Creationism, Darwinism and Intelligent Design

Well, good evening everyone.

It's.

It's good to be back in our time of study and we are now officially beginning the second course in apologetics here at Sovereign Grace Family Church. We did I think nine weeks in our first course. We're calling that apologetics 101.

So this is apologetics 201 and In our first series we engaged The question of the what and the why of apologetics and we dealt a little bit with the how. But as we start tonight on your worksheet I want to just remind you of some of the things that we learned in the first series.

Some of you were not here for.

That.

Some of you were and I know how easy it is for things to kind of be forgotten. And so I would just want to just in a very brief amount of time Just sort of reiterate some of the things that we've learned in the first series the first thing to remember is What the word apologetics means and you'll notice this on your worksheet I put there What is apologetics?

Well who wants to answer that question? What is apologetics? Yes. That's right an apologetic is a defense and Particularly Christian apologetics is giving a defense for the faith. There is a Bible verse it is in first Peter 3 15, which says what?

Always be ready to Give a defense. For the hope that is within us for anyone who asked for the hope that is within us. It's a sanctified the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart always being ready to Give a defense and that word give a defense in Greek is apologia.

Apologia was the term that was used when in court. Someone defended their case and Obviously most people when they hear the word apologetics think of the English word apology. But apology in modern terms normally means to say I'm sorry or To say that I've I've done something wrong.

And that's why a lot of people get confused when they hear the word Christian apologetics. They think that Christian apologetics is somehow Saying I'm sorry for being a Christian. That's not what it is.

Christian apologetics is to make a defense as if you were on trial and someone was Standing before you and said make your case for your faith. Give your defense. For your belief. That's what Apologetics is and again it is told to us in the Bible first Peter 3 15 that we are to always be ready to do that.

To anyone who asks I've always thought that's an interesting part that's often left out because Apologetics really happens when people ask us questions about our faith when I'm proclaiming the gospel I don't begin with arguments.

I begin with the truth. But then almost always when I begin with the truth Somebody asks a question about that truth and therein becomes the opportunity for me to defend that truth. That's where the apologetic comes in because they ask about the hope that is within you then you have the opportunity to give your defense.

We examined there are three main schools of.

Apologetic thought.

The first one is classical apologetics. You have this on your list. Classical apologetics reasons to the existence of God from logic that's the the basis of classical apologetic is to give a.

Reasonable.

A belief in the existence of God from the from logical and reasonable Positions like for instance if someone were to say the earth is demonstrates order and design. Order and design don't come out of chaos and So we look at the order of the world and we see this demands an orderer.

So there there's the reason why we believe that there's someone who ordered the universe because it didn't come about out of chaos. So that would be one of the classical arguments for the existence of God.

The second one is.

Evidential.

Evidential. Seeks to begin from a neutral position and examine only the evidence. You'll hear people say this. They'll say well when you talk to an unbeliever. We want to start on a neutral ground and we're just going to look and see where the evidence takes us.

That would be an evidential approach. Oftentimes that's considered a scientific approach. Because it's trying to eliminate any type of presuppositional bias. We're going to just look at the evidence and go where the evidence takes us.

The third.

Is.

Presuppositional.

This recognizes the existence of God as the great axiom of all other knowledge. You know what an axiom is an axiom is a necessary precursor to everything else. It's something that you have to believe.

Before you can believe something else in science it is axiomatic that we exist. If we didn't believe we existed we couldn't do anything else. So there's an there we don't really have to prove that we exist.

We assume that we exist. It's a presupposition. We we we sort of like Descartes said I think therefore I am and So that's his axiom. I'm beginning with that. I exist and thus I can study existence and that's and that's called axiom or a Presumption something that's not proven but something that's used to prove other things.

Presuppositional apologetics says that the existence of God is the is the axiom of all knowledge and I like to I like to point out that We determine where we are on this list ordinarily by how we talk to someone.

Whether you're a classical apologist whether you're an evidential apologist or whether you're presuppositional. You can usually determine that by how you approach the unbeliever.

The.

