Engaging Tim Keller on Theistic Evolution: Part I

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Welcome to the

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Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, to finish, hopefully this week, our study that we began in 2022,

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Engaging with Keller. It's a book that was published in 2013 by a number of Presbyterian theologians and pastors.

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The subtitle is Thinking Through the Theology of an Influential Evangelical. And for those who have been with me on this journey, this side project, if you will,

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I think it's been very enlightening. It's been very educational. It's been very helpful for those of you who are going to churches where Keller's very appreciated and perhaps his material is used and you haven't known what to say.

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You know, there's something wrong. There's something that doesn't sit well with you. But now you have some words to put with that and some citations.

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And for those who are patrons, of course, you have access to the PowerPoint. And at this point,

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I think we're up to what? Almost 70 slides. Let's see. Yeah. 72 slides. And more coming because we still have one more chapter.

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But we've already gone through, last year, Keller's doctrine of sin, his understanding of hell and the

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Trinity, and the church's mission, his hermeneutic. And now we're going to talk about theistic evolution. And of course, this is adding to material

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I've already put out there on Tim Keller. I did a very extensive, deep dive into Keller's political beliefs and his social justice ideas.

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And I think you could make the argument that's one of the big keys to understanding him.

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But I think you could even take a step back and say, you know, there's something maybe more basic. And that's what I've been realizing as I've been going over this book,

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Engaging with Keller, that it's not just that Keller is a social justice warrior or that he's a new left guy from the 60s who never really changed his political beliefs and is jamming

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Christianity into that. It's not that. As much as perhaps it is this. Tim Keller is very shrewd, and he looks at the world that he inhabits.

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He lives in New York City, and he sees opposition to Christianity. He sees a lot of opposition to Christianity.

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He sees atheism. He sees all kinds of Eastern religions and maybe even

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Islam. I mean, New York City has not just a rabid secularism, but it has objections coming at you from just about every angle.

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And Tim Keller sees this. Most probably, especially he sees the secularism, but he's in some ways, some people would consider him an apologist.

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He's looking at this situation he finds himself in, and he thinks, you know, things are becoming more and more secularized, more and more anti -Christian, doesn't seem to be changing.

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I think the best thing to do for Christians right now who are thought leaders, pastors, leaders, intellectuals, is to try to forge a path forward that will be compelling.

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I think that's his big, the word that he uses probably more than winsome. The Gospel Coalition used winsome for years.

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I'm wondering if they're going to do that anymore now that it's been so made fun of. But I think the word that Tim Keller uses more often is compelling.

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He wants to try to make Christianity compelling to people who are on the political left generally and anti -Christian, whether that's a secular secularism with a new age veneer, or it's

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Islam with some kind of, I don't know, anti -Christian

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Judaism with some kind of anti -Christian bent. And Keller's in an environment where Christianity is very stereotyped.

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It's a cartoon to a lot of the people that live in the world that he lives in. They don't think past what the

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New York Times perhaps says about Christianity, and Keller's very aware of this. And so I think that colors a lot of the views that he has.

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He wants to take attributes of God that aren't palatable, that aren't compelling in his mind, and he wants to downplay those.

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He wants to take attributes of God that are compelling, and he wants to try to emphasize those. We saw that with his doctrine of sin and hell and the

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Trinity and how he changes these doctrines for an audience that would be very turned off by the traditional and standard ways of explaining these doctrines and really just the basic biblical teaching on them.

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And Keller wants to show that not just Christianity, but the church itself has a significant social net positive factor or use.

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That it's not some archaic institution that has no bearing on today's society, but actually it's very relevant for the lives that people in New York City in particular are living.

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And so the church becomes an engine not just for evangelism, for making disciples, it becomes a social justice instrument.

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And by doing that, by framing it that way, the church gains credibility in the eyes of people who already think that social justice is one of the most important things.

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We've talked about all this. I'm just reviewing. Of course, in order to do all this, you have to have a hermeneutic that's not the grammatical historical hermeneutic.

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You need to have something that will allow you to approach scripture in such a way that you can,

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I'm just going to say manipulate because I don't know what other word to use here, but change some of these core doctrines, tweak them a little bit, rearrange some things, emphasize certain things that maybe aren't emphasized in scripture, ignore some things, downplay them that are emphasized in scripture, but aren't very compelling.

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And so we went over Tim Keller's hermeneutic and his inconsistent hermeneutic really. And now we're coming to the point of talking about evolution.

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Now I want to talk about this from my own perspective, just a little bit before we get into Keller's view on this, just so people know a little bit of where I'm coming from.

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On this particular topic of creation and evolution, I grew up in a house that was very anti -Darwinian evolution.

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My dad would even make comments when we were at museums, I was looking at maybe a display case and he would share the biblical view right in front of other people that contradicted what we were seeing.

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And so it was important. Both my parents had science backgrounds and that was a big thing for them.

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And so I was pretty grounded in, I would say, a young earth creationist view from when

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I was pretty young. I did have some Christian friends who did believe otherwise, whether it was old earth creationism or it was theistic evolution, and I had some family members in that category as well.

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And I think the saving grace in my mind was I would console myself with the idea that they were just ignorant and hadn't really thought through things enough because they would take

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Genesis 1 as figurative, it wasn't literal, we shouldn't take it literally, it's not a historical narrative.

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But then when it comes to the Gospels or the Exodus narrative, of course, the rules changed.

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And so I thought, well, they're just being inconsistent and they're still Christians and everything.

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They're not heretics, but they just haven't thought through things right. Well, when I got to seminary, that whole paradigm that I had relied on for years was challenged by professors who really had thought through things, at least they should have.

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And there were multiple professors that disagreed not just with young earth creationism, but they held to forms of theistic evolution.

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Darwinian evolution merged with the creation account. And I remember being in class once and I had a professor who was open to theistic evolution and I think held at the very least to old earth creationism.

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And there was only one other student who I remember was willing to stand with me against what the professor was saying in a nice way.

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But I was surprised in a class of maybe, I don't know, 30 students or so, there was only one other student who was willing to say something, it was just interesting to me,

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I was a little surprised. These are people who are studying to be missionaries and pastors. And I remember another professor,

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I went to a Bible study at his house, basically ripping into Ken Ham and ripping into young earth creationism as just not true.

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And I was sitting there and I thought, wow, I wonder if it occurred to this professor that there might be people, yours truly, who would agree with young earth creationism.

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And the intellectual disdain that I saw, it took me back because I was used to that at secular university.

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I remember, especially in biology class, there were a few Christians who attended who were also creationists and we challenged the biology professor.

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I mean, it became one of those fault lines, probably one of the most definitive fault lines that I noticed in college between Christians and non -Christians was this belief in creation.

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And when I saw in the higher levels of Christian academia, the same disdain, condescension, pride that I was used to seeing.

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In fact, I didn't even see it quite as bad, perhaps, in university by professors who were ardent evolutionists weren't quite as arrogant as some of the theological professors that I ran into who were pro evolution or old earth creationism.

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So anyway, this kind of threw me back and I had to start thinking through what do

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I really believe about this? Do I think that people who have really thought through this and have come to the conclusion that God used a biological process of evolution, of natural selection to bring about the human race, do

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I really think that those people are Orthodox believers and this is a secondary issue or is this a primary issue?

