Evolution Debate: Redeemed Zoomer v YourCalvinist

Your Calvinist

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

03:26

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.

03:34

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.

03:48

The subject that we will be debating today is this. Darwinian evolution is consistent with the biblical account of creation.

03:55

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.

04:03

I'll introduce our two debaters, then go over a little bit of the format that we'll be following, and then

04:08

I will hopefully disappear because you did not come here to see me. So, on the affirmative side for the statement, we have

04:18

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

04:27

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.

04:36

He is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church, as well as a podcaster and humorist.

04:42

He is married to Jennifer, and together they have six children. You can find his materials at YourCalvinist on Twitter, on Facebook, wherever fine books are sold, and all of those sorts of things.

04:54

Now today, we will be having a debate that was, if you saw the one on baptism between these two gentlemen,

05:00

I'm sure will be just as cordial and kind, but will also follow the same format. So, in the previous debate, as in this one, here's how things will go.

05:09

We will have a 15 -minute opening statement from each of these gentlemen, in which they lay out their views.

05:14

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.

05:28

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.

05:37

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

05:43

YouTube chat, and I will, while these gentlemen are presenting, be attempting to catalogue those, and ask a few that I think are representative of the mood of the chat.

05:51

And so, without much further ado, I want to ask our gentlemen, are you both ready to present your opening statements?

05:58

Yes. Okay. So, we will be beginning, I believe, with Radim Zumer, since he has the affirmative side, and one other just timekeeping measure.

06:07

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,

06:12

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,

06:18

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.

06:25

So, I will go on mute now. Your 15 -minute opening statement,

06:31

Radim Zumer, begins at your first word, sir. Great. Well, thank you, Matthew, for moderating this, and thank you, your

06:38

Calvinist, for having this debate with me, debating me once again. It's going to be very productive, I think.

06:44

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

06:51

Bible. If we believe in biblical inerrancy, we must reject this scientific theory, just as Luther, Calvin, many other great theologians did.

06:58

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.

07:06

Many great theologians were certain that heliocentrism was incompatible with biblical inerrancy.

07:13

Psalm 93 .1 does say, The world is established, it shall never be moved. Ecclesiastes 1 .5

07:18

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.

07:28

The church realized that a common interpretation of God's word is not identical to God's word itself.

07:33

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.

07:40

The fundamental question behind this debate is, can one accept the mainstream scientific theories of evolution and the age of the

07:46

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.

08:02

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.

08:12

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.

08:21

So Genesis 1 says creation took six days. However, we know both from scripture and science that time is relative.

08:27

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.

08:33

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.

08:40

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.

08:46

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.

08:57

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,

09:05

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

09:15

New Testament time refers to itself as these last days. However, if the then it makes sense that Jesus came at the very end of history, and is indeed coming very, very soon from God's perspective.

09:29

If we don't limit ourselves to six 24 -hour earth days, then science actually verifies Genesis 1 rather than contradicting it.

09:36

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.

09:44

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.

09:53

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.

10:06

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.

10:14

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.

10:24

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.

10:34

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.

10:46

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.

10:59

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.

11:07

The creatures created after all that are in the same order in Genesis 1 as they are according to the biological timeline.

11:14

Fish, then birds, then mammals, then finally humans. There is an important detail regarding the creation of humans in this passage.

11:20

First God says, let us make man, but then it says God made the man. First it's man,

11:25

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.

11:37

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.

11:45

However, several passages including 1 Corinthians 15, 47 -48 say that we are all made from dust, yet we still had parents.

11:53

Just because God created Adam doesn't mean he appeared fully formed and did not develop naturally. God created

11:58

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.

12:08

The biggest theological problem Christians have with Darwinian evolution is it requires death before the fall. I would respond by saying the

12:15

Bible never claims there was no evil, sin, or death before the fall. In fact, it states quite the opposite. Genesis 1 -3 says

12:21

God saw the light was good and separated it from the darkness, which implies there was evil and darkness from the beginning.

12:27

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.

12:34

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.

12:43

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

12:51

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.

13:05

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.

13:24

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.

13:37

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.

13:43

2 Timothy 3 -16 says all scripture is God -breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

13:49

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

13:57

Bible is intended to reach, would have understood. Rather than giving a detailed explanation of the facts of what happened,

14:03

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.

14:09

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.

14:16

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

14:21

Lord God of Israel is sovereign over all false gods and creatures other nations worship. If you think

14:26

God wouldn't do this, remember how Jesus said God condescended to man's limited state when he gave

14:31

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.

14:44

Which, as 2 Timothy tells us, no scripture isn't. As John Calvin said, the Bible is

14:49

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.

14:56

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.

15:06

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

15:14

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 homosapiens, creatures that were nearly human in structure and genetically similar enough to mate with humans, but did not have a human mind or soul.

15:28

Archeology reveals that the earliest homosapiens were genetically human but did not have large enough brains to have a complex human mind like we do today.

15:35

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.

15:45

Then he realized 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.

15:53

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.

16:08

So these are explanations for why Darwinian evolution doesn't contradict scripture, but do we have any positive biblical reasons for it?

16:15

I would say there are two reasons why Darwinian evolution fits perfectly with the patterns we see in scripture.

16:20

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.

16:29

Rather, God starts with something small and makes it branch out over time into something big and diverse.

16:34

God made all of humanity and all nations from one man, Adam. God made all of Israel from one man,

16:40

Abraham. God didn't snap the people of Israel into existence fully formed. God made Israel evolve from one man over the centuries.

16:47

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.

16:54

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?

17:01

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.

17:08

In the beginning, God called light out of the darkness. God used the evil of Egypt to glorify his name by defeating them,

17:14

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.

17:23

Darwinian evolution is God providentially bringing life and flourishing out of death and destruction. It is the gospel foreshadowed in all life forms.

17:32

Satan sowed death and decay into the cosmos from the very beginning, but God humiliatingly used it to bring about the most intricate and complex of life.

17:40

As Genesis 50 says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Thank you. Okie doke.

17:48

Thank you, sir, for that opening statement. Keith, are you prepared to offer your 15 -minute opening statement, sir?

17:58

Yes, I have. I think so. I'm good.

18:04

He said a lot. I was writing things down for the rebuttal, so yeah. Well, and 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.

18:18

Can I have another three and a half minutes? There's more I could say.

18:24

There's more that, there were some details I added that I wasn't sure if I would have time for. Okay.

18:30

All right. Okay. I guess I'll say that. Another reason why

18:37

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

18:45

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.

18:53

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.