Classical apologist approaches the unbeliever on the basis of reason and logic and begins to logically deduce the existence of God based upon human understandings of the universe. The evidential apologist believes that the the unbeliever and the believer are both on a neutral playing field and thus we simply need to Examine the evidence to see whether or not God.

Exists.

But the presuppositional person looks at the unbeliever and.

Says this.

He already knows that God exists and My job is not to prove to him that God exists but to demonstrate that he already knows it. Because his arguments are based on a world that was created by God. And you say well, what do you mean by that.

Romans chapter 1 says this it says for the invisible attributes. Namely God's eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

So the person is without excuse. Romans chapter 1 verse 20. And it goes on in verse 21 to say for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise they became fools and Exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

It tells us that what can be known about God is plain to them. They know it. In fact, it says they're going to be judged for it. I Don't believe in atheists. See if you say I don't believe in God say I don't believe in you and What I mean by that is I believe somebody can say they're an atheist.

But I can also say this when you face God at judgment. You will not be able to say I did not know you existed because this scripture tells me that they knew God existed in their Heart and they suppressed that knowledge and unrighteousness.

So when I'm talking to the unbeliever, I'm talking from a presupposition that not only do they know it, but they're suppressing it. It's like it's in their heart and they've pushed it down whether they pushed it down with any type of scientific Jargon, some people push it down with drugs and alcohol.

Some people push it down with lustful activities sex and everything else. But they've suppressed that knowledge of God and my job as an apologist is simply to point out what they already know is true.

And to point out the fact that they argue for things That wouldn't be logical in their worldview the atheist says and we talked about this in the last series the atheist says I can't believe God exists because there's so much evil in The world and you say but yes, but you're making an assumption that without a God who created Good and evil that there is such a thing because in evolutionary Biology there is no such thing as evil.

There is just life and death and death brings more life and you know Evolution creates change but evolution depends on death. Why is it that what Hitler did was evil? Do you remember what Gordon Stein said?

Gordon Stein debated Greg Bonson back in the 80s. We talked about this last time. Greg Bonson said why is what Hitler did evil and Gordon Stein said because it went against the mores of society and Bonson said so what you're telling me is the only thing that made killing six million Jews evil was because society said so Yes, so if you so society didn't say it was wrong.

Would it have been right? So Presuppositional ism is obviously my approach of The three schools I take a presuppositional approach and I want to quote something that CS Lewis said. This is one of the things I always say when somebody says why do you believe in God?

This is my answer. I Universe that means no one created my brain and If no one created my brain that means it wasn't designed for thinking and if it wasn't designed for thinking Why should I trust what it tells me?

And if I can't trust what it tells me then why are we even having this conversation? Let me read the quote exactly he says supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe no creative mind in that case nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking.

It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, that gives me as a byproduct a sensation called thought. So if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true?

It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes out will give me a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an atheist or anything else.

Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought. So I can never use thought to disbelieve God. I have to presume my mind was created for thinking to trust my own thoughts. There's a lot to this. And I'm taking nine long lessons and shoving them into five minutes, so forgive me.

As I said, simply speaking, if my brain wasn't designed for thinking, why should I trust my own thoughts? And if you say my brain was designed for thinking, who designed it? The universe did. The universe has a will?

No.

The universe has intelligence? No. So that which is without will and intelligence created that which is willful and intelligent?

No.

See, the ultimate presupposition is I actually am able to think, and reason,.

And logic.

And this is why I'm not a classical or evidential apologist, because I think those things follow out of the presupposition that my mind actually works the way it does because God created it to work. Now, that's not saying, though, that I don't appeal to evidence as I do.

That doesn't mean I don't appeal to logic. I do. But I always begin with the presupposition when I'm talking to the unbeliever that not only do I know God exists, so do you. And every argument you make against God, I'm going to use it to prove that actually God does exist because your argument wouldn't work without Him.

You have to steal from my worldview to make your worldview work. You have to rob from me to make your argument. Because outside of a theistic worldview, all of the arguments about morality, all of the arguments about ought and ought not, vanish.

It's like the great theologian said. He says, without God, all things are permissible. So that's presuppositional apologetics wrapped up in a nice little boat. That's part one. Part two begins tonight.

