jury is going
to make an obvious choice, and that's for the prosecution. So it seems like we — and I know this is
your heart as well, that part of this is we —
need to help the body of Christ see all of this evidence that
we've been looking at. Yeah. People need to hear,
need to see. Just as people cannot
come to know Christ without the Word of God, I think people can't understand
his creation without the truth of that creation
being revealed to him. Not everybody is designed
to be able to read rocks and read trees and read
plants and animals, and the universe, the stars, and and all
that sort of thing. It's got to be… it's got
to be shown to most of them. Well, that's your
specialty, though. That's how God has made you;
He has given you that gift and talent to see those things. And so… and I know
that is part of the heart that you have is
to help people see that. And I love sharing it. Not that very many
people like to hear, but I'll share it! Well, I guess that's
our task, isn't it? It is. To do everything we can to help
people see that evidence. And to find that evidence,
if there is any more. Oh, there's always more! [Laughs]. I'm sure there will be. Sure there will be.