19:02

I think it just makes more sense to say that there were other human creatures around at that time. And also, regarding Eve, the word translated rib also means side.

19:13

So, I mean, 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.

19:23

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.

19:31

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.

19:40

And that becoming one flesh is a marriage. Those are a few other details, but yeah.

19:47

All right. Just a note for our debaters, because we're going, and we should go full screen.

19:54

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.

20:00

And 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.

20:06

I don't know if Radim Zimmer can see it. Can you see the three of us the bottom? Okay. So we can see something and that's for the audience.

20:14

We can see things you can't see. That's right. Yeah. Okay. All right. At your first word, your 15 minutes begin, sir.

20:25

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.

20:33

I was recently asked, why do we do debates? Am I trying to convince the person I'm debating? Well, not always really.

20:39

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.

20:46

And 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, well, you hate science, or one side will say you hate the

20:56

Bible. And I can genuinely say that I believe my opponent loves science and loves the Bible. And I can say for myself that I in no way

21:03

I'm trying to be unscientific, though I readily admit I'm not a scientist. But from the outset, I want to affirm that both of us are trying to be faithful to what we believe the

21:10

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.

21:21

And 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.

21:33

Number two, descent from a common ancestor is not the biblical model. And number three, in Darwinism, death is the hero, and in Scripture, death is the enemy.

21:43

So 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.

21:53

Divine fiat is the creative command of Almighty God. It is used twice in the Latin version of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, verse 3, and verse 6.

22:00

This is the understanding that God spoke the world into existence. Creation by divine fiat tells us that Genesis chapter 1 is a supernatural event.

22:10

Therefore, it is to be defined as a miracle, not in accord with natural processes that we see today.

22:16

There are many interpretations of Genesis 1. Many, if not all, try to apply naturalistic explanations to creation.

22:22

What they often fail to realize is that Genesis 1 is not describing a natural event, but a supernatural one.

22:28

We make a mistake when we try to apply naturalistic explanations to supernatural events. Well, I'm going to give you a few examples.

22:35

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 naturally occurring event.

22:47

The burning bush was actually just an achaea that was sitting over a volcanic vent.

22:52

Elijah's fire from heaven was really just a naturally occurring phenomenon called anvil lightning.

22:58

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.

23:06

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.

23:18

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.

23:26

This is especially true in the resurrection of Jesus. Just think of how many speculative arguments have been made about it.

23:32

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.

23:38

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.

23:48

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.

23:56

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.

24:03

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

24:10

God unnecessary, but that's not true. Science does not make God unnecessary. Science depends on God.

24:16

Science expects to find an orderly inconsistency or an orderly and consistent universe, something which presumes logic and reason, both of which presume the universe was created logically and reasonably.

24:27

Science cannot and does not make God unnecessary. True science points us to God. As Johannes Kepler said, we are simply thinking

24:34

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.

24:45

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.

24:56

Evolution means change, and no one denies that there have been changes within groups of living things.

25:01

Darwinianism, however, cites that these changes are proof that all living things came from a common ancestor.

25:08

Well, the Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that different kinds were created by God in the beginning.

25:15

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.

25:27

The different trees do have variations within them, but they were created as different trees in the beginning.

25:33

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

25:42

American Kennel Club. Dogs as different as 125 -pound St. Bernard and a three -pound

25:48

Chihuahua are all of the same species of animals. Still, there are limits of which can be achieved by dog breeders.

25:54

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.

26:00

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.

26:11

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.

26:21

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.

26:34

And then a later article commenting on what Darwin said, said, quote, scientists now know that Darwin had the right idea about the wrong animal.

26:41

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.

26:49

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.

26:56

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.

27:05

Some clever apologists have said this is a goo to you evolution, or fish to philosopher, or microbe to microbiologist.

27:13

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.

27:21

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.

27:28

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.

27:38

This is where I need to stop before going to my last point. Not only do I believe Darwinian evolution is incompatible with the

27:44

Bible, but I also believe it's incompatible with naturalistic science. Evolution is about change within an existing system.

27:49

It's not an explanation of origins. The law of biogenesis states that life only comes from already established life.

27:56

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.

28:08

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.

28:15

It makes no claims as to how life got here. And Richard Dawkins, when he was interviewed on the documentary

28:21

Expelled, he was asked, how did life get here? And he simply says, nobody knows how it got started.

28:27

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

28:35

God of the Bible, they'll believe just about anything. So it would be easy for someone to take the position like Radim Zuma and say, well, it's true that evolution could not have happened on its own.

28:45

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.

28:53

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

29:01

Darwinism is the reason why we don't need God. As Richard Dawkins says, Darwinism makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

29:10

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.

29:20

There's no way life got started without a creator. So I do believe purely naturalistic

29:26

Darwinism is unscientific because it doesn't provide a realistic account for the first life, and divinely guided

29:33

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.

29:43

So again, creation is supernatural, not a natural event. Descent from a common ancestor is not the biblical model.

29:49

And finally, in Darwinism, death is the hero, and in Scripture, death is the enemy.

29:56

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.

30:05

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.

30:14

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.

30:24

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.

30:32

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.

30:47

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

30:55

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—excuse me, let me start that again.

31:04

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.

31:12

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

31:21

God uses to create. In this understanding, death is not an enemy, but rather a positive instrument of creation and growth.

31:29

And again, the Bible never presents death this way. The Bible presents death as an enemy to be defeated. 1

31:34

Corinthians 15 .21 says, as by a man came death, by a man also has come resurrection from the dead.

31:41

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.

31:50

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15 .54 says, death is swallowed up in victory.

31:57

55 says, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? 2 Timothy 1 .10

32:03

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.

32:12

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.

32:25

The new earth is a restoration and expansion of the Edenic condition. What was lost in Adam, paradise, is regained in Christ.

32:33

So paradise lost, paradise restored. The Bible indicates that the entire creation has been affected by Adam's sin.

32:40

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

32:56

The revealing of the sons of God, because it was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it.

33:02

Who's the him in that passage? If we're doing this exegetically, who is the him of Romans 8 .20?

33:08

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.

33:19

Joel Webben was recently interviewing Redeem Zumer, and I thought he made a good point, and he said this.

33:25

He says, what you have in evolution is you have Adam and Eve standing on a mountain of billions, if not trillions, of skulls.

33:34

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.

33:49

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.

33:58

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.

34:08

I hope I made it within my time. May God be glorified. I think you're muted.

34:23

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.

34:36

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.

34:51

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.

35:02

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.