And tonight we are going to begin looking at one of the more, I don't know if I'd say the more difficult, but certainly one of the more argumentative aspects of apologetics. And that is the question of origins.

We're going to be taking a closer look at some of the critical questions of apologetics. And the first one of tonight, which will go into several weeks, I wrote one lesson and I had to break it in half because it was so long.

I knew I wasn't going to get through in 45 minutes. So I said, you know what? I better just break this one in half already. But we're going to be talking about creation versus evolution. But I want to change something.

I thought about this today, actually, and I'd already printed the notes. So I didn't go back and change it. I want you to take your little ink pen, and I want you to go up to the top where it says evolution, and I want you to strike that.

And I want you to write Darwinism.

Darwinism.

Because as we're going to see in this section of the course, which will take at least three weeks, probably four or five weeks, is that the debate isn't really creation versus evolution, but the debate is creation versus Darwinism.

Because, and I don't want to surprise you and I don't want to start a fight, there is nothing wrong with believing in a form of evolution, which we would call adaptation, or the ability for one species to be able to become varied to the point that there would be speciation within a species or change to the point where you would have different types within a species.

For instance, the Chihuahua and the Great Dane both have the same ancestor. There's no reason to believe they don't. But the Chihuahua is this big, and the Great Dane is huge. So, yeah, we believe in one ancestor, one canine ancestor, that kind.

So when somebody says, I don't believe in evolution, it depends on how you define it. And we're going to talk about that more next week. But that is important. So when we talk about evolution, we need to be clear, we're talking about Darwinian evolution, which believes that a single-celled organism is the ancestor of all life on the planet, and essentially it's what we call particles-to-people evolution.

Particles-to-people. A single-celled organism through billions of years of random chance and mutation became all of the variation of life on this planet. That's Darwinism. That's different than simply saying evolution generally.

That's a specific doctrine of evolution, and it's what is taught in our schools. It's what's taught in our colleges. And so when I said creation versus evolution, I thought about it later, and I said, no, it's really not creation versus evolution.

It's creation versus Darwinism. So keep that in mind for this part of the series. Now, it may seem to some of you that the question of creation versus evolution or creation versus Darwinism is relatively new because it's really popular right now.

You see it everywhere. I've seen it even on, like, Sesame Street. They're talking about creation and evolution and the fact that we evolved and where we came from and fossils and everything else. There's the television show Friends, which I realize is quite old now, but there was an episode where one of the people in the episode didn't believe in evolution and the ones of paleontologists got all riled up because she didn't believe in evolution, and he spent the whole episode trying to prove that evolution is a fact, Darwinian evolution is a fact.

So this is something we all know is out there. Bill Nye and Ken Ham did that debate last year, huge debate, where both of them gained national attention by coming together and arguing the subject of creation versus evolution.

So obviously it's huge, but here's the thing that most people don't realize. This is not new. This is not a new conversation. In fact, I want to share with you some things you may not know. Actually, you may know them.

I'm going to take a quick survey. How many of you have ever heard of the Scopes trial? Okay, all right. So we're seeing a few hands up. Scopes, S-C-O-P-E, like what you wash your mouth out with Scope, but it's the Scopes trial.

You've not heard of that? It's sometimes called the Scopes monkey trial. Let me ask you this question. How many of you have ever heard of a man by the name of, oh, wait, let me find it here just for a second, Clarence Darrow or William Jennings Bryan?

The Scopes trial happened 1925. So we're coming up on the 100-year anniversary. Seven years, eight years from now, we'll be having the 100-year anniversary of the Scopes trial. What was the significance of the Scopes trial?

Let me read to you, just give you a little history. In 1925, Tennessee state legislature banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. Could you imagine today if it were banned? Tennessee public schools banned the teaching of evolution in schools.

The law made it illegal for teachers to discuss, quote, any theory that denies the story of creation of man as taught in the Bible, end quote. You could not teach in school anything that contradicted what the Bible said about man's divine origin.

