Why Theistic Evolutionism FAILS

skipper final upload: This episode of the Reformed Corner Podcast is brought to you by Squirrely Joe's Coffee. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Reform Corner. my name is Quentin James, and I am joined today, as always, by my swarthy bane of the Mormon's existence, Elijah King. I'm here. Yes. And looking very swarthy. well, thank you. Thank you. I think your hair's doing quite nice today. You know, here at the Reformed Corner, we do believe in like at first sight. So obviously with his amazing hair this evening, you have fallen for the channel. So do the right thing. Go up to your computer screen, light up that cigar, and click that like button. And if you're feeling particularly adventurous, maybe even the subscribe button. Wow. I appreciate you throwing that in there. You did not tell me you were doing anything. No, no, love it. I thought it fun. All right. Yeah. And again, don't forget to check out swirlyjoes.com. use code corner for fifteen percent off your first order. Get some really good coffee. We're going into fall season, so get that that dark roast covenant beans, best one out there. but yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about what is on the agenda today. We just finished Clement, so we're doing a bonus episode. What what are we what are we here for? Yeah, so we're gonna talk about a conversation that you had with Skipper. Which is quite Doctor Skipper. Doctor Skipper. I apologize. His captain title kind of throws me. Yeah. I cannot believe that's a real name. I thought you were just I thought it was just a friend, you know. this is Skipper, you know. No, his his nickname is Skip. Not not Skipper. That's his his given name, his Christian name is Skipper Kagamaster. I love that guy. But yeah, so he's even better last name. Yes. But we he's Brilliant dude. Absolutely a genius. If you guys are watching the video and you and you start feeling like, wow, I don't know any of the words he's using. You're not alone. Ligerish is a proper term. That's yes. And I loved it, but it caught me off guard. I'm like, what? I've never heard that term before. And then he explained he's talking about a liger. Like, yeah. Duh, I've seen Napoleon dynamite. I know these things. That's like my level of intelligence. Yes. But he's, you know, PhD, he's a physicist, he's a patent. Not agent, but he analyst. Analyst, thank you. Yeah. Brilliant dude. his only problem is he's Baptist. But, you know, well I'll forgive that because everything else about him is the fantastic. And he knows his stuff when it comes to creation, when it comes to the genit genesis narrative, and why theistic evolution, the big bang theory, all that stuff is dumb. Not that it you have to be dumb to believe it, right? He would he would be the first to say, People who are much smarter than any of us believe that stuff. However, it's wrong. It's incorrect because it disagrees with scripture. So that's kind of what we're going to be talking about tonight is why theistic evolution is turning kids gay and trans. Yes, very much so. We're gonna get demonetized. So well, actually, I I don't even know if your YouTube's demonetized at this point. It is, but I'm not big enough to get demonetized yet. Even better. so one. Thought about these conversations is that we should be very irenic them because there's a good chance that you're wrong on many of the cases. And myself, I am absolutely wrong on a ton of things. So we should ask for grace and we should give grace when it's required. Yes. so the first point is that science is extremely malleable. because science is not a science is the proposition that we can figure out things about the real world. Right. That it's not. constantly adjusting, not constantly changing, but that it has a firm foundation to its reality. so as Christians, we would ground that foundation in God and God being a just God and that things do not sway his intent. So it's not like God wakes up the next day and says, you know, the sky should be green today. Yeah. The wavelength of light is now such and such. Yeah. I'm forgetting which proverb it is, but it's a it's the one where he says It's the glory of God to conceal things. It's the glory of kings to search them out. Yes. And so that's what science is. Science is following after what God has already laid out in creation and trying to to figure it out. To seek the glory that's hidden there. And one of the concerns coming into it, you know, obviously we're Presbyterians. so we take when someone says thus say the Lord, we take it very seriously. Yeah. And so when you s make the statement that the Bible teaches this or the Bible says this, yeah, you can't first off, you shouldn't do that. Right. In most cases. Where the scripture is extremely clear, like on you know, Leviticus 18, 22, you know, homosexuality is no bueno. It is an abomination before God. No bueno. You can freely say from the authorized version. That is from the authorized version. You're welcome. but saying that your interpretation is God's word, that would be speaking for God. Yeah. Don't do that. Better ways to phrase it would be that like it's compatible. Yeah. you talked about this, with Skipper a little bit. Yeah. The the idea that theistic evolution is what the Bible explicitly teaches. Completely untrue. And I don't think anybody actually holds to that. I don't think anybody's actually teaching that the Bible explicitly teaches theistic evolution. Rather, what they're arguing is that evolution, Darwin Darwinistic evolution is compatible with the teaching of Scripture. And I would say that that's also incorrect, but at least that's more respectable than the Bible teaches this. Yeah, yeah. You you shouldn't be saying God explicitly teaches, you know, something that the original authors would have no idea exist. Right. so you can't say that in Revelations the, you know, I don't know, like flying scorpions or something are helicopters. Yeah. Cause that would make no sense to John, no, who is originally writing it. Yeah, not to mention all these things are supposed to be happening soon. So yes, yeah. So but we'll get into we'll get into the partial praetorism is super based. We'll do that another time. not full praetorism. No. You never go full preterism. Never go full praetorism. Partial preterism. Yes. But yeah, and and so we we would argue that the Bible does explicitly teach and advocate for creationism. Young earth creationism, as is we we talk about all the time in most conservative evangelical circles. I think that's what the Bible is explicitly teaching. But I don't think your salvation is determined on whether or not you adhere to that teaching. Yeah. you know, something I keep I brought up to a number of people is that salvation is not a theological test. It's not saying how close am I to Paul's theology, although we should try to emulate it. Right. None of us are gonna be perfect. None of us are getting gonna get to the pearly gates and have God sit down and use That that's where we're intending to go. We want to be like Christ, we want to be following the teaching of Christ and his apostles. But salvation is not tied up on did you get every single point of theology correct? No, no, no. The idea that you could be a super lapsarian or infra lapsarian and still make it to heaven is totally fine. Yeah. If if it was all about a theological test, I think I'd be the only one that passes. She certainly wouldn't. No. No. I've not read enough of What's who's make a church guy? Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen. Yeah, I've not read enough of him to have my salvation secure. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it. I've listened to a lot of him. man. Okay, this is a tangent. This is terrible. when I was a kid, I liked to skip church because I was a bad kid. And terrible. My mom one day was sick. And so I'm like, Mom, I guess we're just not gonna go to church today because you're sick. And she's like, Well, we're gonna listen we're gonna listen to something. And so we put Joel Osteen on on the on the radio. And mom, bless her heart, did not know better. But that's not a substitute for church. No. No. Were you able to turn it off or did he demand like twenty thousand dollars before you turn the radio off? I don't remember making it h him making any kinds of demands for money. But No donations required. Mm mm. It was on the radio. So I mean, every every radio passer is asking for money at some point. Just like I mean, even on the podcast, I've asked for a little help so we can get air conditioner. See, here's the difference. We're right. True. And we are not promoting that you'll have your best life now if you help us get an air conditioner. But you might help us. We would have a better life now if you got us an air conditioner. Now, of course, we're coming into fall, so we don't need the air conditioner nearly as much as we did last week. my goodness. Yeah, I'll tell you what, a thirty degree difference makes a difference. Yeah. Yeah. It really does. Yeah, the height today was seventy degrees. It was amazing. Yeah, last week it was a hundred degrees in this room. Yeah. Now it's seventy degrees in this room. We're thriving. We're thriving. We're surviving. And we're gonna be recording a great podcast episode tonight. Yeah. So I hope you guys enjoy it. getting getting back to where we were going. I mean To be honest, most people in this conversation, this is gonna sound bad, but n don't have original thoughts on this. They see Facebook posts and that becomes their new orientation of how to view everything. Most of us are just parroting what we've heard from other people, whether you whether that's Ken Ham and creationism from the the Ham's perspective. The Hamites? No. Or whether that's just parroting modern Evolutionary science. Yes. And so under you know, don't be an ass. I mean, understand that you're rarely arguing with the person in front of you. You're just arguing with a Facebook post they saw. So smoke a pipe, sit back and enjoy the magical world that God has made for you. In other words, calm down, ma'am. Yes. Yes. but when we're looking at what does creation demand of us, and what does scripture demand of us, good place to start. Is just proper hermeneutics and then just seeing what the most parsimonious reading is. Parsimonious. I know I felt really fancy when I found out that word. And I'm not talking about being tight-fisted with your money, although that is a proper definition for it. We're talking about Oachen's razor. So it's the principle according to which an explanation of a thing or event is made with the fewest possible assumptions. So you don't have to jump six different places in order to explain. why this pipe is lit. It's going to be lit because I'm gonna smoke it. rather than, you know, lightning strike, you know, striking the building, coming through and lighting the pipe. Yeah. The simplest possible explanation is the most light. Yeah. Sherlock Holmes, you know? So proper hermeneutics, we need to look at the authorial attent intent as kind of like the fixing point. So what is the author trying to communicate and who is he communicating it to? so we shouldn't attach meaning to whatever we find personally significant within the passage. and you shouldn't infer things beyond the author's intended meaning. The author cannot be trying to convey something that falls outside of his scope. Right. so doing if you choose to do that, then you're reading it anachronistically or you're isegating the text. the next thing is genre sensitivity. So whether you're reading something apocalyptic like revelations or Revelation. Revelation of John. I didn't correct you earlier when you did it, but I have to stop you now. It's Revelation. Shun. Shun. No less on there. No. Okay. I give up. You are not an IFB fundy Baptist pastor. You have to say it right, Eli. I you don't know that. You don't know that. I could You know, we're just gonna talk out Nunaki right now. Okay. We will get to the Anunnaki another time. Another time. But if you can in brief, in a little bit, tell us a little bit about this Asian sounding not Asian, Turkish. Turkish. Okay. Well Syrian specific. genre sensitivity. So whether you're talking w apocalypse or wisdom, poetry, legal codes, narrative, epistle letters, they all function differently and they demand different reading. Right. So you can't read Revelation's the same revelation the same way you read Leviticus. then you're just gonna misunderstand. You're gonna distort what's trying to be shown in the literature. Yeah. And really helpful principle, as Eli is articulating it. When you read Revelation, also read it with some of the other apocalyptic literature yes literature that we see, like Isaiah thirteen. I was just reading in Ezekiel forty something yesterday. about the same kinds of things that the moon will fall from the the stars will fall, the the sun will no longer give its light. Those kinds of things are used as apocalyptic language to, you know, give us a peel behind the veil, let us know God is executing judgment, not meant to be read literally. And so when we see that those same things are fulfilled against Babylon in Isaiah thirteen, when we get to the book of Revelation, we see the same kind of language fulfilled or to be fulfilled. Well the the object of that prophecy is Jerusalem. then we see Jerusalem falling in 70 AD, same kind of way that Babylon fell, that Egypt fell, all these kinds of things. And so we should take those other apocalyptic genre, apocalypse totally blanking, but the the other kinds of apocalyptic literature that we see in scripture and that should help inform us of how we read this one. It's almost like we're gonna talk about context next, which is you know The verse read in isolation, just from its surrounding context and the context that the author was aware of leads to isegesis, meaning you're reading into the text. It's going into Revelation and saying, Hey, these scorpions are helicopters. It's not what Revelation is talking about, because John had no idea what helicopters were. Mm-hmm. And and so we Think we've already talked about. he said these things were coming soon. Yes, so yes soon does not mean two thousand years. Not typically. And we could we could do a whole nother episode on on preterism and partial preterism at some point in the future. Never go full preterist. Never go full preterist. But getting back to Genesis, what is the genre of Genesis and how should we be reading that? Yeah. So most people would agree that by Genesis twelve, it's more like concrete history. because that's when you get into Abraham, you're after the Tower of Babel, Babel, however you say that. but at that point, if it's history, you need to show a marker or what principle you're using to show that the author has made the choice to move from mythologized history to concrete history or forensic history. we don't see like a author's know, we don't see a change in dramatic style from power of Babel into Abraham. Right. Other than it's just shifting focus from a large view of things to a specific family. Yeah. And we do, we do see a little bit of of that focus shift as we as we go through the earlier chapters, right? The the book of the generations of Adam. Yeah. and it it as it's passed down, it it continues as the book of the generations of this next book, the generations of Noah. But the author intends it as history. Mm-hmm. That's precisely the point. It's intended to be history. It's Yes, it's poetical. Yes, it's beautiful. But that doesn't mean it's not literally true. No, no. And I mean, obviously people make cases for like the days being like aeons or something. But whoever you know, obviously we're Christians. We believe Moses wrote the wrote it, or at least most of it, and then it was finished by his protege, you know. 