35:09

So your 10 -minute clock begins, sir, when you begin speaking. All right, thank you.

35:16

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?

35:28

Why do we need to believe that creation was supernatural rather than providential? As we know, as good

35:34

Calvinists, we know that there are two ways in which God does things, both of which we see all over scripture.

35:40

There are supernatural things, there are providential things, and both are equally from God.

35:46

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 are when

35:57

God actually suspends the laws of nature temporarily to bring about something. So an example of God using supernatural means to accomplish his goals would be the parting of the

36:09

Red Sea. I'm not one of those weird people who says the parting of the Red Sea was due to like a crater hitting the ocean or something or someone who says the water was really shallow or something.

36:18

That's ridiculous. That was supernatural. An example of something in scripture that was clearly providential is

36:24

God raising up the nations. I don't think God ever snapped a single nation into existence fully formed with all of their language and culture and customs and people and dogs and cats and all that.

36:35

So it could either be providential or supernatural. And the Westminster Confession says that God freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass, yet neither is

36:47

God the author of sin nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away.

36:53

So that means we can say random mutations and random chance is the secondary cause of everything being created, but that God is the primary cause because God is the primary cause of all that happens.

37:05

For example, if you throw a basketball and the basketball goes into the net, what caused that, you or God?

37:13

Well, the answer is both. If we believe in providence, you are the secondary cause of that, but God is the primary cause because God is the primary cause of everything.

37:22

So there are miracles in scripture, but there's an equal number of places in scripture where God does things providentially.

37:28

I believe that creation was an act of God's providence, not a supernatural event.

37:33

Now, why do we believe that? Well, the Bible says God formed everything,

37:38

God created everything, God formed Adam, but the Bible says God created you and me, but we were not created supernaturally.

37:45

I don't know about you, maybe this happened to you, but God didn't snap his fingers and I popped into existence fully formed.

37:51

I developed through a natural process and I'm sure at least most of you did. I'm sure at least most of you started out as a zygote and turned into an embryo, turned into a baby, turned into a toddler, turned into a child, turned into a teenager, turned into an adult.

38:06

Maybe some of you aren't there yet. We were all created providentially, by providential means, but you would still say

38:13

God created you. You would still say God formed every single part of you. I don't think any of you really believe that God rolled a dice and tried to just leave it up to chance as to what you would be like.

38:25

God created you exactly how you are, so God can create everything exactly the way he wants it to while using natural means to do so.

38:34

Because Jeremiah 1 5 says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. God forms us in our mother's wombs.

38:39

The psalm says God knit David together. It's a very intricate, detailed creation, but it's a providential creation.

38:46

So I'm saying the pattern of creation we see in scripture is a providential pattern. It's not a but I think the only real example of God creating things supernaturally are simple things like manna from heaven and turning water into wine, and those are things that already exist.

39:05

God is not creating a new species of thing, because wine already existed, bread already existed. So another thing is abiogenesis and the scientific explanation for abiogenesis.

39:17

Now, yes, it is a mystery how the first life came about on the earth, and it's possible that the first single -celled organism was sort of planted there by God and that evolved into all other life that we see today.

39:29

It's possible, but there's no reason we have to think that this must be the case. It is the

39:34

God of the gaps fallacy. If we say there is something science cannot yet explain, therefore we must use a supernatural explanation.

39:42

That's not a good way I think Christians should argue, because that is the way that atheists always accuse us of arguing.

39:48

They'll say back in the day Christians needed God to explain why rain came from the sky or why the earth has seasons and why the sun goes up and down, and what the atheists will say is as science progresses, the amount of things we can use supernatural explanations for shrinks.

40:04

But if you are Reformed, if you believe either the Westminster Confession or the London Baptist Confession, you believe that God is the cause of everything, including things that have a natural explanation, we can say that God is not the

40:16

God of the gaps. God is the God of the whole show, as John Lennox said. So just because there is a scientific explanation for abiogenesis doesn't mean

40:24

God didn't do it. So yes, abiogenesis is a mystery. I don't know scientifically how the first life formed on earth, and maybe we won't find an answer.

40:33

Maybe it was supernatural, but I'm also open to the possibility that there is some scientific explanation that we don't know yet.

40:39

Now here's another thing. So the biggest objection is that the Bible says death came through sin and sin was through Adam.

40:48

But once again, the very next verse after that says grace and redemption entered through Christ.

40:55

Human death was through Adam, but death applied to people who came before Adam. Likewise, human redemption was through Christ, but human redemption applied to those who came before Christ.

41:06

I'm going to appeal to my opponent's confession of faith here. The 1689 Reformed Baptist Federal Theology says the covenant of grace, which is mediated through Christ, retroactively applies to those who came before Christ in the

41:20

Old Testament. God is not bound by time, so it is possible for the death that Adam brought into the universe to chronologically apply to those who came before Adam.

41:29

Just the way we already know, it's possible for the grace that Christ purchased to chronologically apply to those who came before Christ.

41:39

And Romans 8 .22 says we know that the whole creation has been groaning in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

41:45

This verse was used by my opponent, but I've always thought this verse supports a more Darwinian view, because it doesn't say that there was a point where this pains of creation began.

41:54

It just said there was a point where the pains of creation ended. It says the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

42:04

It doesn't say when that began. Now it says there was someone who subjected it, and my opponent thinks it was Adam. Maybe it was

42:09

Adam. I think it's more likely Satan. I think that the cosmic evil of creation is fundamentally from Satan.

42:15

It was only permitted to be allowed because God knew that Adam would sin. It was to test

42:20

Adam. And the reason for thinking this is the book of Job. In the book of Job, Satan is able to sow darkness into the life of before Job actually does anything bad, which in the story of Job, he kind of didn't.

42:32

But Adam failed the test that Job passed. So that's one theory as to how it's a better explanation that Satan is the one who sows darkness and decay into the creation.

42:44

And I think this is a more probable explanation in conjunction with the fact that Genesis says darkness was already in the creation from the very beginning.

42:53

Darkness is not good. In the Bible, darkness is not good. It's a metaphor for evil, especially because the

42:59

Bible says God saw the light was good, and he separated it from the darkness.

43:05

What's the opposite of good, everyone? Bad. So there was evil from the beginning.

43:11

There was death and decay from the very beginning. And the Garden of Eden was a probationary period for Adam.

43:18

And the tree of life, like I said, doesn't really make much sense if there was not already death.

43:23

Now there is the idea of a whole mountain of skulls. Thing is, that's a problem no matter what. The mountain of skulls exists whether or not you believe in death before the fall, because there's a massive amount of death after the fall either way.

43:37

After the fall, there are so many innocent animals who die painful deaths. They didn't sin.

43:43

They don't deserve it. So whatever explanation we can use to explain why their death is still just and still part of God's plan,

43:50

I believe God will compensate all animals. There's other explanations for that. That's not necessarily relevant to this debate.

43:56

Whatever explanation you use for that, we can also use for the animal death that came before Adam. Because there was no truly human death before Adam, because Adam was the first human in the sense of having a human soul.

44:08

And like I said, all animals who don't sin, however you think they will be compensated based on the animal death that occurs today, you can just apply that explanation to the animals who came before the fall of Adam.

44:22

I think that's everything I need to say for my rebuttal. Okay. Very good. Then we will reset our clock here.

44:32

Brother Foskey, are you ready for your 10 minute rebuttal period? I think so. Clock rolling on your first word, sir.

44:42

All right. So certainly we have dealt with a lot of different subjects. I'm going to try to hone on just a few.

44:48

First of all, my brother went to the heliocentricity argument in the beginning of his opening statement and referenced the fact that for many years that people believed that the sun went around the earth rather than the earth going around the sun.

45:06

And certainly phenomenological language is used in the Bible in that way. And there have been people who have tried to over -impress phenomenological language into arguments such as heliocentricity.

45:17

And even now we know there's a recent advent of flat earth arguments, which many people try to connect to the

45:26

Bible and say, well, it's the Bible that teaches a flat earth, or it's the Bible that teaches heliocentricity. And I don't think that that's a fair analysis of what the

45:33

Bible teaches. And I certainly don't think that that's a fair analysis of what we're saying. We're not saying that science can't tell us anything.

45:39

We're not saying that science doesn't help us learn. We're saying that the Bible and science have to be considered.

45:44

And when we look to the scripture, what does the scripture actually say? What does the

45:50

Bible say about these things? And I know the argument is, well, in the 1600s, they thought it said this.

45:55

And so now we learn because science teaches us. But overall, we have to step back and say, okay, but there are certain realities that have to be considered.

46:04

And Darwinism as a concept, Darwinism as a belief system is still being challenged ever since its advent.

46:14

It's still being challenged within the scientific community. Some people say, well, it's universally accepted. That's not true. There are godly men like Hugh Ross, who is an old earth creationist, who sees many issues with the position of Darwin and says that it doesn't comport even if we were to accept something like millions of years, or if we were to accept commonly agreed upon age of the earth, earth is four and a half billion years, universe is 13 billion years.

46:42

And again, so the issue, again, that we're debating is the issue of, is Darwinism compatible with the

46:49

Bible? And even someone who might disagree with me on some things, Dr. Hugh Ross, would say, but it's still not compatible.

46:55

Even if all things are considered, it still doesn't work. It still doesn't work scientifically, and it still doesn't work biblically.

47:01

So we're not just saying that we're ignoring the scientific community.

47:08

I think we're trying to be fair here. And also too, there are different views on how we understand the creation days.

47:16

It seems as if the opening statement was assuming a young earth position, and I do take a young earth position, and I know immediately people would discount me for that.

47:24

I do take a young earth position, but technically that's not really what I'm arguing, against Darwinism, which

47:30

I think obviously the young earth position would not accept that. But I think other positions as well, there are different positions that have been taken.

47:38

There's the gap theory, which says there's a gap between Genesis 1 .1 and Genesis 1 .2 of this long, extensive period of time where there's almost an entirely different creation, which is ruled over by Satan.

47:48

I don't think that that's what my opponent is proposing, but it seems to fit at least the idea that there was this entire creation, it was ruled over by Satan, and it had this long period of time.

47:57

That is not what, again, you don't see that in the text. You have to assume that.

48:02

You have to assume that darkness automatically means evil, and I do want to push back on that and say, okay, certainly darkness is used in opposition to light in certain biblical passages, such as in John 1 when

48:16

Jesus came to bear witness to the light and all these things, or to be the light, all these things. We know that that's a metaphor later, but is

48:23

Genesis 1 .1 truly giving us a explanation of how this was created, how creation actually happened?

48:32

And I think it is telling us this is how creation happened. God formed the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and void in the sense that it was not yet filled, and this is where something like the framework hypothesis could come in.

48:46

The framework hypothesis says that the first three days are God forming the things that he would later fill on the second three days, so there's a consistency between day one and day four.

48:58

There's a consistency between day two and day five, and day one, we have light and darkness, and day four, you have the lights and the stellar heavens, which manage the light and darkness.

49:06

On day two, you have the separation of waters above, waters below. On day five, you have the birds of the heavens and the fish in the sea, and then on day three, we have the creation of the land, and on day six, there is those who fill the land, which are the beasts and men, and so there's a framework there, and we see a literary framework, but we also see that this is the way, this is the structure that we have to work within, and that structure doesn't fit within Darwinism.

49:28

It just doesn't. We have to impose upon it so many things to make that structure work, and this is why

49:34

Darwinism doesn't really fit with, well, I don't think it fits with the gap theory, but some might argue that it does.

49:39

It doesn't fit with old earth creationism according to Dr. Hugh Ross. It doesn't fit with young earth creationism, so looking at the various positions that people have held on Genesis 1, it doesn't fit with any of that.

49:52

It has to be imposed upon the text, which is the very definition of eisegesis. You have a preconceived idea.

49:57

You're going to read it into the text because you believe it has to be so. Therefore, you're going to make it so, and you're going to put it into the text.

50:07

So a couple other things here. My opponent said that—or my friend,

50:14

I'm going to call him my friend—death applied to people before Adam in the same way that grace applied to people before Christ, because grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

50:25

This, again, I think you're equating two things that aren't meant to be equated by the text.

50:30

The text isn't equating this idea that before Adam there was death and things, because before Christ there was grace, because the entire argument of Paul in Romans is that Adam's actions did something to the world.

50:50

I would push back hard on this idea that Satan is the subject in Romans 8, when

50:56

Romans 8 says that he who subjected it to futility, that that was

51:03

Satan. First of all, I take an entirely different position than my friend on when

51:08

Satan fell. I believe Satan fell after the creation of day six, and we can talk about that if we want to in the cross -examination period, but the whole idea that Satan was active and he was tearing the world apart and he was doing these things, he was in control.

51:22

First of all, then evolution is somehow a product of Satan's work. Maybe he could explain that to us, but this idea of Satan being the one who subjected creation to futility in Romans 8,

51:34

I don't think that's exegetically viable. I think that is absolutely having to read something into the text that isn't there. I think you're making a point based upon something you've already considered has to be true.

