Episode 027 - Debunking Evolution w/Dr. Chris Rupe, Back2Genesis Ministries

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Coming up on Max Impact, when you [00:00:04] Speaker B: remove that foundation of Adam and Eve, original sin, then the whole point for why we need the last Adam, Jesus Christ comes down with it. So it's not so much an issue of arguing about the science and debating. It's more about biblical authority. Can you really trust the Bible in Genesis or not? And if you can't trust the Bible in Genesis, where can you start trusting the Bible and why? [00:00:25] Speaker A: I just want to start there with a very simple question about evolution. Does it exist? [00:00:30] Speaker B: So that's a great question. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Max Impact here on the Mars Hill Network, where we look to make a maximum impact for the Kingdom of God. We're back here in the One north studio with Dr. Chris Roop joining us. He made the trip to Syracuse to. To come talk to us. And we are delighted to have you here, Chris, because we met you in Syracuse at the men's conference at Northside Church earlier, actually later in the year 2025, just a few months ago. So we're delighted to have you. How you doing, Chris? [00:01:13] Speaker B: Doing great. Just want to thank you for this opportunity. I'm very humbled and grateful for it and just pray it's encouraging to all the listeners. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Yes, exactly, exactly. And we're excited to have you on this podcast because in learning about your ministry, which I want you to share about this, this is a topic that Xander and I have not even touched on this podcast. And I really do believe that this is going to be very impactful for those who watch it and really live up to the name of this podcast, Max. In fact, I mean, all of them have been. But this is going to be good because again, we have not even come close to touching this topic. So, Chris, can you share with the audience what your ministry is and how you even got got into that ministry as a. As a scientist, as you, you know. [00:01:58] Speaker C: So please share that with the audience today. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah, so the ministry is called Back to Genesis with the number two. And Back to Genesis really represents going back to the authority of God's word, especially with respect to origins. And so the foundational books of the Bible really are Genesis 1:11. And if you think about it, it's hard to define why we need a savior without Adam and Eve, without the original sin. And there's other parts in Genesis that are really foundational to our biblical worldview, morality. And long story short, I was born in a Christian home, wonderful Christian home. My parents taught me the Bible is true, God exists, very consistent biblical home. No hypocrisy but for me, my hang up was, well, that's great, but what if the Bible is not true? What if it's false? And all along I'm just believing what my parents taught me, and they're sincere, but sincerely wrong. And I was in high school then, so, you know, I was starting to make choices that would have a real impact on my life. And at a public school, I was recognizing, okay, I could follow the straight and narrow and be that Christian that stands out like a sore thumb, and that's not very popular or cool, or I could, you know, really believe what I'm taught. And I recognize that your beliefs, your worldview really does affect your daily choices, the friends you choose to hang out with. So it all came down to me. How do I know the Bible is true? And I can remember thinking, if I'm just an evolved ape and there is no God, then right and wrong is just your opinion. Yeah, it's relative. And I thought, that's fine if it's true, but I don't want to live my life for a lie. So if Christianity is true, I want to know, is there any evidence for it? Or am I just. Or just. I felt like I had, like a. My faith was detached from reality. That was just wishful thinking, and it wasn't grounded in the earth we live in, like, with fossils and rock layers and dinosaurs. And so I really wanted to know, okay, if it's true, where's the evidence? [00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. [00:03:55] Speaker C: That's great. Yeah, you know, it's a really great, really great story, you know, that you set out to find the truth. Basically, you did it with the. With the intent, not of proving one side or the other, but finding out what's true. [00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:09] Speaker C: You know, like, and I really. I really like that kind of impartial, Impartial take on that. I am really excited to. To. To talk about this topic. Even more excited about this new Max Impact table. Teddy. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Yes, we are excited. [00:04:23] Speaker C: I feel like we have to call attention to this new table. Yes, exactly. [00:04:28] Speaker A: No, this is the first guest at [00:04:29] Speaker C: the brand new MaxImpact table. [00:04:31] Speaker A: Yes. [00:04:31] Speaker B: What an honor. Let me tell you. [00:04:33] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And this table, it's a. It's a wood table. It's made with the creation that God has, or. [00:04:41] Speaker C: Perfect segue. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Yes, but. But no, that's. That's really great, Chris, because at the end of the day, yes, as Christians, we have faith in what we don't see and we believe. But I know some people who are quote, unquote, Deconstructionists, they will use that and be like, well, you believe there's an element of doubt, like, you don't know. But the fact that you went on that journey to really know is so powerful because your journey is definitely going to help others. And that is what we're going to get into today, because I know there's many people that have also embarked on that journey. But you specialize in this. With that, I did want to ask you with your ministry, it's about creation science, correct? Yeah. So based on your research, your experience in your findings, and all of this stuff, like, how important is that to really understanding the Bible, like the understanding the science of creation, how is that helping us understand the Bible better? [00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, there's a lot of different ways I could answer this. And one thing that I want to clarify is, you know, we talk about creation science is. And I've heard people say, well, you know, speaking kind of negatively towards creation scientists that they say, well, the Bible is not a science textbook. And I would say, I absolutely agree with that. It's not. And Genesis 1 to 11 isn't at all a science textbook, but it is a book of history. And as a book of history, and the Hebrew language indicates that it's a historical narrative genre. So it doesn't have the style of, like, Hebrew poetry, like psalms and proverbs, Very distinct Hebrew language consistent with, like, first Kings, second Kings. So it's not a science textbook, but it is a book of history. And as a book of history, that's important because. And I come back to this point again, if Adam and Eve, for example, weren't real people, and a lot of Christians are now believing this, it's becoming mainstream. In fact, most Christian seminaries, most Christian universities are now casting doubt on a literal Adam and Eve. And so they think, well, maybe there was eight men before them, and maybe we don't have to accept them as literally, you know, just two people. But when you remove that foundation of Adam and Eve, original sin, then the whole point for why we need the last Adam, Jesus Christ, comes down with it. [00:06:54] Speaker A: Wow. [00:06:54] Speaker B: So, you know, it's. So it's not so much an issue of, you know, this arguing about the science and debating. It's more about biblical authority. Can you really trust the Bible in Genesis or not? And if you can't trust the Bible in Genesis, where can you start trusting the Bible and why? What I've recognized in the culture is there's this. I call it the great disconnect in our generation. And that was me. Like I mentioned, my faith was disconnected from reality. But if you think about it, you know, Hebrew talks about our faith as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don't see. And faith is based on facts. The fact that there is a God, the fact that Jesus Christ was a historical figure and literally died and rose again. So it is based on facts. But if you can't trust the facts in Genesis, which are foundational of the Gospel, then it really erodes the entire structure of Christianity. And so that's the whole point of the ministry, is to ground people in their faith, in reality and the earthly things. And Jesus said, if I've spoken to you of earthly things and you don't believe, how then will you believe when I speak to you of heavenly things? And today, when you go to churches, what do they focus on? Almost entirely the spiritual truths. How often do we talk about not just what we believe, but why we believe it? The earthly things like fossils, rock layers, DNA patterns. Dinosaurs. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:11] Speaker B: You know, why aren't there dinosaurs shown on these. Arkansas. You know, these ark pictures we see in Sunday school? You never see dinosaurs. [00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:18] Speaker B: So I do think there is a disconnect there between faith and the world we live in. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah. That is so important because I think when you look at what you. Like you said we were talking about in church, like, I don't hear a lot of, like, scientific evidence coming to support it. And Genesis, it's the first book of the Bible, so if you basically eliminate the truth of that book, that's like the foundation that the Bible stands on. Of course, Jesus is our foundation, but he was the preeminence of all things, as it says, I believe in the book of Colossians. He was there from the beginning when everything was formed, because he had a hand in creation. In. In him is the fullness of God, as the Bible says. So if, like you said, Genesis is very foundational, even the foundations of the earth. If we can't trust Genesis, then I do believe. As you've said, it's so hard to even consider everything else. So thank you for what you're doing, and I'm excited to get into this. You have any other thoughts? Quickly, Xander, before we continue? [00:09:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm trying to get my thoughts in order a little bit because I like what you said about how it's like, we don't, you know, like, we don't necessarily teach the first 11 chapters of Genesis as if it was something that happened in the real world. We teach it as Something that's like kind of removed. And I think historically we've kind of done that. Like, I think great work of literature. Paradise Lost by John Milton, great, great big epic poem about the creation and the fall and all that. And I think that at its elevation in English literature, we kind of even inadvertently after that, kind of fabilized it a little bit because here's, you know, John Milton making a very big Morocco allegory, which was, I think a polemic against the burgeoning romantic movement. But that's a different speech for another time. We then it became, I think I want to explore kind of the area where then it became stories we teach kids and then no one else. It's like we learn about Genesis 1 through 11. We learn about Creation, Adam and Eve, the Flood, Tower of Babel, we learn about them in Sunday school. And then it's like we don't learn them ever again. And I think it's because we've sort of unconsciously been like, this is a story that teaches us moral principles that we tell children. But it's, it's in this weird interstitial dream zone almost. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, great way of explaining that. That great disconnect. [00:10:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:40] Speaker B: And that's why when you go to college campuses, I went to secular university, suny, Geneseo, for biology. This is before I went for geology and while I was a student there, after I got saved because of the creation based resources that I became familiar with. And it really helped me to connect my faith to reality. It activated my faith. I became very bold in preaching and sharing the truth and. And of course, even when I preach Jesus, guess what they asked me, they asked me about Genesis. They say, well, how do you explain Adam and Eve and what about the age of the earth? How do you explain plate tectonics and carbon 14 dating and dinosaurs and ape men and on and on and on. And that represents there really is a massive stumbling block in the culture. And that stumbling block is science disproves the Bible and the church has largely ignored that and kind of gone around that massive stumbling block. But it is huge. And that's the evidence for it. Just go on comment sections on YouTube, social media, and you see, wow, many other people, not just me, have the same stronghold. [00:11:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:11:38] Speaker C: And that is really an interesting point where it talks about, where you talk about, you know, when you started preaching and the thing people ask you about, like, is Genesis. [00:11:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually have. [00:11:46] Speaker C: And I feel like it's a little bit of a hot take in like different areas. I feel like in our current generation, the stumbling block is different than like the science based, like kind of stuff. But I feel like that's going to touch on a question I'll get to later. So I won't take up time up front here. [00:12:03] Speaker A: Yeah, no, but this is great stuff. And you know, I'm also trying to wrap my thoughts around all of this and get my thoughts together. It was just such a big thing thinking about it earlier. But yeah, like really I want to start, you know, getting into all that stuff because it's so important and the way I kind of want to go about it, because there may be people watching that are they're Christians and they're seasoned, but like, maybe they're not good apologists. But then there's people who don't know the Lord, they're not Christians, maybe they're even atheists because they believe in this science that the world says disproves the Bible. So I want to take it like, I want to kind of start elementary and then work our way up to like a level where it's very like much more intellectual. So let's just start with the basic question. Okay. Because you got what the Bible says is true about creation, how things came into existence, and then you got evolution. And that basically discounts God. Right. So I just want to start there with a very simple question about evolution. From what you've studied and what's out there scientifically, does it exist? [00:13:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's a great question. And the problem with that question is it's a good question, but it comes down to, well, what do you mean by evolution? [00:13:16] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:17] Speaker B: And this is where it becomes very, I think, deceptive because when I took biology, you know, State University of New York is a standard biology textbook and they define evolution very vaguely or all encompassing. So they say that evolution is basically change over time. A technical way of saying it is a change in the genetic composition of a population over time. So if you think about that, that pretty much encompasses any type of change whatsoever. The moment you have a son or daughter, guess what? They might have a mutation somewhere in their 3.2 billion DNA letter genome that's going to change the allele frequency or the genetic composition in the population. So is that evolution according to textbook definitions? You'd have to say yes. [00:14:00] Speaker A: And that's really sneaky. [00:14:01] Speaker B: But everybody knows that's not evolution when we say the word evolution. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:05] Speaker B: So I break it down to two different ways of thinking about the word evolution. One term I agree with, and it's a misnomer they call it micro evolution. And that's really just adaptation. Animals adapt to their environments, but from a biblical point of view, we would say that's limited and that's based on the capability that God pre programmed into the genomes of the created kinds from the beginning. So God is a great programmer and he has foreknowledge that in a fallen creation, animals would need to know how to adapt to varying environments or else they would go extinct almost immediately. And so from a position of genetics, you'd say, well, that makes sense. I believe in adaptation. Now they like to call that microevolution. But here's the part where they kind of make it very deceptive. They say, well, see if you can accept small changes called microevolution. They say, well then why wouldn't you accept macroevolution? Isn't it just extrapolating the small changes and adding them up over time to lead to big changes? You see that? So they say microevolution is true, really just adaptation. But they say yes, everyone agrees with that. And in textbooks they give examples of things like dog breeds, lots of variation in dog breeds through artificial selection. And they literally state that extrapolating this type of process over time, you can see how it can account for all of the diversity of life. And that can be very persuasive to college students, high school students, middle school students, and they say, wow, how can I deny science then? Right? But the problem is that micro evolution involves information that's already in our DNA, already in the genome. And changing things from like an ape into man requires novel genes, new genes, new information. So I make a distinction there. I say yes, I believe in small changes. Can they add up to large changes? No, because large scale evolution, like microbes into microbiologists, apes in demand. Those large scale changes require lots of new functional DNA sequences, new DNA information, and the mutations. This is a little technical, but no, it's good. We need to know random mutations and natural selection cannot build the genome, it cannot result in new information. And I've studied this for 20 years now and I get into detail about all these different beneficial mutations and the mechanism behind it. Long story short, yes, animals change, it's adaptation. But no, that doesn't mean you can extrapolate that to large scale changes. So is evolution true? I would say no, it's not. Certainly not macro evolution. We just see what the Bible says, animals bring forth after their kind. [00:16:39] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And the Genesis account accounts for that. We can put some scripture references out there on the screen, but I was actually watching the documentary that your organization put together before this interview. I got through most of it, dismantled evolution, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty sure said in there at one point that if you tried to extrapolate all these macroevolution changes, like it's impossible because. [00:17:02] Speaker B: You mean micro evolution changes. Yes. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Well, micro into macro. Yes, it's impossible because as you actually get further and further along, there's actually DNA information that's lost. Yes. Right. So can you explain that a little bit? Yeah. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Even beneficial mutations, believe it or not, and I've looked at many of these over the years, things like antibiotic resistance. Everyone acknowledges that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics, but if you look at the mechanism, it's through loss of function mutations. So why are they beneficial? Well, because they survive, but it's through breaking systems. For example, you can have an enzyme and if that enzyme can't convert the antibiotics into its lethal form, into its reactive form, then the bacteria survive. So you can destroy that enzyme through mutation and they can survive. It's beneficial. Yes, but you lost the function of the enzyme that you normally would need in a healthy, normal situation. So that's just one of many examples. Overwhelmingly beneficial mutations are due to loss of function or loss of regulation. Yes, it's adaptive, but it's adaptive in a downhill sense. You're losing information, not gaining information. I tell people believing that can lead to macroevolution is like saying if you keep losing parts of your car, it's eventually going to evolve into a space shuttle. That makes no sense. [00:18:18] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:18:19] Speaker B: You can't make money or become rich if you continually lose money over, over time. [00:18:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:24] Speaker B: So what they need is mutations that are not just beneficial and that they can survive, but they have to be resulting in novel functions and structures that did not previously exist. Whether it's through duplicating a pre existing gene and tweaking it or just de novo, either way they need lots of new information. And that's the challenge for evolution and why I don't believe it. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And thank you for the analogy. I think that really cleared things up because you were explaining that and I was like, I don't get it until you said that. Now I get it. Yeah. [00:18:51] Speaker C: I think it's, I think it's all very interesting. I am, I am the, the English major at the table. I am. I think it's all just very, very fascinating. And like there's just the technical details of, you know, just all of it. And you know, even you can bring in some English, like hermeneutical interpretation to like, you know, if a text was missing that many. Like there are Greek poets that we have fragments of, and we don't try to extrapolate a whole new organism out of these fragments. They publish the fragments like as is and translate them. So I think it's interesting to try and like extrapolate something wholly new out of lost fragments and things with missing spaces in them. I just think it's very fascinating, like in a tone that's not entirely. Not entirely great, but. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Yes. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Well, one way of thinking about it is think in terms of this major ape transformation. It's a macroevolutionary transformation. Think of changing something like a wolf that looks like a wolf, but they actually call it pakicetus. This is something from the fossil record and they would say something that looks like a wolf like creature evolve over a period of around 30 million years into whales, dolphins and porpoises. So why? Because they have to have mammals come about from a land mammal. So they have a land mammal, Pakicetus, something like a wolf like creature taking to the seas and becoming blue whales. Think about what that involves. Do dogs have fluke tails? Do they have blubber? And to form things like toothed whales with echolocation, things like sonar, basically. This is incredible. So you need not just random mutations, but very sophisticated programming. So the mutation selection process grossly oversimplifies just how incredibly marvelous the engineering is in programming is to make the genome. You can't just do it through a Darwinian trial and error process. [00:20:49] Speaker C: Every worldview requires faith. That's what I'm learning is that every worldview that you have requires faith in something. It requires like this feels like it requires faith in these missing evidences that will tie the whole thing together very neatly and will and the whole conundrum will come together in this very great, nicely packaged whole. And it's just very. It's all just so fascinating to me. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Yep, it is. Yeah. Before we get into some more of the specifics of your research and things that you can kind of help us debunk, I did want to ask like one more, I guess you can call it, elementary style question. Just overarching about everything because you got the evolution side of things that people believe that makes them discredit God, our creator and just the whole Christian worldview, but also the Big Bang. So I wanted to know your thoughts about that. Does that exist? Is there any scientific support for that? What are your thoughts? If that exists or not? [00:21:52] Speaker B: Yeah, unfortunately, like Evolution. And this is interesting to know. The majority of Christian college professors actually do teach evolution. There's statistics that show that. So the same is true with the Big Bang. In fact, I would say the Big Bang is even more prevalent because you can reject evolution but still believe in a Big Bang. So the Big Bang is very popular even among Christians. But I have found it conflicts with Genesis, the order of events. So the Bible teaches that God started with a water globe and that the Earth was created first, and then the sun, moon, and stars were created on day four. Now, according to the Big Bang, it's the reverse. So you have the sun and stars first and then Earth after. And it wasn't a water globe. It was a molten mass, basically. [00:22:37] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:37] Speaker B: And then the oceans formed through comets hitting the Earth and so forth. So the whole idea of the Big Bang really is an alternative explanation for the origin of the universe. It's really a secular alternative to a Big God. So I say, we don't need a Big Bang. We have a big God. [00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:51] Speaker B: And there's many serious scientific flaws with Big Bang cosmology. And even Scientific American had an article come out. The headline was, Big Bang why Our Best Model Must be Fixed or Replaced. And so there's a lot of problems with it. A good scientific model should be simple, fairly simple. Right. If you have all these ad hoc arbitrary assumptions or rescue devices to make it work, hypothetical entities, that's a telltale sign that your theory is becoming so complex and convoluted, because it's. It contradicts the observational evidence that we have. So for that reason, many even secular cosmologists are challenging the Big Bang, looking for alternative theories because of those scientific problems. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Interesting. So, yeah, I was just going to ask real quick. I'm sorry for the interruption. You said we have a Big God. Right. And not a Big Bang. But what do you say to those Christians that say, like, what if God created the Big Bang? I've heard people say, like, God. Like I believe that God created the universe, but he used the Big Bang. What do you say to those people who ask that question? [00:23:54] Speaker B: I don't believe that. Two things. One was the one I already brought up. The order is not correct. So if Genesis is a historical narrative, then you can't have your cake and eat it too. You have to accept one or the other. So the other issue is time. Their time scale is very different than the biblical time scale. And these ideas of millions of years were never even around until around the 1800s. A lot of people don't know that and the Big Bang even later. And so according to Big Bang, the Universe is about 13.8 billion years old. And of course, that's because they're using only naturalistic processes to form the sun, the moon, the stars and everything. When we have a God, we don't need gas to coalesce over millions of years. We have a God who said there was light. He said, let there be light, and there was light, and he created the stars also. There's no indication of naturalistic processes, and I don't think the naturalistic processes can actually work the way they claim. It doesn't actually form stars. So. But the thing is that I would say the big issue is the timeline, though. And this is very important because typically, if you believe in a Big Bang and you're logically consistent with that worldview, it's not just the Big Bang. You're believing in what happened after the Big Bang. Well, you have the Earth, and the Earth was apparently at that time, there was no life on it. And then there was life that formed 3.8 billion years ago. And then after life, you have, you evolve all the way up to basically fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and people. So it's hard to accept the Big Bang and not the rest of it. That's part of the same story. [00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:20] Speaker B: And what that does is it puts all this death, disease and suffering before Adam's sin. If you think about it. So, so we have to connect the dots to the Big Bang and then to the formation of the Earth and then the fossil bearing rock layers on the Earth. And what you see in the fossils and rocks is a history of death. If you think about it, the fossil record has the fossilized remains, the mineralized remains of once living organisms. And we know that that means those animals once lived and died. [00:25:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:50] Speaker B: So think about this. If the Bible is true, was there death and suffering before Adam sinned? No, no, no. Because he called everything very good. Right? [00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:01] Speaker B: And said, every beast of the field, I give you green herbs for food. So originally it was a very good creation. There was no death until Adam sinned. And Romans talks about that because through one man's sin, death entered the world and death spread to all because all sinned. Yeah. So really we have the whole doctrine of the fall at stake. So once you put that whole history of death, disease and suffering and we find cancer of the bone, the fossil record, if you put that before Adam because you believe in the Big Bang, the creation of the Earth over millions of years, not creation but evolution, I guess you could say. [00:26:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:32] Speaker B: And then the formation of the fossil rock layers, you're putting that death, disease and suffering again before Adam sinned, and then God calling that very good. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah, the stories just don't line up. [00:26:42] Speaker B: It doesn't fit. Yeah. [00:26:44] Speaker A: And I'm gonna ask you, actually, we're gonna get to the fossil records. [00:26:47] Speaker B: All right. [00:26:48] Speaker A: Because I love that. Yes, but no, you're good, you're good. We love it. But do you have any thoughts on what he said before we move on? [00:26:54] Speaker C: Yes, I actually, actually have a couple questions. So. These are not my questions. I'm a six day guy. These are not my questions. These are the hypothetical person that I'm imagining. These are their questions. [00:27:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:08] Speaker C: So I know historically and historically, vague word debate over the Hebrew word for day. [00:27:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:14] Speaker C: Yom can mean day, it can mean age. Like there's been debate over that, that meaning. And also like the debate about millions of years death and suffering before the fall. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yes, that's what I was trying to get at. [00:27:29] Speaker C: So my question to that, or my hypothetical person's question to that rather is, so after the fall, God curses the serpent to crawl around on the dust of the earth. I've never seen a serpent do anything other than that. So it implies that there was a time when a serpent was walking, you know, which I don't know if I want to imagine that. That's a little freaky. But like, I can't even conceive of that. So I'm wondering if there's something going on before the fall that I can't even conceive. Such as, like a serpent walking around on feet or whatever it did before it was crawling around on its belly. Could there have been large amounts of time that passed without death and suffering [00:28:09] Speaker B: because of the serpent needing to have it become. [00:28:13] Speaker C: Yeah, because. Because certainly there were. There are things that we accept as commonplace that were products of the fall. Even things as commonplace as a serpent crawling around on its belly. So could even commonplace conceptions of time and mortality have been upended? [00:28:30] Speaker B: Let me focus first on the. I think about that a little more. [00:28:34] Speaker C: That's a deep question. [00:28:37] Speaker B: I'm trying to grasp exactly what you meant by that. But the whole idea of the Hebrew word yom is. Is an important one, because the Hebrew word yom can mean a longer period of time, like in my father's day, you know, generally referring to the past. Yeah, okay. But the Hebrew word in Genesis chapter one, which is really what the debate is all about, is very clear. And throughout the whole Old Testament, there's about 2,301 different times where the Hebrew word yom is used, and the Hebrew word yom is the word for day in Hebrew. And whenever it's used in combination with evening or morning or a day. I'm sorry. Or a number like first, second, third, in every instance throughout the entire Old Testament, it always means an ordinary day. [00:29:20] Speaker C: Okay. [00:29:21] Speaker B: Now, what's amazing about Genesis is it has not just three of those. Not just one of those qualifiers. Has all three. Has evening, morning, and day. [00:29:29] Speaker C: Okay. [00:29:29] Speaker B: So you have to ask, okay, if God wanted to convey that these were ordinary days, how could he have done it any clearer? And that's. And we see that with Jonah and the whale or march around Jericho. Same use. [00:29:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:41] Speaker B: So using the proper rules of hermeneutics and, you know, the rules of interpretation, we would say these are ordinary days. Yeah. [00:29:48] Speaker C: That kind of answers the second question then for me, too, because the contextual clues around, there's evening and morning. The first day. Yeah. So that kind of answers, like that question. [00:29:59] Speaker A: That's really great. And so since we're kind of like, on that topic of time, I wanted to ask another question before this, but let's just get into the fossil records. [00:30:07] Speaker B: All right, sounds good. [00:30:08] Speaker A: So, yeah, of course, in, like, the scientific world that doesn't use the Bible as. Or the Christianity as its worldview. You know, a lot of scientists out there, they'll say that the fossil records, they prove that the world is millions, if not billions of years old. Like, look at the science, the carbon dating. How can, like, you reconcile that with the biblical creation? First of all, is that even true, that the fossil record proves millions and millions of years of existence of the universe? [00:30:39] Speaker D: Really? [00:30:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's the big. And this is why I pursued my PhD in geology, because I realized this is the crux of the issue for the origins debate. [00:30:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:47] Speaker B: And so I became a sedimentary geologist, which is very relevant to the fossil record because we find fossils in the sedimentary rocks that would be things like mudstone, sandstone, limestone, that represents about 95% of the sedimentary record. So it really comes down to how do we interpret these fossil rock layers. And the standard model that we've been taught for years, since the 1800s, really, is that they're millions of years old and we have the geologic time scale. And of course, that's the standard model that I was taught and had to learn very well. And there's problems that, though, that you don't really see anywhere else except amongst creationists. And it's because, well, there's a lot of reasons, but one of the key evidences I think that helps support the rock layers representing a different view of history is this has to do with carbon 14. Ironically, typically you hear people say that carbon 14 is a challenge to the creation timeline, but actually it's a creationist best friend. Carbon dating really helps us, and here's how. So I want to first broaden this out to get context here. [00:31:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:52] Speaker B: So there's two basic ideas about the fossil record. One is it formed over millions of years, represents about 540 million years ago from the time of the Cambrian explosion, when you have the, you know, 80% of the major groups of animals suddenly appear in the fossil record. And so that 540 million years of time, they would say represents this long history of evolution. Or if you're an Old Earth creationist, you would say, if you believe in say progressive creationism, you would say God intervened multiple times to create new life forms and caused mass extinctions. And that explains the fossil rock layers. That's another. So that's the typical Old Earth or evolutionary interpretation in those models. Now, the biblical view, the traditional view prior to the 1800s, the predominant view in the church was that the flood, Noah's flood, explains the continent's fossil bearing rock layers. And that was accepted based on the text of the Bible. And it was not really questioned until the 1800s with people like James Hutton and Charles Lyell who had an anti biblical agenda. And their whole intent was to say, forget about Genesis 1:11. They were deists, they didn't believe that. They said we need to look at the rock layers without the Bible and just simply go according to the evidence. The problem was is that evidence doesn't speak, evidence doesn't lead. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:33:11] Speaker B: All evidence is interpreted. And so they interpreted the rock record in terms of their worldview filter, which was, which was a philosophical presupposition that [00:33:21] Speaker A: God doesn't even exist. [00:33:23] Speaker B: It was based on the presupposition of called, it's called uniformitarianism. And that is a philosophy that says the present day rates and conditions that we see today to form, say river deltas, you know, slow gradual accumulation of sediment is the only thing you can use to extrapolate the past. So they never were open to, these uniformitarian geologists were never open to catastrophes, certainly not the biblical catastrophe. So they precluded any possibility of rates of sediment accumulation and erosion being much faster. That's not a very scientific approach. Yeah, that's not following the evidence wherever it leads. So to speak. Even though it's a bad analogy, it's not objective, it's not neutral. It was an anti biblical agenda that was not open to any evidence for any global flood at all. So those are the two views. And I would say the fossil bearing rock layers do demonstrate the biblical flood, and they do so powerfully. And the main evidence that I was going to share was carbon 14 dating. Okay, I'll do this real brief. Yeah. Now, carbon 14 dating is based on a half, has a half life. You guys know what the half life is? You remember from. [00:34:27] Speaker A: I've heard a little bit about it, but it's been a while since my biology. [00:34:31] Speaker C: It's like how long it takes for half of the remaining carbons, like atoms or whatever to decay. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yep. So basically the half life of carbon 14 is a short half life compared to the heavier elements. So it's about 5,730 years. That's how long it takes for half of the carbon 14 to decay back into its stable daughter product, nitrogen 14. Well, that's important because in scientific journals or in these geochronology labs, they all understand if something is say, 65 million years old, like a dinosaur fossil, should it have any carbon 14 left in it? They would say no, because carbon 14 can't give dates according to their model, according to their view of history, and half life can't give dates past 100,000 years. So things that are older than that should not have any measurable carbon 14 left in it, including dinosaurs, coal. That's from 300 million years old. Based on the geologic timescale, there should be no carbon 14 left. But all these, these organic remains. Throughout the entirety of the, throughout the entire fossil record, we find immeasurable amounts of carbon 14, meaning they cannot possibly be hundreds of millions of years old. That right there shows the entire rock record is young. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:44] Speaker B: And it shows they were also destroyed in a singular event. They all stopped taking in new carbon at the same time, essentially. [00:35:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:52] Speaker B: So carbon 14 doesn't show how old things are. It actually shows how, how young things are and how they were. So. Yes, that's interesting. And even in diamonds they find carbon 14, which is very resilient to external contamination. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah. One thing that you said too is like, they just, like scientists, they don't really account for the biblical account of events to even use that as part of their scientific leading. They just like go into it and they're just like, oh, like I'm gonna interpret this. But I would think as a scientist, if you have an actual story that kind of explains how things came into being and like historical preservation per se. I feel like you should start with that, into the science instead of just like going into the science and then making up your story. It should be like, oh, let's actually see if the science proves that to be true. So there is this huge philosophical disconnect and it definitely seems like a work of the enemy. [00:36:51] Speaker C: Honestly, you've talked about like, like, you know, James Hutton, Charles Lyell, like all them. That is, I think, like a very like post enlightenment kind of philosophy. We don't need God. We have microscopes, you know, we have telescopes. And I do kind of want to. This is a branch off of that. I think some, sometimes we fail to acknowledge that sometimes there is some residue in the historical record of human history that the church, particularly the, the Catholic Church, the big political power at the time, was sort of, I think, responsible for this kind of, you know, rebellious, like, uprising. Because, I mean, like, you know, they're, you know, imprisoning Galileo for saying the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. And Copernicus is proposing a heliocentric model and nobody believes him and all that, you know, So I think. Yeah, no, I think it's just very interesting history. [00:37:44] Speaker B: Exactly. I totally agree with that. I think there was a, you know, they reacted, but they overreacted to that church corruption there and to what you said earlier. I'm glad you mentioned that. The whole idea of, well, we have a book of history and so can't we use that kind of as our framework for interpreting