'cause Moses did not write about himself dying dying. Yeah. That was just Most likely not. Most likely not. I I don't know. I've seen some never mind. I've seen some quills do some weird things, you know. Yeah. but you'd need to you would need to show that shift from hi mythologized history to concrete history from the author, not just a not just you don't like it. the next thing is grammatical historical grounding. So, It's original language, syntax, the historical situation surrounding the text specifically. So, like how does the author use these words outside of the specific text in question? Mm-hmm. Because it can inform you on how it's meant to be read. And then the last one would be theological coherence, which applies specifically to Christians, because we believe that these words are from God and so we should not expect to find contradictory statements. and if you're coming at this from more atheistic view. You'd it's less of that statement, more like we expect authors to know their material and authors feel embarrassed when things contradict. I pl I'm I play Dungeons and Dragons. I'm a game master for a campaign that's nerd We've had a campaign running for I've played with him. So it's Yeah. You're also a nerd. I we don't everyone's already seen your Magic the Gathering. That's true. That's true. I've got my box right there behind you. Yeah. That's and that's one box. That's one box. I got a bunch more down here. Yeah. But we've been playing for a year and a half. this is a homebrewed campaign. I know everything there is to know about the world because guess what? I created it. I get to do that. I am sovereign over my creation. Mm-hmm. you get to kill anybody you want, anytime. Everyone I want. but I still have things that contradict because I'm not God, you know? and I feel particularly embarrassed about some of those because like shoot that that should have been obvious. Yeah. but most most authors are significantly better than me. So no one likes contradictions. They're going to do what they can to avoid them within the text. So yeah, and since we're Christians, we don't expect to find contradictory statements. So when Genesis says evening and morning of the first day, we can assume that the author knows what he means by that. Yeah. Because he uses it consistently throughout the rest of the passage, especially to refer to the morning and evening of the days. after the sun's creation. Right. It's not a new thing that happens now that the sun has come into existence. Right. Yeah, as as Skipper says in the video, it's it the author knew what he meant when he said it and he specifically chose to say evening and morning day one. Evening and morning day two. It I mean how else would he say it? Yeah. There I can't think of another way that he could, at least in a way that would be so crystal clear that he's talking about what we would normally in in colloquial language understand to be a day. Yeah. And Hebrew has terms to mean, you know, terms, you know, things longer than a day. Mm-hmm. You'd have to show why he wouldn't have used those versus just a day. Right. So and and we get we get into it more in in detail in video. but the idea that the the order of creation follows a specific pattern in Genesis, but then the order of creation according to the evolutionary model follows a different pattern, a different chronology. And so you can't have those two things true at the same time. No. And so you have to either side with the scripture or the current scientific consensus, which is still mythological. There is no full scientific consensus. But even if we grant there is, you have to decide. Are you going to side with what the scripture says chronologically or are you going to side with what modern science says chronologically? Recognizing one of those schools has changed their position multiple times. Yeah. And one of those school schools has a man who came back from the dead. Yep. So Yeah. And lives and reigns in heaven. And didn't just come back from the dead. He called his shot before he did it. He did. He did call his shot. so I mean there's a lot of things there. there's a lot of issues I see with some of the theistic evolution models. Like if you have people outside of the Garden of Eden or outside of Adam specifically, Why, you know, he names all of the animals. Why doesn't he take a wife from one of the other people who's out there? you'd have you have the fittingness. This is a bit of a d okay a distraction that may get us in trouble. Are you aware of what the Talmud says about Adam naming the animals? I've it's not naming so much. We are gonna get demonetized for this one, aren't we? He names them in the same way that he names wife. he names Eve his wife after he knows her. yes, yes. 'Cause he knows the animals the way the King James intends that to be any. He knows the animals the way he knows his wife, according to the Talbot. So And he found none of them to be fitting. Yeah. Can't imagine why. But in the But you haven't seen the furries around here? I don't want to talk about it. But Skipper actually talks about this in the videos. he looks around, he finds none of them suitable for him. How could that possibly be the case? If Adam is just, you know, some Neanderthal that is given the image of God, why does Eve then need to come out of his side? why does it have to be Eve? Why couldn't it be any of these other creatures that are of the same ontology as him, just not yet having the image of God? And then when when you look further, like into Cain's wife, well, d who when did Cain's wife get the image of God if she wasn't a descendant of Adam? Yeah, and there's a you could make an argument from fittingness. of Eve coming from Adam and then the image of God being passed down to their children. if the if the individuals outside of Adam and Eve are human, you you would have to explain how they bear the image of God and if they bear the image of God. And if they're not human, you'd have to explain how these apes can reproduce between different kinds. Yeah. it should be an issue both sides. When they get the image of God, do they change kind? Yeah, it's a good question. A good question. So yeah, that the that same fittingness, that image of God would be lost on the second generation if they took, you know, wives from the eight population. So that that's these are some of the consistency issues with it. But what are some of the the theological implications of theistic evolution? What are some the actual theological and doctrinal problems that theistic evolution causes? Aaron We would be removing Adam as the head of humanity. Okay. But let's let's say that they They still hold that Adam is literally Adam. Okay. They hold to a a literal first man. Okay. through whom sin and death enters into the world, or through whom death enters into the world. What are the theological implications? So in this instance of the theistic evolution, are there individuals beyond the garden? I I think there would kind of have to be. Yes. do these individuals have free will? Are they in the same state as Adam, being able to choose good from evil? If so, how are they part of the covenant? Mm-hmm. And how did how did they become able to choose good from evil? Yeah. If they're not descended from Adam. 'Cause Adam's the only one we know of that bears the image of God. Mm-hmm. So you have these secondary lesser human beings that do not bear the image of God. Uh-huh. Or they like they don't have free will. Like or they somehow got it and we aren't told how. We aren't told how. But it would it would remove the ability of Adam to be the covenant head. Yeah, because he's not their he's not their father. He's not their father, he's not the progenitor. And it would remove the ability for Christ to be the quote unquote second Adam. Not quote unquote at second Adam, but in this instance, he would not be the second Adam. Yeah. And and this gets back to that Occam Razor parsimoniousness that you were talking about earlier. What is the simplest definition here? What requires the least hoops for you to jump through? I think you're jumping through a lot of hoops right now to try to to square theistic evolution with all of these inconsistencies that you've pointed out. Yeah. Well, because where where it really comes down to is in Adam, all men die. In Christ all have been made alive. Yeah. Quite simple. If Adam is not the first man, if there is death in the world prior to that, you have to explain how that how that's coherent. Yeah. Well well, they would say it's Adam's sin caused death prior to Adam's sin, right? It's what was it Skipper said? He used his fancy science y words where he said future future cause to a past effect or something along those lines. future cause. Causality. Yeah. Future causality existing and smart. He is smart. He's smart. I'm not nearly as smart as he is. But he is a Baptist, so Yes. But he's a PhD. And he's the doctor who told me that smoking is good for you. He is that doctor. He is that kind he is not that kind of doctor, but he is that doctor. It's my favorite doctor. The one I trust. Yes. Yes. sorry, I totally went off I didn't realize I didn't I don't remember what you were talking about. we were we were just talking about future causality for yeah for death. So Adam's death how does or Adam's sin cause death to those who came before him because in the same way that the atonement of Christ can save those who came before him, right? So the it doesn't stop Christ from being a You'd have to imply a preexistence to Adam's race. Well that's what they're asserting. No, but yes, sorry. Yes, you you have to assert that, but you'd have to assert a state of innocence for them prior to the fall. So they would have to be in a state of innocence and at some point fall. Mm-hmm. In order to recede. Yeah, you do still you you still need that. You can't have sinless things dying. Yes. So somehow Adam's sin is imputed to creatures that are outside of his covenant headships, outside of his communion. Mm-hmm. Because they're ontologically different. Well, I mean the the other animals, they're they're brought down with Adam when he sins. Yes, but they're under his dominion. God gives that dominion to Adam. So did Adam have dominion over those who came before him? I think I think that's a really hard argument to make. Yeah, you this does not say anything like that. Yeah, this is again that hermeneutical gymnastics of just trying to trying to square this circle. You're doing everything you can to justify that. This has to make sense because this is what current science says. Yeah. The science that changes every fifteen years. Yeah. And that's not a bad thing. Like science changing is an objectively good thing. We have amazing medicine now because the science changed. Yeah, we should be able to admit we got this wrong. Let's change our our stance on this. However, I think with evolution, we're being very stubborn in admitting that it's wrong. I think I think more and more we're seeing scientists say this Doesn't make sense. The model doesn't work. Well, because you get into questions of the abiogenesis, you know, can non life turn into life? And the answer is no. We don't have any ability to do that. Yeah. And even if so, even if we were to take an example of us taking non life and turning it into life would be proof of Christianity because you have a creator bringing dead things into life. Mm-hmm. Like There there's no way to get around that. it it requires some kind of inform it intervention from a living thing. Yeah. In order for life to be brought about. Yes. So it's very hard to get past that because it's such a widely known and widely accepted accepted space, you know. Axiom. Axiom. Thank you. That's a word that Skipper taught me. amazing. These are good words. Good words. so yeah, there's issues with theistic evolution. I don't think it's coherent in Genesis, you know, between Genesis one and Genesis eleven to say it's not history. Yeah. because there's so much grounded in the New Testament that comes specifically from Genesis one and two. Yeah. It's just it's a lot of wishful thinking. It's a lot of trying to to force your interpretation in there and try to make it say what you want it to say. But it I think it's quite clear. Just if you read if you read the scripture, it doesn't say that. Well, and Moses is not gonna root not writing Genesis and thinking, you know what, two thousand you know Four thousand years from now we're gonna be talking about theistic evolution. Like that is nowhere in his thought process. Cause guess what? He was four thousand years ago. Well a little bit longer than that. But when when God told him he did it this way, he probably thought that God meant what he said. Yeah. So And I think when in doubt, opt for a literal reading. Yeah. Unless unless it's just so obviously not literal. For literal. And you should take the difficult passages by reading the s simple passages. You know? When something says, Hey, I'm going to do this tomorrow and then immediately spits out a whole list of things that could happen tomorrow to take the first first statement. Yeah. So Yeah. Simplest reading, most likely the correct reading. Yeah. All right. well thank you guys for sticking around th through this introduction. Let's let's jump over to the actual interview with Dr. Skipper Kagmaster. Hello everybody, welcome back to the Reformed Corner. I have a very special episode today with a very special, he really puts the special in special guest, Doctor Skipper Kagamaster. Skipper, glad to have you here. tell everybody a little bit about yourself, what you do, what we're gonna be talking about today and and why you are at least informed enough to be able to discuss this. Yeah, I wonder what you mean by special, 'cause there are two meanings that can be taken from that and I I kinda think you mean the other one. you know which one I'm talking about. yeah, so my name is Skipper Kagamaster. I'm a PhD in physics. I did my my PhD work in high energy nuclear, so like collisions of mm of things. And yeah, I've been a creationist for a long time. It's actually what got me into physics. I previously went to school and had my bachelors in in English and I'd done a little biochem before that. Kind of was all over the board. Mm-hmm. and I just kinda worked some odd jobs and, you know, paying the bills and felt like I was not doing what I was purposed to do and felt the Lord calling me back to the sciences for apologetics reasons. And that's when I went back to school and And got my second bachelor's in physics and the master's and the and the PhD. now my main employee is as a patent agent, so I work on technical patents for various clients who I won't name 'cause they probably don't want to be associated with this kind of content. and you know, they have inventions and and we we patent them at our firm. Yeah. and then I also am a university professor of physics. which again, like I I won't name the university because I don't know what's level of affiliation. Actually don't think they have a problem with it, but without them having explicit consent, I'm not gonna name them. But that's where I sit. I