51:43

It can't be Adam because Adam can't subject it to futility because it already had futility, and therefore we have to blame it on someone else.

51:49

Who's the boogeyman? Boogeyman is going to be Satan. Again, it just doesn't fit. I believe the fall of Satan is in conjunction with his tempting of Eve.

51:57

I believe that's part of the action of his fall, is that he chooses to go against God and and bring destruction through the temptation of the image bearer of God.

52:07

That's my position. I think there's very few passages that refer to Satan's work.

52:13

I know there's Ezekiel and Isaiah that people point to Satan. We know in the

52:19

New Testament it says he fell because of pride. What we know about Satan is limited. Michael Heiser has done a lot of extensive work on the council of the gods and things like that, and a lot of people have different opinions on that.

52:31

I respect people who share different opinions on that, but my argument would be that Satan having control of this world,

52:37

Satan being the god of this world prior to the fall, is not the position that I think would be exegetical.

52:43

I think it would be an eisegetical imposition upon the text. Therefore, when you say there's a difference between cosmic evil and moral evil, if you're saying

52:54

Satan was at work because my opponent said that, he said cosmic evil is not the same as moral evil, and there was cosmic evil prior to the fall, and animals dying, things like that, that's just cosmic evil.

53:05

Yeah, but if Satan's the one active in it, then it's still a moral evil. It's still morally evil and still wrong, if that's the point that you're making.

53:15

If we say a tree decaying is moral evil, we would say, no, that's not even evil in any sense.

53:25

It's mitigated entropy. It's the things that happen in the world, and it's doing what God created it to do.

53:33

God created man to live. God created man, and he put him in a situation where he had the ability to live.

53:40

He had the ability to choose life, and before him was life and death.

53:46

He had the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, which was, to him, death, and he knew the options. God told him that.

53:52

Even Eve said, on the day, if I eat that, I'm going to die. She said that to Satan. The idea, there's this option here, and Adam, of course, chooses that, and in our place as our federal head, makes that choice and brings us all into destruction, and so Adam is the first man.

54:15

Adam is acting on behalf of all men. There's not a line of humans that came before him. There's certainly not a line of humans beside him, watching him, kind of wondering what he's going to do, becoming

54:25

Eve or becoming the wife of Cain or whomever.

54:31

I don't believe that. In fact, the Bible says Eve was the mother of all living. That's why she received that name.

54:37

Adam says he's going to name her Eve because she's the mother of all living, and certainly, I know my brother believes that after the flood, we're all descended from Noah, but I would say we're also all descended, not just because of that, but we're also all descended from Adam.

54:54

In the image of God, he mentioned... How much time do I have left, brother? Hold on. Well, actually, you just ran out.

55:01

Sorry. Okay. Well, I will cede the floor then. Okay. All right. Thank you.

55:07

Thank you for that rebuttal, Keith, and you were trying to fit a lot in there. You both are. This has been a cordial and respectful debate, and I appreciate that, and now we're going to put that to the test a little bit more because now we're going to move into the period of cross -examination.

55:19

Now, some people have called cross -examination the heartbeat of debate because cross -examination is the time when, as best we can, we stop talking past each other, and I'm not saying that's occurred during this debate, but it is the mechanism by which we directly ask questions and hope to penetrate for weaknesses or find clarification in someone's position.

55:41

Since, Keith, you just presented your rebuttal, we're going to have you questioning redeemed

55:47

Zoomer because you should be doing less of the talking and he should be doing more of the talking, so you can ask your cross -examination questions to him.

55:56

A couple of rules for cross -examination. For the questioner, your statements need to have a question mark on the end of them, and even if you are debating a particular doctrine of the atonement and you're friends with one of the debaters, you do have to step in and say,

56:11

I'm sorry, now is perhaps not your time to ask questions. In return, for those of you who saw the

56:16

Jason Breda -James White debate, you know what I'm talking about. Can I say something?

56:22

Absolutely. Can I just say something? If redeemed Zoomer will give me just a second. I was supposed to wear a bow tie today because Dr.

56:28

White gave it to me, but I could not figure out how to tie it, so it's in my pocket. So, Doc, if you watch this, I've got you with me in spirit.

56:35

You're here in my pocket, but I couldn't figure it out, so I wore my Jerry Garcia tie instead.

56:41

It's my favorite. I wish I was as dapper as redeemed Zoomer is today. Well, someone did ask in chat that you and I are not

56:50

Presbyterians, and we would not want to besmirch the superior theology, so that's why. That's right.

56:57

Yeah, so Keith will be asking questions. Redeemed Zoomer is to give hopefully direct and straightforward answers and not to ask questions in return, even rhetorically, at the end of the 10 minutes, or I'll give the usual five and then one, and then if there's a question asked with 15 seconds remaining,

57:14

I'm not going to cut off an answer. Go ahead and finish out the answer to that question, and then we'll flip the script and go the other way.

57:22

Okay, let me get my clock reset here. Now, I'll say, are you both ready for the first round of CrossX?

57:28

Yep. Okay. Keith, you have the floor. All right.

57:34

Some of this you have answered in your rebuttal, but I want to hear it again, because I have a reason for asking.

57:40

One, do you believe the parting of the Red Sea was a supernatural event? Yes. Okay.

57:47

Do you believe the feeding of the 5 ,000 was a supernatural event? Yes. Okay. Do you believe the resurrection of Christ was a supernatural event?

57:56

I'm going somewhere Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Do you believe that the creation narrative is a supernatural event or a natural event, or do you try to mix the two?

58:10

I think it's either a completely natural event or a mix of the two. I think there has to be some aspect of the supernatural because the soul has a supernatural aspect to it, but I would say it's definitely not entirely supernatural.

58:24

Okay. So if you say it has to have a supernatural aspect, would you then no longer be arguing for Darwinism because it's predicated on the principle of naturalism or natural selection?

58:38

Well, naturalism and natural selection aren't the same thing. Naturalism is the philosophy that - Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So I'm not a naturalist.

58:46

That is another word for atheism. I'm not an atheist. So there is a supernatural aspect of at least human life, and there's a lot of metaphysical debates about animal souls.

58:59

Aristotle thought there's an appetitive soul that animals have, but it's not quite the same type of soul as the human rational soul.

59:07

So there's definitely a supernatural event in the creation of Adam, not with the creation of him physically, but the creation of him spiritually.

59:14

So that's the part of Genesis 1 I would say is definitely supernatural. So then would it not be safe to say, or at least fair to say, that really you're more arguing for atheistic guided evolution than you are for Darwinianism?

59:30

Well, no, because by the time Adam was given a human soul, evolution had basically finished, because the first humans were around some number of thousand years ago, and macroevolution takes a ridiculously long time to make any change at all, unless you're talking about microscopic organisms.

59:47

So I would say evolution could be entirely providential, but once evolution is sort of done, that's when

59:53

God actually enters into a covenant with the creatures that he created through evolution.

01:00:00

So do you believe evolution finished when God created Adam? More or less.

01:00:05

I mean, we see evolution continuing for small organisms today. We see, for example, the

01:00:11

COVID virus evolved several times, because...

01:00:16

Now we can't put this on YouTube. Thank you, Rudeem. Sorry. I said now we can't put it on YouTube, because you said the

01:00:23

C word. Can you bleep that out? I'm kidding.

01:00:28

I'm kidding. I'm sorry. Give him that time back. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, it's fine. It's fine. So as for macroevolution, scientists would agree that macroevolution hasn't made any substantial changes in the past 100 ,000 years, really, unless we're talking about the breeding of species like dogs, but that's the type of evolution you would agree with.

01:00:50

That's more microevolution. Do you see that a person could take the same arguments you're making and apply them to other miracles in Scripture and say, well, these weren't really miracles because this was just providence?

01:01:04

Do you see how that sort of becomes a potential for leading to an anti -supernatural view of Scripture?

01:01:11

Yes, they could. It depends on whether that person's presupposition is that supernatural events can't happen, and I don't hold that presupposition.

01:01:19

So if, for example, other supernatural events, if there was a likely naturalistic explanation, it would make sense to take that explanation.

01:01:28

Like if, with the parting of the Red Sea, if we found evidence that a meteor landed right next to the

01:01:33

Israelites, and it was dated to the exact same time when the Israelites crossed, and there were Egyptian accounts of this huge meteor making a big splash in the

01:01:41

Red Sea, if we had all those evidence, then it might be logical to say that the parting of the Red Sea was a naturalistic event.

01:01:48

But there is nothing like that for any of the other miracles we see in Scripture. The reason I think it's, the reason

01:01:55

I think Genesis 1 is providential, it's not because I have this presupposition that supernatural events can't happen, it's because there is a lot of evidence of a naturalistic thing occurring over billions of years, with the fossil record, and with the vestigial structures, and all sorts of organisms, and all that.

01:02:16

Do you believe that God created through divine fiat? What do you mean by that? Do you mean supernaturally?

01:02:23

Well, that he spoke things into existence. God speaking things into existence is compatible with God creating things providentially,

01:02:32

I believe that. Okay, all right. Do you hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith?

01:02:38

Yes. I might take a few exceptions here or there, just like most PCA pastors do, but generally let's say yes.

01:02:45

Okay. Then do you believe that God created ex nihilo, out of nothing? God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing, and then

01:02:54

God used what he created to like, it's like God created the Legos, and then God built things out of the

01:03:00

Legos. Okay. Then the reason why I asked about the Westminster is because it says, made out of nothing.

01:03:08

That term is actually used in the Westminster, and that was my reason for that. I want to continue on the question of Westminster.

01:03:14

Do you agree with the Westminster, where it teaches that the earth was created in six days? Well, I would just interpret that the same way

01:03:22

I interpret the Bible, when the Bible says six days. It was six days. The question is, are these human 24 -hour days?

01:03:27

I don't think so, because a human day is based on the sun, and the sun wasn't really there until the fourth day. Okay. Do you believe that the men who wrote the

01:03:35

Westminster Confession of Faith would say that your position, particularly your position of Darwinism and evolution and man dying before the fall, do you think that they would say that was in the bounds of what they meant when they wrote it?

01:03:48

Well, the Westminster divines were extremely influenced by St. Augustine.

01:03:53

St. Augustine was the most important church father for them, and St. Augustine held to a very metaphorical view of lots of scripture, especially

01:04:00

Genesis 1. He didn't have the same view as I did, but he didn't believe in a literal six -day creation. He believed it was all created simultaneously.

01:04:07

So I would say they probably, I don't think they really were thinking about this. They were not thinking about this.

01:04:12

Everything they said about the creation, they were just regurgitating from Thomas Aquinas, basically. But I would say that that would fall under the bounds of what they would consider orthodox, because they considered

01:04:21

Augustine very orthodox. So it's your position that a person can hold to Westminster, the

01:04:28

Westminster standards, and be a Darwinian evolutionist? Of course. Well, B .B.

01:04:34

Warfield was basically the father of biblical inerrancy. He held to the Westminster standards, and he believed in evolution.

01:04:42

Okay. All right. Do you see a difference between when you say someone believes in evolution and someone believes in Darwinism?

01:04:49

Do you see a difference? Not really. There are other theories of evolution. Like if you listen to Michael Jones from Inspiring Philosophy, he believes in evolution, but not

01:04:58

Darwinian evolution. But the vast scientific consensus on evolution is neo -Darwinian macroevolution.

01:05:05

So I would say I would equivocate those two terms. I would say they're basically the same thing. Okay. So you believe

01:05:12

Warfield would say not just evolution, but Darwin's view? Yes, because Darwin's view was not originally that controversial in the

01:05:21

Church. It became controversial when atheists started to use it as arguments against God.

01:05:26

But Darwin was not originally contested by the Church that much. Was there human death prior to the

01:05:35

Fall? If by human you mean having a human soul, no. Okay.

01:05:41

All right. So what was Adam's ancestor? Adam's ancestor was something similar to a

01:05:49

Neanderthal, but probably more similar to what we are than a Neanderthal is. Something that is structurally nearly identical to humans, but not with a human soul.

01:06:00

Okay. Was Christ's resurrection physical? Yes. Okay. Will our resurrection be physical?

01:06:09

Yes, it will. All right. Okay. Does the sacrifice of Christ only save us from spiritual death?

01:06:16

No, it saves us from physical death too. And anyone who says it only saves us from spiritual death is a blasphemous heretic.

01:06:22

So don't worry. Okay. No, no, no. I'm just trying to say, okay, so what did

01:06:29

Adam bring into the world then? If there was already physical death, what did

01:06:35

Adam bring into the world? Well, you could say physical death was allowed because of Adam, because God knew

01:06:41

Adam would sin. And the tree of life, that is Christ. Calvin said the tree of life is

01:06:47

Christ. So death was already a problem. Adam could have solved that problem right then and there by eating from the tree of life.