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And I've come to the conclusion this is just for everyone's benefit. So, you know where I'm coming from before I get into this situation with Tim Keller, because I'm really making this video primarily for people who already see things the way that I see them, or at least in general,

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I'm not making a video here to reinvent the wheel and to give you a lot of good information on creationism because it would take way too long.

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It would be a series, right? And so I'm kind of I want to give you the assumption that I'm bringing to the table already.

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And that is that I think there's significant problems on a whole host of levels, but most notably theologically,

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I think there's a significant problem when you adopt a belief that has death before sin, the curse before the reason for the curse.

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And there's all kinds of other areas that this touches.

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This touches, I mean, Moses believed in a literal six day creation.

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I mean, this is what the whole concept of the seventh day resting, the Sabbath is based upon. You have

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Jesus who seemed to treat the Genesis narrative as a literal historical event.

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If you deny that the Genesis narrative is a literal historical event, you start running into problems in your theology in these other places.

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You can, I think, make mincemeat out of other passages because you've already set a precedent in Genesis.

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And so it affects the whole way you view scripture. And so my goal in reading scripture, including

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Genesis, is to try to, to the best of my ability, exercise a grammatical historical hermeneutic to understand what the author meant, understand in context what is being communicated, and not to try to take modern ideas and popular sentiments and cram them into the text or eisegetically read things that would be convenient for Christians in the academy or in other places hostile to Orthodox Christianity into the

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Bible so that I can somehow save Christianity or make

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Christianity look good or palatable to people who believe otherwise. So I'm okay with Christianity or the biblical account offending people.

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That's not a problem for me. I don't feel embarrassed by it. I feel, in fact, in some ways embarrassed that there's a lot of educated people out there who think that we all evolve through this process that is without basis, that is so farfetched, that is really very fantastical.

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And yet some of these same people will claim to deny miracles because for the same reasons, they'll say it's too fantastical.

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It's just farfetched and they can't conceive of it. So I think that believing we came from a rock 4 .6

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billion years ago and we came from this primordial soup and we have never really observed this.

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We've observed speciation and microevolution, but we've never observed this kind of,

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I'm going to use the biblical term of kinds, one kind becoming another kind. We've never seen this, but yet there's a whole lot of faith in that, that that explains who we are today.

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And of course, this has other implications of social and moral implications. And so I feel sorry for people who believe that it's not a lot of stability.

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It's honestly kind of a dismal outlook in life. And I just don't see any basis for it being true.

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So now that you know where I'm coming from, and I don't think it's biblical either, in case I didn't say that now, you can either turn off this podcast or if you're in agreement with me, if you see things this way, we can now examine what

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Tim Keller believes about this particular subject, because you're going to find his belief is very different than what I just described my belief as being.

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And I want to start off, I debated whether I should start off with the contents of this book because it's a short chapter, but the

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I want to give you the author's critique. That's what I've been doing all along. Or if I should just start with about a 10 minute video that I prepared of some clips from Keller talks and we should go over it.

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And I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to start off with the Keller video. Normally I end with the

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Keller video, but I'm going to start with the Keller video. We're going to watch it together and I'm going to give you some thoughts as we go through.

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And then I'm going to take you through a presentation on what the author in engaging with Keller has to say about Keller's view of theistic evolution.

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So let's start here. This is a talk from Tim Keller.

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It was posted on YouTube on November 11th, 2019, but I'm pretty sure this is an older talk and I don't know when it was from.

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It's just the quality of the microphone sounds to me like it was probably in the early 2000s or maybe before 2010.

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I'm just not sure. But this is a leader talk. According to the YouTube video that Tim Keller gave on evolution and science.

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And I want to listen to some of this. Every person in New York is under the impression that anybody who has a high view of the

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Bible thinks the Bible is the word of God and that sort of thing has to hold to modern creation science,

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MCS. And this belief is regularly conveyed in the media. First of all, the

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New York Times gives you the impression all the time. If you're a born again Christian, you believe in creation science. And the proponents of creation science give you the very, very same impression.

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And they do this all the time. So when the New York Times and a whole lot of Christians are working together, it's going to be effective because it's not many of the things that they are in agreement on.

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And that is a lot of Christians say, if you really hold a high view of the Bible, you also have to believe in modern creation science.

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I'm just here to tell you in about three or four minutes, that's just not true. And I'm proof because I don't believe it.

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And all you have to know is that not all Christians believe it in order to just move back on to more central issues in the gospel.

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Now, I want to just point out that two things. First, Keller is starting this off with, and this is probably just the subject of his talk.

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So it's about communicating Christian truths to an audience that's honestly hostile.

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It's New Yorkers, and that's what he says. And he's he's framing things for that particular audience, hostile

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New Yorkers or secular New Yorkers, people who would not be inclined to readily accept the claims of Christianity.

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And so this is Keller's view is very tailor made for those kinds of people.

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He's forming his view with them on the mind. And I think that that's a dangerous place to start any theological discussion.

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This is where you have to be careful if you're into apologetics and your goal is to just really come up with super great answers that are sound good and can be used effectively.

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Because if you instead of starting with the question, what is true?

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What does the Bible teach? What does Christianity teach? If you start off with what is the main objection that others have and how can

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I rearrange this teaching or communicate this teaching or tweak this teaching to make it acceptable to them or less offensive to them, then you can get in very dangerous waters very quickly.

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So the question Tim Keller wants to start off with here is the second thing I want to point out is whether or not you can be a

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Christian and believe in this and theistic evolution or really the way he puts it is in a more of a negative.

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Can you deny young earth creationism or creation science, I think is what he says. And can you be a Christian?

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And so here's the obvious answer, I think, that even a young earth creationist is going to tell you, yes, you can be a

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Christian and you can lack a belief in young earth creationism.

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In fact, it might be something that you haven't thought of yet or creation science will say. In fact, there's probably a lot of other fundamental doctrines that you might lack any view on and any developed view and still be a

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Christian is the new Christian who's just been saved, who's just heard the gospel for the first time and repents and puts their faith in Jesus Christ.

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And God does a work in their life and they have the Holy Spirit, but they've never really thought through, let's say, the

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Trinity. They haven't really learned about who God is in God's fullness.

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They just know that they're saved, that Jesus saved them and that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice and they know that he's

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God, perhaps, but they just they haven't really thought through the Holy Spirit and God the Father and the connection between these three persons.

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Are they Christians? Well, we would say, yes, of course, they're Christians. They just haven't gotten there yet.

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They are going to be discipled or they're going to read the Bible. They're going to learn about that stuff. Would it be appropriate for me then?

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Let's say we lived in a world where that was the real sticking point. It's not in our society as much, but let's say it is.

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Would it be appropriate for me to say, well, it's just not true when someone tells you that you need to believe in the

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Trinity in order to be a Christian? Well, that'd be very misleading. I mean, technically,

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I could say, well, yeah, of course, I guess you can lack a belief in the Trinity and still be a

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Christian as possible. I can think of a young Christian who might just not have thought through those things. But to phrase it in such a way that seems to suggest that one can continue.

