October 13, 2020 Show with Jay Seegert on “Creation & Evolution: Compatible or in Conflict?” (Part 2)

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 13th day of October, 2020.

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Today we have returning for part two of a discussion that we began last

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Tuesday. We have Jay Siegert with us again. Jay holds degrees in both physics and engineering technology from the

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University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, and John Brown University, respectively.

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He is an international speaker, an author, a keynote speaker, and managing editor or managing director for the

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Starting Point Project. He's also an ambassador and board of directors member for Logos Research Associates, and a representative speaker for Ratio Christi.

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And today we are addressing part two of creation and evolution compatible or in conflict, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for the second time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jay Siegert.

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It's great to be on the program again. I appreciate the opportunity. It's me that appreciates you making time in your busy schedule to be on this program.

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And for the sake of our listeners who did not hear the show last week, tell us about the Starting Point Project.

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Sure. The Starting Point Project is a ministry I started roughly 13, almost 14 years ago.

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The main focus is helping Christians better understand and better defend the

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Christian worldview. Many youth right now, Christian youth, are walking away from their faith, especially during their college years for a number of reasons, some of which have to do with kind of knowing what they believe but not necessarily knowing why, not being able to defend it.

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And so it's a particular struggle when they're getting attacked from university professors, and I was certainly attacked by my professors when

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I was in college, and so I put it on my heart to research, first and foremost, myself to have answers, and now

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I'm dedicating my life to help others have answers and not just the youth that are being challenged, but parents as well, to help them be able to mentor their own children and grandchildren and even grandparents.

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Many times grandparents aren't too thrilled with the way their own children are raising their grandchildren and struggling for answers.

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So we basically help Christians better understand their belief system and better position them for sharing the

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Gospel with those around them. And we also offer a gracious challenge to the sincere skeptic, because most of the skeptics that I meet are pretty sharp people, and they've got some really great questions that deserve really good answers.

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And if anybody wants to find out more information about the Starting Point Project, you can go to thestartingpointproject .com,

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thestartingpointproject .com. And once again, if you could also tell our listeners about Logos Research Associates.

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Sure. I'll mention one other thing quickly that I didn't. The main thing that we do as a ministry with the Starting Point Project is travel around and give live talks at conferences and churches and universities and schools and sometimes even camps.

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And we don't charge anything for our engagements. We just accept honorariums or whatever the host deems appropriate.

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We do ask that travel expenses be taken care of so that we don't have to foot the bill for that, but there's never been a charge.

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I've been speaking for 34 years total before I went into full -time ministry. I've been speaking about 20 years.

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I've never charged a penny, never will, because we just want to get the information out, and it's God's ministry and not mine.

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So he's been blessing us to be able to do that. The connection with Logos Research Associates, it's the world's largest consortium of scientists who are

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Christians. I was asked to be on the board maybe seven years ago or so, and so there's four board members and then a slew of scientists who are doing a lot of research defending the

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Christian worldview, especially on the creation account, because the Bible gets attacked scientifically so much for its creation account of the

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Flood. And so the man who founded Logos Research Associates is

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Dr. John Sanford from Cornell University. He is famous worldwide for inventing something called the gene gun, which inserts genes in the

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DNA. Brilliant scientist, but very humble, very godly man. Another one of the scientists on the board is

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Dr. John Baumgardner. He's a PhD geophysicist. He's built the world's best 3D computer simulation of plate tectonics.

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Even secular scientists use that. And then there's one other board member and myself. We have regular meetings and talk about our research, and I kind of see myself as a middle man because these guys are doing the actual cutting -edge research, and then

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I get to hang around them and glean from them, and then God has given me the ability to put it down a few shelves a little bit lower and speak

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English to convey these things in a way that people can understand. It's practical for them and very encouraging to their faith.

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Great. And if anybody wants to know more about this organization known as Logos Research Associates, you can find out more about them by going to logosresearchassociates .org.

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Logosresearchassociates .org. And last but not least, once again, tell our listeners about Ratio Christi.

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Sure. It's an organization that's somewhat similar to other groups on state university campuses.

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Listeners are probably familiar with InterVarsity or Campus Crusade, which is called CRU, Navigators, Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

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It's a Christian organization, but it's not so much a social organization as it is an organization that's centered around apologetics and defending the

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Christian worldview. So they establish themselves on the various campuses. They have to be student -led, but there's a sponsor, so there has to be a professor at the university who's willing to be a written sponsor.

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That doesn't necessarily mean financial, but they have to be connected with some professor on campus, and then they have regular meetings where they're open to skeptics as well, but again, they're there to train other

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Christian students in the area of apologetics. And so they're worldwide now. It's all across the country and in universities in other countries as well.

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Again, established to help students during those years where they're really struggling. They bring in different speakers.

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Sometimes the body members might give talks themselves, but they often bring in other speakers, so I've been asked to be a speaker for that organization as well.

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When can you define what Ratio Christi means? It's Latin for reason of Christ or reason for Christ, so it's all about Christianity and Jesus Christ and the

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Bible and the authority of God's Word. Great. And to discover more about Ratio Christi, go to ratiochristi .org.

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Well, we are discussing, as I've already said, part two of a discussion we began last

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Tuesday. It's basically the book that has been written by Jay Seeger, or one of them,

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Creation and Evolution, Compatible or in Conflict, and it's quite a sizable book, by the way.

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And let me read a plug for this book by Dr. John Sanford, semi -retired

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Cornell University professor and inventor of the gene gun. I cannot claim to have read all the books out there, but I think this may be the best current overview of the

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Creation -Evolution controversy from a biblical Christian's perspective. Well, somebody who is from the scientific background that Dr.

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Sanford is from, that is certainly quite an impressive commendation.

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And I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away if they have a question for us on the

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Creation versus Evolution controversy. Our email address is chrisarmson at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter, let's say you disagree with your pastor on something we are discussing, or you're a pastor, you disagree with your fellow elders or your denomination, or some compelling reason that you have to remain anonymous that is personal, we understand that and we would definitely grant your request to remain anonymous.

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But if it's just a general question on science, on theology, on creation and evolution, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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By the way, if anybody wants to hear Part 1 of this discussion that we began on Tuesday the 6th of October, last

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Tuesday, you can go after this program is over, you can go to ironsharpendesignradio .com,

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and if you click on Podcasts Past Shows, then you'll be taken directly to the archive, and there'll be a search engine there.

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And if you type in Siegert, S as in Sam, E E, G as in George, E R T, Siegert, you'll be taken right to the audio link for last week's program.

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What I'd like you to start with today, if you could, is list some of the best arguments that evolutionists,

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Darwinian evolutionists, have to bring up during these interactions that creationists have with them that perhaps were the most difficult to refute.

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I'm not sure if any are really very difficult to refute.