the rocks? Well, when you hear that as a skeptic, they think, well, see, you're biased. You're just following. Well, let me, let me expand on that. You're just following whatever the Bible says and therefore it's circular reasoning. Here's the thing they miss if you're, say, an atheist or skeptic. They think they don't have their own sacred text, but they do. See, when it comes to questions of origins, things like fossils, rock layers that formed in the unobservable, unrepeatable, untestable past, we weren't there. That's not a hard science like physics and chemistry, which you can confirm through reproducible experiments in the present. When you talk about past events, we don't have direct access to the past. Yeah, fossils exist in the present. So they think that they're completely neutral and objective because they don't have their own sacred text. But they do. Their sacred text, I would say Is Charles Lyell's Principles of geology in the 1800s or Charles Darwin's Descent of Man or Origin of the Species. They accept that as almost like religious dogma. Yeah, they say this is a fact. Their view of earth history is correct. In fact, they believe that even before Charles Lyell could study the whole of the sedimentary record, that was when geology was in its infancy, and he was criticized for that. How could you be correct about your uniformitarian philosophical assumptions if you know you haven't studied the whole of the sedimentary record? Yeah, well, 150 years later, now we have, and it turns out there's a lot of people saying Lyell was wrong. [00:39:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:24] Speaker B: We find evidence of rapid sedimentation and catastrophic deposition in the rock record. And that's more consistent with the biblical flood and carbon dating showing everything is young and deposited during the year long flood. So they do have their sacred texts. And it's also inescapable when you deal with past events as a scientist, because you come up with scientific models. They're called. Well, a model is really a story about the past, a historical narrative, if you will, to try to explain how those rock layers came to be. It's almost like forensic science. So a forensic scientist has circumstantial evidence of like, footprints, stone tools, blood, and they didn't see the murder, but they're trying to come up with a story or hypothesis to explain how the knife got there, how the person was killed. Same thing with geology and paleontology. These are historical sciences. So they do have a worldview filter that affects how they see the evidence. And that is inherently unscientific because it's based on philosophies like uniformitarianism and naturalism. So don't let them get away with that claim that I'm unbiased. I have no worldview filter. I have no sacred text. No, you do. [00:40:36] Speaker A: Wow, that's really good. Amen to that. And I was actually going to ask you about the. Well, the scientific evidence of the biblical account of the flood. You kind of answered most of what I was going to ask you about that. Like, can science prove the Genesis Flood account? But is there anything else about the science with the Genesis flood account you want to mention that maybe people don't know about other than what you've mentioned, you know. [00:40:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this is one of my favorite topics because, you know, it's what got me to be excited to become a Christian to begin with. I was that person who thought that the Bible is just disconnected from reality. My Faith is just blind wishful thinking. God of the gaps type idea. But the. One of the biggest evidences that pointed me in the right direction was the fossil record. It really does show there was a year long global flood, not just 40 days and 40 nights. The Bible, if you read the Bible, when he came on the ark, when he came off, it was about a year. [00:41:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:29] Speaker B: So one of the key evidences that also helped me was not just carbon 14, but soft tissue. So scientists are finding in over 100 peer reviewed scientific studies, secular studies, not creation based studies, they're finding not only carbon 14, but also soft original tissue and things like T. Rex, you know, these dinosaur bones that are supposedly millions of years old, including red blood cells, hemoglobin, DNA. DNA is a very fragile molecule. And so how could these fragile molecules remain? First of all, they're not turned to stone. Their original biomaterial, not just mineralized. And if you stretch the, you know, they stretch them, they snap back, they still have their elasticity. [00:42:13] Speaker A: Wow. [00:42:13] Speaker B: This is not what you expect if they're millions of years old. In fact, their own degradation studies show things like DNA can't last that long. Based on their own studies that have been published so biblically, we would say, well, that makes sense because there was a recent year long global flood that preserved the fossils for, you know, just 4,500 years, but for 70 million years, 80 million years, 120 million years. It contradicts their own studies, their own science, and doesn't fit with their worldview perspective. [00:42:41] Speaker A: We hope all of you that are [00:42:42] Speaker D: listening and watching this episode of Max Impact are enjoying this conversation as much as Xander and I are. And we're going to get back to [00:42:50] Speaker A: that conversation in a little bit. [00:42:51] Speaker D: But before we do, I just want to say, isn't Dr. Chris Roop such a wonderful guest? And doesn't he carry such a wealth [00:42:59] Speaker A: of knowledge on this topic of creation science? [00:43:01] Speaker D: This knowledge that can really help lead someone to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. This is the goal of Max Impact, to help make a maximum impact for [00:43:12] Speaker A: the Kingdom of God with the resources we create. [00:43:15] Speaker D: And that's really the goal here at Mars Hill Network, is to build up the church and to broadcast the gospel [00:43:21] Speaker A: with everything that we do. [00:43:22] Speaker D: And guess what? We can't do that here without support from our listeners and our viewers. [00:43:28] Speaker A: Just like you. Yes, you. [00:43:31] Speaker D: So I'm asking you humbly in this season to please support us and help us to celebrate the faithfulness of God to this network with a financial gift of support. Your financial Gift is going to go directly to helping the Ministry of Mars Hill Network make great resources just like [00:43:49] Speaker A: the one you're watching here. [00:43:51] Speaker D: So please go to our website, marshillnetwork.org or if you're listening in our app, you can find the little giving button [00:43:58] Speaker A: at the bottom of the page. You click that and you can find [00:44:01] Speaker D: our online portal for giving again. [00:44:04] Speaker A: Thank you so much for your support [00:44:06] Speaker D: of the Mars Hill Network over these many years and thank you for tuning in to this episode of Max Impact. Let's get back to this conversation right now as Dr. Chris Roop is about to dive in with a wonderful answer about a question on this topic of evolution that we all have probably had once before. [00:44:23] Speaker A: Let's get back to Max Impact. Wow, that's really interesting. I just love this concept of their own science just proving themselves wrong. And I want to keep exploring that with more aspects of evolution that people believe. And another big one too is this idea of, I think you covered it earlier, that monkeys became humans where we were originally like apes, basically. And so I just want to ask you this question then. Did that actually happen? Did humans actually evolve from monkeys? And one thing in my research that I did before this also prompted this question. If we did evolve from monkeys, would monkeys still exist today? [00:45:10] Speaker B: So this is where the skeptic would basically say, you creationists, you Christians, you don't think correctly about our view. We don't believe, you know, humans evolved from monkeys living today. But they would say that humans share a common ancestor with something that they think might have looked. They debate it, but some say it might have looked something like a chimpanzee or maybe something more like Ardipithecus. Basically the idea is this, the living apes today are descendants from creatures that we share a common ancestor with. So picture like a split. And here we have all these. They're called. The ape men are called hominins. So that would mean things like Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Lucy. Have you guys heard of Lucy? [00:45:53] Speaker A: I did hear about Lucy in the documentary, yeah. [00:45:56] Speaker B: The species name is Australopithecus afarensis. So they would say that those didn't give rise to apes. Those are in the human lineage, the human split. So they focus mostly on the human side of that split. Those are the hominins, our supposed ancestors or close relatives that went extinct like Neanderthals. And so they say, well, we didn't evolve from living apes, obviously, but an extinct one. And they haven't found the fossils of the so called last Common ancestor between chimps and humans. They haven't found those fossils. They think they will someday. They found ones they think are close to that. But notice what they're assuming in all that. First, they're assuming the fossil record was not formed during the flood and they're using their dating methods to kind of confirm that. And there's serious problems with their dating methods. I can get into like potassium, argon. Argon. Argon. But they have flaws, they're based on assumptions and I can expose those if you'd like. [00:46:46] Speaker A: Sure. [00:46:47] Speaker B: But we can get back to that. And so they would say that we evolved over a period of millions of years from creatures like Lucy Australopithecus afarensis. And here's my take on it. The short of it is because we don't accept their interpretation of the fossil record and their data methods are flawed, we would really say this is consistent with God creating apes and humans. He created a lot of diversity in apes and he created even diversity in humans. And when you look in the fossil record, this is where I did research for four years and wrote a book on the topic called Contemporary Tested Bones. And what we find in the fossil record is that the ape type called Australopithecus and the human type called Homo, coexisted in time in stratigraphically equivalent layers. So that is the biblical model. The Bible teaches God created apes and man on what day of the creation? Week six. On day six. So they were created at the same time. We've always coexisted, but some of the ape types have gone extinct, so they're found as fossils and it's those that they're trying to make into missing links, or so called hominins. [00:47:48] Speaker A: So in essence, the short of it is that they are distinctly two different created species. [00:47:54] Speaker B: Yeah, Broader than that. I would say there's lots of species within the Australopithecus genus. [00:47:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:59] Speaker B: So, yes. But God is awesome at creating beautiful variation and that's what I would say they are. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Amen. Yeah. I do have another question along the the line of, you know, this whole topic of monkeys and humans, this evolution belief. I actually was watching more of the documentary before you got here and I'm going to finish what I didn't get to after this because it's so fascinating. But you had mentioned Neanderthals and maybe I'm not understanding it right, so correct me if I'm wrong. Basically they found evidence that Neanderthals are not connected to apes, but they're actually more like human Humans, Yes. So can you explain that to those who are unaware of that? [00:48:39] Speaker B: So years ago they were seen as brutish cavemen types that were almost like a missing link, which is a misnomer. They would think they're more of almost like a combination of some ape like qualities and some human like qualities. And they used to depict them as having bent hip, bent kneed posture, like apes. But the thing is, that was years ago. And today with all the fossils we have of Neanderthals, nobody believes that their skeletal anatomy is clearly human, head to toe. And they had some unique features like, like pronounced brow ridges, reduced chin. But there are humans that have those qualities even today. Yeah, not as common, not as dramatic. So they were robustly built, but they were definitely real people. And based on the stratigraphic record we know as creationists, they were in post flood sediments. They're associated with a post flood ice age. We can unpack that another time if you want. [00:49:28] Speaker C: Okay. [00:49:29] Speaker B: But their anatomy is. The point is fully human. And now their genomes have been sequenced from 13 Neanderthal individuals. So believe it or not, even these Neanderthal fossils preserve DNA in them which shows they're also young. And they've sequenced their genomes and they found out that they are one of us, they are human, and that we have Neanderthal DNA in us. So our ancestors interbred with them. And if you can interbreed and produce from fertile offspring, that is one of the best definitions of what it means to be the same species. So even savant Paabo who spearheaded the Neanderthal genome project, he basically has gone out and said based on the biological species concept, we can interbreed. That's showing they are one of us. You can make a strong argument, he's saying for that. And many evolutionists do think we should just call them Homo sapiens or as a subspecies. [00:50:20] Speaker A: Wow, that's interesting because I think a lot of people who are not very familiar with the science, they're not fashioned with it, they'll just believe that evolutionary claim that the evolutionary scientists say that like, oh, like there's a commonality that a Neanderthal came from this ape species. And that's like another link. You know, even at one point before I really had a strong faith in biblical worldview. I even think maybe thought that because that's what I'm being taught in school. So I think that's really interesting that you share that because that is to me, and hopefully everybody watching definitive evidence that humans did not evolve from apes, but also that Neanderthals are actually human. I think that's really, really neat. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Pretty strong evidence for that. [00:51:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. One other thing I want to ask before we get into some more of like the philosophical questions about this. Philosophical meaning, like really bringing it back to our faith. Faith is this whole. I think you mentioned, I didn't really have a question written down about this, but it's the, it's the DNA sequence and the complexities of that. So explain to those who are watching, like how the complexity of DNA sequences also would disprove evolution. [00:51:31] Speaker B: Yes, and. Well, there's a field of science called information theory and information theorists. I think the most, one of the most credible things you can say is that information cannot originate by itself in matter. At least the type of high level information we see in the genome. That type of information, in fact any form of human information, is also obvious that it comes from intelligence. We know that books of information, computer programming, those are language systems and they all go back to a human mind. No one would look at a book in the woods and just say, oh, that came there through random copying errors, you know, that there was a mind behind it. Same thing with computer programs. They're so sophisticated. And the human genome is far more complex than any book or computer software. Even computer programmers admit that. They say, you know, the human genome is more sophisticated than anything we could imagine. And so I would say that is one of the strongest evidences that the human genome, that all the genomes of living creatures were created. And Francis Crick, who discovered the structure of the DNA double helix. That's why he ended up going and saying, well, maybe there's aliens, because he saw the DNA was an information system, a real information system. He was so struck by it, he was trying to explain maybe intelligent life out somewhere else, word, planting the seeds of life on our planet. And of course, I don't believe that as a creationist. I don't think there's any evidence for that, but it just shows you. Yes, DNA is a very high level information system and it had to have come from an intelligent being, a supremely intelligent being, which we would say is God. [00:53:01] Speaker A: Yeah, no, amen to that. Any, any thoughts, Sandra, on all of that before we move on? [00:53:05] Speaker C: No, I'm just really excited to get to like the philosophical questions, because that's kind of my area. [00:53:09] Speaker A: Yes, and we're going to get there in a second and I would like you to ask those questions because I know you had a lot of thoughts on that. But you know, so just with all of this I might throw a couple questions at you, but they're kind of intertwined. So really what I'm understanding is that these are so different worldviews that they cannot be combined. But I just want to ask for people out there. So. [00:53:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:31] Speaker A: Can you believe in God and evolution at the same time? [00:53:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's such a common question. I think the answer is no for two reasons. It's not biblical and it's not good science. [00:53:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:53:43] Speaker B: So random mutations and natural selection cannot build the genome, cannot change one type of animal into a fundamentally new kind like, like we mentioned, like apes to man microbes and microbiologists. You just can't do that through the mutation selection process. And there's further evidence that I could mention that shows we're not evolving but devolving. And I mentioned that briefly earlier. So no creation shouldn't. Christians should not accept evolution because it's not a good scientific theory and also because it is at odds with Genesis as written. [00:54:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:11] Speaker B: And a big issue has to do with these ape men. Again. So if you believe in, say let's say you're Christian, you don't even believe in evolution. [00:54:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:19] Speaker B: But you still believe in old Earth. Well, because you accept the fossil bearing rock layers not as, not as being deposited during the year long flood. [00:54:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:27] Speaker B: But instead you, you accept the millions of years. What that does is it puts all that history of death, disease before Adam and with that apemen, because that's part of the, the fossil record. [00:54:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:37] Speaker B: That means if you accept evolution or even if you just accept an old Earth, you're really putting things like Homo erectus, Neanderthals, which we would say are fully human. And you're calling them apemen and putting them before Adam and saying they couldn't have salvation. And all these other australopithecus ape types, you're saying pre existed Adam. But the Bible teaches that no first there was no death until Adam sinned. So the fossil record had to be after. Yeah, not before that. And all these Neanderthals, Homo, those are descendants of Adam. [00:55:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:08] Speaker B: The Bible teaches very clearly that God created Adam from the ground and Eve from his rib. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:14] Speaker B: And Adam's in the genealogy in Luke goes back to Adam. It says Adam was the son of God. [00:55:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:20] Speaker B: So the biblical view is very clear. Even Jesus shows evidence. He clearly believed in a literal Adam and Eve. [00:55:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:25] Speaker B: He said in Mark 10:6. Have you not read it? At the beginning of creation I made them male and female. But all those Other views put man billions of years after the beginning, and it puts those eight men before Adam. And that's not biblical. So I would say it undermines, I would say original sin as well. If you believe Adam and Eve aren't real people is common for theistic evolutionists. They would say Adam and Eve are just a myth, then you're undermining original sin. [00:55:50] Speaker A: Wow. And so with that being said, do science and Christianity combat each other at all, or does the Bible and its history narratives, are they at odds with science? Like, what would you say about that? That definitively. [00:56:02] Speaker B: And such a good question. Because we have to understand, again, that evidence does not speak for itself. [00:56:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:08] Speaker B: It's interpreted in light of a worldview filter. And so I would say the evidence from real science is internally is consistent with a biblical view. So the way that you do it really is called the internal critique. And I think this is important to mention because evidence doesn't just speak or doesn't just lead. You have to use the internal critique. And, and this is where you