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And in fact, Tim Keller himself being a pastoral figure here, you can continue for years and educate yourself on this particular topic of the

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Trinity and then deny it. Well, that's a little bit different. Right. And so I think that Keller, the way he's framing this is to his advantage, very much so with an audience of hostile

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New York City people, because it makes it seem it really what it does is it takes that objection,

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I think, out of their hands. It says, look, if you object to creation science, hey, that's not really an issue.

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You can deny or object to it and still be a Christian. So don't worry about that.

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And you can move on to other supposedly more important things. I would say that actually this is a focal point.

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This is I'm not saying you have to make every witnessing encounter this, but if it comes up, that's not a bad place to have your encounter.

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Now, if you want to try to get to Christ and what Christ has done, but if you have someone with such a fundamental objection that they don't even believe, let's say that God created this world or they they just they have such a hang up over the veracity of scripture because of its teaching on creation, then that might be the place you need to actually have the discussion.

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I think that's a smarter way to go about this apologetically. If you have a Muslim, let's say, who denies the

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Trinity, that might be the place you need to have your discussion instead of trying to just put that on the shelf and say, well, listen, you can be a

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Christian and not hold to a Trinitarian belief or to be ignorant of a Trinitarian belief and just see past that.

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And let's talk about Jesus right now or something like that. That's that could be incredibly unhelpful because you're not addressing what's going to be a nagging problem for them.

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It's going to be a fundamental issue. And it's it could be the very thing that God uses actually to bring them to a knowledge of himself and to gain confidence in the word of God.

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And so I think what Keller's doing and what he's proposing is a strategy for getting around this objection. And what

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I'm suggesting is that actually this objection is where perhaps you need to focus if it's coming up and if it's such a barrier.

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See, so take a look. Here's how the Defeater works. They think, look at this little paragraph, people think all

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Christians believe in MCS, but we know that, you know, modern Christian science is absurd. Therefore, three, classic Christianity can't be true.

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And that's a lot of people in New York are walking around like that. The tragedy here is it's unnecessary. We've seen that macroevolution, the big issue, you know, everything has evolved.

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Everything's evolved from the simplest forms. It's all an accident. That, of course, is a paradigm that you can't believe and be a

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Christian. But just look up here. I won't read this part. It doesn't mean that you couldn't be a

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Christian and believe in microevolution. There are people who believe, for example, that God started evolution and brought most things into effect through evolution, that he directed it.

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That's kind of where the official Roman Catholic Church teaching is. Secondly, there's a lot of people who believe in what you might call special creation or progressive creation, that there were a series of creative acts by God over time.

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Now, turn over to page nine. If you want to know what

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I'm telling you at the bottom of page eight and nine again, just look up here. I just want to say it is confusing in this particular talk.

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Keller defines macroevolution as more of a worldview, a way of looking at all of.

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I'm paralleling it with some of the writings that he's made, but it's a way of looking at the entirety of life through this evolutionary paradigm.

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And I think that's what he means by macroevolution and that everything is explained through this naturalistic process.

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Microevolution, he seems to suggest you could have.

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It is biological evolution where you can have one kind turning into another kind over the process of time and natural selection, which generally in my mind, that's what macroevolution is.

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So he's using terms in ways that are different than the way I think most of us are probably used to hearing these terms.

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Generally, macroevolution or speciation is the differences that we can see in, let's say, different dog breeds or the finches in the

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Galapagos Islands that Darwin saw. They had different sized beaks, but they're still all finches. That's generally what macroevolution is defined as, or my understanding, at least, that I've heard my whole life from people on both sides of this.

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Keller's confusing here, but I just want you to know, I think what he what he's saying, because he's said this in other places as well, is that you can hold to a

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Darwinian belief. You just can't have you can't hold to it in so tightly that it becomes a worldview for you and that everything is explained through it.

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Darwin first showed up and posited the theory of evolution. The fact is, the average conservative

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Christian was ambivalent and open to it. Like R .A.

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Tauri, who is the editor of The Fundamentals. Now, you know what The Fundamentals are? The Fundamentals were a series of books put out in the early, like 1910 to 1915.

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And they are the they are the books that gave us the word fundamentalist.

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They're the books that talked about the virgin birth and the inerrancy of the Bible. And this is what Christians believe.

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And the editor of The Fundamentals thought that he said, he says, you can believe in the infallibility of the

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Bible and be an evolutionist of a certain kind of a certain kind. B .B. Warfield, who was the taught at Princeton Seminary and was the great hero and defender of the inerrancy of the scripture.

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He believed in evolution of a certain kind. But then there was a few guys. Now, look at the top page nine.

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George McCready Price, who was a Seventh -day Adventist and a couple other people, began to teach something way back and very few people believed it.

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But then a guy, then John C. Whitcomb and Henry Morris put out a book in 1961 called

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The Genesis Flood. And that began a movement amongst evangelical Christians and they adopted creation science.

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And creation science has two basic pillars. The first is a young earth. They believe that basically the earth happened only a few thousand years ago.

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And the idea of long, long periods of time is a fiction. It's a it's a it's an illusion. And the second thing they believe in is a worldwide flood.

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Now, some of you may say, wait a minute, where I came from, all Christians believe this. Look, look at me.

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I'm a Christian. I don't believe it. And all you have to do is know that. The issue, as I said before, is that instead of starting off with what is true, what does the

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Bible teach? How do we communicate it? He's starting off with a different question. How do we get around this objection that worldly people have in New York City to Christianity?

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And that's the barrier of denying Darwinian evolution and believing in some kind of a modern creation science.

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And he's trying to give them ammo by saying, well, you can point to me, you can at least cite me, even if you believe in this creation science stuff, at least you can tell people, well,

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Tim Keller doesn't. And so if Tim Keller doesn't, then he's a good Christian. He's a believer.

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You can still be a believer and maintain your belief against creation science and for Darwin Darwinism.

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And and then that's perfectly acceptable. And so it doesn't actually answer any questions.

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It's just it's a man centered approach. It's just trying to make things palatable, take down barriers or objections that people might have that are legitimate questions that honestly should be answered.

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And smart people should be asking those questions. I mean, if you have a Bible that is lying to you about the creation account and about a worldwide flood, then why believe what it says about Jesus being a true man who lived on this earth?

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100 percent God, 100 percent man died on the cross for your sins, was raised the third day. Why should you believe any of that either?

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I mean, it's a valid question, right? So I think Keller's actually giving his people a handicap by trying to get them to approach it this way.

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But I do want to say this when it comes to B .B. Warfield and to R .A.

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Torrey, I don't really know exactly what Torrey's beliefs were. There was some kind of an openness there, I suppose, to some sort of older creationism or theistic evolution.

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I'm not sure exactly. And with Warfield, I'm pretty sure he was more positive about Darwinism.

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Those guys aren't the standard. Now, it's one of the things I do want to say,

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I don't know if this is 100 percent an answer to this objection that why and why there are theologians from the past who seem solid in other areas who seem to be open to Darwinian evolution.

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One of the things that I do think about in regards to this is the fact that these men lived at the turn of the century that he's citing, at least.

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And it was a time when their evolution was very popular, Darwinian evolution.

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It was taking over all the biology departments. And if you were a scientist, that was the thing you really needed to believe.

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It was it was just extremely popular. And there wasn't a lot of resources out there like there is today.

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There's a lot more resources today on this particular subject. There's been more research done. There's been more even

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I would say even research into or development, I should say, would be the better word into what the

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Bible teaches on the subject than there was back then. There's more accessible resources.

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And so that doesn't excuse someone like a B .B. Warfield, but I think it does at least give you somewhat of an under an understanding or a little more of a sympathy for people in that position at that time.

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I don't agree with them. I don't think they should have gone down that road. I think they should have seen clearly that this was a threat to the biblical text and to a very straightforward understanding of it.

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But given the times in which they lived, it is a little bit more understandable back then than it is, I think, today with the resources we have even just available if you have an

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Internet connection on this subject. So they're not the standard, but I figured I'd at least mention that.

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Let's keep going here and listen to what what more Tim Keller has to say here.

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Well, I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. All you got to do is know that because when you talk to somebody who says, well, I can't believe that creation science stuff.

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If you say, well, you have to if you want to be a Christian, you may not say that. But if you even begin to argue at that point, you know, you are saying that just say

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I'm trying to be practical and pastoral here. When you argue for creation science, when you argue and say

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I can prove evolution is wrong, you are saying this person, if you want to become a Christian in my church at Redeemer, you're going to have to buy this whole thing.

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OK, that's where it gets ridiculous in my mind. Tim Keller is think about the

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Trinity. I drew that parallel earlier. I said, all right, you could be a Christian and not believe in the Trinity. Right. Or at least you you lack a belief because you just haven't read the

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Bible yet. You haven't developed your view of who God actually is. It hasn't come together. All right. Let's say you went to someone, you started saying, well, look, if you're

31:41

Christian, you need to believe the Trinity. Is that a true statement? Yeah, it's a true

31:46

Christian belief. It's very fundamental Christian doctrine, actually. And so, yeah, if you're a Christian, you do need to believe the

31:52

Trinity. Does that mean that you're not a Christian until you believe in the Trinity?

31:57

No, but it's just basic Christianity. It's basic Christian teaching. You can't deny the

32:02

Trinity and still say you're an Orthodox Christian. So, I mean, this presents a challenge.

32:08

So Tim Keller seems to now make a switch here. He's saying first that you can he's implying you can lack a belief in creation science and and that's fine.

32:19

You're still a Christian. But now he's turning it to and if you try to give someone the impression that they need to believe this, that this is part of Christianity, well, you you're to be condemned.

32:30

You're in the wrong and you're you need to stop doing what you're doing. And that's where I would say, no, hold on.

32:36

If that's if it's true. Right. And he's talking to people here by you can tell that might be mixed on this.

32:44

Some people might believe it. Some people might not. But he's trying to transcend this disagreement. But for the people who actually believe this and think the

32:51

Bible teaches this, they don't have that option. This is a very fundamental understanding.

32:58

I mean, it's really at the base of the entire Bible. It's the first two pages of your Bible. Three pages of your

33:04

Bible are going to be this foundational story about where we came from. And a worldwide flood even brought that into it.

33:11

He denies the worldwide flood. I mean, this is getting into the nature of God's judgment itself.

33:17

I mean, like I said, this touches a lot of other things. And this is where you know,

33:23

I don't I can't prove this one hundred percent, but I get a sense that Keller's fearful when he talks like this, that he he's maybe he's embarrassed.

33:30

I don't know. But he doesn't like it when people representing Christianity go out there, even from his church.

33:36

You'll hear you'll hear later in the talk and they start giving people the impression that they need to believe in young earth creationism or creation science or the deny

33:46

Darwinian evolution completely. He doesn't like that. He doesn't want he thinks it's something that people should not be focusing on.

33:55

And that's his focus, really. That's his message. Don't focus on that. And that's that's where there's a problem.

34:03

And he's sidestepping the whole discussion of, is it true? Is it true? What does the Bible teach?

34:09

Not fair. It's not right. I think it'd be a whole lot better to say you don't have to buy that.

34:15

You know, you may even say, here's what I believe, but a lot of other Christians believe differently. And that's all you need to know, actually.

34:22

And if you wonder about that, what I've done here at the bottom, let's see, here's what's interesting. I don't know much about evolution.

34:28

I don't know much about science. Don't know. Anyway, but I do know something about the

34:35

Bible. I am a professional in the Bible. And I want you to know that Genesis one is written in an unbelievably different style than Genesis two.

34:45

Genesis one is a chant. There are 50 repetitions and there was light and it was good.

34:51

And the evening, the morning and the evening in the morning and evening and morning, you get to Genesis two and it's all stops. None of the repetition.

34:57

It is an utterly different style. Utterly different. One is a chant. One is a historical narrative.

35:04

Second thing is that the order of things in Genesis one and the order of things in Genesis two is different. In Genesis two, it says that God could not put vegetation out there yet because it hadn't rained.

35:18

So Genesis two is assuming that God doesn't have to do it. It's assuming a natural order to things. Let's stop right there.

35:24

There's two things Keller just said that I want to point out. One is that Genesis one is unbelievably different than Genesis two.

35:30

He wants a big barrier there, a big separation between Genesis one and Genesis two on the basis of literary genre instead of on the basis of focus.

35:40

The focus of Genesis one is different than the focus of Genesis two. Genesis one, if you read it. In fact,

35:46

I can challenge you if you haven't in a while, maybe stop the video and go read it. It's very straightforward. It is a description.

35:53

It is sequential. It is very factual. It tells you details. If there is a poetic element, it's not like the poetry we're used to in Hebrew parallelism in the

36:05

Psalms. It is it is giving you what happened. And I mean, just read it.

36:12

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

36:19

Then God said, let there be light. And there was light. God saw that the light was good. The whole thing is this happened and here's how it happened.

36:27

And then this happened. And then this happened. And it gives you the days of creation. Now, if you go to Genesis chapter two, what's the shift?

36:35

Is it a literary shift? It's a completely different genre of literature now that has a different rule of interpretation.

36:43

Or is it actually focusing more on one of the days of creation, the sixth day? And I think a straightforward reading is going to show you it's just focusing on the sixth day.

36:51

It's zooming in on what man was doing at that time, what pertains to man, the day that God created man, what happened that day.

37:00

And Keller, the second thing is he wants to try to put a wrench in this gear system of creationists by saying, well, look at the difference between the plants in Genesis chapter two and Genesis chapter one, because in Genesis chapter two, it says in verse five, that no shrub of the field was yet in the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprouted for the

37:19

Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to cultivate the ground. So he's saying, look, there's no plants because there's no man yet.

37:27

Well, how does that factor? How does that jive with Genesis chapter one in verse 11, where it says that God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, plant yielding seeds and fruit trees on the earth, bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them.

37:41

And it was so. Well, a few things, the main one being this, if you look at Genesis chapter two, verse five, you're going to notice two terms and your phrases in Hebrew.

37:54

The first is translated shrub of the field. The second is plant of the field. And these two particular phrases are different than the ones that you find, the terms you find in Genesis chapter one.

38:09

This is a shrub is like a bush. You have a plant of the field would be like herbs or weeds that are pasteurized.

38:21

Or there's an organization that man has brought that, I mean, from the context, I think we can see that man is bringing a cultivation to this.

38:30

In Genesis 3 .18, I'm just going to go there real quick. It says that both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you and you will eat the plants of the field.

38:41

And this is the curse that God has placed on man after man sinned. Well, the same phrase is used here, plants of the field.

38:47

That's what you're going to eat, man. That's different though, than verse 18, thorns and thistles.

38:52

Are they not both plants? Are they not both things that grow? Of course they are. They're both things that grow.

38:58

Yet there's a difference between plants of the field and thorns and thistles. If you go back to Genesis 1 .11,

39:06

it uses three different terms, vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees.

39:13

These are three different phrases than what you find in 2 .5.

39:19

And so it's very possible, and it's not a problem to say that God did actually plant or produce or make or create plants before,

39:31

I should say, man was created on day six, that there were plants here, but they weren't the specific plants that God's talking about in chapter two, verse five.

39:40

That there's certain plants that man and rain needed to be there for.

39:47

And so, I mean, he says that even in the next verse, verse six of chapter two, but a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.

39:54

I don't know what the point of a mist watering the surface of the ground is if there weren't any plants, I'm not sure. But my whole point really is that there's really no reason to try to force a contradiction here between chapters one and two, when there really isn't an obvious contradiction in the text.

40:10

And the straightforward reading is going to show you that actually, it seems like there's just a shift in focus, not a shift in literary genre.

40:18

And Keller wants to make it like this big, big, big thing when it doesn't seem to be a big, big, big thing.

40:24

And you have to ask yourself why, why is Keller so concerned about this? Why does he want to make, is it so important to him to make

40:31

Genesis one so different than Genesis two? And I would submit to you that if it's not that way, that he is forced then to face a very challenging situation, because he's going to have to tell the people in New York who are ardently against creation science and young earth creationism, he's going to have to tell them something that they will not accept.

40:54

That will be a big barrier, a big objection that they'll have. And if you're trying to convince people that Christianity is true, and you're trying to get them to be members of your church and to receive

41:04

Jesus Christ and all of that, then this is just a liability, right? Having this young earth creation stuff.

41:11

And so I'm trying to create this huge barrier between chapters one and two will prevent creation science from gaining a foothold or young earth creationism or whatever he's so concerned about.

41:22

Genesis two is assuming that there's going to be an atmosphere and there's going to be rain before there's going to be vegetation. But in Genesis one, you have vegetation on day three.

41:31

You don't even have an atmosphere until day four because you don't have sun, moon, or stars. Okay. So he's saying you don't have an atmosphere till day four.

41:38

That's not true though. If you just look at the order in Genesis one says that God said, let there be light and there was light.

41:45

There was already light here before there was sun, moon, and stars. And in fact, this shouldn't be hard for Christians because Jesus is also going to be the source of light in the new heaven.

41:56

So I don't know why this is such a problem if it was that way in the beginning of creation perhaps, but so you have light already and you already had an expanse in the midst of the waters that separated the waters from the waters.

42:14

And, and so just because there was no sun, moon, and stars yet, doesn't mean that you didn't have an atmosphere of some kind, or I mean, he's reading into this things that aren't actually in the text.

42:27

This is an obvious one. I don't really have to say anything more about that. It's just read the, read the chapter and you'll see very clearly that Keller is off on this.

42:35

Genesis one is not following a natural order. Genesis two is. Genesis one is, is in the form of a kind of chant or a song.

42:41

Genesis two is not. And Genesis one and Genesis two are absolutely talking about the same issue.

42:48

So you either think that the editor of Genesis. They're absolutely talking about the same issue. That's actually where Keller's wrong.

42:55

They're not absolutely talking about the same issue. Genesis two is focusing on the creation of man and woman.

43:02

Genesis chapter one is talking about the every day of creation. Those are different focuses.

43:08

Stupidly took two creation accounts and slapped them together. And they kind of contradict, and that's what a lot of modern liberal critical scholars have taught over the years, or you can believe that the author of Genesis was first telling us in a very lyrical way, something about the meaning of creation and then chapter one, and then in chapter two, telling us something about how it happened.

43:30

Problem is you see how it happened. The how question is in both chapters. In fact,

43:36

Genesis one is full of the description of how God is the very way God, uh, acted in every single day of creation.

43:46

So there really isn't this big, sharp distinction that he's trying to make. It's, it's in both and trying to give us a deeper meaning.

43:52

That's the thing that you hear. A lot of people say who want to really make Genesis one to mean nothing.

43:58

They say it's just such a deeper meaning there. That is such a very, um, it's, it's like reading the

44:04

Psalms and you find these deeper spiritual truths. I'm not saying there's not deeper spiritual truths, but, uh, you also have some very factual, very sequential descriptions here and Genesis chapter two seems to actually be the chapter that gets deeper into the significance of what creation means as it pertains to man.

44:24

So, uh, I could make the argument. It's very easy to make the argument that actually Genesis two is the chapter where there's deeper spiritual insights that come out, uh, concerning us and concerning how we relate to God.

44:36

But, uh, Keller's trying to put that more so in Genesis chapter one. True.

44:42

We don't know much about how it happened at all, that God just doesn't tell us that. Now that's how

44:47

I've read Genesis for years. Not because I think I want to open the door to evolution at all, but just because I think

44:53

I'm trying to be true to the text. All, if you are upset by what I just said, don't be upset. I'm not trying to convince you that creation science isn't true.

45:02

But that's what you just did. He just created this big barrier between Genesis one and two, which would mean creation science.

45:08

Isn't true. I mean, this is funny that Keller Keller does this kind of stuff. Um, we found, I think in this book going through it, that with a lot of the doctrines we've gone over Keller has this,

45:17

I'm going to call it like a safety. Uh, I don't know how the safety language, uh, kind of a rescuing device or a qualification that he's got to make where, uh, he, he just said a bunch of, he spouted a bunch of nonsense.

45:30

And then he's got to make a qualifying statement that lets you know that actually he's, he's still on board with you and you're not, uh, he he's not saying you're as crazy as you, you just thought he was saying you were.

45:42

And it's, it's terribly confusing because he just really did tell us that creation science is nonsense without saying it.

45:49

He basically did say that. And then he said, it's wrong to try to convince people that they have to believe that in order to be a

45:58

Christian. He then said, um, that there's this big distinction between these two chapters. And, uh, he, he really went to home on that.

46:05

And. Uh, and that if you try to slap these two things together, you just have these two contradictory creation accounts.

46:12

So you're forced into, you have to make one of them figurative. Well, if you do that, then you destroy any idea of creation science.

46:19

But now he's trying to come and say, no, I'm not against creation science. I'm just looking at the text and what the text says. I don't,

46:24

I don't believe the earth is young. And I don't believe that I don't think the Bible teaches that. I don't believe in a worldwide flood.

46:31

I don't think the Bible teaches that. And all you got to do is to know there's other people like me. You know,

46:37

I just, just, I proved to you, I could just take it. My word for it. I'm not unique. All right. So we're going to go over this in more detail as we get into the slideshow here.

46:45

But, uh, I just want to say that creationism, if you want to call it that, it is the belief that the earth is relatively young as being one of the features of modern creationism.

46:56

Which it is, uh, that is not, again, like the

47:01

Trinity, you're not going to find a verse that says the earth is this old, the earth is young, that's more of an argument based upon people who have gone through the genealogies in Genesis.

47:13

And they've, and maybe they've even in scientific ways, they've looked at geochronometers that suggest a younger earth.

47:21

Geochronometers are all over the place though. Some will suggest younger, some will suggest older. These are just ways of trying to date the planet because no one was here at the beginning to see when it was created.

47:30

And, uh, so it's, it's a very, it's a, it's a hard problem to solve. It's like, if you have a candle in a room and you walk in and you say, how long has this candle been burning?

47:39

Well, there's certain measurements. You can, you can figure out what the rate of the burn is. You can try to measure how much wax there is.

47:48

And if it's a, if it's a, one of those like evaporating wax candles, like you don't really have much hope. I mean, you could try to estimate what it must've looked like and, uh, how big it must've been and at the current rate where it would have been, but you don't know what the, if the current rate was always the rate, and so that's the problem with geochronometers, but, um, you know, there's geochronometers that go in every, every direction.

48:08

And, and so they're not the most reliable guide. Uh, if you're looking at the biblical text itself, uh, you're,

48:16

I mean, you're, you're not going to come up with millions of years, that's for sure. I mean, you can stretch it out maybe to 12 ,000 years or maybe some,

48:25

I don't know. Some people have said that you could try to get 20 ,000 years out of it or something by looking at all these different gaps that might've existed or, uh, most, most young earth creationists are between six and 10 ,000 years, six and 12 ,000.

48:39

They're in there most, most, I think being in the 6 ,000 to 8 ,000 range, you're not going to get millions and millions of years or billions of years.

48:47

And that's what evolutionary or Darwinian theory demands. It demands 4 .6 billion years for the earth.

48:54

Uh, that's, you're not going to get that. Um, and so anyway, that's, uh, one of the, the issues, um, here.

49:03

And I just want to let you know that as we go forward, and that's what you really have to do it. Be careful in helping people grow and D and dealing with their intellectual questions, not to shoot yourself in the foot.

49:15

I have seen people at Redeemer doing that recently, even where the non -believer wants to go. We're skipping now to a gospel coalition, uh, video.

49:24

This is Keller Moore and Duncan on the non -negotiable beliefs about creation from 2017.

49:31

So it's Russell Moore, Tim Keller, and Lincoln Duncan, all discussing this topic. And I just want to play you some of the

49:37

Keller quotes here so you can hear them. Um, I just want to point out though, that at the end of the, uh, the clip that you just heard from Keller giving this leadership talk, you,

49:47

I think the crux of the issue or the reason he's talking about it is that line. He said at the end that he's seen these people at Redeemer and it's, it's just embarrassing him or it's, it's a problem.

49:58

He doesn't want to see it anymore. People at Redeemer that are, um, uh, presumably advocating for some kind of a young earth creationism.

50:05

And he wants to kind of squelch that fire. Uh, so here's, uh, now Keller, uh, with this round table with Russell Moore, they actually want to talk about evolution creation right away, because they, they, they believe they, they want to talk about religion, uh, creation as a religion versus science battle.

50:21

You want to go back and say, let me give you all the reasons why Augustine actually said to the polytheists and the pagans of his day, your doctrine of creation is never going to lead to peace and justice in the world because you actually believe in multiple power centers and that the universe is just a result of a bunch of violent forces coming together.

50:42

And he says, so I am the Christian and I believe God made the world as a work of art, um, out of love and joy.

50:51

And, uh, he says that the Christian doctrine of creation is a basis for believing that it's possible to have a harmonious, just society.

51:01

I would rather push it back to things like that. And, and then

51:07

I have to say, secondly, I say, why though? That's the question. Why, why push it back?

51:12

Back to things like that. So I'm not saying it's not a compelling thing to say that, look, you live out your worldview.

51:19

I live out mine. Here's the difference. The thing is, it doesn't get to the heart of again, what is true.

51:28

Let's say it's true that believing some horrible things, uh, or believing some, uh, adopting some assumptions will lead to some horrible things.

51:39

Okay. Or there's some horrible suffering. Uh, I mean, I could say even with Christianity, I mean, if you assume

51:45

Christianity and what the Bible teaches, you're going to have to assume that a whole lot of people are going to eternal torment in hell, you know what

51:54

I mean? That doesn't sound too nice, right? It wouldn't be nicer to think through the, uh, from, uh,

52:01

I'm saying from a very humanist perspective here, you know, a non -Christian perspective, wouldn't it be nicer to think that all these supposedly good people that, you know, you, that lived are really just going to some place where they'll have a second chance or they cease to exist, or they, they're not going to be in suffering or they'll, they'll get into purgatory even, and they'll have an opportunity to eventually get into heaven.

52:23

Aren't those a lot nicer sounding things, right? I mean, this could be flipped on Tim Keller so easily.

52:29

In fact, it's more easy because what Tim Keller's talking about are temporary things, you know, this worldly things, uh, you know, it's nicer to believe in that this world is purposeful, that there's beauty in it and that God created it that way.

52:44

Of course it is. People know that instinctually. And it's, it's not nice to believe that it's this, uh, horrible place where there's really no true justice and no true love.

52:55

And it's just a dog eat dog world. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's kind of a dismal outlook if you really think about it, but for how long,

53:03

I mean, how much longer are you going to live? If you're 18 years old, you know, you're young, you're a teenager listening to this podcast.

53:10

How, how long do you have? You have a 80 years, maybe if you really live a long time.

53:16

Uh, what about eternity? What about eternal torment and suffering for people who don't receive

53:22

Christ, uh, die in their sins? Um, someone could easily flip this on Keller.

53:27

And I don't know that he, if he has thought through that or not, but if you make the crux of your argument that, and that's your strong argument,

53:35

I'm not saying not to ever use this or not to, because it does resonate with people. It is true that people, they don't really deep down believe that this earth is the process of a result of chaos and pure chance.

53:48

I think, um, it is worth pointing that out, but if you make that the crux of your argument, that it just conforms to an idea that you'd rather be true or, uh, something that, um, is just more pleasant to think about, or you, you just would prefer it above, uh, another vision for reality, then you're punting it back to man's opinion and what man really wants instead of what is true.

54:18

The relationship of creation to evolution isn't the heart here.

54:25

And I even say there are at least four or five or six different Orthodox Christian views of, of, of evolution and that sort of thing.

54:33

Let's not go there first. So first I go to the doctrine of creation, the relationship of God to creation, then I'd rather take them to Jesus and just skip that for the time being, though.

54:41

I know there's some people would say, no, they, you, you, you got to give them the right view of that. So how do you build it?

54:46

Okay. So, so yeah, Lincoln Duncan and Russell Moore nodding along. It's like, yeah, just skip through this stuff. Get straight, get, just try to get to Jesus.

54:53

There's going to be times for that. I'm not going to lie. I think there are times some of these objections, especially with there's young atheists.

55:01

I used to encounter this a lot who are just ready to go to war with you, but they haven't really dealt with the fact that their life is really terrible and they're dealing with their own issues.