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Perhaps there are some, perhaps there are not. But what are just the most challenging sources of evidence, or at least something that they would claim to be evidence that would refute the creationist position, the intelligent design position, and if you could go through a list of at least several of those.

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Sure, it's an interesting question, and being as transparent as I can be,

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I don't see any of the arguments as really being convincing, knowing the depth of the argument that I do.

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However, for the typical person, there can be arguments that sound challenging that they themselves don't know how to refute.

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So it sounds like maybe the evolutionists have a good case. One example would be the story of that bacteria can evolve resistance to our antibiotics.

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Without having to know a lot about science, people are familiar with that concept that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics, so we have to create an additional, different, maybe a more powerful antibiotic to deal with these changes in bacteria.

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So here's how the story goes, and in my presentations, I'll often couch this as that some things can sound very powerful on the surface, but when you hear the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey famously would say, that's when you see problems with it.

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But initially, it sounds like a good argument. So here's how the argument is posed. Let's say there's a six -year -old girl at home, and she gets sick, and she's really sick, so the parents take her to the doctor.

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So she goes into the doctor. They do some tests, and they say, oh, she's got this bacteria that's going around.

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Now, again, in our bodies, we have lots and lots of bacteria, and most of them are good, but we can get some bad bacteria that we have to deal with.

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So she goes to the doctor. They do tests, and they've discovered, yes, this one bacteria that's bad.

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It's been going around, but that's okay. We have an antibiotic. We'll give her a shot. She should be fine.

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So they give her a shot at the doctor. She goes home, and she starts to feel better. Great.

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But then maybe a week later, she seems to be feeling sick again, so the parents take her back to the doctor, and the doctor says, no problem.

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Sometimes it takes a couple shots to get rid of this. So he gives her a second shot, and she goes home.

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This time, the little girl is not getting better. So parents are a little surprised. They take her back to the doctor for the third time.

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The doctor does some tests, and he says, oh, her bacteria have evolved. They've mutated, and they have evolved resistance to our antibiotic, but we actually have another one now.

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We'll give her that one, and that should take care of this. So they give her the shot, and maybe she's feeling better now.

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So the big picture here is this girl had bacteria in her body. When she went back the second or third time, they discovered that her bacteria had changed.

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They say they have evolved, and now the new version, the new mutated version, are resistant to the antibiotic, so they had to give her a new shot.

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So the point is, if we can see that much change, that much evolution in a short period of time in the laboratory, and we've actually seen this is real science, if that much can happen in a short period of time, imagine what can happen over millions and millions and millions and millions of years, and I guarantee you the non -Christian students in a classroom where they hear that, they will think to themselves, like,

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God, it makes sense. I mean, you can't argue with that. That's real science, and my professor just told me that, and I picture that.

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Can't argue with that, but also the Christian students probably think the same thing.

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I mean, how could you possibly argue with that? That's an actual change. There was a mutation.

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It evolved in a short period of time, and you multiply that over millions and millions and millions of years, and you're going to get these bigger changes, and so it sounds like very powerful evidence for the story of evolution, but now, when we do the

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Paul Harvey thing and look at the rest of the story, that's where we'll see, okay, wait a minute. This isn't evidence for evolution.

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This is actually kind of the opposite, and here's the rest of the story. There are a few different ways that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics.

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So just give one, because they're all somewhat similar, and they serve the same purpose for the analogy here.

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In our bodies, we've got all this bacteria. Many of them are good. Some are bad. We want to get rid of the bad ones, so we create an antibiotic, and generally the way an antibiotic works is it comes into your body.

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The cells, these bacteria, see it coming in, and they see it as food. They bring it to their cell membrane, and then they have an enzyme they create that they have that will help break this antibiotic part, kind of digest the food here, so the enzyme starts breaking apart the antibiotic.

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They're kind of chewing their food, but when it gets broken apart, that's when it gets converted into a poison.

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That's how we design the antibiotics, so when it gets chewed, digested, it turns into a poison, and it kills the bacteria.

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Obviously, the bacteria don't know this is going to happen. They just see food coming in, free lunch. They tear it apart with their enzyme, and it becomes lethal for them, so they largely, most of them, die off.

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We've got a few that didn't get touched or whatever that will remain, but what happens since we have millions and millions and billions, actually, of bacteria, when they are reproducing, some of them are undergoing mutations, which is, generally speaking, without getting into all the details, an accidental copying error, so normally you want to just copy your

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DNA the way it is because it's working fine, but you make a copying error that gets passed on.

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That's a mutation, and some of these mutant bacteria, they have destroyed the information they had that would make that enzyme that breaks down the antibiotics, so now, with this little girl, the antibiotic is coming into the body.

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The normal bad bacteria bring it in, break it apart, kill themselves, but the mutant guys, they bring in the antibiotic, but they don't have that enzyme.

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They lost the DNA, the lungs and the bladder. Those are gone. They can't make the enzyme. They can't break apart this antibiotic, so they survive.

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So, the big picture is, did the bacteria change? Yes, they really did change.

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There's no question. Did they become resistant to the antibiotics? Yes, they actually became resistant, but the big question is, did they become resistant by gaining new information to fight the antibiotic?

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The answer is no. They actually lost genetic information. It's a bad thing.

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They're going downhill, but fortunately for them, it helped them survive when the antibiotic was around, but when the antibiotic is not around, they're not as healthy as other bacteria because they lost genetic information, and if they continue down that path, they're going to go extinct because you can't keep losing information and survive.

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So, the main point is, yes, a change occurred. Yes, they coincidentally happened to be resistant to an antibiotic, but it wasn't a true benefit for them long -term because they lost genetic information.

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So, what on the surface sounds like evidence for long -term evolution is actually going in the wrong direction, and so if you multiply that out, you're going to go extinct.

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This is not evidence for Darwinian evolution. Any runner -up that's even close to there, most challenging, at least to the lay person, most challenging so -called evidence that would favor

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Darwinian evolution as opposed to intelligent design and creation, biblical creation?

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Yes, I think I missed the question that you're saying. Is that one of them? Well, I said, is there a runner -up? Is there another one that would be?

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Well, there's a whole line you talk about. Here's one, ape and human

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DNA similarity. The claims have been made that chimpanzee

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DNA is 99 % identical to human DNA. On the surface, it's like, wow, that seems pretty powerful.

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If we were created by God, why would our DNA be almost identical? That seems to make more sense if we really did evolve from an ape -like creature.

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So, how do we answer that? Well, that one's pretty easy, too. When you know the rest of the story, first of all, the number's not even right.

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We are not 98%, 99 % identical to chimps in our DNA. When they were first doing the study, they had mapped the human genomes, meaning they got a pretty good beat on what our

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DNA is doing, and they only had part of the chimp genome done, and they started comparing the two.