am a by creationist, I suppose I should qualify that. I'm a young earth creationist. Yeah, 'cause they're old Earth creationists as well. Yeah, ev everyone who's a Christian, I believe, who's in any way informed in this topic, will say I am a creationist. Yeah, even the The what is it? What it called? The theistic evolutionists. They would say we're creationists. I mean, maybe they probably wouldn't say it butn't like to use the word. They wouldn't yeah, because of the connotations. Yeah, exactly. But they would at least admit God is the creator. He created everything. That's right. But they they would quibble over what we're dealing with in Genesis one through eleven, probably. They'd go that far. It goes basically up to Babel. Which as a as an aside I always find very interesting when people say, Okay, well I think that that Genesis is is mythology, this is ancient Nere's mythology. okay, well is any of it literal? yeah, yeah, yeah. After Babel, basically. Anything and that's anything modern science disagrees with is is mythologized. Yeah. And anything that it agrees or doesn't doesn't speak to. and that's you know, I've always had a major problem with that. I mean, well not always, like before I really got more serious about my faith. I've been a Christian since I was a kid, but before I got more serious, I would have been in the camp of like old earth atom or theistic evolution or something like that. I I didn't think about it that much, but I was like, this is I know what science says. I think I know what the Bible says. some people have said these meld together really well. Yeah. Sure, whatever. But the more I looked into it, the more oddly I agreed with the atheists and said, I do not believe that these things are compatible. I just can't I I can't, you know, I can't rectify what's going on in the what the Bible plainly says. Not a literal I don't like to say a literal reading, because you know, Jesus says I'm the door. he means there's a literal you have to take everything literally. No, you take things in the in the genre in which they're given. Yeah. You know, if something is poetic, if something is metaphorical, but I would say a natural reading of the Bible is is extremely difficult and I would posit impossible to reconcile with the naturalist interpretation of physical evidence that we see. vis-a-vis evolution, big bang, etc. So basically you would read the first eleven chapters of Genesis as just simply meaning what it says. Yep. Historical narrative. Yeah. It's not it's not metaphorical in any way. It is it's definitely poetical. Like it's beautiful. but it is it it it's telling fact. It's not telling a a story that can just kind of be interpreted however you want. and if the science of today is disagreeing with it then we can reinterpret it different from how the church has historically interpreted it. And I know for me as a reformed guy, the historic interpretation of the church matters. Yeah. Greatly. Yep. it's part of the reason why I am a Pato Baptist. and I know that's something that we've talked about to death. Yes we have. Yeah. Another topic for another day. But I know you you likewise respect the authority of the tradition of the church that that there needs to be good reason if we're gonna disagree with the history of interpretation. so why are so many people in Christian circles, typically liberal Christians, but not necessarily? why are they disagreeing with the historical interpretation of Genesis? Now I do know there are early church fathers who took it as more metaphorical. They didn't take it as literally as we do. Saint Augustine is a is a prime example of that. Yeah, he went the other way though. He went the other way. He didn't say it took billions of years. He's like it Probably was instant instantane well that d he was responding to a a critical outlook of his day, which is a to answer your question, I think is the same reason people do it today. Nobody wants to be a fool. I think most Christians would say I'll be a fool for Christ, but I think most won't be. Yeah. and I I've certainly been guilty of that in my life as well, when there are certain things of saying, Well, I don't want to turn people off to God or you know, this like like as though God needs my assistance in making him look good. You know, it's like, well, if I think the Bible says this, I'm gonna shy away from that a little 'cause it's gonna make God look better. It's like God's he's got his reputation. He's fine. He he needs me to witness the truth. So anyway, I think that that's a major portion of it is I I think it's the motivating portion is not wanting to look a fool. Yeah. Not wanting to be mocked, not wanting society to be against you. Yeah. I think some people are There there's a large cadre of the laity that I would say are are simply Not that interested. Yeah. So in other words, they say, look, the scientists say this, they're a bunch of smart guys. Yeah. And the and the way scientists say it, as you know, is it's highly conclusive. You know, this is how it is. the evidence tells us this, hey, you take it up with the evidence. You don't like, you know, how old we say the stars are, take it up with the stars, man. We got nothing to do with that. And that's just that's just untrue. but that's how it's parsed, and so that's how people will generally listen to it. You know, and the the people in in my areas will often just you know, will be like, This is how the normies see it and this is how we have to say it for the normies and I'm not trying to be insulting. There's good things about being a normy. As as a normie. Yeah. It's good to be a normie, man. but there is something to that, like, and that's that's all of us on all sorts of things. Like y you know I have certain things that I don't understand in life very well, and so if a musician's telling me, Hey, this particular chord goes along with like this emotion, I'm like, Whatever, man, I'll I'll believe you. I think it sounds nice, but I don't get any emotions off of music, you know. so in fields like this and in scientific fields, I think people are really apt to just say, I don't understand that. Those smart people over there understand it and they're saying this is what it says, this is definitive, so I guess that's true, but I know the Bible is true. Yeah. Because I know and love the Lord, and I know the Bible is true, so I've got these other theologians over here. Look, I'm no theologian, and they're saying that the the smart science people And the Bible these get along somehow, and I never would have read it that way, but hey, my pastor says things every Sunday that I never would have read that way that are speaking into my life. So okay, fine. I think that's the majority of it. But then you have that subset of people who know and love the Bible and have contorted it, in my opinion, to match modern science. Yeah. To fit with how they what they want it to say. I I would s I would say that, like I I hesitate because I just I never like to impart motive to people, you know. But it's difficult not to in these types of cases, at least for me, because I believe that that's what's going on. I I I honestly believe if you were to have never been exposed to the Bible and you were a scholar of ancient near East texts, yeah. There you would never read into the Bible billions of years, evolution, out of order creation. It it would never come up. Well, and getting back to the historic interpretation of the church. That has never come up. Yeah. There's been differences on whether or not it's literal, but the current evolutionary interpretation never been never been there. The Bible clearly does not teach evolution. The question for the theistic evolutionist is is it is evolution compatible with what exactly the teaching actually is? This is like I can bring up a silly topic, like flat Earth. Yeah. Well, that's actually something I was thinking we could get into. Yeah, yeah, we but I I don't think they're just on that. like I don't think the Bible actually speaks to the shape of the earth. There there are some Christians who say, the the circle of the earth is talking about the Terminator, and it's like, well, it's compatible with a Terminator. And then there are people on the flat earth side like, it talks about the four corners of the earth and the pillars of the earth. And it's like, okay, that's compatible with certain subsets of flat earth theorists, I guess I call them. Yeah. but none of it you you you can study the Bible through and through and you will never come away with From it saying the Bible definitively points to this oblate spheroid or flat earth, like it's just not it doesn't it doesn't take a stance on on that issue. Whereas with the creation narrative, I think it does take a literal stance. but there's another topic of like heliocentricity, right? That's that is the gonna get started here. Is that the earth orbiting around the sun? Yeah. What's the other one? Where geocentrism. Geocentricity. So we would hold to heliocentricity. that our solar system revolves around the sun. I think we've got significant and sufficient empirical and scientific empiric scientifically empirical evidence to I I would say definitively prove that heliocentricity is accurate. But the historical interpretation of the church has been geocentricity. Why are we okay with heliocentricity but not with Darwinistic evolution when the science seems to be suggesting both of those things. This actually goes back to the flat earth. that's kind of where the where my mind was going with it. Because you have the the flat earth is I I will say this to to those you know, your your three viewers who believe in the flat earth. the so many viewers I have total. man. Usually you've done something wrong, my friend. I guess so. the the thing is the Bible's compatible with flat earth. Yeah. And compatible with the round earth. Right. Because I would rather not take a stance. The Bible is compatible with heliocentricity and with geocentricity. I don't believe any of the verses, and if you go back to the dispute between Galileo and the church, like that's how it's parsed, and it's just overly simplistic as to what actually happened historically between Galileo and the Roman church at the time. so the that is not you know, the church at the time it wasn't the church that was geocentric at the time. Society was geocentric. Yeah. And history was geocentric. Everything was geocentric. And at the time, just to put it kind of simply, and I'm no scholar on that particular aspect, but just from what I've read on it and what I've seen and studied, the the church was trying to the Roman Catholic Church was trying to assert its supremacy in all fields. What? Yeah, yeah, this is a shocker, right? Yeah. And in one of those fields being science. I am befuddled. Yeah, that's not it's out of character. Yeah. Rome has never Usually they're just blessing ice and you know, finding Broxy bleeds. Blessing the wrong ice, but yeah. so so what you had there was actually a kind of a power struggle. Yeah. And and Bless His Heart Galileo seemed to be near and dear. He's he was an Aspie, I believe. he's a Asperger's is that it and on the spectrum dude, which Asperger's isn't a thing anymore. This is why I said you put the special in special guest. I've been specially educated. I got to ride the sport bus and you know but he was the type of guy from from what I've read and again, like I said, I'm no scholar on this particular subject, but from what I've seen, he was cantankerous. Mm-hmm. And he would pick a fight and he was one of the you don't you know the type you know the type of people that if they think something's wrong, they're just going to say it. Yeah. I used to get this by the way as a funny thing in in physics when I was going through grad school. You go to a symposium and it's this thing with all these physicists all come together that are working on these projects and they would have all these breakout groups and they'd have lectures and somebody would be doing a presentation. Mm-hmm. And and these physicists would interrupt them in the middle of their presentation. Yeah. And he would I remember one in particular was hilarious because the guy was showing, hey, if we use this, I don't remember what he's talking about, but he's like, if we use this methodology and someone's like, No, that's wrong. And he's like, Yeah, I know, I'm I'm I'm showing why this methodology is wrong. It's like, but that won't work. Yeah. And he couldn't get off it and these two professors get in an argument and this this poor grad student's just up there like waiting for them to shut up. But is there some personality types that their brain just short circuits and they're like, That's wrong. That's wrong. Yeah. And so the Galileo, you know, that the atheists they praise the whole and yet it does move. Mm-hmm. That that's just Galileo being a a bit of a spectrum dude and being like, I must say this because I believe it is correct. It's not I must contradict scripture. And as a matter of fact, there were people from what was it, like like German church sects that were on his side. And this is more of a scientific power play. The people who believed in geocentrism at the time, it wasn't biblical, but they were festooning it to the Bible. Mm-hmm that's why James Cork Maxwell, a father of electromectromagnetism, he was talking about like I knew that. Awesome. I didn't know that. I thought it was my son's in part named after him. Okay, good to know. but but he had talked about this saying that he would he didn't want any scientific theories to be to be, you know, saddled up with genesis. And he said because his whole point was science should be malleable. We should be able to change it. We should be able to say that theory's wrong. We found new information. Let's kill it. But you can't you can't say Genesis is wrong. Exactly. And that was his whole point was that it but his wasn't nowadays I think people would say, I don't want to festoon something to Genesis because I don't want everyone to think Genesis is wrong. And he was saying, No, no, we know Genesis is truth. Right. And so if you put a theory on Genesis, it's gonna outlive its utility if it's wrong. Because we'll we'll not want to say it's wrong because we know the Bible is right. Right. Which I think was a cool way of looking at it. but all of which to say, like, be Very, very careful when you say the Bible says some scientific theory. Yeah. You know, in the Old Testament, what'd you do with a prophet that prophesied something that wouldn't come true? You you go take him to some rocks. Exactly. And so I'm not saying let's stone people who, you know, are theistic evolutionists or anything like that. what I but I what I am saying is we should all be extremely serious when we were putting words in the mouth of God. Because that's what you're doing when you say Genesis teaches evolution. Yeah. You're saying the Lord said it. It's like are you sure you don't mean is compatible with evolution? Yeah. When you say teaches, you've crossed a threshold. Yeah, I think I realize this. No, you're good. I do think most theistic evolutionists would not say that the Bible teaches it. They would say that it's compatible. but how do we take that that Galilean Galilean warning of not attaching a scientific theory theory to Genesis because. Maxwellian. Okay. How do we take that? And we we agree with that when it comes to helio versus geocentricity. Mm-hmm. And we also agree with that with not attaching evolution to Genesis, but we are saying that the Bible does teach creationism. And that is a scientific theory, is it not? Yes and no. Where is the birth of creationism? I'm not talking historically, I'm talking logically. Foundationally as a model, you know, word description. Exactly. So it it's actually a hermeneutic. Mm-hmm. And so you're not saying the here's our scientific theory of creation and we've gotten this from you know how the ice age came, we've gotten this from, you know, plate tectonics or whatever, right? No, no, no. It's saying we've looked at the Bible and we've exegeted this is what the Bible is saying in these particular passages, Genesis one to eleven. Right. And now we're gonna look at the science through that. And this comes back to your initial question. You were questioning why do people do this? Mm hmm And I honestly believe and I don't think most would ever say this, but I honestly believe people have put science on a pedestal above scripture. Mm-hmm. And they've said scripture is is true, but where it contradicts science and that's like a bad term by the way, but I believe is how the thinking goes, where it contradicts science, we must bend scripture to meet science. Mm-hmm. And that is creationism is the other way around. And this is what the atheists accuse us of, and they're actually right, I believe. they say, well, creationists, you get your science from the Bible first. And if the Bible contradicts something that you've observed, that's sticky, but something you've observed, then you go with the Bible. And I would say, yes, absolutely. Now observation. If you've washed something through a model, even an incredibly good scientific model, that's not plain observation. Right. If I say for instance, I think we've talked about this, the Andromeda Galaxy, it's two point three million light years away. Okay. So how long did it take the light to get here? Two point three million years ago. Yeah, that that would be what you would think, right? But there is something on that saying, well, light has a speed. That is from models that light has a speed. Yes, there's some observation of the speed of light, but in light of relativity It gets a little squirrely. And it that's I'm not gonna talk about that now because it would be like three episodes or something, you know. but all of which to say is is just plainly saying it's this far away, therefore it must be at least this old has model assumptions in it. Right. And there are a lot of things out there on well, what are the I'm not wanna get into distant starlight, I'm just saying that it's not as simple to say, well, we've we observe evolution from the fossil record. Right. That's often said. No, this is observational science. The dinosaurs are all fake. They're just chicken bones from China. Do you hear that theory? No, I've I but you were referring to the one where there are Christians that say dinosaurs were to fossils were planted by Satan. No. Or they just think that everyone makes them up. Paleontologists are out there just making plaster bottles of sand. There ha there have been Christian conspiracy theorists who are saying that dinosaur bones are just chicken bones manufactured in China to be bigger and dupe the rest of us. In the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, apparently that's when the panda was invented too, right? Panda was created in the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, the Chinese were making cheap knockoffs back in the eighteen hundreds, apparently. Right. Okay. So I think we've firmly established our position. We hold to creationism. We are not as defined as six days. Six days literal six days, some six thousand years ago. I mean that's what that's what the Westminster says, because that's what scripture says. Westminster chapter four, paragraph one. it please God the Father and Holy Ghost, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness in the beginning to create or make of nothing the world and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good. Why does it say that? Because it's what it says in Genesis one. and you can and elsewhere. You can do, you know, hermeneutical gymnastics to try to make it compatible with this old earth understanding. That's not what the Westminster Divines meant. You cannot make the argument that that's what they meant. and I think likewise you can't make the argument that that's what God meant in the Genesis narrative. And I think if it was, if it was what God meant, the church probably would have figured it out before, you know, last week. Well, d this is one of the problems with with issuing all of church history. Mm-hmm. Which I grew up in in squishy Evangelical non denoms, you know? So I know what that's like. to be like it's just me and my Bible. Yep. It's me and the Lord. And it's like, dude, every heresy ever was some guy in his Bible. You sent me that that meme earlier. yeah, I'll probably put it up on this one for the but it is it's like a lot of these things are like someone says, I found this new thing we're We're unhitching from the old testament or something like that. It's like th you're not the first guy to think that up in the last two thousand years. Right. You know, so it's like all old heresies. Yes. Yeah. Nothing new under the sun, right? Do you think there's like a a a level of maybe Gnosticism to this? Mm, what do you mean by that? So this like separation of the spiritual and the physical, to the degree of not just like distinguishing them, but like actually separating them physical bad, spiritual good. Do you think there's a a level of that in this discussion as well? Mm I would find that Difficult. Okay. Because the theistic evolutionists, I'm just gonna say that as a as a blanket term, for anyone who believes in any form of long ageism and evolution and genesis narrative, seem to be elevating the physical as opposed to the other way around. I don't think they're saying almost like a reverse. Yeah. Yeah. But then they do hinge on death before the fall was not necessarily bad because there was no soul involved. Yeah, there may be elements. Okay. I don't know. I haven't thought about that. That's an interesting one. Yeah. Something to workshop. Yeah. okay, well let's let's actually make the case then for why not make the case for creationism, but make the case for why Darwinian evolution is both scientifically inaccurate and not compatible with scripture. let's let's start with the latter. Let's start with why it's not compatible with scripture. Yeah, this is something in in in recent times. And which by the way, g can I can I give asides? I can give some asides here. Yep. You smoke pipes so much better than I do. Which burns me because I introduced you to Players. That's right. Yeah, you and you and Jake, Jake Bowman I've had on the show before. Yeah. that was really glad you guys did. It's made my life significantly more enjoyable. You know last time I smoked, right? It was when we were camping. Yeah. Yeah. I only like only sp I've I actually had had a New Year's resolution. That I've not held to smoke more. I've been trying to smoke more. Because the data suggests that it increases your lifespan. And you heard it from a doctor. The doctor says if you smoke, you will live longer. I'm not the helpful kind of doctor, but that I do to my my poor wife all the time. I'm like, actually some doctors recommend this. Some doctors recommend Costco pizza. Yeah. And she's like, Woohoo You I'm just saying there's at least one out there who recommends it. Yeah. Okay. Anyway. you were gonna make it aside. Yeah, yeah. So when we talk about the biblical argument for evolution. Mm-hmm. The first and foremost I'll say that that it the Bible is is is silent on evolution, but I'm gonna go a step further than that. Okay. I I believe the claims the Bible makes are incompatible with evolution. So I believe first off the if if you want to just say the idea of one creature evolving into another, you may say, well the Bible is wholly silent on this. but I believe there are some things that are Some things incompatible and some things that are as we would call in the patent industry, teaching away. Okay. You know, if you want to invalidate a patent our job as as patent agents is to write a patent, it's like everything is new. Mm-hmm. Everything my client does is brilliant and wonderful and new. And the patent office's job is to say nothing is new. Everything is they're Solomon. They're like there's nothing new under the sun. I can combine these twelve patents and I can get your invention. And one way that you combat that is if those patents Sometimes they'll well, if you if I take patent A that has this feature that's feature one and patent B has feature two and I put them together, I get yours, which is a feature one and two combinations. Like, yeah, but if patent A says you can't use feature two, that doesn't work. Yeah. It's teaching away. You see, there's no motivation to combine these because this one's saying that just doesn't work. So if we take in Genesis one, everything is created of its own kind, yeah, and it reproduces after its own kind. And we see this actually amazingly, that you should not expect this from evolution. We see this in biology. You know, when you get something ligerish, it's not reproducing anymore. Something what? Like a liger, you know. liger. I thought you just using a y'all use the word ligerish? I thought you were using another fancy sciencey word. I'm no I made that I made that word up on spot. Okay. Or mulish, I guess you but but you see when when you have things that are similar they can mate, but then their offspring can't mate. And when you have things that are too dissimilar, they can't mate. There's no a priori reason to assume that if evolution is true. Right. You wouldn't say you actually might think, this is how we get novel combinations, is that we mate things that are disparate and they come up with some derivative that features the two. Not so obviously disparate, but there's definitely some differences. But there are thresholds. This is what I find very interesting. There are thresholds. We should not expect hard thresholds to say at at this threshold you can't mate. It is too different, you can't mate. Even to the point where you have the these these biological distinctions between like a horse and a donkey, yeah. That may have developed from, you know, a a a parent creature, grandparent, great great grandparent, whatever you want to call it, yeah. That they both diverge from. But when they diverge enough to almost be a kind, and we don't know what a kind is, by the way, when people say, Well, how'd all these species fit on the arc? Species is a man made definition. Right. The the whole, you know, kingdom phylum on down, right? That that's man made classification, which is great. Mm-hmm. But that's not God's taxonomy. God's taxonomy is kinds. Yeah. Well what are kinds? But different different species can't breed and make offspring that are capable of breeding, right? I would not want to say that definitively. I believe you're correct. Okay. But that's that's where you're going with the liger, right? Yeah, yeah. But what I'm going with is is when you have enough not because I don't want to use the word species because that's a man made taxonomy. Okay. And it's a good one. But You someone might well these species over here can mate, you know, and it's like, okay, well then I would not call them different kinds. What I'm saying is that the Bible has kinds that are distinct and cannot mate and they reproduce themselves. Okay. And So i when we think of like the liger, we have the cat kind. Then we can see a lion and a tiger able to make offspring, even if that can't continue to produce a species or a That that offspring can't do anything. It can't continue to after its own kind. So now I'm not making a definitive statement, therefore the Liger is not a kind, or kinds can generate I don't know. These are all interesting questions. What I'm saying is biblically, one of the one of the things you want to do is when you read the Bible and you have a hermeneutic and it comes to a conclusionary statement that may even be like, you know, in in Proverbs a lot of them are just exactly what it says. Yeah. But you come to something that's definitive. You say, okay, now let me look out in the world. Do I see that? Mm-hmm. That's what we should be doing. Yeah. We should look and say, okay, what do I expect? What do I see? And from the Bible, you say, what do I expect? I expect that kinds are distinct and we should see things reproducing the same things and we should not see mixing of kinds. Right. Whatever kinds means, right? And that's what we see. We see that everything's pretty discreet. There's some fuzziness. There's some, you know, you might have a little Gaussian spread there or whatever that it can work within a couple sigma or something, whatever. But the couple of sigma, you say. Mm. No, I just I just mean like, you know, variants. But but things are distinct. Within with they're within bounds. They're bounded. Their reproduction is bounded. Which is very interesting because by evolution, there's no reason to expect that by evolution. Now there may be evolutionary Theories out there that attempt to explain it, but they're explaining it the other way around. If you started with the idea of evolution, you'd never heard of it before, you knew nothing of biology or some alien life form, you know, whatever, right? And said this is how it works, and you ask that form, okay, so do you think we can mix different stages? Something's branched off this way, something else is branched off this way. Can they mix it? probably that's how you get a new form. You would expect it. Now I'm not saying evolution demands it. Right. But again, when we go to things and we say from the biblical definitions from the biblical narrative, from a biblical hermeneutic, from all this stuff, do we expect what we see? And I don't I think evolution does not have the expectation of hard kind reproduction. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good that's a good argument. Well the Bible does. The Bible clearly does. Everything is r reproducing after it's you could go so far as to say the Bible demands it. Yeah. Okay. So there's there's one area where the science and the scriptures are in direct contradiction. if conflict at least. Yeah. If by science we mean the current acceptance of of this theory, not necessarily because science science can't be wrong. it's our interpretation of the science. Science is a method. It's not doesn't say anything. Right. Yeah. Whenever someone says science says this, what they mean is some scientists have said this. The c the consensus perhaps. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which is I'm fine with that. Yeah. And I mean the myth of the Scientific consensus is is also pretty big, just like the myth of the consent of the fathers, right? There's so many things the f the church fathers disagreed on that we say is the consent of the fathers. So many things that the science scientific community has a supposed consensus on that it's just, yeah, we there there's not real like unity there. so let's actually get into now the more more stuff about what the scripture teaches. Yeah. the theistic evolutionists typically turn to the argument of Day. Right. So I I read Yeah, I want to talk about this. Yeah, I I read from the Westminster Confession that all of this takes place in the space of six days. And I think they chose that word space, on purpose, because the space of six days means that it's it's actually happening within this six day period. You can't fit more than six days in the space of six days. Or fewer. Or fewer. So the the question is what is meant by day? Now the Westminster Divines as with Pretty much everybody in church history, except for a few people in the early church, like Augustine, who held to creation was more instantaneous, not billions of years. we have typically traditionally interpreted day in this context as a what we would normally colloquially refer to as a day, 24 hour period, the average day. Now there's other examples in scripture of like the days of Joshua, the day of Noah, and it's not necessarily talking about a twenty-four hour period, it's talking about more love like an epoch. And I know you did your big presentation a few years ago on why the Big Bang model does not work as a model. And you talked about all of its various epochs and how they're they actually don't work scientifically. I won't rehash that because it was w way above my head. And I watched that I failed. I watched it live. I watched it twice on video. and then we did a video together talking about it, and I still don't get it. man. All right, I gotta revamp that one then. That's a me thing. Okay. so That's what we would say a day is in the creation context. It is twenty four hour period. Yes. The theistic It is a diurnal cycle of the earth. Yes. Because people will be like, Well, it's not exactly twenty four hours and that's changed over time. And it's it's like, okay, okay. But you know what we mean day by that means day. Yes, right. And I I think I I actually, by the way, anyone who makes that argument that's like, Well, what does day mean? So it's not twenty four hours, like twenty four point one five and it used to be that Yeah. You're being disingenuous with your opponent there. And pedanta. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's what my my son would be like, that's definitional ambiguity, right? You know your what ten year old son? Yeah, thirteen. But my five year old says it now. He doesn't know what it means, but he says it. Man. I've known you for a few years and he's just kind of always been ten in my mind. He's still ten. sometimes he's ten. Yeah. So why then for the theistic evolutionist who holds that day doesn't mean what we would consider a day in a colloquial sense? why are they wrong? if I may first I would like to present our argument. Yeah. Just so that we know what we're talking about. And I and I want to be faithful to the argument. yeah. the the the ba there are two lines of thought on the basic argument. And the two lines of thought both stem from day does not mean one diurnal period. Okay. Diurnal. Yeah, like the day night cycle. Okay. It wasn't 'cause it just just call that. It's a day night cycle like It doesn't mean the light and dark period on the earth. However you want to pedantically say that, but you know what I mean by that. It's what we all know is a day. That it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean the sunrise, sunset, and nighttime cycle. Right. that is the the basis, and then there are two points on that. one point, well, that really there are three. There's the one that you highlighted as well. The day can mean epoch or age. Mm-hmm. So that's one. And that that's a very Concise argument. I'm not going to belabor that because that's just what it means. Sometimes the word day, even in the Bible, means something else. And the Hebrew word, from what I know, I'm not a Hebrew scholar. But from what I understand, has the same meaning as our day, where it could be could be like, you know, you know, in the in the day of King Baldwin or something like that. I understood that reference. the other one, there are two others. The other one is well, the Bible actually specifically outlines that God doesn't always mean a a literal twenty-four hour, I'll just say for lack of better term, 24 hour day. We know what we're talking about all the time. Yeah. and then the other one is how can you have a day in days one through three and arguably four, when the definition of the twenty-four hour day is predicated on the sun. Right. Which doesn't come into play in Genesis until day four. So these are the three arguments. And I'd like to Yeah, so there's there was morning and there was evening the first day, second day, third day. The sun doesn't get there till the fourth day, so how is there morning and evening? So how does that w what what they're saying is not even how there's morning and evening, but how does the word day have any meaning whatsoever represent them faithfully. they're not saying it doesn't have any meaning, but the meaning of day prior to the creation of the sun or the unveiling of the sun, I think Reform Zoomer put it kind of that way where it's like Yeah, redeem it, whatever the R Z guy. Yeah. Reform Zoomers another guy. He's a different dude. Okay. He's chill. All right. I don't know. I just know there are a couple of these Zoomers out there not working or something. Whatever Zoomers do these days. I'm like Gen X millennial on the cusp of that, so like I I get snotty about that because we're supposed to, I guess. but so either either revealed or created on day four, so therefore the word day prior to day four, we don't know what it means. Someone might ascribe a meaning to it, but the text doesn't say. Sorry, these are the positions. And then for the second position, the one of God sometimes means otherwise, there are a couple of passages in the Bible where it says a day is as a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years as a day. And and this is I'm I'm succinctly but hopefully faithfully representing their positions. These are their positions. so taking them all in turn. First off, the one saying day can mean different things depending on its usage. Absolutely. So what is the usage in Genesis? The usage in Genesis is now some people get really into let's let's It's ordinal, it's predicated on these things, you know. I just say that again the plain text reading of Genesis is you have evening and morning and you have a day. Yeah. It's defining it right there. It's defining it as what we would normally consider as a day. Exactly. I actually heard, and this goes for all of them, for all three of these qualms. Someone once posited I forget who, and I'm sorry, 'cause I'd love to attribute it to them. So I guess it's just mine now because I have no attribution, I'll just plagiarize it wholesale here. If God wanted to mean a literal day, how else could he have more clearly said it in Genesis one? With a twenty four point one. Yeah, like I don't think that that's ridiculous to expect that in a biblical text, right? I I really don't think there's a way that it could have been made more clear. Uh-huh. It's like it's a day, which is the first day. Yeah. Or some depending on your translation, first day. Yeah. There was a evening and there was a day three, but the evening and morning as well. It's like j just so you know, evening and morning is a day, right? So I I think that we understand the difference between day meaning twenty four hour day and day meaning age or epoch by the context in which it's found. That's how it's done in English. That's how it's done everywhere. If I say it took me four days. So Exodus says in six days God created the heavens, the earth, and all that's in them. Yeah. And on the seventh day he rested. Right. I would never say in six ages of men in using the word day, I would use something else. I don't use day in that context. Right. so And it does matter as far as like the Sabbath command. Yes. he gives us a pattern. Yes. And it's weird to give us a pattern that's not a literal thing. which by the way, now that you say that and you were talking about, you know, something a genre can be more than something a text can be more than one genre at once. You can have poetry and narrative. Which of course I don't think anyone disputes that. Right. but here's a beautiful thing about the way the Lord does stuff and why I love the word history, being his story. Yeah. God we all we often like to say, you know, God is a is an artist Who paints on a grand canvas. I do a little l little bit of astrophotography. I'm trying to do more. trying to smoke more and do more astrophotography. That's all a man needs in his life. I you're not wrong. All you depressed people out there, smoke and do astrophotography. Smoke and look at the sky, look at the star. Please don't take me out of context with that. Smoke tobacco. Yes, i and don't inhale it. Yes. So And and once a day, by the way, Quentin. Yeah. but anyway. I d I di I'm digressing. but we're over. I'm taking your numbers figuratively. Yeah. If you are, you're taking the I don't mean day by day. They're like twenty days in a day. Yeah. for your smoking. But but we we allow God to paint with a beautiful canvas. If we something see something like the Vale Nebula or you know, drama that I talked about earlier, the Horsehead Nebula's like one of my favorites. The Sombrero Galaxy is another one of my favorites. We see these and and we say as Christians rightfully, because I think you're wrong by the way to look at any beauty in nature, almost in almost any beauty, period. Yeah. Arguably, and not thank the artist. Right. And I think we would all agree with that. Right. So we say God paints with a grand canvas, but God tells us he writes his stories in flesh and blood. Yeah. He b so when you say something like, you know, the story of Joseph, right? You meant it for evil, God meant it for good. Some people will will take that, like secularists may take that as like, well, this is obviously this is literary because look at the foreshadowing and you know all these literary devices that were in there. God writes his story on reality. Yeah. You know, so when you say something like, Well, well, God wrote day and night and all these sorts of things, like well well, yeah, but that's part of the creation is he's he's writing on the universe. Yeah. He wrote the universe. Yeah. And that's also as an aside. one of the differences between the creation, I'll call it myth, but you know what I mean, of the Bible and other creation myths almost true myth. Yeah, exactly. Like something can be a myth and true. 'Cause most people hear the word myth and they think fairy tale. Mm-hmm. It's like, no, that's not what that's saying. but the creation myth in the Bible, the one of the main unique things is how God created. Yeah. Created from nothing, which I'll leave the Latin to you. But he created from nothing. Yeah, yeah, see I would have mixed up some letters in there for sure. And he also created by speaking. Most other things are stuff that already exists and the chaos is arranged. You know, so so all of which to say just because the Bible frames things in a poetic way, yeah, that doesn't mean that it's not literally true. And something in that I just thought of is is as sub creators ourselves, we also create by speaking. Yes. Our communication is done by speaking, writing is another form of speaking. any story is a creation. Done by speaking. And you know, a lot of people they follow me on Instagram, they know I bash on video games. But like I do I do impreciate and enjoy a good video game. Man does enjoy a video game. For anyone who doesn't think he does, he does. Yeah, and I one of my favorite games is Skyrim. And that game has like the most beautiful day night cycle in any game I've ever seen. fantastic. skyboxes. It looks beautiful. But the entire game is code. It's something written. It's a it's a Communication. It's a speech. And so it's like even like God created the world by speaking, and everything that exists is upheld by the word of his power. So likewise when we subcreate, we do it in the same method. Yes. Yeah, we can't create in a different method. and we could sometime we gotta talk about the non-triviality of of the advent of language. Yeah, and and we we've talked about before, I think you and I, DNA is a language. Everything is communicated and created by God's speech. It's a code. Ultimately. Yep. Yeah. And it's amazing. And you would never expect something like that. Again, expectations. I'm not saying DNA disproves evolution, but if things did it evolve, you would certainly not expect it in neo-Darwinistic you know, DNA fashion. As a matter of fact, Mendel and Darwinists were opposed to each other at first because the Darwinists rightly so were saying this is incompatible. Yeah. And now all of this again, the theistic evolutionist would have no qualms with the stuff that we've said, other than the the day meaning day. I'll get to the other parts in a second. Yeah. yeah, go ahead. Actually. Yeah, so so that I think I think that kills the first one. Yeah. The the context of day in in Genesis and Exodus is is day is a twenty four hour day. Right. That's the context of it. I believe that that's that's if you have a consistent biblical hermeneutic, you will come to twenty four hour day for those twenty four hour period. Right. so I I think that puts that one to bed. There's a lot that can be said about that and has been said about that. But that's Just because day can mean age doesn't mean it does. Okay. So what does it mean? Yeah. Read it in context. The second one is interesting. days is a thousand years, a thousand years is as a day. So therefore we have biblical I like this I actually like this argument because you're saying we have biblical precedent for day not meaning twenty four hour day. Right. I like that because it's saying let's let's go to the let Bible interpret Bible. Right. You know? Yeah. So I like that. the conclusion I think is awful. But I I like the I like the idea of it. Well, because the theistic evolutionist does respect the scripture. Exactly. Their their interpretation is way off kilter, way off base. Mm-hmm. But they don't have a disdain or a distrust of the Bible. They they do love it. They're just not reading it right. I'd love to see that. And I I know there are die in the wool Christians who are theistic evolutionists. Again, using it as a broad term. Yeah, we're not saying this is a litmus test for Christianity. You can be a Christian and not hold to young earth creationism. Absolutely. That is not part of what it means to be A Christian versus not a Christian. but one of them is right. Yeah. And we're holding that it's younger creation. Well both of them can be wrong, but both of them can't be right. Yeah, that's a better way to put it. Thank you. yeah, but that's just that's just logic, you know. so on that, we have to look at that that portion of scripture and say what is the context of that? Mm-hmm. one of the where's the passage? I don't wanna I don't wanna misattribute the passage of where it is, but one of them is talking about God is not slow as some count, slowness in punishing the wicked. Yes, first Peter. First or second Peter. I knew it was one that started with the P. Now it's gonna go Philippians. I'm like, but that's not right. No, it's not Philippians. I know that. but I knew it was some with the P. Okay, so cool. so yeah, when that passage of scripture is is saying it's it's talking about people who are like, Well, I see the wicked prospering. Yeah. And you say God's a righteous God, and look, the good Crawled some newsfeeds on X and you'll see there's a lot of injustice in the world and a lot of people prospering from just obscene