55:14

And sometimes you need to, you need to address those things, but it takes discernment and wisdom. And sometimes that is where you need to have the, you need to, you, you can't retreat from the battlefield when you're being challenged on the truthfulness of Christianity.

55:27

You have to be solid there. If you want to say, look, there are answers for this. I would love to talk to you about it.

55:34

I'd love to get you answers, but I think there's something more important that we need to talk about for you. That's fine.

55:39

But don't just like, don't downplay it. Like it's really not the crux of the issue. It's really not that important.

55:45

It is important. And, uh, it's, it's, it could be for some, it might even be more important than whatever, um, personal issues they have or emotional issues they have or things that, uh, would be very, you would think at least it would be easier to bring up a discussion about Jesus in, uh, for some people that's their hangup.

56:06

They, they know the story of Jesus, but they're, they have just this hangup over creation evolution.

56:12

And maybe that's the time you need to talk about it. So I, Tim Keller is actually the one that's doing the more black and white thing here, uh, that he doesn't have his apologetic is not one that I think is capable of meeting all the various scenarios that you might come across.

56:27

You need to be able to, um, discern when it's the right time to talk about it. When it's not.

56:33

Justice and peace. When you say, well, nature is really all about power. I, I think that's where I go with a non -Christian first, all that with a

56:40

Christian, I do go to Adam and Eve too. I would say, look, there are a lot of different understandings of how old the earth is, and there's a lot of different understandings of what the days are in Genesis one.

56:53

And I, uh, and, and to what degree evolution was part of how God created things. And I would say there are several gradations.

57:00

And I said, there's four or five or six approaches there are. But I said, where I would stop is, uh, is with Adam and Eve.

57:08

And I would say not only was there... I just, I do, this is bothering me. I do want to point out, uh,

57:14

Keller's just said that there's four, there's as many as five Orthodox beliefs on creation evolution. So he's talking about all the different attempts to reconcile creation and evolution, he's saying, oh, there are the

57:24

Orthodox and Lincoln Duncan. I mean, I expect it from Russell Moore, but Lincoln Duncan's nodding along.

57:30

I didn't actually expect that because I'm used to seeing Lincoln Duncan at least. Before this was 2017.

57:36

So he was still speaking at the Shepherds conference. And I mean, he's still somewhat, uh, I don't know why anymore.

57:42

He wrote the four to woke church. I don't know why, but he's still some. What known as a conservative in the PCA. But, uh, it's interesting to me.

57:50

He's nodding along with this. No, there's not five Orthodox views on creation evolution. As soon as you're, uh, saying that man is evolved from primates.

58:01

There's death before sin. You don't have an Orthodox view. They're an actual Adam and Eve. Otherwise I do not understand how the

58:08

Pauline understanding of salvation works. I just don't know how Romans five works.

58:13

But I'd even say, look, I know what my Christians who are scientists tell me.

58:21

And that is, they say that all human beings were not genetically related to a human couple.

58:27

That's right now the consensus. I'll be honest. I'll just say, they say it's not the consensus.

58:33

It was a little group of people somewhere in sub -Saharan Africa. And that's where everybody came from.

58:40

Um, but when I read the text, I look and it says, it sure looks to me like it's saying that God created

58:45

Adam and Eve, uh, and he didn't just, uh, adopt a former, you know, human, you know, a human like being and adopt and put the image of God.

58:55

It doesn't seem like that's what it's saying. It says it created out of the dust of the ground. And, uh, and I do think in the end, even though I could be wrong in reading that text,

59:04

I feel like I've got to have my reading of the text, correct my understanding of this, what the science says.

59:12

That right there is the truest thing he has said. The reading of the text needs to correct what the science says.

59:20

And so he, to his credit, he's saying he believes in a literal Adam. I'm going to, or a, uh, uh, you know, an

59:28

Adam that, that is in accord with the Adam of scripture, not a primate, uh, not some, uh, someone who evolved, but he says from the dust of the ground.

59:39

Now I'm going to show you where Keller ends up opening the door for people who don't believe that. And he already did in this video that they're

59:46

Orthodox. He's very tentative too, in the way he explains it. He's like, I could be wrong.

59:52

You know, this is just, I can't see another way. I, so he's not very firm.

59:57

He's not very, uh, conviction convicted about this, it seems, but he is at least taking the right position on this one issue.

01:00:04

So he doesn't believe in the worldwide flood. Um, he, he, he's open to some kind of an evolutionary process, but he thinks that with Adam, at least there's, you know, uh, the text is clear that he was created from the dust of the ground and not an evolutionary process.

01:00:23

So I'm going to just say to his credit, good. Uh, but it isn't, it isn't enough, especially for someone in his position.

01:00:29

And I'll show you some other quotes that show you this, that he's kind of wishy -washy on it.

01:00:35

Yeah. I mean, in other words, the science, both the science is a way of telling me truth and the scripture is a way of telling me truth.

01:00:43

But if they are clashing, even though I know the science might show me that I'm reading the scripture wrong, and that has happened in the past where the science came in and said, are you really reached?

01:00:53

Do you really think, is it really, does the Bible really teach that the earth, that the sun revolves around the earth?

01:00:59

So it's not, it's impossible for the science to make you ask, did you read the text right? But if you go back and read the text and you come to your conclusion, as far as you can say before God, I'm trying my best to read this as I think what the scripture says right now, it says to me, no, there's an

01:01:14

Adam and Eve and everyone came from Adam and Eve and they were special creation. And so even though I don't have an answer to my science friends, that's where I stand.

01:01:22

And just like you said on the earlier questions, that gives us an enormous advantage as believers talking to unbelievers in the world, because we've got a reason why there is equality and dignity for every human being.

01:01:33

Yeah, that is, that's the way you go after that. And when my friend Thabiti Anyabwile was talking to a group of folks who were denying the historicity of Adam and Eve and saying, you know, there's, well, we came from these different kinds of varieties of people.

01:01:47

He said, I know where that goes. Exactly. So, so that's, you can see what they're willing to be very dogmatic and fight on.

01:01:56

And then what they're like running for the hills on. So when it comes to, you know, the suggestion that evolution,

01:02:03

Darwinian evolution leads to racism, or, or if you, if you just have a Darwinian worldview that, you know, racism is this possibility.

01:02:11

I know where that, that's where the whole statement, I know where that goes is meaning, Oh yeah, Tim Keller's right on that.

01:02:17

He's saying, that's how you go after that. That's the right way. He's complimenting Lincoln Duncan. That's how you want to defeat this stuff is you go after that naturalism, that that, view that people don't have inherent dignity and worth and equality.

01:02:32

And I think those are the words that Lincoln Duncan used. And that, that's what you do. Not, you don't get into all this like textual stuff and science stuff and try.

01:02:43

And I mean, he sounds like Joel Osteen when Joel Osteen's asked about homosexuality. He's just like, man,

01:02:48

I just, I don't know. It's not God's best, you know? And Keller's kind of like that here. It's like, well, you know, historical

01:02:54

Adam, you know, I think it is. I just, I'm open to though. I could be wrong, but you know, it's, and then when, what as soon as though it's brought up that you could nail a racism or pin racism onto Darwinian evolution and a naturalistic worldview type,

01:03:09

Darwinian evolution, man, you know, let you go after that. You, so, so they're shaping how we're supposed to be responding.