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Well, they laid out the ladder, the human ladder, and then when they started looking at the chimp ladder, its

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DNA, any time they found something that seemed to be a match somewhere along the human ladder, they would lay it on and say, wow, this is so similar.

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But then when they found other portions that don't seem to fit anywhere, they just kind of tossed it out. Well, when you do that, you're going to come up with a high percentage of similarities because you're throwing out the ones that are not similar.

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And so they pretty much cheated to do that. Now we actually have the full chimp genome mapped, and we have a better idea of the similarities, and now it's maybe 80, only 80%, not 99.

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Only 80 could be as low as 70 % similarity, which is a massive problem for them because even if you thought it was just only 2 % different, 98 % identical, the 2 % different represents a massive amount of information because the human genome has about 3 billion letters in it, so 2 % of that is massive.

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That's another problem for them is they don't have enough time in evolutionary history to make all those changes from an ape -like creature to get all the way to a human, even if it's only 2 % different.

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Now we're talking about at least 20 % different. It has to do with something called Haldane's dilemma.

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It's just not enough time for all these changes to occur. But again, when you only tell part of the story, it can sound like powerful evidence.

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Well, we have a couple of questions from listeners. I'll take at least one before we go to our first break.

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We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, when it comes to the subject of life on other planets, most conservative

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Bible -believing Christians scoff at the idea and completely rule it out.

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One of the things that puzzles me about that is that I don't understand why the

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Bible would in any way absolutely prohibit the idea of there being other creatures on other planets.

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Some Christians use the excuse that that would require another atoning sacrifice of Christ on another planet.

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But why would that even have to be brought into the picture when demons, for instance, are creations of God, and yet they were not a part of the atonement plan?

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Sure. Great question. The whole topic of life in outer space is intriguing, and many

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Christians not only don't know what to think about it, they're not sure what they're supposed to think.

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And so it's one of those things we should think through, and I'll be giving you a summary of a response.

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There's a lot that could be discussed on this topic. But first off, we start with Scripture, which

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I think Christians should always start with the Bible, meaning if the

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Bible doesn't address a certain topic, like the Bible does not say anything about the mass of an electron, so if they say it's 9 .1

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times 10 to the negative 31st kilograms, I'm fine with that because there's no reason for me not to believe that if the

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Bible doesn't address it. But if the Bible does say something about a particular topic, that has to be our starting point.

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We need to start from there, and nothing else can ever contradict that because it's coming from God's Word, and that's why our ministry is called

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The Starting Point Project. So when we're talking about life in outer space, if we start with Scripture, is there anything in the

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Bible that would help answer that question? Well, I would admit you can read the

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Bible from cover to cover, and there's nothing in there that says, I, God, absolutely did not create any other life forms anywhere else in the universe.

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It does not say that in there. However, there is nothing in the Bible that hints that God created life anywhere else in the universe.

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So if He did, He was completely silent on it, and He actually gave us the impression that He didn't.

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So if someone wants to believe that life exists in some form somewhere else in the universe, they're free to believe that, but they cannot use

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Scripture to support that. There's nothing in the Bible that gives us the hint that God did that.

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On the other hand, God says He created everything in six days.

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What does that leave out? Nothing. So whatever was created had to be created in those six days, and God only describes creating life on this planet, and specifically,

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He created plants on day three, and on day five, He created life in the oceans and in the sky, and then on day six,

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He created the land creatures and human beings. So He's very specific about doing that, not saying anything else about any other life forms.

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Certainly if there were people somewhere else, that's an issue, and that does bring in the atonement because the

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Bible is very specific that Eve is the mother of all the living. It doesn't say some of the living.

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It says all the living. So anyone who would be human at all, they had to have come from Eve. So if you have some kind of people living in outer space, how'd they get there?

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Because they had to come from Eve because that's what the Bible says. Well, the actual questioner,

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I think it was Arnie, wasn't it? Arnie in Perry County? He said he was referring to the possibility of there being creatures on other planets that were more in the realm of a category of the demonic realm or something that was outside of the human race.

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Well, again, all the angelic beings, some of which fell after creation, they were created during creation week.

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Some of them fell. They certainly exist, and they exist in a physical location.

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It's a possibility. I think there's a lot of angelic and demonic activity going on in this room.

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God says that he gave Satan kind of charge of the earth. He's the god of this world temporarily.

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In a sense, his power is limited, not unlimited. So we know there's a lot of demonic activity that goes on, and I don't doubt that there are things going on.

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If we want to say that there's some demons on some planets outside of our solar system, I guess people are free to say that.

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What the significance of that would be, I don't know, as far as trying to narrow down where they are.

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But my belief as far as aliens, extraterrestrial beings that are not just demons but actual life that somehow started somewhere else in the universe and have traveled here, there's no biblical indication for that, and there's no scientific evidence whatsoever that life exists somewhere else in the universe.

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The main reason they pursue looking for it is that most scientists today assume that life evolved here by accident.

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Just one of those things that happened. And if that is true, I would say it makes sense that it probably happened somewhere else in the universe, too.

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I, though, don't think it's even possible that life evolved here by accident. Therefore, I don't expect it anywhere else, either.

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But that's the main impetus that drives secular scientists who search for life in outer space because if there was an accident here, it probably happened somewhere else, too.

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Yeah, I was actually shocked by someone, even though he is an atheist, or should I say he was.

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Was it Stephen Hawking who had the theory of the human race being populated by aliens?

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It was one of these geniuses that were atheists.

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Was it Stephen Hawking? Francis Crick. Francis Crick, who was a co -discoverer of the DNA molecule.

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He was an atheist, but the more he looked at DNA, the more he realized there's no way that that is an accident that evolved here on this planet.

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But because he's an atheist, he didn't want to believe that God designed it, but he could see it was designed. So he came up with the idea that it must have been designed by aliens living somewhere else in the universe that created it in seed form, put it on a spaceship, flew it to another planet, and left it to grow from seeds.

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And there's an absolutely brilliant scientist, I wouldn't debate that at all, brilliant scientist coming up with a conclusion that might sound silly to most people, not because he's lacking facts, he's got the wrong starting point to use to interpret the facts that he sees.

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Yeah, for some reason I have this memory, and it could be faulty, but I have some kind of a foggy memory about Stephen Hawking before he passed away, believing in extraterrestrials being the source of life on Earth too.

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But perhaps I'm wrong. He might have entertained that, I haven't personally read any of that, but I wouldn't be surprised, because when you rule out the supernatural, you're going to come up with some strange ideas.

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My quick analogy is, if I showed someone my laptop, and I said, I want you to write a 300 -page paper on the origin of my laptop, but nowhere in your paper can you refer to people.

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You can't ever talk about a person doing anything. Well, they come up with some pretty interesting stories as to how that laptop got here without allowing an intelligent source like a human being to be involved.

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So, when they're looking at our universe and at life, they're desperately trying to explain its origin and existence apart from the supernatural, which is going to lead to some pretty strange stories.