say, okay, I'm gonna assume for the sake of argument, my opponent's presuppositions. And what you're gonna do is see if the evidence naturally aligns with those worldview presuppositions. Are they internally consistent or do they result in the contradiction? And what I've found over the years of doing this is that when you assume, even for the sake of argument, a skeptic, that the Bible in Genesis is true, is the evidence internally consistent with that? Well, yes. We find evidence of soft tissue, carbon 14, evidence of rapid deposition. You know, the evidence is consistent with the biblical view of history. So the long, long story short, I would say good science does affirm scripture and, and just keep in mind, though, all evidence is interpreted. [00:57:09] Speaker A: Amen. Well, thank you for that. And Xander, what are your thoughts and your questions? [00:57:14] Speaker C: So my question pivoting more toward the philosophical kind of sociological, moral kind of side, because that's sort of my. Where I cut my teeth in a little, little bit. So I mentioned earlier, you know, you mentioned, like, when you started preaching, people asked you more about, like, like Genesis and the, like the scientific basis behind. Behind that. And I mentioned how I feel like in this generation, we're not as keen on that. I grew up in the 2000s. I grew up around the time, you know, the boom of Richard Dawkins and Chris Hitchens and like, all those guys. And like, they were dominating the kind of intellectual discussion around these things. So, like, I, I've experienced not only the mass popularity, but also now the kind of turning away from people who see them, you know, they see the typical arch, you know, very intellectually minded person who's no fun to be around, who. Who, like, has to, you know, bring everything back to. Well, actually, it's because of this and this and this. So I feel like a lot more people in our generation are more ambivalent toward an origin story, and it's more like, you know, who cares? Like, how we got here? You know, they're more accepting. And then the question that kind of stems off of that is, I think I'm not saying anything new when I say we live in a very divided time for our country. People are divided along class lines, political lines, religious lines, racial lines, even. And I'm thinking about the person who's in between worldviews, who's filtering all of these worldviews in. And they look to us, and we're doing a lot of apologetics conferences, which, let's be fair, our tone can be not exactly pleasant in these conversations. And it feels like we're just hectoring our base a little bit. So what do you say to the person who says about, like, creation apologetics or any. Any apologetics, really, that, like, you're just trying to prove that you're right, you're trying to impose your moral suppositions on the world and this is the vehicle you're using to do it? Like, what do you say to that person? [00:59:18] Speaker B: Yeah, well, hopefully we don't use an approach where we're so aggressive that we come across as rude and brash. And, you know, we need to give people a chance to talk, like, have a conversation. [00:59:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:30] Speaker B: And it shouldn't be just dominating over them. You should be, hopefully, having a relationship with a person, getting to know. Know them. Your goal shouldn't just be to argue. I mean, I think that's. That's usually not very productive. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:41] Speaker B: And so I think I like the approach of using relational evangelism, getting to know people and being friends with them and. And they'll come to you with questions when they're ready. So we have to remember, you know, always be prepared to give an answer, but with meekness and fear. [00:59:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:54] Speaker B: Gentleness and respect. And so I don't try to go and pick fights with everybody just because I want to say I gotcha. [00:59:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:00] Speaker B: But I think it's really important for both the church and culture. It's important for the church because it does come down to biblical authority. It does come down to, you know, do you Trust man and their ideas about the past when they have a very different view of history that's affecting how they see the evidence and it actually undermines our worldview in the gospel. Or are you trusting God's plain reading? And so for Christians, my encouragement would come from John, John, chapter five. Jesus said, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how you believe my words. So for Christians, it is kind of an encouragement sometimes, maybe a rebuke that, you know, let's get back to Genesis. Let's get back to the authority of God and trust in God, not man. And then for the world, we need to remember this is a stumbling block. It really is a serious stumbling block for many people. And so we can help them to know Christ. We want to make the path to Christ, basically. We want to clear the way for them. I think that was Jesus heart. He always is engaging with people, confounding the wise. Sometimes he had to be pretty tough on them, but he changed depending on where the person was at and got that sense from them. Whatever it would take to get them closer to the truth and closer to receiving him. [01:01:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:09] Speaker C: No, absolutely no. I think that's a great answer because I feel like sometimes we can come across more as someone who's hiding behind scripture to push like either a political agenda or a moral like agenda. We've already believed and we're using, you know, the Bible to justify it. So the other question I want to ask is, how do we view this in terms of the Great Commission, like, to the person who's not necessarily opposed to a creationist worldview, like, who we're not necessarily trying to have them unlearn, like some myths that they've learned and, you know, like, believe in the truth, but someone who's a little more like they've heard all different origin stories from all over, you know, everywhere. And really, like, how do we get them not necessarily to the facts of this particular thing, but how do we use this to get them to the gospel of Jesus Christ? How do we approach that? [01:02:08] Speaker B: So in terms of a Christian or. [01:02:11] Speaker C: Well, in terms of just of our. Of our witness. [01:02:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say, like, in terms of maybe what he's trying to get at, people might see this conversation as a distraction. Right, but is it a distraction or is it actually a catalyst for the Great Commission? And even as Xander's talked about these other big issues, like other big issues that need to be discussed, is this a catalyst for the Great Commission and those things or is it a distraction? Some people may think it's a distraction. [01:02:36] Speaker B: I guess the best way I could answer that is by saying I do think because it's so foundational to the corporation Christian worldview for those in the church, we should be incorporating this into our discipleship programs. We shouldn't just forget about dinosaurs. You know, every kid goes through a stage where they love dinosaurs. They want to learn about it. So you're going to give them an answer. Whether it's the question is which answer you going to give them? [01:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:55] Speaker B: Biblical answer, I think should do both really. And you should age appropriately, guide them into the truth and make them, help them to understand it. [01:03:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:02] Speaker B: So I think that needs to be more intentional in our preaching, in our teaching, in Christian schools, all over. I wish that I didn't have to preach and explain to everybody the fossil record. They should already know the biblical view of the fossil rock layers being formed during the flood, like we used to believe in the 1600s, 1700s, you know, so that's, there's a gap of knowledge needs to be filled then for other people, if you're evangelizing and they're not churched, then I would say, you know, sometimes it's not really an issue for them. That's not what's, that's not their hang up. And so I think we need to be receptive to what are their stumbling blocks. And if their stumbling block is something else and maybe they have something more emotional or some relational struggles hindering them from seeing God as loving God, you know, I think we have to come about it in a different way. [01:03:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Teddy, do you have any thoughts on that? [01:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a great point. It's like maybe there are people whose opposition to Christianity has nothing to do with creation and it's something completely different. So maybe to hyper fixate on that is not a good idea because then you might drive them down a deep rabbit hole further in their own belief of like, oh, this is just like almost indoctrination, like that kind of feeling. Right. But I would say at the same time, like we do need to be mindful that as you kind of brought up in the beginning, Genesis is so foundational to the rest of the Bible. Yeah. So like if there's somebody who is out there and has just a really big bad outlook on Christianity or, or I would even say they're just like, there's no way that Christianity is true. This is a great place to start because I think people do respond to science. And I believe they would respond to the Bible if they knew how much the science backs it up. As you have shared with us. It does. That's so important. And as a Christian, for me, I have not been an apologist with creation per se. I mean, of course, I do know scriptures, and I've written down a bunch of them. You got scriptures like the Book of John. You know, nothing was made without the Lord. He was the Word in the beginning. And so he spoke everything into existence, you know, as he did in Genesis. Romans, chapter one is great because it talks about how, you know, the invisible things of this world are clearly seen that God made them. So basically, people are without excuse to say, like, there's not an intelligent design. I mean, there's a couple different scriptures. Like in Acts, he's the author of life. The universe was created by the word of God. That's in Hebrews and so in Colossians. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, all things were created through him. And for him, that's just so important. And also to realize too, when we know these scientific truths, we ought to do something with them. You know, we might not be scientists, but we should at least say, okay, this is what I've learned. This is what the Bible says. Here's the science. And if you can't explain it as gracefully as you did, then point people to ministries like yours. I think that would really help because again, at the end of the day, this whole other side is not true. It's lies. And we know that those lies come from the originator of lies, Satan. Those would, I'd say, are my thoughts about it, because really, when we look at it like that, everybody can be an apologist in some way, shape or form when they understand the Genesis creation story. And God is not a respecter of persons. So people really can use this as a strong apologetic tool, in my opinion. [01:06:36] Speaker B: It's a tool. Exactly. Tool. And it's really an exciting approach because again, when you're a. Especially on college campuses and you're talking to people, this is such a common objection, and they really need the encouragement. [01:06:48] Speaker A: And I'm glad you brought up the college campus thing because you mentioned that there are universities with Christian professors that they push evolution in the Christian doctrine. And I'm not gonna name the school, but I did go somewhere here in New York State where they had a scientist come in, very accredited person, Christian, and they're talking more from like a sociological perspective, not a biological, geological perspective. But they referenced a scientist. I'm forgetting his name. But you included him in the presentation. I have a picture. I'll find it. I'll throw it up on the screen. But she mentioned him as this very influential voice among Christian scientists. Like, we should listen to him when it comes to science. [01:07:32] Speaker B: Was it Francis Collins? [01:07:34] Speaker C: Yes. [01:07:35] Speaker A: He started biologos. And when I saw at your presentation some of the things he said, I. My mind was blown because I knew going there, she said a lot of good stuff. But then when she started talking about that, it was like, yeah, oh, man. Like, can I even take anything she says, like, seriously now? I hate to say that, but like, that ministry has. [01:07:55] Speaker B: Some of those guys have rejected even the virgin birth. So that's why it's so important, because it's not just Genesis. It's a slippery slope. Once you undermine Genesis and these foundational doctrines and you say, well, what other miracles can we now doubt if not Adam and Eve? And biologos, they are theistic evolutionists. They don't believe in the biblical Adam and Eve. They believe in what's called the out of Africa theory. So it is a very different worldview perspective. And as Christians, we need to understand that these ideas have serious consequences. [01:08:22] Speaker C: I think back to a lot of my earlier point when we were talking about this as an apologetic tool. I would say to the person who's looking at the world and outraged by, like, everything going on, not just in this country, but everything going on in the world, that. That moral outrage is actually evidence of a creator. I think, because. Because, like, we can talk about, you know, like, from a secular standpoint. [01:08:45] Speaker B: We want justice. We all want justice. [01:08:46] Speaker C: Yeah. We can talk about from a secular standpoint of, like, morals being built up over time and justice systems and all that. But what it doesn't explain is instinctual outrage. It doesn't explain when you look at an atrocity like the Holocaust and you instinctually think that's not right. You instinctually think that is not at all supposed to happen. And I think it's because of the common grace that God gives all of us so graciously to him. Yeah. To be able to. And not just moral outrage, but like, beauty. Science doesn't explain the reaction to beauty. Like, it's these things that are very philosophical and cerebral and can't be explained. Explained by data, I think, are things that we can, like, we can point to and be like. There is evidence of not just an intelligent designer, but also very. A very emotional and passionate designer as well, that created us in his image. [01:09:33] Speaker B: Amen. [01:09:34] Speaker A: Yeah, Amen to that, Xander. I love that. And you know, another scripture just came to my mind in first Timothy, the one that talks about science falsely. So called. Right. Which is so important. It's like when you have these big voices that are just falsely propagating science that's trying to support a biblical worldview, like they're trying to use false science to support the Bible, which is very sly and it's not good. But before we wrap up, I know we want to wrap up here pretty soon, you mentioned out of Africa theory. We need to know a little bit about that because I don't think many of the listeners have even heard what that is. So what is out of Africa theory? [01:10:12] Speaker B: That is the popular view of human origins today. It's been popular for some time now, since maybe the late 1980s. And the story behind that is fascinating because at a time when Christians are increasingly rejecting Genesis and believing in, you know, God using evolution, or maybe Old Earth and God creating ape men before Adam, more than ever we have reason, especially from genetics, to believe in a literal Adam and Eve. Because the out of Africa theory, people don't realize this, but it began around the late 1980s, and they were sequencing mitochondrial chromosomes, which is only passed on to the mother's egg with no contribution from the father. And they've sequenced thousands of mitochondrial genomes since then. And all humans trace their ancestry, all people trace their ancestry back to a single mother of the whole human race. So the maternal lineage goes back to a single mother. Isn't that fascinating? And 10 years later, after sequencing now, today, especially thousands of Y chromosomes, and focusing on the male specific region that doesn't recombine with the X chromosome, it's only passed on through the father's egg. I'm sorry, sperm. Wow. [01:11:21] Speaker C: It's been a long conversation. [01:11:24] Speaker B: And so we amazingly, all men trace their ancestry back to a single father of the whole human race. And they nicknamed them mitochondrial Egypt. And why chromosome Adam? Of course, they don't believe in the biblical Adam and Eve. They, tongue in cheek, they kind of mock that. [01:11:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:37] Speaker B: But taken at face value, this is precisely what you expect. According to the biblical view, you'd expect one father, one mother of the whole human race. And so they tried to contextualize that in light of the out of Africa view of history, but when they do that, it involves lots of assumptions and we can get into that like population size, geographic location, mutation rates and all that. But the exciting thing is that, that there is no evidence for the larger tribe size of 10,000 that they claim. So the advocate theory teaches that instead of Adam and Eve, they believe we evolved out of Africa from a tribe size of early hominids of around 100,000 years ago. And it was a tribe size of. Actually the date changes from 1000-002000-00300,000. It's changing over the years, but around there, and they would say the founding population was around 10,000 for reproducing members. And. But you look at the evidence for that and without going into too much technical detail, watch scene four dismantled. There's really no evidence for that larger tribe size. [01:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's the thing, it's like when there's no actual evidence for that, they have to change the story to try to make up evidence and fabricate it. But I just love how their own theory just proves the Bible account of Adam and Eve, which is. That's pretty miraculous. [01:12:52] Speaker B: But it is fascinating. [01:12:53] Speaker A: Any more thoughts you have, Xander, before we close? [01:12:55] Speaker C: No, I think this has been a pretty comprehensive conversation. [01:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I think so, too. And Chris, we want to leave it to you. Is there any last thoughts you have about this that you can leave us with things we haven't covered? Is there anything we haven't talked about or haven't asked you that you want to fill in on? [01:13:12] Speaker B: There's so much that I could think of. You know, we could get more into the dating methods, more into mutation rates, how they date genetic Adam and Eve and things like, you know, more in the fossil record. And I just wish we had more time, but I know for the sake of our audience, we've probably already overwhelmed them with information. So I think the big picture is Genesis does describe real historical events. They are foundational to our Christian worldview, to our biblical doctrines, and even the gospel. And we need to start paying closer attention to how that affects our children, our churches, and start being more intentional about talking about the earthly things and not just what to believe, but why to believe it and how we know the Bible is true. And this stumbling block, science disprove the Bible is still very prolific. So that's my heart, is that we would be encouraged to share the gospel and not be afraid of these issues because it does matter. I was one of them. And I became saved because this stumbling block was removed in my life. And now my faith is connected to reality and earthly things and it has made me a passionate Christian. So I know there's many other people like that that we could be reaching. [01:14:16] Speaker A: Amen. [01:14:16] Speaker C: Yes, Amen. [01:14:17] Speaker A: No, amen to that. And yeah, like you said, we don't have time to get into everything. So if you want to learn more, there's a lot of resources at your website. So what is your website? And you can also point people, we can put some links in the description too. [01:14:30] Speaker B: Thank you. So yeah, the website is back to Genesis, the number two Backtogenesis.org we have free videos, resources and I have a thing 13 week series now available and a YouTube channel where they can watch dismantled totally free. So you can watch that and share that with family, with loved ones, with non Christians that might be interested. [01:14:49] Speaker A: That's wonderful. We really hope that this conversation helped you as a Christian to defend your faith more or even as the non Christian, even atheist, to really see that God is real and he's in the design of this earth. And we all hope that that that points you to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no better way to end than that. So guys, with that, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Max Impact where we look to make a maximum impact for the kingdom of God. God bless you all. [01:15:20] Speaker B: God bless. Thank you. [01:15:21] Speaker A: Of course. Thank you for joining us. [01:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah.