Evolution Debate: Redeemed Zoomer v YourCalvinist

Hello, and good morning for those of you who are in the United States, and welcome to this joint production of Your Calvinist and Redeemed Zoomer. Today we will be having ourselves a debate, a hopefully scholarly, biblical, brotherly, but also a firm debate in which both sides present passionately their views on this subject.

The subject that we will be debating today is this, Darwinian evolution is consistent with the biblical account of creation. One side will agree with that statement, we would call that the affirmative side, and the other side will attempt to negate that statement, we call that the negative side.

I'll introduce our two debaters, then go over a little bit of the format that we'll be following, and then I will hopefully disappear because you did not come here to see me. So, on the affirmative side for the statement, we have Redeemed Zoomer.

His background is that he is a layman in the Presbyterian Church USA. He is committed to confessional reformed theology, and considers himself a Gen Z YouTuber, also very active on Twitter and various other places around the net.

The negative side will be represented by Pastor Keith Foskey. He is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church, as well as a podcaster and humorist. He is married to Jennifer, and together they have six children.

You can find his materials at Your Calvinist on Twitter, on Facebook, wherever fine books are sold, and all of those sorts of things. Now today, we will be having a debate that was, if you saw the one on baptism between these two gentlemen, I'm sure will be just as cordial and kind, but we'll also follow the same format.

So, in the previous debate, as in this one, here's how things will go. We will have a 15-minute opening statement from each of these gentlemen, in which they lay out their views. After that, we'll move into a 10-minute period of rebuttal.

During rebuttal, the objective is to directly address and attempt to invalidate the other's claims, or at least press for clarity on them. After that, we'll go into a period of cross-examination. That's where the two debaters will be permitted to ask each other direct questions, and we'll go over a couple of more rules when we get close to that.

Finally, we'll have closing statements, and then audience Q &A. If you would like your question to be asked, please put it in the YouTube chat, and I will, while these gentlemen are presenting, be attempting to catalog those and ask a few that I think are representative of the mood of the chat.

And so, without much further ado, I want to ask our gentlemen, are you both ready to present your opening statements? Yes. Okay. So, we will be beginning, I believe, with Radim Zumer, since he has the affirmative side, and one other just timekeeping measure.

I have a stopwatch here. What I'll do is I don't want to interrupt you or mess up your train of thought. So, when you're at five minutes remaining, I'll just hold up a hand like this that's not saying stop.

That just means five minutes. Then, when you're down to one minute, I'll hold up a single finger, and then at the end, once the time actually expires, then I'll just unmute and say, you know, that's time.

So, I will go on mute now. Your 15-minute opening statement, Radim Zumer, begins at your first word, sir. Great. Well, thank you, Matthew, for moderating this, and thank you, your Calvinist, for having this debate with me, debating me once again.

It's going to be very productive, I think. So, there are a lot of scientists who have a certain theory about the earth, but this theory contradicts a plain, literal reading of the Bible. If we believe in biblical inerrancy, we must reject this scientific theory, just as Luther, Calvin, many other great theologians did.

We must reject this silly idea that the earth moves around the sun, right? This was a major controversy in the church around 500 years ago. Many great theologians were certain that heliocentrism was incompatible with biblical inerrancy.

Psalm 93 .1 does say, the world is established. It shall never be moved. Ecclesiastes 1 .5 says, the sun rises, the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. Yet, today, even the strictest of biblical inerrantists are almost always heliocentrist.

The church realized that a common interpretation of God's word is not identical to God's word itself. So, I invite all of you today to consider the possibility that the young earth creationist interpretation is not what the word of God actually says.

The fundamental question behind this debate is, can one accept the mainstream scientific theories of evolution and the age of the earth without compromising biblical authority? I would say yes. It does compromise biblical inerrancy to say scripture got something wrong, yet it does not compromise biblical inerrancy to suggest that a biblical author used symbolism or metaphor or simplification, especially if warranted by the literary context.

Since the greater part of the Old Testament runs like a continuous narrative, it would challenge the Bible's authority to claim that the early chapters of Genesis are entirely metaphorical or allegorical.

However, I pose that Genesis is to be read as a narrative, but an oversimplified historical narrative which contains many instances of symbolism and metaphor within. So, Genesis 1 says creation took six days.

However, we know both from scripture and science that time is relative. Moses, who wrote Genesis, also writes in Psalm 90 that a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by. Furthermore, Peter quotes this Psalm when he assures his readers that the Lord is not taking a long time to come, just long from their perspective.

He says, with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise. Since the sun, moon, and stars were not in the sky until the fourth day, and since days are determined by the sun, it makes sense to suggest that these days were from God's perspective, not from a human perspective.

Today, we define days as 24 hours, but that's a very modern thing. Traditionally, it was based on the sun, and this is relevant to the timeline of the world, because Jesus said, look, I am coming soon, Revelation 22 7.

So far, it's been 2 ,000 years. If the world is really 6 ,000 years old, then that would not really qualify as soon, especially not because the New Testament time refers to itself as these last days. However, if the universe is billions of years old, and humans have been around for around 100 ,000 years, then it makes sense that Jesus came at the very end of history, and is indeed coming very, very soon from God's perspective.

If we don't limit ourselves to six 24-hour earth days, then science actually verifies Genesis 1 rather than contradicting it. Scientists have constructed a timeline of when each life form developed, and the scientific timeline matches up perfectly with the order of creation in Genesis 1.

Genesis 1, 1 to 2, says that when God began creating the world, the earth was formless, void, and dark. We know from science that when the earth was first made, it was void of all life. It was dark and chaotic.

It was dark because the atmosphere was too thick for any sunlight to get through. When God says, let there be light, that probably refers to when the atmosphere cleared enough that light could be seen, but not quite enough that the sun, stars, and moon could be seen like a gray fog.

You might say, wait, the sun, moon, and stars were created on day four. I'm getting to that. On day two, God used the sky to separate the water above from the water below. Science has confirmed that in the early days of the earth, all the water existed as steam in the atmosphere.

When the temperatures cooled, liquid water collected on the ground and the vapor stayed in the atmosphere as clouds. On day three, God gathered the waters, letting dry land appear. Again, science has confirmed that the entire world used to be covered by water until geothermal activity made the first dry land appear.

Then God makes plants, which may seem impossible if there is no sun. Day four appears to present a challenge since the sun and moon existed far before plants did, but notice that it doesn't say the sun and moon were created on day four.

It says, let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night. The atmosphere used to be too thick to see the sun, moon, and stars, but once the first plant life developed, they were able to see the sky through photosynthesis.

The plants were able to clear the sky through photosynthesis, which is why it says the sun, moon, and stars were put in the sky after plants were made. The creatures created after all that are in the same order in Genesis 1 as they are according to the biological timeline.

Fish, then birds, then mammals, then finally humans. There is an important detail regarding the creation of humans in this passage. First, God says, let us make man, but then it says God made the man.

First, it's man, Adam, and then it's the man, Ha-Adam. This suggests that there is a general creation of human creatures and then a specific creation of Adam, the first creature who was set apart to receive the breath of life, aka a human soul.

More on that later. Another problem many Christians have with evolution is that the Bible says God made Adam specifically from the dust and therefore he did not have parents. However, several passages, including 1 Corinthians 15, 47 -48, say that we are all made from dust, yet we still had parents.

Just because God created Adam doesn't mean he appeared fully formed and did not develop naturally. God created Adam the same way he created you and me, providentially. Adam and Eve were set apart to be the first humans with a human soul and all of their descendants therefore had a human soul as well.

The biggest theological problem Christians have with Darwinian evolution is it requires death before the fall. I would respond by saying the Bible never claims there was no evil, sin, or death before the fall.

In fact, it states quite the opposite. Genesis 1 -3 says God saw the light was good and separated it from the darkness, which implies there was evil and darkness from the beginning. We know there was evil before the fall of Adam and Eve because Satan was already there tempting them.

The fall of Satan must have been before the fall of Adam and Eve. Furthermore, God gives Adam and Eve the tree of life that grants them immortality. There is no need for the tree of life if death did not exist in their world yet.

There's no need for a tree that grants immortality if mortality is not a thing yet. The most common passage used to claim there was no evil before the fall of Adam is Romans 5 -12, where Paul says sin entered the world through one man and death through sin.

It is absolutely correct to say that sin and death were permitted to enter the world because of Adam, but it doesn't say that the point of Adam's fall was when sin chronologically entered the world. We know from Job that God allows Satan to sow evil into the world in order to test man, and the next verse after that says that grace entered through Christ, but grace applied to people chronologically before Christ, so even if death entered through Adam, the death still could have applied chronologically to those before Adam.

Theologians have always noted the difference between human evil and cosmic evil. Cosmic evil has existed since the beginning of the physical universe, but the fall was the beginning of human evil since it was when man sided with Satan in the forces of cosmic evil rather than God.

Some ask, if evolution is true, why didn't God include it in his word? Well, we need to look at what the Bible claims its purpose is. 2 Timothy 3 -16 says all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

The creation of the universe from a scientific perspective was incredibly complex and is not something that biblical authors, as well as the vast majority of people throughout history whom the Bible is intended to reach, would have understood.

Rather than giving a detailed explanation of the facts of what happened, God gives us a simplified narrative that doesn't include all the scientific facts of what happened, but tells us everything we need to know theologically.

All the things mentioned in Genesis 1 that God creates, the sun, moon, animals, and trees, are things that the heathen nations worshipped as gods. The point of Genesis 1 is not to say how these things were created, but who created them, and to make a point that the Lord God of Israel is sovereign over all the false gods and creatures other nations worship.

If you think God wouldn't do this, remember how Jesus said God condescended to man's limited state when he gave Moses an imperfect law due to their hardened hearts when he's talking about divorce. If God were to give an in-depth explanation of what happened, it would be informative, but it would be theologically irrelevant and would not be useful for training in righteousness.

Which, as 2 Timothy tells us, no scripture isn't. As John Calvin said, the Bible is God's baby talk. Another objection is that if humans are in the image of God, they couldn't have come from creatures not in the image of God.

But let me ask you, is the image of God physical or spiritual? Physically, chimpanzees share 98 of DNA with humans and have a nearly identical bone structure. If the image of God is physical, then chimps are 98 in the image of God.

That's why traditionally the image of God has been interpreted to mean a rational human soul, which Adam was the first creature to ever have. What probably happened is this. Somewhere between 100 and 200 ,000 years ago, the earth was filled with early homo sapiens, creatures that were nearly human in structure and genetically similar enough to mate with humans, but did not have a human mind or soul.

Archeology reveals that the earliest homo sapiens were genetically human, but did not have large enough brains to have a complex human mind like we do today. At some point, God made a garden in the Middle East and set apart one of these human creatures to live in it.

Then he gave this man the breath of life, aka a human soul, making him the first real human person. Then he realized that the man needed another like him. So God took another human from his side, meaning from those around him, a woman, whom he gave a human soul as well.

When Eve sinned, God said her pains in childbirth would greatly increase. Scientifically, we know that as humans got larger brains, aka eating from the tree of knowledge, childbirth became more painful for women.

Yet another parallel between Genesis and the mainstream science. So these are explanations for why Darwinian evolution doesn't contradict scripture. Do we have any positive biblical reasons for it? I would say there are two reasons why Darwinian evolution fits perfectly with the patterns we see in scripture.

The first is that evolution is consistent with how God creates. In scripture, God almost never creates things by snapping them into existence fully formed. Rather, God starts with something small and makes it branch out over time into something big and diverse.

God made all of humanity and all the nations from one man, Adam. God made all of Israel from one man, Abraham. God didn't snap the people of Israel into existence fully formed. God made Israel evolve from one man over the centuries.

Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows into a tree with many branches, and that's exactly how the church grew. If all Israel is from one Israelite and all mankind is from one man, why shouldn't we believe that all life is from one living organism?

The second is that bringing good out of evil is not only a pattern that exists all throughout scripture, but is perhaps the entire theme of scripture itself. In the beginning, God called light out of the darkness.

God used the evil of Egypt to glorify his name by defeating them, Exodus 14 .4. And most importantly, God turned the worst evil ever, the death of God on the cross, into the greatest event ever, the resurrection of the son of man.

Darwinian evolution is God providentially bringing life and flourishing out of death and destruction. It is the gospel foreshadowed in all life forms. Satan sowed death and decay into the cosmos from the very, very beginning, but God humiliatingly used it to bring about the most intricate and complex of life.

As Genesis 50 says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Thank you. Okie doke. Thank you, sir, for that opening statement. Keith, are you prepared.

To offer your 15-minute opening statement, sir? Yes, I have. I think so. I'm good. He said a lot. I was writing things down for the rebuttal. You had 15 minutes and you used about.

11 and a half of them, so I understand you were probably expecting a little bit more. Can I have his other three and a half minutes? There was more I could say. There was some details I added that I wasn't sure if I would have time for.

Okay. All right. Okay. I guess I'll say that. Another reason why I think this one works better than the Young Earth Creationist interpretation, I think it requires more mental gymnastics to say that Cain's children were with Adam and Eve's daughters than to say Cain had children with another human who was around at that time, since Adam and Eve's other sons and daughters are not even mentioned until after it speaks of the birth of Seth.

It mentions that Cain had children with his wife without ever speaking of the creation of any other people, so this can be true while still maintaining that Adam and Eve were the parents of all who had human souls.

I think it just makes more sense to say that there were other human creatures around at that time. Also, regarding Eve, the word translated rib also means side, so I'm not dogmatic about how Eve was created.

I think B .B. Warfield was okay with every aspect of Darwinian evolution, but he affirmed the special creation of Eve, but I think it's possible Eve wasn't literally from Adam's side no more than Adam and Eve literally were fused together when they became one flesh.

Everyone is fine with the latter being a metaphor, but not the former, so I think Eve being taken from Adam's side might be a metaphor for her being made of the same substance as him, which is true, and that becoming one flesh is a metaphor for the intimate union of marriage.

Those are a few other details, but yeah. All right. Just a note for our debaters, because we're going, and we should go full screen, I'm not able to give you a visual cue like that, so we have a private chat over here.

I'll just post time.

Notices there. I can see you at the bottom, so do the hand thing, because I can still see you even though I'm bringing it up. I don't know if Redeem Zimmer can see it. Can you see the three of us at the bottom?

Okay. We can see something, and that's for the audience. We can see things.

You can't see. That's right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Brother Foskey, at your first word, your 15 minutes.

Begins, sir. First of all, I want to thank my debate opponent for being willing to engage in this important topic, and for Matthew for agreeing to moderate, and for the audience, who really is the reason for this debate.

I was recently asked, why do we do debates? Am I trying to convince the person I'm debating? Well, not always. Really, we're doing this to try to present something to the audience so that they are able to hear both sides and be able to engage with them.

Having said that, I want to give a word of admonition to the audience. There's a common thing that happens in a debate like this. Opponents on one side will say to the other side, you hate science, or one side will say, you hate the Bible.

I can genuinely say that I believe my opponent loves science and loves the Bible. I can say for myself that I in no way am trying to be unscientific, though I readily admit I'm not a scientist. From the outset, I want to affirm that both of us are trying to be faithful to what we believe the Bible says and to what we see in the natural world around us.

Therefore, I believe neither of us hate the Bible or hate science, though we do look at both and come to drastically different conclusions. My argument today is going to be based on three points. First, I do not believe Darwinian evolution is consistent with the biblical account of creation because, number one, creation is a supernatural event, not a natural event.

Number two, descent from a common ancestor is not the biblical model. Number three, in Darwinism, death is the hero, and in Scripture, death is the enemy. Let me unpack those three. Number one, creation is a supernatural, not a natural event.

The Bible says that we were created, that everything was created, by divine fiat. Divine fiat is the creative command of Almighty God. It is used twice in the Latin version of the Bible, Genesis 1, verse 3 and verse 6.

This is the understanding that God spoke the world into existence. Creation by divine fiat tells us that Genesis 1 is a supernatural event. Therefore, it is to be defined as a miracle, not in accord with natural processes that we see today.

There are many interpretations of Genesis 1. Many, if not all, try to apply naturalistic explanations to creation. What they often fail to realize is that Genesis 1 is not describing a natural event, but a supernatural one.

We make a mistake when we try to apply naturalistic explanations to supernatural events. Allow me to give you a few examples. One would be manna from heaven. There are people who would say, well, that's actually a naturally occurring cocoon of a parasitic beetle, and that's what they saw, and they thought it was from heaven, but it really was just a natural occurring event.

The burning bush was actually just an acaia that was sitting over a volcanic vent. Elijah's fire from heaven was really just a naturally occurring phenomenon called anvil lightning. The parting of the Red Sea was really just a meteor that hit nearby and caused the water to rise up and give them dry land to walk across.

Likewise, Jesus walking on the water was really just him crossing over on a sandbar. The feeding of the 5 ,000, according to John Dominic Crossan, was just Jesus convincing those who had to share with those who didn't have.

Therefore, when we come to the miracles of the Bible and we try to apply naturalistic explanations to them, we end up coming away from a biblical worldview. This is especially true in the resurrection of Jesus.

Just think of how many speculative arguments have been made about it. Some people say he didn't really die on the cross, but he just swooned and he woke up in the tomb and he was able to convince people that he rose from the dead.

Well, again, when we attempt to apply naturalistic explanations to the miracles of Scripture, we drift further and further away from the biblical worldview, and that's really my concern. Now, some people hear me say this and they assume that I'm being unscientific, but I'm not saying science is bad and that it can't explain many wonderful aspects of God's creation.

Science is very good. It certainly brought a great deal of technology that we enjoy, in fact, being able to do a debate over many, many miles apart. But science is limited in that it doesn't really deal in the supernatural.

Some even go as far as Stephen Hawking, who said, science makes God unnecessary. But that's not true. Science does not make God unnecessary. Science depends on God. Science expects to find an orderly and consistent universe, something which presumes logic and reason, both of which presume the universe was created logically and reasonably.

Science cannot and does not make God unnecessary. True science points us to God, as Johannes Kepler said, we are simply thinking God's thoughts after Him. When it comes to creation, there are some things which science can help shed light on, but overall, science will not fully be able to account for creation because it was a supernatural event.

It's not against science, but it is above and beyond science. So, number two, descent from a common ancestor is not the biblical model. Evolution means change, and no one denies that there have been changes within groups of living things.

Darwinianism, however, cites that these changes are proof that all living things came from a common ancestor. Well, the Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that different kinds were created by God in the beginning.

Darwinists see biological history as a single tree with many different branches. But scripture teaches that God created a forest of living things, not one tree with different branches. The different trees do have variations within them, but they were created as different trees in the beginning.

I'll quote here from an article that says, consider the remarkable species Canis familiaris, which includes over 150 varieties of dogs recognized by the American Kennel Club. Dogs as different as 125-pound St. Bernard and a three-pound Chihuahua are all of the same species of animals.

Still, there are limits of which can be achieved by dog breeders. They can breed for long legs and short legs within limits, but they can't breed a flying dog. They can't breed a dog with wings. The reason is simple.

There's just no genes in the entire gene pool of the species, Canis familiaris, that would produce wings or any other countless specializations which are necessary for flight. One kind of animal adapting to its environment is not the same thing as becoming a different kind of animal.

But Darwin proposed the possibility of such drastic and different change. In the first edition of Origin of the Species, he said, quote, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.

And then a later article commenting on what Darwin said, said, quote, scientists now know that Darwin had the right idea, but the wrong animal. Instead of looking at bears, he should have been looking at cows and hippopotamuses.

So again, the idea is that yes, all of these animals are different, but they all came from the same place. They all came from the same origin, and the Bible just doesn't teach that. And this becomes very serious when we apply this to human life.

Darwinism would mean that if I joined hands with my ancestor and he with his, that eventually someone would be holding hands with a creature that was simply not human. Some clever apologists have said this is a goo to you evolution, or fish to philosopher, or microbe to microbiologist.

And this is nothing akin to the way God's Word describes our origin. And the impact that this teaching has had on humanity is obvious. Men who believe their nature has been reduced to a highly complex beast will have a hard time with things like absolute truth and transcendent morality.

And when we tell men they're nothing but highly complex beasts, we shouldn't be surprised when they act like it. The Bible says man is a special creation made in his image. This is where I need to stop before going to my last point.

Not only do I believe Darwinian evolution is incompatible with the Bible, but I also believe it's incompatible with naturalistic science. Evolution is about change within an existing system. It's not an explanation of origins.

The law of biogenesis states that life only comes from already established life. This fundamental scientific law can be credited to the work of Louis Pasteur and others. And Austin Klein, an atheistic writer, said, quote, the origin of life is certainly an interesting topic, but it's not part of evolutionary theory.

The important thing to remember is that evolutionary theory is a scientific theory about how life evolved. It begins with the premise that life already existed. It makes no claims as to how life got here.

And Richard Dawkins, when he was interviewed on the documentary Expelled, he was asked, how did life get here? And he simply says, nobody knows how it got started. And he even proposed the idea that maybe aliens somehow seeded the earth.

So it's a good reminder that when people don't believe in the God of the Bible, they'll believe just about anything. So it would be easy for someone to take the position like Radim Zumer and say, well, it's true that evolution could not have happened on its own.

God had to start it. God had to guide it. God had to direct it. Though I'm not saying that's what he's saying. I want to ask him that question later, and I certainly don't want to put words in his mouth.

But if that is the argument, then that would separate him from other atheists, not saying that he's trying to be connected to atheists, but it would separate those who say Darwinism is the reason why we don't need God.

As Richard Dawkins says, Darwinism makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. But the problem is it doesn't. Darwinism is impossible without the guidance of a supernatural power, and it doesn't aid in the intellectual fulfillment of an atheist because it doesn't work all by itself.

There's no way life got started without a creator. So I do believe purely naturalistic Darwinism is unscientific because it doesn't provide a realistic account for the first life, and divinely guided Darwinism is unbiblical because it proposes a method of creation which is inconsistent with the biblical data that God created different kinds of life, not one life, which became different kinds.

So again, creation is supernatural, not a natural event. Descent from a common ancestor is not the biblical model. And finally, in Darwinism, death is the hero, and in Scripture, death is the enemy. Now, that's somewhat hyperbolic, but it's meant to be.

But its essence is true. In Darwinian evolution, all progress comes through a repetitive cycle of death. More death equals more progress equals more growth. Death, disease, and destruction are all part of the process of evolution which creates advancement, growth, and strength.

In such a scheme, death is not an enemy to be defeated, but it's a process to be celebrated. Yet it's clear that in Scripture, death is an intruder into God's good world. Death enters as an enemy to be defeated.