01:06:53

But he didn't. Instead of receiving eternal life from God, he decided to sin.

01:06:59

Humanity chose sin over life, and that's what the fall was. Okay.

01:07:06

All right. This question is in two parts, because we're down to one minute, so I want to get it all.

01:07:13

The question is, why do you believe in evolution? And do you really believe it's what the Bible teaches, or do you believe it, and therefore you're forced to find a way to make the

01:07:21

Bible fit into it? And I'm not questioning your character on that. I'm just asking, did you already believe evolution, and now you're trying to find a way to make it fit?

01:07:29

Or do you really believe it's what the Bible teaches? This is what the Bible teaches. Well, I believed in evolution just before I was

01:07:36

Christian. That's just what I always learned from science. Now, when I became Christian, I stopped believing a lot of things that I previously believed.

01:07:45

I stopped believing anything I believed contradicted the scriptures. But when it came to the issue of evolution,

01:07:51

I was like, I just don't see how this does contradict the scriptures. There are a lot of things, like the science used to say that it's natural for someone to be homosexual.

01:08:00

And I read the scripture, and I was like, this is definitely not compatible with the scriptures. So I am willing to reject mainstream science if it contradicts the scriptures.

01:08:06

I just never found that evolution did contradict the scriptures. Okay. I think we're out of time.

01:08:15

Yes, sir. That's 10 minutes there. Thank you both. For the audience, that was a model of how CrossX should be.

01:08:20

That was direct, relevant questions and direct, relevant answers. So thank you both for that.

01:08:27

We are going to flip the script now. Redeem Zuma will be given a 10 -minute period with which to question

01:08:32

Keith, hopefully in the same manner, though I have no doubt that that will be the case.

01:08:38

And again, as usual, if a question is asked with a few seconds remaining, we'll let you run out with the answer. That's fine.

01:08:44

So your 10 -minute CrossX begins at your first word, sir. Great. Well, thank you,

01:08:49

Keith. So do you think that the Earth looks old? And do you believe that evolution appears to be the case?

01:08:56

I guess those are two different questions, but do you think the Earth looks old, first of all? I think that there is a difficulty, and I'm certainly not trying to be a politician in this.

01:09:10

When we say it looks old, I think it certainly has features that, to a natural worldview, we would say this had to have taken a long time.

01:09:20

And so we have the concepts of uniformitarianism and catastrophism, which go against each other.

01:09:26

The uniformitarianism says it has to be old because it takes this amount of time for this to happen. Therefore, we have to extrapolate backwards and say this took this amount of time.

01:09:34

Catastrophism says, no, there are things that happen that are catastrophes that create big changes over a short amount of time.

01:09:40

So when you say it looks old, it would depend on how you interpret what age looks like.

01:09:47

Adam would have looked old when he was created. If my belief is true and he wasn't born and grew, as I think you believe, but he was actually created as a fully grown man, he would have looked old but would not have been old.

01:09:59

Is there ever a case in Scripture of God making something appear older than it actually is, aside from what you believe about the creation?

01:10:10

When Jesus turned water into wine, wine takes a long time to ferment, and yet Jesus handed them wine that they said was the best wine.

01:10:18

Baptists would say it wasn't fermented, but that's incorrect. There's an example of something that looked old, but it wasn't.

01:10:27

It looked like it had been fermented, but it hadn't. That is a good point. So why are there so many fossils in the earth, so much evidence of species that no longer exist today?

01:10:37

Not just the dinosaurs, but trilobites and all these creatures. Why are there so many creatures that no longer exist today that we have fossils of in the earth?

01:10:47

Again, I'm using Hugh Ross, and some people might think that's unfair, because obviously

01:10:52

I would disagree with Hugh Ross on certain things. But if we adopt Hugh's paradigm for just a moment, he would argue that in creation there were more species than there ever would be, and what we see now is not more but less than what was actually there in the beginning.

01:11:09

Therefore, whatever's found in the rocks and through geology and things, it would be simply finding the things that no longer exist but once did.

01:11:20

He uses the Cambrian explosion as saying there was every form of life that would ever become was there.

01:11:31

I hope that was clear. I feel like I tripped a little bit in that, but you understand what I'm saying.

01:11:36

It's actually more life, not less. More variation. Okay. Do you think that darkness is bad?

01:11:47

Not inherently bad. I think it's inherently a great metaphor, but it's not inherently bad.

01:11:57

My answer is no. No, I don't think it's inherently bad. Right. In Genesis 1 -3, when

01:12:04

God says, God saw the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

01:12:10

If there already is a moral status being ascribed to light, is there a moral status ascribed to darkness?

01:12:17

Do you think the light is good and the darkness is neutral? I think what it is is we see

01:12:22

God's action is good. I think God is saying, let there be light, and it was good.

01:12:27

The idea is when God intervenes, when God creates, he's saying this action and this thing that I'm doing is good.

01:12:36

Later, he's going to say he saw the birds, and he saw the trees, and he saw the land, and it was all good.

01:12:41

He's not saying that which is not that is bad. He's saying this thing that I've created is good. Okay.

01:12:48

Do you think Jesus is coming back soon? Yes, but I'm also an amillennialist, so I take a position of essentially an imminency that Christ could come back any time.

01:13:08

My post -millennial brothers would say it might be another 5 ,000 years, but in regard to this, yes,

01:13:13

I would say soon in our understanding. Sure. I'm an amillennial, too. I'm not asking about specific eschatology.

01:13:23

Like Jesus said, he was coming back soon 2 ,000 years ago. If the earth is only 6 ,000 years old, and that was two -thirds into the way of its existence, maybe it'll be more, do you think that would qualify as soon?

01:13:39

Well, this is where eschatology does play a part because the passages which refer to soon, I'm a partial preterist, so I think some of the references to soon refer to what happened in AD 70, so I do think it was within that generation.

01:13:52

Jesus said this generation will not pass away until these things take place, so this is where I think eschatology does play a part. When we see time markers like that, to me, it was something that was soon.

01:14:03

I think the judgment of AD 70 was soon, and the coming back is, we don't know when that is because he says he doesn't know the day or the hour, so there's a distinction there, and that is the imminency that we see in the parables such as the wedding feast where they come back, their oil wasn't ready, so we have to be ready.

01:14:23

There has to be an imminency, but the idea of something being soon, I think, was literally soon.

01:14:31

I'm referring to the very end of Revelation where Jesus said, I'm coming back soon. Do you think generally,

01:14:37

I generally think Revelation was after the destruction of the temple, so do you think that Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple there in Revelation?