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Well, we have to go to our first break. If anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

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By the way, Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, you have won a free copy of this book that we are addressing,

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Creation and Evolution, Compatible or in Conflict, by our guest today,

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Jay Siegert. This book is nearly 300 pages in length.

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It's no lightweight treatment of the issue we are discussing. So give us your full mailing address in Perry County so we can have this mailed out to you.

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In fact, it will be mailed to you by cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. They are a dedicated sponsor of this program, and I thank

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Jay for actually personally providing these copies that we're giving away of Creation and Evolution, Compatible or in Conflict, which has been published by Master Books.

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So don't go away. We're going to be right back with Jay Siegert, right after these messages from our sponsors. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine

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35:00

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He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

35:16

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43:07

Welcome back. This is Chris Orenson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is

43:13

Jay Siegert, who is the managing director for the Starting Point Project.

43:19

And we are discussing Jay's book, Creation and Evolution, Compatible or in Conflict.

43:25

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is ChrisOrenson at gmail .com.

43:30

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence if you live outside the

43:36

USA. Well, you already gave us the best arguments that those who reject biblical creation, those who reject intelligent design, have come up with, at least in your estimation.

43:51

What is the best argument for creation, and why in your book do you describe it as something that may come as a surprise?

44:03

Oh, sure. Yeah, it's a little bit of a twist, but I kind of enjoy helping

44:10

Christians get the bigger picture and think just a little bit deeper with their answers.

44:16

And so typically if someone comes to me, they'll say, hey, what's the best evidence for creation?

44:22

And what they mean is, give me the one thing. I don't have a lot of time. I can't remember a lot of facts.

44:28

But give me the one thing, the silver bullet, that anytime someone brings up evolution, I'll just share this one thing.

44:34

I'll pull it out of my pocket, and it'll stop them dead in their tracks. Well, arguments don't work that way, because anytime you throw evidence at someone, they're going to interpret it using their own filter, using their own starting point, their worldview, their bias, their presuppositions.

44:51

So they're just going to take whatever you throw at them and interpret it differently. Now, there is a lot of very powerful scientific evidence for creation and for the

45:02

Bible, but I like to go one step deeper than that. I'll throw in one extra thing before I share that.

45:11

I've had atheists say to me, there's no scientific evidence for creation.

45:17

Actually, they would say there's no scientific evidence for the existence of God. I was on a radio interview with an atheist, and he made that statement, and we had a really good conversation.

45:28

He was a nice guy, and it was a fruitful conversation. So when he finished his portion, I just said, hey, you know, you made the statement that there's no scientific evidence for the existence of God.

45:39

I said, what would you accept as scientific evidence for the existence of God? What would that look like in your mind if you saw

45:47

A, B, or C? That would definitely be evidence for the existence of God. He looked at me, and he said, well, he started talking, and I had to stop, and I said, wait a minute.

45:59

You're talking philosophically now, but you made the claim that there was no scientific evidence for God's existence.

46:06

So I asked you, what would the scientific evidence have to look like to count in your mind, to qualify, to be convincing?

46:14

And then he said, oh, scientific evidence. And he was just stalling, and he still came up with nothing.

46:20

He did not talk about science after that. And so that's one of the issues I like to train people in.

46:26

I don't want to just position them to be able to spew a lot of facts at people and try to win an argument.

46:33

I want them to be able to go deeper, and I want them to be good listeners. And that's something that took me a long time to learn.

46:41

I was pretty good at being patient, but I was not listening while I was waiting. I was just waiting for them to finish so I could tell them all the things that I thought

46:48

I knew. It was not an effective approach. So a much better approach is actually listen to the person you're talking to.

46:57

Hear what they say so that you're better positioned to ask follow -up questions. Like, when they say there's no scientific evidence for the existence of God, you can, instead of trying to spew facts at them, just say, oh, help me better understand.

47:09

What would you accept as scientific evidence? And you keep asking follow -up questions, and it doesn't take long for the other person to realize they are making a lot of bold claims, but they really don't have anything concrete to back it up.

47:23

So answering your question more directly, in my mind, what is the absolute best evidence for creation?

47:30

And I say it surprises people. And in my book, when they go to that chapter, and I expect them to jump there because I want to see what the best evidence is, it turns out that it's the

47:42

Bible. And right then, when I tell people that, they literally roll their eyes like, oh, come on.

47:49

No, no, no, not that. Give me the science stuff that I can throw at someone and stump them and impress them.

47:54

And it's like, well, hold on a second. And then I explain a little bit how all the scientific evidences are always going to be interpreted to give them any kind of meaning.

48:03

And I said, think about this logically. If the Bible truly is the inspired

48:08

Word of God, and Christians say they believe that, if they really believe it, the best proof for creation is that within God's Word, He told us

48:19

He created everything. Now, I know that's not impressive to a skeptic, but we're not getting there yet.

48:26

What we're doing is talking to the Christian about their foundation, their starting point. If they believe that God exists, and they believe

48:33

He does, and they believe the Bible is His inspired Word, then if it says

48:38

Jesus existed, we believe that's a fact. It actually happened because God told us that in His Word.

48:44

If we believe there was a flood, we believe it happened because it says so in God's Word. If it says that God is the creator of everything, we believe that because that's what it says.

48:53

Now, it's nice for us that when we look at science, the more we look at it, the more it backs up what the

48:58

Bible's been saying all along. But it needs to be our starting point. So the fact that the

49:04

Bible says that God is the creator of everything is the best evidence, because there's a lot of evidence that the

49:11

Bible itself truly is the inspired Word of God. And we'll go into that right now, but there's so much evidence to back up what it's saying, that it truly is the

49:21

Word of God who is the creator of all. So at that point, the best evidence for creation is the fact that the

49:29

Bible tells us that God is the creator, and it gives us a fair amount of details, not every single detail.

49:35

But that's the best evidence, and then what we can do after that, because the skeptics are going to say, well, that's just the

49:40

Bible stuff. They'll say, I don't even believe the Bible. And I always say, I get that. I totally understand.

49:46

When I'm talking to an atheist, I say, you're an atheist. You certainly don't think the Bible is the inspired Word of God, because you don't even think that God exists.

49:54

But then I tell them, I still want to share what it says with you, because I want you to have a proper understanding of the claims it's making, and not have an impression of the

50:05

Bible based on what someone else told you they think it says. I want you to see directly the claims that it's making, and then you can address that rather than having some opinion that someone told you it's filled with errors and contradictions.

50:16

So therefore, you now, quote, know the Bible is filled with errors and contradictions.

50:22

Well, you don't know. That's just a handy thing that you carry with you to justify your rejection of it. So we start with the fact that the

50:29

Bible says that God is a creator, and we can go deeper. We can say, let's take a look at astronomy, and biology, and geology, and anthropology.