Also, it was illegal to teach, quote, that man had descended from any lower order of animal, end quote. Those two things were illegal to teach in Tennessee. Couldn't teach any theory that didn't line up with the Bible.

Certainly couldn't teach any theory that would allow man to be a grown-up animal. The ACLU, that is, they are not new either. They've been around for quite some time. The ACLU, representing teacher John Scopes, that's where the name comes from, sued to overturn the law.

The creationist position was upheld, and the law was upheld in Tennessee that you could not teach anything that went against the Bible. You could not teach evolution. But many evolutionists, even though they lost in court, considered it to be a win.

Why? Because they got their message out. Even though they lost in court, they won in the court of public opinion. Part of the reason why they did was because Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand, as it were, as if he were having to defend the creationist position, and he hammered him with questions.

And they consider that cross-examination portion to be a win for their side. I want to read just a little bit about this. It says, an area of questioning involved the book of Genesis, including questions such as if Eve was actually created from Adam's rib, where did Cain get his wife, and how many people lived in ancient Egypt.

Darrow used these examples to suggest that the stories of the Bible could not be scientific and should not be used in teaching science, with Darrow telling Bryan, quote, you insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your foolish religion, end quote.

That's part of what was said in direct testimony in court. Bryan declared in response, quote, the reason I am answering is not for the benefit of the superior court, it is to keep these gentlemen from saying I was afraid to meet them and let them question me, and I want the Christian world to know that any atheist, agnostic, unbeliever can question me any time as to my belief in God and I will answer him.

Yeah, that's a good answer, and it's true. He said, I didn't get up here to convince you, I got up here to prove I wasn't afraid. Anyhow, more things happen and I have a lot of things here I'm not going to read it all, but I encourage you to look that up.

Because again, it's almost 100 years ago, same thing was happening then. Yes, was scientific advancement much less than it is now? Absolutely. In 1925 they didn't even have the type of antibiotics we have today.

They have a whole lot of things we have today, certainly a different time, but they were still asking the same question. They were still discussing the same issue. Is man a special creation of God or not?

And should this be taught to our children? Should this be imposed upon the intellect of our young people? The Scopes Trial was not alone, but it was a landmark case because it introduced the subject and the issue.

In 1965, Arkansas still had a law, also dating back to the 20s, forbidding the teaching of evolutionary biology. This is in 1965. How many of you were around in 1965? Okay, how many of you were around in 25?

Anybody?

Okay.

I don't want to get in. Don't raise your hand. But 1965, not really that far back. I mean, it's a generation, right? So 1965, Arkansas still had the law. You couldn't teach evolution. But that year, the Arkansas Education Association, allied with the science teacher Susan Epperson, challenged the measure.

And after a brief trial, the presiding judge found the anti-evolution law to violate the U .S. Constitution, which says that you shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. And the verdict was to overturn the Arkansas Supreme Court.

The verdict was overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1967. And on appeal, the U .S. Supreme Court agreed with the original decision. So in 1968, it was declared illegal to ban classroom science for reasons of conflict with a particular religious doctrine.

Essentially, by 1968, the law was put away. The law that had stood since the 20s and said you can't teach evolutionary biology was put away. So in 1968, in Arkansas, it began to be legal. In 2005, how many of you were alive then?

No, I'm just kidding.

In 2005, the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, mandated that classes on evolutionary science commence with an announcement supporting the study of intelligent design, the idea that life is too complex to have evolved due to purely natural causes.

A group of parents filed suit to overturn the new policy. And after a lengthy trial, presiding judge John Jones found for the parents declaring that intelligent design is a religious view, a mere relabeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.

So here's where we went in almost 100 years. In the 1920s, it was illegal to present anything but the biblical view of creation. By 2005, it's illegal to even mention that the universe might have an intelligent designer.

I mean, it has to be God, and not only God, it has to be the God of the Bible, the only true God, less than 100 years later, can't even mention that it might have an intelligent designer. That's a slope of immense proportions going down.

And like I said in your notes, court cases are not the only thing. Public education absolutely has been inundated. I've sat in the classroom of many teachers as a substitute teacher for eight years running.