01:03:16

And honestly, they're cutting us off at the knees. They are cutting us off at the knees. And I've seen this, unfortunately a lot.

01:03:24

It's not the focus of this video, so I don't want to say much about it, but the constant refrain from certain, and this is creationists too.

01:03:32

Okay. This isn't a young earth creationist. This is across the board. Anyone who wants to combat evolution, the constant refrain that it's racism, that it's, you know, it's going to lead to Nazi Germany and Margaret Sanger's eugenics.

01:03:50

And that that's what, if you believe in evolution, that's what you're believing in. I don't think you get as much capital out of it as you think you get.

01:04:00

And I'm not saying not to go there, but I've just seen that that is people really want to use that as their wedge issue.

01:04:07

They really want to present evolution as just this big racist scheme.

01:04:13

And because obviously racism is one of the most unpopular things in our world right now.

01:04:20

And, and by that, I mean, not just the traditional old fashioned view of racism I was taught with, with hating people that have different genetics or different color skin than you, but the systemic stuff, all of that, anything that could be categorized as quote unquote racist is extremely unpopular.

01:04:37

And so if you can put evolution into that category and say, yeah, and evolution is the justification as part, then you can of course try to discredit evolution.

01:04:45

And so a lot of people are doing that. That's exactly what Tim Keller and Lincoln Duncan did. They're like, that's the argument to use, not this creation science stuff.

01:04:52

Like that's, that's the argument to use. And I just don't, I don't find it particularly as compelling as others.

01:05:00

I think have, you just haven't, I don't think I ever used it. I mean, maybe I did a few times, but it wasn't often that I brought that up in discussions with hardcore atheists.

01:05:10

They're familiar with it first of all. But secondly, I don't know if you've noticed this, but critical theorists, especially if you go to any university and you went, you went to your sociology department, you started asking all the critical theorists there or you're,

01:05:23

I mean, they're all critical theorists, their history department, whatever. Hey, do you believe in Darwinian evolution? They're all going to tell you, yes, they're all going to tell you they believe in Darwinian evolution.

01:05:32

Now, how can that be? If Darwinian evolution is, is this horrible racist thing, why in the world are they just believing in contradictions?

01:05:39

Well, some of them might be. Cause it is true that, especially during the progressive era, I mean, Darwinian evolution, it's scientific racism.

01:05:47

They went hand in hand. There's no doubt. But there's also, there's a commonality though.

01:05:55

And there's been a lot of development in the evolutionary field since Charles Darwin. It's not like modern evolutionists are living or dying on Charles Darwin.

01:06:07

They are, they have in their minds advanced quite a bit. And they would see, especially the sociologists who believe in this, a, a, uh, commonality between Darwin, evolution as it's developed a

01:06:22

Darwinian to the present and what, um, not social evolution, but cultural evolution, like a version of cultural evolution.

01:06:32

They'll see a parallel there. And the reason I say that is actually because from the beginning, Karl Marx, believe it or not, saw a parallel there.

01:06:40

He was very inspired by Charles Darwin. He even wanted to dedicate one of his books to Charles Darwin. He corresponded a little bit with Charles Darwin and complimented him.

01:06:49

And he saw parallels between what Darwin was doing with the biological sciences and what he was doing when it came to social history and how people's, uh, and, and societies developed over time and the progression.

01:07:03

And you can see the same thing today. It's not, it's not a conflict in the minds of the critical theorists. So to say that, yeah, there's biological development and there's also societal development or cultural development.

01:07:18

And so when we look at how things are moving towards this utopia of equity, inclusion, and diversity, that is a process of societal evolution.

01:07:28

Things are getting better. Things are improving. Um, in fact, taking down those who are in power is the right thing to do because they're the ones preventing us from getting to the next rung of societal evolution, because they have managed to work themselves into a position.

01:07:48

Uh, I'm talking about white, uh, males, Christian males, especially they've, they they've gone into Western civilization.

01:07:54

They've, they've gone into this position that was unearned. It's undeserved. It's, uh, it's unfair.

01:08:01

Uh, it's holding back societal evolution. It's, uh, it's, it's not, it's a anomaly.

01:08:10

Um, it's a trick that's temporarily being cast upon us. And if we cast off these shackles, then we will see societal evolution like you wouldn't believe.

01:08:21

And so the way to get there is to have some violence. That was what 2020 was about. It is to do some, uh, to, to, uh, do some revolutionary activity.

01:08:33

And so, and that's how we get ahead. Violence is how we get ahead. I mean, there really isn't a huge conflict between critical theory and Darwinian evolution.

01:08:43

Uh, if, if you believe the version of Darwinian evolution today, that's a developed, as developed along with our views of society and so forth.

01:08:52

And so from the beginning, Darwinism and Marxism have pretty much gone hand in hand.

01:08:57

And today, uh, the modern developments in Marxism, the modern developments in evolution are still complimenting one another.

01:09:05

There really isn't. So, so what, what people, what Christians and what Keller you just saw doing is they try to go back to an iteration of Darwinian evolution that was in vogue in the progressive era, and then make that conflict with modern critical theory and just notions of anti -racism.

01:09:24

I mean, you can do that, but it's not, I I've never, it's possible. Maybe write your comment in the thread.

01:09:30

If you're someone who was convicted and convinced by this and maybe got saved through it, but I've just, I've never seen it.

01:09:36

I've never seen anyone really compelled by that. Uh, in fact, social justice warriors seem pretty willing to take down Darwin and Margaret Sanger.

01:09:45

And they, they're not really that against it. Uh, in fact, that's already happened. I pretty sure statues of Sanger have already come down.

01:09:52

Um, they're not, they don't see these things as like, they're not, they're heroes. They're not looking to Sanger and Darwin as their big, uh, heroes, maybe

01:10:00

Darwin somewhat in biological fields, but they're looking at the developments that have happened since then.

01:10:06

And they're looking at those as the, um, as what Darwin, it's kind of like the ways that a neoconservatives look at the founding fathers and liberals.

01:10:14

They'll look at the founding fathers and say, well, we don't agree with their views, but look, they started the ball rolling in this direction. That's led to all this equality.

01:10:21

And it's the same thing with Darwin. It's like, we don't agree with his views, but he got the ball rolling in a direction that now we can understand our world better.

01:10:27

So anyway, I just wanted to say that, get it out of my system, I guess, but let you know, I don't think that's an effective, uh, way to go about this either.

01:10:36

Well, we've man, we've been recording for a while. I think I'm going to do a two -parter here. That's okay with all of you.

01:10:41

And we will continue and finish this episode on Tim Keller and Darwinian evolution.

01:10:48

Uh, tomorrow I will release the rest of it. And that's when we're going to get into this.

01:10:54

I didn't realize it was going to take me that long to critique this video, but I think I just had a lot built up inside of me.

01:10:59

I wanted to get out. So, uh, if you'll just be patient, uh, tomorrow in about 24 hours,

01:11:04

I will release the next installment and we'll conclude our look at Tim Keller and Darwinian evolution.