50:37

And the deeper we dig there, the more it backs up. Like, wow, I guess the Bible was right all along.

50:42

We can share more of that as we go on throughout the program. Well, one of the things that, for years, as long as I have been a

50:52

Christian, and I'm sure it was something that was thrown out there long before I was a

50:58

Christian, but as far as one of those things that is alleged by those who are skeptics, those who are critics of the

51:09

Christian faith, who say that the Bible contains errors, they will bring up, among those alleged errors, the quote in the

51:28

Scriptures from actually Jesus himself, that the mustard seed is the smallest of all the seeds.

51:40

That's, I believe, from Mark, Chapter 4. Now, how do you respond to the person that says, well, we know today that that's not even true.

51:54

There are seeds that are even much tinier than a mustard seed. So how do you respond to something like that?

52:00

Sure. Great question. And again, as I usually try to do is to step back and take a look at the bigger picture.

52:09

And you need to find out from this particular skeptic who would say that, whether it's that question or a different one, say, is this really one of the biggest struggles that you have?

52:21

Like, this particular example, is that one of the biggest things that's keeping you from exploring it further, believing in God, believing in Jesus for whatever it is, because often it's a smoke screen.

52:33

And if you actually got back to them with an answer to that issue, they would just say, well, why is there all the evil in the world?

52:40

And then you try to answer that, and they say, well, I have jumped from mustard seeds to theodicy.

52:48

Yeah. So you have to find out, is this really something you want an answer to?

52:53

Meaning, what difference will it make to you? So if I actually come back to you and give you an answer, and the listeners should know that they're not expected to have every answer memorized, every possible question.

53:04

No one has every answer to any topic out there. It's just impossible. But what you want to do is you want to qualify the person you're talking to to find out, is this a big deal?

53:14

If it's not, can we put that one aside for now, and let's focus on the big issues that you're really struggling with.

53:21

And if this mustard seed is one of the biggest ones, then let's tackle that, and I'll look into it and get back to you.

53:28

In fact, if you could hold on for a second, because we have to go to our midway break, and we'll pick up right where you left off there.

53:34

Sure. If anybody wants to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

53:40

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state and country of residence. We have to go to the longer than normal break right now, because Grace Life Radio requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show so that they can air their own public service announcements and other local things that localize

53:55

Iron Shepard's Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida, a requirement of the FCC to localize the programming that a station has to their area.

54:07

So while they air their own public service announcements, we air our globally heard commercials.

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So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information that our advertisers provide as possible so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them.

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This will further ensure that they continue to be our advertisers, which we require in order to exist.

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We need the advertising dollars of our sponsors to remain on the air. So please try to make them happy as much as you can.

54:36

Also use this time to send in questions to Jay Seeger about the creation versus evolution debate at 631 -

54:42

I almost forgot to give you my phone number. Send in your questions at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

54:50

chrisarnson at gmail .com. We'll be right back after these messages with more of Jay Seeger and creation and evolution compatible or in conflict.

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Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Coram, Long Island, New York.

57:41

I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

57:50

New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled and edified by the

58:00

Holy Scriptures and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

58:05

I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram for their recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

58:12

Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

58:19

That's hopereformedli .net or call 631 -696 -5711.

58:26

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Good to be back. Chris, I always enjoy our time. I have to tell you, you're one of the better interviewers out there and I've been doing this for more than 30 years.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman and I invite you to come and join us here at Lindbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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01:14:39

Before we return to our discussion with Jay Siegert on his book Creation and Evolution Compatible or in Conflict we just have several announcements to make.

01:14:51

First of all the remainder of this week we've also got some excellent guests on this program that we hope you will continue to tune in to hear daily

01:15:05

Tomorrow we have for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Vern Poythress and Vern is going to be discussing his book

01:15:15

The Mystery of the Trinity. That would be Wednesday, October 14th 4 -6pm

01:15:22

Eastern Time and then on Thursday we have Kurt M.

01:15:28

Smith returning to the program who's going to be addressing his new book, Thundering the

01:15:33

Word The Awakening Ministry of George Whitefield Then on Friday the 16th of October we have joining us for the first time ever

01:15:45

John Harris and John Harris is going to be talking about his book

01:15:51

Social Justice Goes to Church and I hope that you will tune in for that very controversial program that is addressing head -on one of the most problematic issues facing the church and diluting the gospel of Jesus Christ in the 21st century so far that Social Justice Goes to Church The New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism with John Harris this

01:16:26

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Also, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church you are having a hard time finding one that is faithful to the scriptures near where you live no matter where on the planet

01:19:11

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That's also the email address where you can send in a question for our guest today, Jay Siegert that's chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:19:45

chrisarnson at gmail .com and Jay, right before the break, you were beginning to use your strategy, or tell us what your strategy is when somebody asks you a question that they heard wherever they heard it, on TV or from one of their friends or some documentary with atheists and bible rejecters who will say well, the bible is just full of errors it's laughably ridiculous to think that it is inerrant because even something like the size of a mustard seed, they got wrong because the bible says, even in Jesus' own words, and Jesus is supposed to be

01:20:35

God, he's supposed to be omniscient and yet even Jesus Christ got it wrong that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds because today we know scientifically that that is not true there are seeds much smaller than a mustard seed so you were beginning to see if there was any real hidden agenda behind that question other than that and just pick it up where you left off sure after we covered finding out is this really an issue, is this a specific question, is this a stump in front of them we need to address it, and in this example

01:21:11

Jesus is using a parable to teach a truth he's not giving a biology lesson he's using a parable to teach a truth on a different subject and what's interesting is we don't actually know that there were smaller seeds back then, we do know scientifically today there are seeds that are smaller than a mustard seed, but we don't know genetically if there were smaller seeds back then, we have different breeds of plants and things like that, and seeds over time we can get changes all within the same kind, they're now becoming a completely different kind of life form but no one could say that there were actually smaller seeds, and it wasn't

01:21:51

Jesus' point to give a lesson in biology, and the other thing is back then in Jesus' days talking to the

01:21:58

Jews, there was a phrase that they would use, as small as a mustard seed, and that phrase was just used to generically refer to anything that was really small or unnoticeable so Jesus was using that kind of terminology, talking to people who were often farmers and it could also be, this is the smallest seed that they're aware of that they use, they plant, they work with, maybe there were smaller seeds but no one knew about them, they'd never seen them so it didn't even pay to refer to that again, it's not a biology lesson so the point is, there are always answers, and is it that they really wanted an answer and they'll say, wow,

01:22:35

I guess that kind of makes sense maybe that is a narrow contradiction the vast majority of the time, even if you give them that answer, they'll say, well what about the

01:22:43

Bible when it says that your salvation is by faith alone and then it also says it's by works and you can look at the two different verses

01:22:50

Paul in Galatians and in Romans makes it pretty clear, it seems like our justification is by faith alone, and then you're reading

01:22:58

James and James says, oh no, it's not by faith alone but works too, it's right there black and white, it's a contradiction like, no, no, you gotta look at the context,

01:23:08

Paul is referring to our justification before 100 % Holy God we are truly only justified before Him through our faith and not by our works,

01:23:18

James is talking about our justification before other people, they can't see your faith they can only see what you do so James says, you know, faith without works is dead it's the whole context, so pretty much everything they bring up you're gonna say, well actually here's the solution to that, and then they'll just jump onto something else, you know, and on rare occasions they'll say, well that makes sense, you know, maybe there's more to it, teach me some more but most people just want excuses to reject the

01:23:43

Bible, and if you take their excuses away, they're not too happy about it Now, isn't it also true that the

01:23:51

Bible often will address the audience for whom it was initially written in ways that approach subjects from things that are common knowledge in that day,

01:24:05

I mean, Jesus' main point had nothing to do with physical seeds let alone mustard seeds at all and he didn't find it desirable or necessary to go into a surprising explanation, if indeed there were seeds smaller at that time, as you said that's not certain, but let's say there were seeds that existed that were smaller than mustard seeds, well obviously it wasn't known to your average person so Jesus didn't find a need to explain that to them, he was just speaking to them about knowledge that they had

01:24:44

Right, and that's, we see that in any book, I mean on a paper, I'll ask yeah, no one picks up a book and before they even open it and say

01:24:54

I'm going to take every single word in here literally, no matter what you don't do that, you read it by its context and the

01:25:00

Bible is the same way I tell people, skeptics, I say I don't take the Bible literally, and they're like what are you talking about you're a

01:25:06

Christian, I say no I don't take it literally I take it contextually the portions that were written as literal historical narrative,

01:25:13

I take those literally, the portions that are written as poetry or allegory, I take them as allegorical or poetical they're still teaching truth but they're written in a poetical way, so when it says

01:25:23

God covers us with his wings, I don't think the Bible's trying to teach us that God has feathers it's using poetic language that he protects us when

01:25:32

God is talking to the Jews, he gave the scripture to the Jews and he's talking about creation, he says there was an evening and a morning, day one evening and a morning, day two, evening and a morning day three and so on, that's kind of strange to us, why would

01:25:44

God talk about days but he calls them evening and a morning because we all know a day is a morning and then an evening, well not to the

01:25:51

Jews, their day started in the evening so they had an evening first and then the morning, so when you look at the context of all these passages, it clears itself up, but most skeptics don't want the answer so they're never going to spend the time looking for them

01:26:05

Now you have a title, a chapter title that's somewhat surprising because it might initially leave one who is a

01:26:13

Christian, who is a firm, committed believer in intelligent design scratching their heads, wondering why on earth did he word this chapter this way but the title is

01:26:25

Intelligent Design, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly what possibly could be bad or ugly about intelligent design?

01:26:33

Sure, well I have a pretty dry sense of humor and I tried to write the book in a conversational way and add some humor and it's usually self -deprecating humor

01:26:43

I'm never making fun of a skeptic And that was obviously taken from a Clint Eastwood movie, just so our listeners know

01:26:48

I did that and one of the problems with getting older, which I can't stop, is a lot of times

01:26:55

I'll say something and then I realize half my audience doesn't know what I'm talking about so it's getting worse and worse but yeah, most people, most youth aren't going to be familiar with the

01:27:06

Clint Eastwood movies the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly so I used that title to make a point and the point in the chapter is we'll talk about intelligent design but I clear up a lot of misunderstandings about intelligent design, so I first say intelligent design has to do with the fact that it looks like there's evidence of design in living things, it would have been designed by some intelligent source, that's what it's all about, but intelligent design is not identical to biblical creation there are overlaps and if you picture two circles intersecting intelligent design and biblical creation intersecting that way, there are things that they both share in common and there are things that are exclusive to biblical creation and other things that are exclusive to intelligent design and I tell people don't assume if someone is an intelligent design scientist that they are a

01:27:59

Christian and here's why, some intelligent design scientists are very, very strong, committed

01:28:08

Christians and they believe the bible it's been historically interpreted for years they have no problem about it, they just accept the whole thing, there are other intelligent design scientists who believe some of the bible but not all of it there are other intelligent design scientists who are religious but they're not

01:28:26

Christians and they don't really pay much attention to the bible at all but they believe that God exists and he's the intelligent designer there are other intelligent design scientists who don't believe anything about the bible they don't even believe in God but they can see that there's evidence of design so they believe that it was aliens there's alien life out there that designed life on our planet so they're intelligent design scientists but they're not buying into the notion of God or the bible and then some intelligent design scientists actually accept much of evolution, they just think that God was the one who drove evolution and caused it to happen so there's a whole gamut within the intelligent design community and on a positive side, the vast majority of what they do is incredible and it fits very well with scripture that yes,

01:29:21

God created everything and it's very well designed but again we can't make that assumption that just because someone believes that there's evidence of an intelligent designer that they're a

01:29:33

Christian and the other issue with it I guess potentially ugly not that I have to fit anything into that category necessarily but if you look at something and it seems really well designed, that would imply okay, there's not only a designer but it's probably pretty impressive because this stuff is cool but if you look at something and you in your mind think

01:29:55

I don't think that's the best design why would someone do it that way that kind of taints who this designer is and maybe

01:30:02

God's pretty sharp but he's not all powerful because look at what could he do with a human eye?

01:30:07

It's upside down and they try to make the argument that it's bad design. Actually not but so if you're just strictly going on intelligent design, good design would imply a good intelligent

01:30:19

God a so -so design would be a so -so God and there are a lot of other issues that I cover in my chapter there but I just want people to have a better understanding of what intelligent design is all about.

01:30:34

Great and we have CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York who says how often, if at all, do you encounter

01:30:44

Mormons when you are giving public speaking engagements and involved in other creation events because I have heard the

01:30:54

Mormons may fool people to think that they are creationists but in reality they actually believe in the eternality of matter and that God just reorganized matter, he didn't really create it.

01:31:08

Do you have any comments about that and also about your interaction with Mormons?

01:31:15

Sure I, many years ago had a lot of interactions with Mormons because they conveniently came to my house and the first time they came over I answered the door and I said man

01:31:26

I'm really, really busy right now but I would love to talk with you because I've done some research and I just man

01:31:32

I have so many questions and you guys probably really know your stuff so that would be awesome if you could come back. So they got excited and they came back the next

01:31:39

Tuesday at 7pm and whenever and we had an hour and a half and I had 30 pages of questions

01:31:45

I didn't show them all 30 pages right away but we just went through one at a time and they answered virtually no questions and I did it very tactfully and graciously.