I was a substitute teacher in the schools in Yulee, in Nassau County, and I've sat in many science classrooms, and the conversation isn't even up for debate. In many places, you'll simply see the posters of the Ascent of Man, or Man Starts as a four-knuckle-dragging ape-like figure, all the way up to the fully erect Homo sapien.

Hey!

So as I was teaching and sitting in the classroom, I look around and I see that this is what's being taught. You open up the science textbooks. I remember when I was in college, when I was doing my degree work, and I went to a seminary, but I also went to a secular college.

I have a secular degree in social science, and one of the first books I opened was on psychology. And it said, we used to believe, or mankind used to believe that humans were born with original sin, but now we know that we're a product of our genetic and cultural makeup.

I just remember those words, but now we know. We used to believe, but now we know. That's the idea of science right there. But now we know.

It is.

So it's court cases we see evolution has lost. In the last hundred years, we've gone from standing on the word of God to absolutely denying that the universe has any intelligent designer at all. Public education absolutely gives way to evolutionary theory.

Pop culture. Now I got little ones, and they will, at times, watch Sesame Street. I mentioned Sesame Street earlier, and it's not Bash Sesame Street Day. But Sesame Street does a lot to talk about the millions of years of the history of the earth and the dinosaurs and all of these things, and really goes to a lot of effort to put forward paleontologists and different people as being experts in these fields to talk about these things.

And haven't we? Even some of the cartoons that sometimes I'll be hearing the cartoons, they'll be singing songs about the millions of years and singing songs about when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and all of these other things.

Popular culture. Television shows. Dinosaur Train, television show. But other things too. In popular culture, creationists are looked at not only as foolish, but dangerously foolish. Bill Nye said that for a parent to teach his child creation is tantamount to child abuse.

To teach your child that they're created by God is to abuse your child, and that we're robbing them of having any value in society. Because we're robbing them of a scientific education.

Existence of an eternal being.

Yeah, absolutely, he does. And that's what they're doing. So we have popular culture. We also have film and media. And obviously, I don't have to get into all that, but much of film and media put forth the idea of evolution, and museums and libraries do as well.

And again, I mentioned earlier about Bill Nye. There's also a man by the name of Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil deGrasse Tyson is the modern version of Carl Sagan. A lot of you guys grew up on Carl Sagan and his television show, Cosmos, where he would go on and he would talk about the origins of the world and the universe.

Anybody not know Carl? Y 'all know who Carl Sagan is?

Yeah.

Okay, a few folks are kind of looking at me.

Carl Sagan was very popular on PBS back in the 70s, and he would put forth the idea of these millions of years, and now Neil deGrasse Tyson is sort of the modern version of Carl Sagan. And they oppose creationism to a point that they mock it as an absolute slam dunk for their side.

Nobody who believes in science would deny evolution or Darwinian evolution according to those who hold to it. One of the most frustrating arguments to come out of the conversation regarding creation and evolution is that those who believe in creation are unscientific and ignorant.

Those are two words that will be thrown around a lot. If you go on to any type of a web media or anything where you're interacting with other people and you put forward the creationist view, people will come at you as you're either unscientific, you're ignorant, or both.

How many of you know John MacArthur? Why even ask? You know John MacArthur. He wrote a book called Battle for the Beginning. In that book, he talks about creation and the beginning. Battle for the Beginning actually is sort of two parts.

Not only the beginning of the Bible, but the beginning of the world. It's a battle for Genesis. And in that book, if you go to Amazon, you know how at the bottom of Amazon they have all those reviews.

You'll see in those reviews the attacks. Unscientific, ignorant, dangerous.

Oh, absolutely. Does it make you angry? Do you get angry?

Do I get angry?

I mean, to say there is no God is what they're saying.

Yes. I mean, it doesn't keep me up at night.

I'll tell you this.

I'm more concerned with their souls than me being angry about their arguments. I get upset when I think someone won't listen to reason than I think about the fact that I went 19 years unwilling to listen to reason.

So, God is going to change hearts how He wills. And I'm just going to preach the truth. But yeah, I'm not going to say that. I don't get emotional sometimes when I hear somebody defaming the Lord or defaming the truth or calling people who believe in God ignorant or unscientific.