Death, disease, and destruction are results of the fall, not something that we should look to before the fall. And the Bible is very clear that human death is certainly the result of sin. Romans 5 .12, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

The text tells us death, in particular human death, came through sin. Now, there's debate about animal death and things like the death of microscopic organisms, plants, and trees, all of which I think are important to consider, but outside of the scope of this debate.

Those who hold to evolution believe that all human ancestors died before the fall, and there was at least potential for Adam to die apart from the fall. This is key. Adam would have died anyway, even if he hadn't have sinned in this model.

Therefore, death is not the result of sin, but the very mechanism God uses to create. In this understanding, death is not an enemy, but rather a positive instrument of creation and growth. And again, the Bible never presents death this way.

The Bible presents death as an enemy to be defeated. 1 Corinthians 15 .21 says, as by a man came death, by a man also has come resurrection from the dead. For as an animal dies, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Same chapter, going down a few verses, it says, for he must reign until he has put all of his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15 .54 says, death is swallowed up in victory.

55 says, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? 2 Timothy 1 .10 says that we are looking forward to the appearing of our Savior who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Some would argue that the death that needs to be defeated is not physical death, but spiritual death. But this argument would negate the fact that Christ does not only provide spiritual life, but in fact, he provides resurrection life in physical glorified bodies.

The new earth is a restoration and expansion of the Edenic condition. What was lost in Adam, paradise, is regained in Christ. So paradise lost, paradise restored. The Bible indicates that the entire creation has been affected by Adam's sin.

Sin caused a radical intrusion into God's good creation. We even read the creation itself is in need of restoration in Romans chapter 8, where it tells us that the creation waits with eager longing, personifying creation as if it were a person.

It's longing for what? The revealing of the sons of God because it was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. Who's the him in that passage? If we're doing this exegetically, who is the him of Romans 8 .20?

It's Adam. Him who subjected it. What? Creation to futility. And because of that, it says it groans as if it is in the pains of childbirth. Joel Webben was recently interviewing Radim Zumer, and I thought he made a good point, and he said this.

He says, what you have in evolution is you have Adam and Eve standing on a mountain of billions, if not trillions, of skulls. When God said the punishment for Adam is death, Adam would have had a hard time comprehending that when he looked down on the mountain of skulls he was standing upon, which according to Darwin was the tool that brought him to where he was, and saying, this is the punishment, but it's been here already.

So as I conclude, here again is my argument. I do not believe Darwinian evolution is consistent with the biblical account of creation because, one, creation is a supernatural event, not a natural event.

Two, descent from a common ancestor is not the biblical model. And three, if Darwinism, in Darwinism, death is the hero, in Scripture, death is the enemy. I hope I made it within my time. May God be glorified.

I think you're muted. You're muted, brother. Yeah, we are professionals here, y 'all. Don't worry about that. I was just saying, you guys both chopped quite a bit off of the time that you had available, but also it's good to be concise and not just keep talking in circles.

Okay, so now we are going to move into our rebuttal period. Rebuttal period is intended, hopefully, to be a time where the arguments of the other side are addressed, and to the extent possible, we're not bringing up tons and tons of new material.

Now, if new material needs to be brought up to address a point made by the other participant, then that's, of course, perfectly fine, but it's not opening statement part two, if we have good debate manners.

So we'll have a 10-minute rebuttal period for each of our participants here, beginning with Radim Zimmer, and then after that, we'll move into cross-examination. So your 10-minute clock begins, sir, when you begin speaking.

All right, thank you. So what my opponent said a lot in the beginning of his opening statement is that creation was a supernatural event, and we should not look for natural explanations, but I'm wondering why must we believe that?

Why do we need to believe that creation was supernatural rather than providential? As we know, as good Calvinists, we know that there are two ways in which God does things, both of which we see all over Scripture.

There are supernatural things, there are providential things, and both are equally from God. The difference is providential things are where God uses natural means to accomplish something, where God arranges the events of the natural world to accomplish his purpose, whereas supernatural means when God actually suspends the laws of nature temporarily to bring about something.