01:31:55

I said I'm just really trying to understand this. You guys have studied it. I'm probably missing something.

01:32:00

Help me out here. So I always try to do it very graciously because they're not evil people they're people who have been deceived and they're generally very sincere a lot of them are more sincere than many

01:32:12

Christians. I know they're willing to mow my lawn and wash my car. I've never had a Christian just come up my house and say can

01:32:17

I mow your lawn but the Mormons will. So they're nice people they've been deceived they believe that as we are now humans

01:32:28

God used to be and as God is now deity we will become gods and so they obviously are not true

01:32:36

Christians but they say they believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon but in reality they don't really accept the

01:32:41

Bible but they will talk about yes God's the creator and they probably they're not really outwardly trying to trick people because they believe what they teach is true but they will share things that they would have in common with most people but most people do believe that God exists.

01:33:00

Most people think yeah you know I guess the Bible is from God you know and they'll talk about Jesus and so they say hey we'd love to come over and help you out with a

01:33:09

Bible study. It's like well sure I'd like to know a little bit more about the Bible and they get their foot in the door and pretty soon they leave the

01:33:16

Bible behind and it's all Book of Mormon and a lot of storytelling so I have had a lot of interactions

01:33:22

I don't run into them as much anymore they're smaller in percentage and I don't think they show up at my meetings and if they do they're not identifying themselves or asking questions that would lead me to believe that they're

01:33:36

Mormons but it all has to do with Scripture because I went through a whole list with them.

01:33:42

I said you know what we have a lot in common we both believe in God I know along the way there are different definitions here but we both believe in God, yep we both believe in Jesus, yep we both believe in prayer, yep we both believe in witnessing, yep we both believe and I went down this list and I said it's kind of identical there but yet we have we have other beliefs that they can't both be right so I said how is this possible that one of us could be wrong and I said the last element was knowledge of Scripture and they really do not have a knowledge of God's Word they know a fair amount about the

01:34:17

Book of Mormon but they really don't know Scripture and that's what allows one person to be totally wrong and where the other person is grounded because their beliefs are based straight on Scripture so that's what

01:34:29

I said about Mormons if you do run into them if you're not prepared don't just invite them in because they'll probably throw a lot of questions at you that you're not ready for make your head spin but if you feel led to have a ministry for them do your research and invite them over and be as kind and as gracious as you can and share as much

01:34:47

Scripture directly with them as possible now was the listener correct in his understanding that Mormons do not really believe in creation but that God reorganizes matter that already eternally existed

01:35:01

I haven't read their creation accounts for a long time I wouldn't doubt that at all they certainly don't accept the straightforward

01:35:07

Biblical creation account the Bible is very clear that there's only one

01:35:12

God and He's existed from everlasting to everlasting but they believe that Jesus is

01:35:18

God but He's not God the Father God so right off the bat you've got two Gods and then they believe that we become

01:35:24

God so you've got many many many many Gods which is contrary to Scripture but Scripture is very clear one

01:35:30

God who created everything in the beginning but they don't accept that they don't accept the Trinity obviously we as Christians and as Trinitarians don't believe

01:35:37

Jesus is the Father either but He's part of the Godhead that includes the Father they're all one, yes, the

01:35:44

Trinity we have, oh by the way CJ and anybody else if I forgot anybody who has written in a question so far, you have won a free copy of Creation and Evolution compatible or in conflict by J.

01:36:00

Siegert so make sure we have your full mailing address so cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship those copies out to you and we thank once again not only cvbbs for shipping out our listeners the books that they win but also we thank

01:36:18

J. Siegert for providing us with these giveaway copies we have we have

01:36:27

Bobby in Hartsdale, New York who says do you agree with Hank Hanegraaff I'm sorry that's

01:36:39

I read that wrong do you agree with Ken Ham I don't know how I got

01:36:46

Hank Hanegraaff out of that do you agree with Ken Ham that Job 41's description of the

01:36:57

Leviathan should not be taken as poetic language when it refers to the

01:37:03

Leviathan breathing fire but that we should use that as a way to explain the legends of the dragons and as Ken Ham has said in his lectures, there is even a beetle that exists that spits out fire so it is not outside the realm of possibility that a giant lizard could have breathed fire well in general

01:37:33

I would agree when we talk about things in the past that we have no way of directly testing we have to be a little careful because we can come up with ideas but we can never know if that idea is really right or wrong we certainly can't prove it scripture, you take it for what it says and those passages,

01:37:52

Job 40 talks about Behemoth, 41 about Leviathan and it's straightforward to count,

01:37:58

God is talking to Job, this is a historic event historical event that went on this is not just poetry there so I believe there is a creature called

01:38:07

Leviathan, we can't identify exactly what it is or what it was, some people think it's a super croc or some people say it pleases or doesn't matter to me too much, it was definitely a creature that we don't seem to see around today and God describes it's features and it does talk about fire breathing and sometimes we discover fossils where it looks like they've got these tubes or pipes up top of their head and scientists don't think they were using for breathing so maybe those were for combustion and the beetle you're talking about is a bombardier beetle it combines hydrogen quinone and hydrogen peroxide for a fire kind of a semi sort of fiery blast like out of a turret that it can turn up to like 180 degrees and it's just absolutely amazing and it's evidence that it could not have evolved because you can't evolve that beetle one part at a time you just evolve the gases first the beetle kind of blows itself up and all that's very complex but that's something we do see today so could there have been a creature in the past that had that ability absolutely possible.

01:39:12

Can we prove it? No. I don't think we need to. The Bible describes it as a life and I have no problem saying

01:39:18

I don't know exactly what it was but if God says it breathes fire then I don't doubt that that could have happened.

01:39:24

So it seems the language that you're using the way you're describing it or answering the question you're leaving it to the realm of possibility as well that it is poetic language.

01:39:37

Well the context of the passage really is more of a historical narrative and not really being overly poetic

01:39:44

I guess I can't rule out that there is not some poetic element to it but from the reading

01:39:50

I've done in the past that doesn't seem to be dominant or significant at all it's just going right along and describing these creatures like the

01:39:58

Bible often does it'll talk about different creatures that we're very familiar with and then it'll throw in like the word dragon and we're like oh well dragons those are mythical right?

01:40:07

Well again the context there is that the King James Bible that I grew up with and I still use was translated in 1611 that's 230 years before the word dinosaur was invented by Sir Richard Owen in 1841.

01:40:23

So I don't expect to find the word dinosaur in my Bible because the word didn't even exist when they're doing the translation but you do see the word dragon fairly often and that's a word that's been used in cultures all over the world to refer to creatures that today we would probably call dinosaurs because they didn't have the word dinosaur they were calling them dragons and there's a lot of accounts of people out through history discussing creatures that they probably were seeing some kind of a dinosaur and that's how they described it and again the

01:40:54

King James uses the word dragon quite often and it's always in just a literal historical context it's not going off the deep end in poetry and all that so we should really take it literally at that point and I'll throw in another memory of Ken Ham as well.

01:41:11

I remember him refuting the idea of a lot of Christians who have interpreted the behemoth from the

01:41:20

Old Testament as being a hippopotamus because especially the reference to the tail being like a cedar and a hippopotamus tail despite the enormous size of the beast itself the tail is very small yeah and so some people in a lot of Bibles they have footnotes in Job 40 verse 15 about the behemoth and it will say at the bottom hippopotamus or an elephant by an elephant well hippos aren't that big and their tails aren't that big well elephants are bigger than hippos but their tails aren't much bigger so that really doesn't satisfy but these people who have added the footnotes and I think most footnotes can be very helpful but we have to understand they're not the inspired word of God and these people who put the footnotes in about the behemoth and Leviathan are feeling like well the scientists tell us dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago so God cannot be talking to Job about a dinosaur so let's think of what it could have been so then they throw in hippopotamus or an elephant which doesn't fit the context but instead of questioning what they're hearing from the secular world they just take it as gospel and then use that to tell

01:42:29

God what he actually meant well we have another question that I'll read right before we go to the break

01:42:37

I'll have you answer it when we come back from the last break which will be a lot more brief than the other breaks but we have

01:42:45

RJ from White Plains New York who says can you please give us some examples of bad ways that Christians have at times tried to defend creation and intelligent design so if you could think about that when we go to the last break bad ways that Christians have used to try to defend creation and intelligent design don't go away we're going to be right back with Jay Seeger When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the

01:43:21

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors it gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

01:43:29

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmont and Ironworks New Hampshire and the

01:43:41

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum New York and the

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. And as you may remember, Jay, before the break, we had

01:54:02

RJ in White Plains, New York, ask the question. He asked you to provide the bad ways which some have used to try to prove creation and intelligent design.

01:54:17

There's a whole lot. We could do a whole program. I'll try to rattle through very quickly a number of them. One, a lot of people will say, well, even

01:54:25

Darwin changed his mind on his deathbed. Well, number one, there's no evidence that that's true. It's probably just a myth.

01:54:31

But even furthermore, even if he had, that wouldn't mean that evolution is not true.

01:54:36

That would just mean one guy changed his mind. So we shouldn't use that because it's probably not even true to begin with.

01:54:43

Another one is people will say, well, obviously evolution is not true and creation is true because if evolution was true, how come there are still apes around?

01:54:52

And it usually gets a laugh out of the audience. But it's really not an accurate thing to say.

01:54:58

Evolutionists do not believe that you had apes evolve a long time ago and then the apes just evolved into people.

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So now you should just have people and no apes. They believe that roughly six million years ago there was an ape -like creature that split off two branches.

01:55:12

One went into the apes and chimpanzees and gorillas and all that. The other one went into the all the ape -men, hominoids, and modern man.

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So in that scenario, in an evolutionary scenario, there still would be chimps here today and people.

01:55:25

So it's not a good argument. There are plenty of good arguments that we do have, but that shouldn't be used. Other people will say, well, the

01:55:33

Big Bang couldn't have happened by itself, but obviously God started it, so God used the Big Bang.

01:55:38

So they basically accept the Big Bang. They just say someone had to start it, and that's where God comes in. It's really not a good option because the

01:55:46

Big Bang is not really a good scientific model for the origin of the universe. It actually doesn't even explain the origin.

01:55:53

It's covered with Band -Aids on life support. But a lot of the details contradict what we see in Genesis 1 and 2.

01:56:01

The order is wrong and a number of other issues, so we shouldn't just say, well, God used the Big Bang. Also, people will say, well, creation is true because there are no new species.

01:56:12

You never see new species. That's actually not true. We occasionally do see new species.

01:56:17

We see new breeds of dogs. We can breed them ourselves. The point is the Bible doesn't say that there would never be species.

01:56:24

That's a modern word we've made up. The Bible says that creatures reproduce after their kind, and today you can breed dogs, dingoes, coyotes, and wolves.

01:56:32

They can all breed together because they're the same general kind of animal, and you're going to get something that's like a dog, dingo, coyote, or a wolf.

01:56:39

You're not going to get a cat or a fern or a cucumber. So there are distinct barriers.

01:56:45

They're not going to cross over. But species is a modern word we've made up, and you can have a variety of species over time, but it's always produced through the shuffling or loss of genetic information.

01:56:57

We don't get them by the gain of new information, which evolution will require. One other one, if we have time, there's a very popular speaker, very gifted guy, but he shares one thing that probably isn't the best thing to share.

01:57:11

He talks about something called laminin, that when you look at our cells, there's this structure called laminin that seems to hold everything together, and when they look at it in a microscope, it forms a cross, and he builds up to this in the presentation, and you've got people just crying in the audience.

01:57:26

It's just so beautiful that Jesus holds it all together. It's like, well, it doesn't always look like that, and that's a very simple shape.

01:57:34

Two branches breaking off a tree in the woods could fall on each other and form a cross. Does that make sense? I've seen that video, by the way, that you're talking about.

01:57:44

Yeah, what do you do with the structures that aren't a cross? Does that mean, well, Jesus didn't do that one? He only does stuff that are crossed?

01:57:50

So it's really not a good line of argumentation, and there are a number of others that we could go over.

01:57:55

What we need to be careful of, the arguments we use, there's so much good stuff, we don't need to waste time with the poor arguments. Well, thank you so much,

01:58:03

Jay. You have been an excellent guest once again, and I look forward to your return. For more information on our guest today,

01:58:12

Jay Siegert and the Starting Point Project, just remember you can go to thestartingpointproject .com

01:58:21

thestartingpointproject .com And if you could, quickly, just summarize in about a minute what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we go off the air.

01:58:32

Sure. Our central focus is really the authority of God's Word. God says what He means, and means what

01:58:37

He says. You can really, really trust it. You never have to be intimidated by science, because true science always backs up what

01:58:43

God's Word has been telling us all along. And you don't need a degree in science to learn what God wants you to learn from the

01:58:49

Bible. You don't need to rely on some expert, but even myself, just take what you hear and compare it to what the

01:58:55

Holy Spirit is teaching you while you personally are studying God's Word. And you want to do that so that you can be felt and light in a world that is upside down right now.

01:59:05

And it should be even easier than ever to share the gospel of Christ, because people are screaming for hope, and we know that the only true hope is in Jesus Christ.

01:59:14

Well, thanks again. And I want to thank everybody who listened to the program today, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

01:59:20

Remember, everybody who wrote in today will get a free copy of Creation and Evolution by our guest,

01:59:26

Jay Siegert. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:32

Savior than you are a sinner. Don't forget to tune in tomorrow for our interview with Vern Poythress on the mystery of the