If there is a God, aren't they in terrible trouble?

Well, there is a God. Don't ever put an if in front of that. But, because there's a God, they are in dire trouble. And so we pray for their souls, obviously. But here's the thing that really gets me, and this is the thing I try to point out to them, is that anytime they make that statement, such as, here's a quote from a website attacking intelligent design.

It says,.

Intelligent design is not backed by any standard scientific research or evidence from experimentation. It's just not true. It's just absolutely not true. In fact, if you look into creationism and you look at the men who believe in creationism, they're legitimate scientists.

We've had some at this church. Some of you haven't been here long enough, but we've had Dr. Jonathan Sarfati here at our church.

Ph .D.

Highly credentialed Ph .D. to come here and teach on the subject of creation. Dr. Jason Lyle, very recently, has sort of risen to some notoriety having written some books on creation.

Astrophysicist.

Ph .D.'d astrophysicist who believes in the Genesis account of the Bible and defends it. In fact, he wrote a book on stargazing, which I'm buying. I haven't got it yet, but I'm ordering it. And I want to read it, and then I want to give it to my atheist relative, who I know is at least willing to read things I give him.

So I'm going to take it and read it.

It's a beautiful book.

It's color photos and everything. Very nice.

And I want him to have it.

Because even though I know evidence can't change his heart, only God can change his heart, I can still put the evidence in front of him. I can still say, here is the truth. And that's what I plan to do.

But I'm going to read it first. You know. But there are men like Dr. Sarfati, Dr. Jason Lyle. Who was the gentleman we had here just a few months ago? Don would know. We had Eric Hoven here, but he's not a scientist.

He's a creation speaker, but he's not a PhD. Don't worry about it. You don't have to look it up. But we had another gentleman here. And he made a point. He said, there's a lot more people in the scientific community that believe in creation, but they're not willing to say anything because of what it can do to their livelihood.

Same with global warming. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things out there that people just won't speak about because it deals with their... Like I said, we've already lost the court of public opinion.

In the last hundred years, we've lost the battle in the court, the actual legal system.

Exactly.

So we're in a situation where when someone says it's unscientific, I'm not a scientist. I don't play one on TV. So I don't stand here as a evolutionist, a biologist, or evolutionary biologist. I don't stand here as a geologist.

I don't stand here as an astrophysicist. All I can do is tell you what they've said. The men have written about this. But I stand here as a man who believes the word of God, and I can tell you what God has said.

And I can tell you that everything that we see in the world is compatible with what God has said. That's the point. Nothing that we see in the world is incompatible with what God has said. So what I want to do tonight, as we begin to draw to a close, and that was a pretty lengthy introduction, because that was the introduction.

I told you I wasn't going to get... because here's the rest of the notes. I told you I had to break it in half. What I want to do is I want to give you three terms that you need to understand. The terms that are on your list are Darwinism, Intelligent Design, and Creationism.

Because in the weeks to come, as I'm teaching on this, these three subjects, these three words, are going to be thrown around. And if you don't understand what they are, then you may get a little lost in what I'm saying.

So it's important that you understand what Darwinism is, what Intelligent Design is, and what Creationism is. Number one. Darwinism is the belief that life came about independent of a supernatural creator.

Life came about independent of a supernatural creator. Life came about.

Independent.

Of a supernatural creator. That's the key to Darwinism, is that you don't need a creator or even an intelligent designer that the universe itself has life in it apart from any act of an intelligent or superior being.

I want to quote. You don't have to write this. But this is a quote on Darwinism. All species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.

That's the definition of Darwinism and its useful tool. The useful tool of Darwinism is called natural selection. The reason why we are where we are today is because the nature that exists, the laws of nature and physics selected certain organisms to survive and certain organisms to not survive.

And we are at the highest point now of the evolutionary chain. But one day we'll go away and there will be a higher evolved species.

Than us.

How many of you ever saw Jurassic Park? Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

In the movie Jurassic Park, Dr. Ian Malcolm,.