wickedness. You're gonna buy a Ferrari for reselling dead baby parts from abortions. Like obscene wickedness. Right. And so that's a it's I love that the Bible doesn't pull these punches and it says this is a valid question that you might have. Right. It's not like, some fools out there, some some mental midgets out there might say no, some might say this. And I get what you can we s is that the bad word now, midgets? Apparently, but we're gonna I don't understand that. I don't just because the the replacement word that's a good word, little people, seems more pejorative to me. Right. So I don't I don't quite understand that. That's how I refer to my kids. Yeah. Little people. Yeah, it's like if you you do we we can say bad words on here, right? Yeah. So like if y you can't say retard, which I c okay, I get But if you were to be so we call drool buckets, you know, it'd be like, that sounds worse to me. I don't think we can replace it with that. That doesn't sound right. Where have you ever heard drool bucket as a viable alternative to Right? It's not, it's not. I'm saying I'm I'm I'm juxtaposing this with little people to midget, where it's almost like little people's like, little fella. It's like like that song, have yourself a merry little Christmas always seems so condescending. Yeah. You know, who says have a merry little Christmas if they're not trying to talk down to you? Anyway. In this passage it's origin of that song where it came from. really? Is it good or bad? I won't get into it. Okay. Yeah. Another time. if you look at those passages, they're saying you you look at these and say these wicked people are prospering, and God says he's just. God says he punishes the wicked, so what gives? Yeah. This doesn't make any sense. This doesn't and and I think it's totally valid. And it's saying, Yeah, well, you're not you're not recognizing this. From God's perspective as a timeless being, yeah, which we all have to say. God is timeless, outside of time, however you want to put it. He can't be inside of time since he made it. Exactly. And being inside of time constrains you to space as well. This is one of Einstein's triumphs. Mm-hmm. But saying God's outside of time, so therefore so he's like, Don't you get this? A day persp for God, that might as well be a thousand years. Right. And a thousand years might as well be a day. So there are two things you get from this. One, if he puts up with a wicked generation and puts up with several of them for a thousand years, by God's perspective, his patience was as long as the patience of a day. And this is I think one thing we miss as Christians. So just as a Christian thing right here, for all Christians, there's nothing to do with this debate. But just what I love about that verse and what it says to me, a day is as a thousand years. It says both. Mm-hmm. Why does it say a day is as a thousand years? Do I ever have a day where I unrepentedly sin? Yeah. That's like God putting up with me for a thousand years of unrepentant rebellion. Yeah. Like from his perspective, my my I'm like, but my sin was it it was like five minutes. Mm-hmm. And it's like, do you not understand God's a timeless being? That that five minutes exists in eternity in his maintained universe. Yeah. And being that he's outside of space as well, it's right in front of his face. Always. Yeah. Always. And so God has put up with whatever sin that you're justifying right now. God has put up with that sin forever. Yeah. Because he is long suffering. Exactly. So that's what that passage is talking about. It's like, hey, let's take a moment here. To reflect on the fact that God creates a grand story throughout time. These wicked people are not going to get away with it. From your limited perspective, they may get away with it. Yeah. But they're not going to get away with it in the grand scheme of things. God has has punished them. He's taken care of this. And what's so beautiful about it is Peter is a pastor. He's he's writing a pastoral letter to a people who are suffering, who are being persecuted, and he's trying to give them comfort and hope. Yes. What he's not doing is giving us some scientific reinterpretation of Genesis. Okay, so here's how that So now we'll let's get to So I think we belabored what that proper exegesis of that is enough. There's a lot that I mean you could talk for years on just that passage 'cause it's a beautiful rich passage. Right. if we are to say we can take this principle and graft it onto Genesis and there's one killer to all of this that I'll get at the end. I'm gonna hold it. What we have to say is God doesn't know the difference between a day and a thousand years. To him they're a billion years. Yeah. An epoch of a billion years. God's like, I don't know. They're all the same to me. Yeah, he couldn't. Don't you see? He couldn't come up with the right word. So just we'll just go with day. Yeah. And it's like, okay, that doesn't that doesn't make any sense. Right. That that doesn't when God says something definitive, he says something definitive. That doesn't mean that he said like okay. And now you could be like, god, let's talk about like the weeks in Daniel or s something like this. that that's like a prophetic dream. Yeah. You know, that that's you might as well the cows aren't real. You know, it's like therefore nothing God says is real. When God says that the the the Messiah will be born of a virgin, well I mean, well what does a virgin mean? Like it's just for her society or she was you know, it's like things mean things. Yeah. When they mean things. Right. You can't take a prophetic dream and say because the prophetic dream had portions of it which were symbolic, therefore I can symbolize anything I want. Yeah, it's it's not how it's really poor, improper hermeneutics. It is a twisting of scripture. It's super inconsistent. And I think the average theistic evolutionist would admit they are reinterpreting to be able to fit the current scientific consensus in with it. maybe I don't know that I would go that far. I've talked with some who are very much like, no, no, this is what the Bible says and it's clear. Interesting. Yeah. I've never I've yet to see that, but I don't doubt. People don't like to admit, and I I think to their credit, by the way, I think this is a wonderful sentiment for a theistic evolutionist to hold. People don't like to admit I am interpreting the Bible in light of something outside of the Bible holy. Okay. Which I appreciate. Yeah. But I think they're doing it. Yeah, I think that's what yeah, maybe maybe they wouldn't admit it. But I well I have seen. I have seen. Like we talked about Redeemed Zoomer. He did his debate with Keith Foskey, and that was one of the questions that he was asked is Are you interpreting the Bible in light of the scientific understanding, or are you interpreting the scientific understanding in light of the Bible? And he said that he was a It was a Darwin Darwinius Darw Darwinist Darwinist, thank you. before he was a Christian and then after he became a Christian, he threw out everything that he felt was incompatible with the scripture. So he's admitting that he's still holding on to that, in part because that was that is what s the science says. Yeah, and I I think that but but I think there's a there's a fairness to saying like like let me put it there and I'm trying to be magnanimous here, because these are my I I believe some of these people and I I don't know Redeem Zoomer. Or anything. I've following him a while. I can't say but I do think he's genero genuine and I I love the guy. Well, do you do believe he's a Christian? yeah, 100%. So in that, I I am so loath to impart to my brothers in Christ some motive that they may may have in the background. When they're glorified, they may be like, yeah, I was totally doing that. But right now that they wouldn't admit to. Yeah. And not even like they know it and they're lying. I I don't quite mean that. You know what I mean? We're we're all incomplete in our theology. Yeah. By By nature of the fact that we're finite beings and and that we're what what's what's the meme, forgive me, Lord, because I'm evil and retarded. You know? Like and it's like, Amen, man. Yeah. so so in that I will say that there's a difference between saying I'm interpreting scripture in the light of scientific findings and there is a passage in the Bible that has a disputed Exegesis and therefore I will augment it with empirical evidence. Yeah. I think that's okay. Yeah. I I disagree with it in this case because I think that the meaning is not disputed. And that's really where it comes down to. So and and I would say that is what he's doing. Like I don't attribute bad motives. I think I think he is trying to be biblically faithful. Yes. and I think if he th if he legitimately thought the Bible teaches the opposite, he would not hold that view. because he's admitted he's changed his views on Things like gay marriage. Like he was he was o okay with that before he was a Christian. Then when he became a Christian, he's like, Mm, Bible's very clear on that. But there are Christians who say I believe the Bible and I'm for gay marriage. Now I'd I that's one that's a bridge that's far enough that I'm like, Mm that that's gonna be some I will not question someone's salvation based on what their view of origins is. Yeah. I've I've dedicated a very large part of my life to pursuing the field of origins. Yeah. But I'm not gonna say you're not a Christian if you don't believe in six day creation. If you say I I'm okay with gay marriage and I think it's biblical, I'm going to very much question your salvation. Yeah. Well, because the scripture is clear that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then you turn to Romans one, I think it defines homosexuality. It doesn't state it, it defines And it says that the culture has gotten so bad that it's that people don't just do it, but they approve of it. Yep. Like the approving of it. It's almost worse than doing almost worse than doing that because you're saying it's it is right. It is biblical and that is blatant sin. Yeah. So like with Genesis I would put that on a on a tier a little bit lower than that. But I I would not, by the way, put the clarity on a different tier. I think the Bible is very, very clear. So all of which is say back to this just as clear, not as crucial. I I think people need to s the theistic evolutionists need to stop using that passage because it it it's it looks silly. Yeah. Well, and that's how the dispensationalists use it too, to re to reinterpret the some revel yeah, some some. But that's how they interpret revelation is a thousand years is as a day, so soon could mean a bazillion years, you know no. Yeah. Which I think is far less egregious. Yeah. But I think you do have a point, but I do think it's far less egregious. We make fun of dispensationalists a lot on my channel. My church is disp, so And and you know my my thoughts on that are are just I don't I don't know enough to to be Greg Kokel talks about this. He says that your your your confidence in what you say should be backed by how much evidence you have for it. Yeah. And I haven't I have an opinion and I lean dispensationalist. Really? yeah, I lean that way. Okay. But I find arguments to you know, like your arguments, I find very interesting ordering on compelling, but maybe not quite because I just haven't looked into it enough. Yeah. we could we could do a whole other conversation. J just you and me to talk about Covenant theology and partial preterism, I think. I like a lot of what I've seen in Covenant theology and then there's some I don't. But all of which say that that whole the thousand years is a day and a day is a thousand years, ev when that's used in the Bible, it's used to say this is the Lord's perspective, not his ability to keep time. Right. You know, and and so using that just it it makes your whole hermeneutic look silly. Because now you're saying I can take this and and mean God doesn't know what time is. Right. And that's that's just so I d I find that wholly uncompelling personally, so I put that one to bed. Yeah. The other one, and this this gets into the thing I was gonna say is is what I think speaks to all of them. What did a day mean before the sun? Right. Right? So have you ever heard this? There's some people that say that the first couple of chapters of Genesis were handed down from Adam. You ever heard that? Yeah, actually. so interesting. Some people at my church have have made that argument as well. that it's the the generations of Adam. right, that's where we get Genesis from. Yep. And basically the the idea is that it's the the record that Adam kept, and then his descendants kept it, and they kept going basically for the whole book of Genesis. Yep. It's the it's the stands to reason, by the way. I find that very compelling. Yeah, it's an interesting one. I'm not gonna die on that hill, but I think it's I would disagree I would disagree with it, mainly because of the historic interpretation of the church and my the confessions that I hold to. Belgic Confession explicitly says it was written by Moses. Which I don't have a problem with either. Also a hill I'm not gonna die on, but I bring this up for a reason. It's possibly possibly penned by Adam. Sure. That I will grant that that's that's a possibility. It's certainly not penned by anyone later than Moses. No, of course not. So we have somewhere Between Adam and Moses that this was penned. Right. Right. Yeah, one of the other patriarchs may have penned it. Mm hmm. We don't know. I I actually and I lean on that one toward Moses. Yeah. But I think the other one's interesting, so I like to talk about it. but let's go with any of It doesn't matter. If Adam were recording that, when would he have recorded it? well, certainly while he was alive. Exactly. And certainly not before he was alive. Right? Right. Yeah, I can't can't write something. And Adam was created on the sixth day. Yeah. So somewhere between day six and like, you know, three thousand ish years after that, something like that. When was Moses? Somewhere around there. exactly. So something like right? I think it's like fifteen hundred years from creation of Moses, fifteen hundred years from Moses to Jesus. Maybe it's two thousand. It's two thousand years. Yeah, it's two thousand. Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think that timetable's right. But it doesn't matter. We we got some thousand plus years gap there. It's somewhere in there. All of those days are after day four. Mm-hmm. They're day day six is the bare, bare, bare minimum. And Adam was clearly created with language, which as I said is another topic for another day. But he was clearly able to have parse language during those times. Mm-hmm. During at least day six and and following. All of which to say, I'm going this big Thing to build. Whoever penned Genesis one knew what the word day meant. Mm-hmm. And they chose to use the word day. Mm-hmm. So when you say, Well, before day four, what even was the meaning of the word day? Yeah. Well, whoever wrote it used day. So if it meant something else, they had no reason to use day. As a matter of fact, they were being deceitful. Yes. To use the word day. Well, and that that's a interesting point you bring up, theistic evolutionists Redeemed Zoomer would say it would be deceitful for the earth to look old when it's actually young. Mm-hmm. But first I want to just make sure I drive this home. The author of Genesis knew what the word day meant and they chose the word day. Mm-hmm. So when you say day has no meaning before day four, day has a meaning after day six, which is when the author used it. That's a good point. And that's the word they used. Yeah. If they meant something else, if it were to be that was just some indeterminate period of time, they would have said that. And again, as you've mentioned, the context is evening and morning. It's very clear. It I don't like like you said, I don't know how you can make that more clear. Evening and morning the first day. Yeah, other than what what if it were and there was evening and morning day one, some translations. And then what a parathetical aside, and by day I mean exactly what you're thinking of with day. I don't mean something else. And and I know the sun doesn't give we hold up, the sun's gonna get here. Yeah. But this still means day you know, it's like no without silliness. There's no other way to make it, you know. Yeah, that's a really unfair burden to place on the scripture to expect it to say that, right? As though the scripture has to be Explicitly addressing every possible objection. Yeah, no. And and I think it does actually, though, address these specific objections by saying there was evening and morning. Yep. First day. It addresses this one, yeah. Yeah. anything saying day doesn't mean twenty four hour appeared again, the way that we've parsed twenty four hour to mean. The scripture's very clear that that's what it means. Right. Now I have some sympathy for those who say this is all anti mythology and none of it actually means what it says. Right. Adam's not Adam. This is none of it's and maybe there was Adam, but it's not God took some dust and made him and then put him to sleep and took a rib and made eating. That's all storytelling. Mm-hmm. I actually almost respect that more than people saying day doesn't mean day. Yeah. Because those people say, Yeah, day meant day, but none of it's literal. None of it actually means what it says. Okay, now obviously I disagree with that. But there's a consistency there because they're at least saying Th he says it's this is pretty clearly done in six days here and Adam's made from dust and Eve's made from a rib, and then they're literally kicked out of a literal garden with a literal angel with a literal sword, you know, like all this. Right. There's a tree of life, there's a tree of knowledge of good and evil. These are all literally what it means. But none of it is true. It's all metaphor. Mm-hmm. That has more consistency. The problem that gets is like, well, where's the metaphor stop? And why is it metaphor? Yeah. And I I think that'd be predicated like you're saying on this. Well, no, I it contradicts science. Yeah. And therefore it can't be true, which means science, science, 'cause that's not a that's not a thing. Science, as we said, doesn't say anything. But the the a modern secular consensus view of the scientific evidence and methodology is what that is, but you can't say that's a science. Trump scripture. Yeah. That's problematic. Yeah. I'm gonna take some more of that Irishman if you don't Yeah, go for it. Yeah. The do the oak pipe here. The Cornell and Deal, Nutty Irishman, my currently my favorite tobacco. It's pretty good. I love it. well yeah, I think we've hashed out what day actually means there in Genesis and the objections to the literal interpretation there. let's jump over to I guess more of the the scientific argument regarding the order of creation. the Bible has a specific order. The scientific Darw Darwinian order is different. Mm-hmm. and again, in that Keith Foskey Redeem Zoomer debate, Zoomer said, actually they're the same. It's the same order. who's right? Is it different or is it the same order? It's different. And the reason that I'm thinking is because I'm trying to get all the specifics. I have a nice chart that a a dear who talked about this, a dear friend and mentor, Mike Riddle, who's just passed. Mm-hmm. had given me and I can't locate it. And I have it somewhere and and I would like to locate that. But if you find it, send it to I'll I'll put it up on the screen for this. Yeah, d suffice to say the order is vastly different. one of the easy ones and Redeem Zumer had I think an interesting thing on this that I've heard in other places as well. if you have the sun and the stars created after the Earth, that is decidedly out of order with the evolutionist perspective. Yes. By by miles. Like it's not even close. but then you're also gonna have things like plants being created before animals in the evolutionary theory, things like trees come long after certain types of animals. so th there's and there's a lot of things that you wanna get down to the weeds of it, which I highly recommend. I recommend you do. Get in the weeds, always get in the weeds. but when you start to look at it, the the order just don't line up. And so when you say, Well, this was created on day one, this was created in day two, this was created in day three, the order doesn't line up. Yeah. and so if the order doesn't line up, even if we allow day doesn't mean day, it means epoch or age or whatever. and then even that doesn't have a a meaning. Like, well the first the first epoch, the first day is is like you know, like nine billion years. It's like a little longer actually. And then the other ones are really short compared to that. And it's like, okay, that doesn't that doesn't track either. But even if you allow for all of that, the orders don't line up, so why are you even doing it? Yeah. Well if I'm remembering right, didn't you actually address this in your presentation as well? Yeah, I did. You you talked you sh put on the screen the order. So I'll find that in the Yeah, and I believe Mike gave me that that slide that I used for that. And so yeah, it's it's been discussed and I should know it offhand, but I haven't talked about it in a couple of years. And it's one of those things that it's just kinda like yeah, these don't line up. Yeah. It's pretty obvious. And then they don't. A lot of people have done some really good stuff on that. Yeah. and so something we've talked about in the past is there we go. Okay. If you think that this is not literal, you think it's poetic, exegete this for me. Why is this the order it gives us? What is the meaning here? Maybe importance would be my guess is what they would g they would go at, but I've I'm not actually heard. I'd I'd be conjecturing if I s were to say as well, 'cause I don't know, and it's a good question. If if it doesn't mean what it says, what does it mean? Right? You can't just it's not enough to just say it doesn't mean this. You have to actually tell me what it does mean. Well In fairness, the three best words in science that are the most underused are I don't know. Yeah. Everyone wants that. So I would actually accept from someone if they said, the order? I don't know. Okay. I don't know why I got to put it that way, but that's not what people say. Yeah. but if they did, I think it'd be I'd I'd be more willing to accept that. Well, if they if they were to say I don't know, to me that would mean I I can't take your interpretation then. If you don't If you don't know how to interpret it, I can't take your interpretation. Are you then saying and you may not be, this is an honest question. not that my other questions are dishonest, but sometimes they're rhetorical. Are you then saying if someone can't explain every aspect of a biblical passage, you can't take their interpretation of any aspect of it? No, I'm not saying you can't take their interpretation interpretation of any aspect of it. But something as as important to the text as the order of it. I mean it takes up a huge portion of the first few chapters of Genesis is the order. of creation. Like that's pretty much the entirety of Genesis one is the order of creation. Mm-hmm. So if you if you can't do that, you don't know how to interpret Genesis one at all. I think that's fair. And especially if you're saying especially if you're saying these days refer to epochs. There's there's an order to them. Yeah. The second you start to mix them and make them out of order in any way, the whole thing falls apart because you have to then I I no I think that is fair. Okay. because then you would have to say, okay, well, if the actual Not creation, 'cause we're not talking creation if we're talking Big Bang and Evolution. The ascendance order or the incidence order, however you want to put it, the chronological order of of these advents is different than the biblical order. Why? Yeah, why? That becomes a very important question. No, I think that's a good point. let's move on now to another thing that that I mean, most of this is just me. I watched the Zoomer Fosky debate earlier earlier today, actually. one of the sticking points for that discussion was death before the fall. And the tree of life. Yes. So Keith Voskey was arguing that death before the fall is ungodly. there is historical precedent for interpreting death existing before the fall, animal death, in the sense that you could eat you could potentially eat meat in a pre fallen world. I struggle with that concept. I do too. Given that it it's not until after the flood that God explicitly permits that. So I would I would disagree with that interpretation. I agree you. but they the the theistic evolutionists would argue that death before the fall was a thing that was happening, was a thing that was around, but it wasn't the human death, right? Because the human wasn't made. There was no nothing but the image of God could die because that didn't exist. but then at the same time they would say the tree of life is necessary to sustain Adam's life. He has to eat of the tree of life in order to stay alive. What do you think of that? Well, the tree of life's gonna be in heaven. So what do we make of that? Ultimately Christ is the tree of life. Yeah, but it does talk about the tree of life being on the streets, right? Mm-hmm. So I tend to think that that's symbolic of Christ. Could be. Well what I will say to that is it's three beautiful words. He doesn't know guys' name. I I don't I don't know what the tree of life's function is. I really don't. I honestly don't. Yeah. it it You know, and then the whole like it it bears the fruit in the different seasons and all this and I I think that's really interesting. I'm fascinated by it. Mm-hmm. I don't really know how it works. Okay. So I'm not willing to say the tree of life is necessary to sustain immortality and without it you will die. Yeah. I'm not willing to say that. Okay. and I don't I I think you know, I'll always let the Bible speak where it speaks and be silent where it's silent. We're not given a lot of the mechanism of the tree of life. Yes. We just know that if Adam had eaten from it, he would have lived forever. Exactly. Now But the thing is he doesn't he's not told he's going to die until after he sins. So if we have that s that state where he's not sinned yet, but he also hasn't eaten of the tree of life, if he were to just continue in that state, would he eventually perish? Problem that we have here is a logical sufficient and necessary confusion, which is one of the most common confusions in logic. Okay. sufficient condition means that if you have this condition, something else is satisfied. We are in Nampa, therefore we are in Idaho. Right. But you can't say we're in Idaho, therefore we're in Nampa. Right. So you're saying the tree of life is sufficient to make one live forever. That's clear in the text. There's nothing saying the tree of life is necessary to make one live forever. Interesting. And I I'm not saying there's the answer. I'm just saying like some sometimes you have to look at what what is said and what is not said. It is never said anywhere in the Bible that I know of that without the tree of life, no one lives forever. Yeah. In any state, in a sinless state born without original sin, as Adam and Eve were, born's not a good word there, but you know what I mean. That they would have to die if they didn't eat from the tree of life. Yeah. We don't know we we do know that people will be Now, depending on what you think the tree of life means in our glorified state, right? Yeah. But we know we'll have access to it, whether it's Christ, whether it's an actual tree. It it feels like an actual tree the way it says it. there's nothing in the Bible saying, well, if you don't eat from the tree of life when you're in heaven, you're gonna die. Right. And that does not even suggest, as a matter of fact, the Bible teaches us against that. teaches away from it, as we would say, right? so I I think to to you're you're doing a layer of of conjecture to say the tree of life existed. And therefore Adam and Eve would have died without eating from the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Mm-hmm. Okay. And as a matter of fact, I'd I would I would lean against it. Absolutely in our glorified state, but for Adam and Eve in their original state without original sin, I'm not willing to say that they could even die. Yeah. And something we know in the text is Adam is told if he sins, he dies. and and Fosky brought this up in the debate. I think Joel Webin had said it to Zoomer in a in one of their discussions. But God says to Adam, The day you eat of it, you will die. Well, if death exists before the fall, he just looks around and is like, Did they eat of it? He he he's like, That's gonna happen to me? Isn't that already gonna happen to me? we let evolution go its full course, that happened to his parents. But he's somehow ontologically different from his parents because now he's been given the image of God. And I was I was reading to you earlier, Genesis 2.7 says that God took the dust of the earth and from it created a man, and the man became a living being. He was not a living being before he was formed of the dust of the earth. It's not as though he gives to some like Neanderthal the Breath of life, meaning the soul, the image of God, and then he becomes a living being because the breath the the Neanderthal was already alive. We'll say Homo erectus or something like that, because Neanderthals from what we can tell are fully human. Okay. Well, fair enough. Like the something something along there. and Well Homo erectus might been fully human. We'll go with just strelipithe. Okay. Let's do Sure. I don't know what that is, but it's the ape like creature that is supposed to have predated man, which most likely was a perching ape, but you know. Yeah. But it's not it's The text doesn't say he took the living creature and gave it the image of God. He says he formed man of the dusts of the earth and breathed into him life, and the man became a living being. Again, this is Genesis two seven. And what's fascinating is if you say, Well, that's the image of God, well, that same phrase, a living being or a living soul, as it says in the King James, is used of the animals too. Yep. The animals are are being described as given the breath of life. Everything that had the breath of life was killed during the flood during the flood, exactly. So you can't you can't say that the breath of life is the image of God. he if Adam was already alive, it makes no sense for him to be made alive when he's given the image of God, to be receiving the breath of life when he becomes a living or to mean spiritually alive or something like that. Yeah. And something else Fosky brought up is Christ redeems us, body and soul. He saves us from spiritual death, but our physical bodies would be resurrected as well. did is that something that sin caused was physical death? Yes. That's that's that's a very like theologically that's very clear right throughout the Bible. Yeah. The wages of sin or death. I mean just take that verse. It's all over though. And so he says it says through one man came death. How much more so? Yeah, by one man will all be made alive. And grace comes through Christ and death came through Adam's sin. And what Zoomer says is that the grace that comes through Christ is applied to people before him. So likewise the death that comes through Adam is applied to the creation before him. I remember this argument. And I think that's just that doesn't that doesn't work. Well, I'll just say I agree. I have no problem with future causality on past events. Sure. For a timeless being. I'm okay with that. Yeah. But I think it doesn't this is this we talked about consistency. This is the thing. All these passages, I guarantee you, a theistic evolutionist has answers to all these, and you've heard most of them, I'm sure. The problem they're not dumb. No, no, they're not. they're they're dumb people everywhere on every side of everything. They're smart. There's one thing I I used to teach high school at at one of our churches that we went to in Colorado. And you know, I taught I would tell a lot of them there are a lot of good home school kids there. Like, I don't have enough faith to be an evolutionist. And it's like, Yeah, you do. Yeah. There, but for the grace of God go you. Right. And me. You know, So it's not that. But when we're talking about consistency of biblical interpretation, all of these passages that you've just talked about require zero interpretive work when you take Genesis as meaning what it says. Yeah. When it suddenly talks about the wages of sin or death and we all inherit, you know, the the original sin nature of Adam and he's cursed all of us to die. It all makes sense. Yeah. Well, and this is why I asked like, how do you interpret Genesis one? If it's not the literal way How do we actually interpret it? Because I think what they're doing is they're just confusing it, they're muddying the waters. And so if they want us to reject the accepted interpretation, they have to posit a viable alternative. And so far I don't think they have. Well, it's it's difficult because the viable alternative that they build because they'd say, of course we have a viable alternative. it requires a reparsing of so many passages of the Bible in a way that where you read it and Someone has to be over your shoulder. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're you're actually reading this wrong. Let me tell and and what is it predicated on? To predicate this this idea of death coming before the fall, then changes how you talk about death throughout the Bible. Yeah. Now, if you say the entire creation groans is in the pains of childbirth until now is subject to futility from you know man's sin. If you have a l we'll call it literal, but you know what I mean by that. Natural, I think, is a better way of saying it. If you have a natural interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis, that verse makes total sense. Yeah. There's no interpretation needed. You say, well, yeah, of course it has been. Everything's cursed. Things are killing each other. There's fangs and thorns and death. You you watch something like you know, Animal Planet or whatever. Whatever nature documentary you want, and you watch these animals ripping each other apart, it it it just it unsettles us. Now you can get used to stuff like that, obviously. I don't think there's there's any necessarily immorality in that other than the original sin which cursed the creation. Mm-hmm. I don't think a lion tearing an antelope apart and starting to eat it while it's still alive is immoral of the lion to do. Right. But I think it is a consequence of immorality. And when we see it we say, I don't like that. That's not right. That's ugly. That shouldn't be happening. And again, God created everything very good. Mm-hmm. And if evolution is true, then that that story is a story read in tooth and claw. Like there is blood everywhere. But blood is the result of sin. blood being shed is the result of sin. So yeah, everything is created very good. And you know what else is very good is Squirrely Joe's coffee. you guys can head over to squirrelyjoes.com and use code CONRE at checkout, you'll get fifteen percent off your first order. When I say it's very good, like it is really good coffee. You've been singing the praises of this to me for a little bit. I gotta get myself a bag because you you know coffee better than I do. This is their their kindness blend. I actually haven't had this one yet. My favorite is the Covenant blend, Covenant Beans. I just find that phrase hilarious, Covenant Beans. It's pretty good. but it smells great, it tastes great. you're gonna have to grind it yourself because it's all whole bean. I think they might offer it should be. Yeah, I th they might offer ground, but I I prefer the whole bean. I love it. 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And so if you can, buy your coffee from people who do not hate you or your God and instead want to serve him. True parallel economy. That's right. And again, it's great coffee. It's not like it's bad coffee, you know. It's not like Christian music where you have to support it because it's Christian. Yeah. It's good coffee that is produced by a Christian doing so for the glory of God. There's some good Christian music out there. There is. Yeah, I I made it, so Yeah. It'll offend people. I make I make scripture music with AI because I yeah, everyone hates the AI stuff. But I'm like, you know what? I just want I'm I'm not an artist. I'm not anything like that. I just want to listen to scripture. Mm-hmm. That's all. last last thing we have on here, if you still have time, is the instantiation of Adam. That was something you had talked to me about. Yeah, we we get lighted on this, so I'll I won't I'll try not to belabor it. I'm a little verbose. A lot of theistic evolutionists, I'm hearing now, just in my own anecdotal evidence here that I talk with, are starting to say, like, yeah, I'm all about evolution, big bang theory, I'm I'm on board for all of it except for humans. Not humans. because the gospel a lot of it resides on a literal atom. And the problem again with if you if Adam came from Australopithecines and these sorts of you know, came up from apes, It it's hard to say like when did he become human? Well that was Genesis two, seven, when God breathed life into him and gave it But when did he biologically, morphologically, genetically become what was good enough for God to say, stamp it, that's my human, this is the one that I've planned, let's let's be magnanimous, right? Neanderthal ish. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, those came later. But but like The difference between Adam and his parents if he evolved, th there's there's just no way we would be able to see it. Even genetically. Yeah. Even doing gene sequencing, we would be hard pressed to find any difference that that's greater than the regular difference between two random individuals. So my problem with it becomes you have all these people dying, living, dying, you know, like like doing human things. Because I imagine they'd if animals behave now as they did pre fall Then I would have to assume they're also doing things like murdering and raping and stealing and all these things because that's what animals do. And like I said, when an animal does it, it's not immoral. Unless you were to say, Well, lions prefall. They they didn't eat the way that they do now. They only ate things that were dead and and they were kind to one another and shared and a l a male lion when he took over a pride would not kill all the young and then impregnate all the one. He would have his one lioness for life. You know, and no one's saying that. So it's absurd, right? So why would we think that apes would do that? We wouldn't. Yeah. Do they even do that now? I don't think so. No, but that's one and there there's some monogamous animals and this sort of thing, but yeah, all of them will have no problem killing certain things. Yeah. You know, like, hey, Junior showed me his teeth, I'm gonna beat this knot out of him. You know, like an ape will do that. Yeah. Right? So, and apes are well I would say they're generally gentle in some ways, but they fight hard, man. Those are scary beings, apes and and and chimps and orangutan. Like they can be incredibly violent. So there's no reason to to think that Adam's parents weren't doing all the violent things and all of his all of the protony of that, like all his Grandparents extended family, this is his entire species of whatever it was, or kind or whatever we want to call it. Yeah, now now he's somehow ontologically, maybe if that's the right word, ontologically a different kind of being from his parents. I I I can't I can't accept that. That doesn't make sense. It's nonsensical. And so that's why we have a lot of people saying, I agree with evolution, but not human evolution. Yeah. I mean I appreciate the the insistence on Little Adam because the Bible is so clear about that. He's very insistent on it. But something interesting about it is They'll say, you Eve was taken from his side doesn't necessarily mean taken from his physical body, but could be taken from someone around him. where did she get the image of God from? Yeah, We don't read we don't read that the image of God is given to her explicitly. Rather what we read is Adam is put to sleep, Eve is taken from her side from his side, and the the reason why she contains the image of God is because she's the same kind of being as him. Just as the image of God that we have is passed down to us from our parents So E Eve is not the daughter of Adam, but he comes from her, or she comes from from him. wouldn't everybody else in his family tree? Yeah. You know, that that's that's the problem with looking at it that way, is eventually well and also when did that happen in sequence? Well, and then also they'll say, Cain and Abel, right? So Cain's wife would not have been biologically his sister, it would have been somebody else. Which and there's problems with it being biologically sister, but we're we're talking Well, when you have to say chronologically when in the in the history of the Bible do we talk about you can't have incest anymore, you know? Yeah, it came l post that it came later. but did Cain's wife have the image of God? When did that when was that given to her? 'Cause she did she didn't come from Adam. There's no there's no like genetic passing down of the image of God. if she didn't if if Cain's wife didn't have the image of God, do we have a child who's half human, half ape? And now we have only half the image of God in Cain's descendants? Yep. Well and so I why is it so messy? When what was predicated in scripture on this thing? Was Adam named all the animals? Mm-hmm. What was the point of that? When you take it as cohesive, right, from a literary standpoint, he's looking at all these animals, and what he should be seeing is there's a male and female elephant, there's a male and female lion, there's a male and female dog, whatever the kinds are. I don't know if they're elephants, lions, but you know what I mean. Yeah. But there's no male and female if he's and there was no yeah, and he saw no one suitable for him, and God said it is not good for the man to be alone. It was a first not good. Yeah. And so he makes the woman. And what happens when Adam sees the woman? This is now Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, I should probably woman. Yeah. You know, it it's it's it's it's it's it brings it all to this neat conclusion of Adam's he's doing great. He's with God, he sees all these cool things out there, he's naming the animals. He's like, wait a minute, they've all got companions and I don't. Yeah. Something's missing here. I And why would he think that if Eve, taken from his side, just simply Exactly. Another one of those 'Cause really you're gonna say like point zero zero bunch of zeros, one percent different. Yeah. I bet there are a lot of ladies that he would have seen otherwise have been like that could be bone on my bone and flesh of my flesh. maybe she could be bone on my bone and flesh of my flood. You like it it wouldn't have been there's no companion suitable to me. I see all these people who are exactly like women of my kind, but none of them are are really suitable to me. Yeah. And to the point of being now finally you know, like it it's again, you can come up with An interpretation that says, no, no, no, no, it doesn't have to be like that. But you have to come up with it. You don't have to come up with anything. If you say Adam was the only created human, nothing like him out there, because we are so different from the animals. That's another thing we could talk about at some point. We are so different from animals. So Adam sees this. He sees all these animals. They're so different from me. I can't have a companion like they have. Yeah. That doesn't exist. I found not a companion suitable for me, is what he's saying there. You know? What he's saying is He's a high value man. That's right. He's an alpha male. He knows what he's doing. And that's what that's all he's That's right. He sees he saw all these homo erectus thoughts out there. And was like, no. I don't think so. I know what she did before and that girl over there is a career woman. I'm not going for that. I want someone to help me guard and raise kids. No, it's it doesn't make any sense. You have to again, it's the it's the the hermeneutical gymnastics that you have to do in these things. And the consistency if you just say Genesis means What it seems to mean from a reading of it. If this were to be, you know, the Epic of Gilgamesh or something and I were reading it and I read Genesis with the same eyes, not that we should, wholly, but we should to an extent of be like just as literature, what is this saying? Yeah. The appearance of Eve after Adam's in a deep sleep and a piece of him is taken and used to form her, it just it it fits. Everything fits beautifully and perfectly. And that's what we would expect from a god who is not a god of confusion, but a god of order. Right, exactly. Alright. Well thank you, Dr. Skipper. It was great to to have you over again. have some smokes with you and talk about talk about the scriptures, talk about evolution. I think I think we've at least shown that there are some legitimate theological problems with evolution, even if you are a theistic evolutionist. We're not questioning the salvation of our theistic evolutionist brothers, but we do want to emphasize that that's not that's not compatible with the early chapters of Genesis. So thank you, Skipper. thank you guys for watching. And I hope to see you guys in the next one. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Of course, leave that at the end of the video where nobody's gonna watch this far. Well, you just say it at the beginning, which I never get. When people are like, if you like this content, like the video and subscribe. I'm like, I don't know if I like it. I haven't seen it yet. You gotta like it once you see it, man. You gotta be a real one. Immediate love at first. I guess like at first sight. Yeah. All right. Well thank you, Skipper. I'll see ya. See you guys.