01:14:45

No, I would say, and this is why I'm partial preterist, and again, I don't want to make this the issue of the debate, but I would say that basically the earlier portion of Revelation is what's known as redemptive historical eclecticism where I would see the actions of the earlier part of Revelation being cyclical, and it's referring to how our millennial position, which we share, would be its redemptive history over time.

01:15:12

You see this in cycles, but after chapter 19,

01:15:17

I do see that as future, right? Chapter 19 is Jesus returning, and then, you know, yeah. So if that's from the perspective of 2 ,000 years ago,

01:15:27

Jesus says he's coming soon. If that was only year 4 ,000 out of 6 ,000 total years or so, does that really qualify as soon?

01:15:38

I think still it's within the bounds of what the text is attempting to imply, and that is the idea that his coming is imminent, and every generation must live as if they are the last generation so that we're prepared for his coming when he comes.

01:15:52

Do you think that soon would make, even if you don't hold this view, do you think soon might make more sense if the world is actually a lot older than that and the last 2 ,000 years is like the last 0 .00001

01:16:03

% or whatever? Well, this is where we get, if we want to talk about time, and since you're asking, if the world is four and a half billion years old and the universe is 13 billion years old, then that would mean that human history, even if we take a couple hundred thousand years of human history, and I would say it's much, much shorter than that, it would be like, and it was my friend of mine who made this illustration, he said it would be like a human hair sitting on the wing of a

01:16:27

Boeing 747, right? That's the amount of time that human time has been here versus the time the universe has been here versus the time that the earth has been here.

01:16:35

So even when we talk about soon in that little hair, it's still relative to, if you're correct, and we've been here for four and a half billion years as far as the world and 13 billion years as far as the earth, it's still really just an odd thing to discuss as far as God's conception of time.

01:16:52

God's conception of time is certainly different than ours. You made that point in your opening statement, and I would agree with you that, in a sense, if a thousand years is as a day, we're still three days since Christ resurrected.

01:17:05

Okay, last thing. You said Adam and Eve stand upon a mountain of skulls. Those are animal skulls.

01:17:11

So do you think animal death is bad? I think so, but again, this wasn't really the argument

01:17:20

I wanted to make, but I'm not unwilling to talk about it. I do believe that there is something in scripture that speaks of the difference between animals prior to the fall and after, and I base this upon the

01:17:32

Isaiah passage, which refers to what animals will be like in the new heaven, and I do believe the new heaven, new earth is an

01:17:38

Edenic state. I don't believe it's Eden. I don't believe it's the exact same, but I do believe it's Edenic in its condition, and therefore, when we go to Isaiah, I think it's,

01:17:45

I have it in my notes here, but it's in Isaiah 6 where it talks about the wolf laying down with the lamb and the lion being led by the child and child picking up snakes and things like there's this total difference in how the future references animals, and I don't see why that couldn't have been the same in the past.

01:18:01

I don't see why we can't say there was a time of Edenic condition where animals didn't live in a neutral state with one another and with us, and there wasn't this feasting upon each other.

01:18:12

I agree that that's what it's going to be like in the future. I think it's hard to believe that it was ever like that in the past, because it was like that in the past.

01:18:19

Then why are animals designed to be carnivorous? Why are lions made with sharp teeth for the purpose of killing other animals if they used to not be like that?

01:18:30

Well, I would push back and simply say that when you have such as a koala bear that has sharp teeth, but it only eats vegetation, so having sharp teeth does not automatically mean that an animal was created to do that, but if God saw fit that in the fall there was this change of, even,

01:18:48

I mean, if you read the Genesis 1, and it talks about the eating of every tree in the garden,

01:18:55

I believe humans were originally vegetarian, even though I'm glad we're not anymore, because I like a good steak. I believe we were originally vegetarian, and I think that that is possible within the animal realm, even though I know that's a difficult position for some people to understand, but I think that's possible.

01:19:11

Yeah, humans are omnivores, but there are some animals that are carnivores. They cannot eat plants.

01:19:16

They must eat other animals, so did you think those animals changed from herbivores into carnivores after the fall?

01:19:24

Again, this is a possibility. I'm not able to say for certain, but I think that that's certainly possible.

01:19:32

Okay. All right. We are at the end of our time here, gentlemen. Actually, about 30 seconds over on the cross -ex, but that's fine, because that was a great exchange, and I want to thank you for it.

01:19:42

I've used words like could be contentious, that sort of thing. I didn't anticipate that from you, too, but I always just want to let our audience know what you are seeing here in the terms of internet debate, this is a rarity, and you should be thankful, and I hope that you're blessed by it, because sometimes these sorts of conversations, even among brothers, turn into a lot of mud -flinging, and I'm glad that has not occurred.

01:20:03

We will now move on to our closing statements. Radim Zumer, we're going to have you go first, because you are the affirmative case, and you presented first.

01:20:12

Closing statement is going to be five minutes for each, and then we're going to go to audience Q &A for the audience.

01:20:18

I've collected five questions, which is healthy. We could use a few more if you were wanting to ask a question.

01:20:26

Please tag me, and I'm going to say something in chat right now. Please tag me in the YouTube chat with your question and who you'd like it to be directed to, and we'll have our bank of questions and go over procedure once we're at that point.

01:20:40

So, Radim Zumer, your five -minute clock on your first word, sir. Right. So, like I said in the beginning,

01:20:47

I don't simply accept Darwinian evolution because I can make it fit with Scripture.

01:20:53

I don't simply say Darwinian evolution is compatible with Scripture, and that it's a possibility.

01:20:59

I positively affirm that Darwinian evolution is the truth, because I think it is a beautiful picture of the gospel.

01:21:07

I think it is a beautiful picture of how God brings good out of evil from a Reformed perspective.

01:21:13

Both of those things hold to a Calvinistic soteriology view of providence and worldview.

01:21:19

Now, the more free -will type Arminian view of why God allows evil has something to do with free will.

01:21:27

And, you know, St. Augustine also said this. But a more Calvinistic, and I think a more biblical argument, more biblical reasoning for why

01:21:34

God allows any sort of evil in death and destruction is because he is glorified in defeating it. That's what

01:21:40

God says to Pharaoh, that God raised up Pharaoh, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, so he could be glorified in defeating

01:21:46

Pharaoh. I think this, I think Darwinism is the gospel applied to creation.

01:21:55

The gospel is God bringing good out of evil. The gospel is God bringing life out of death, and that's exactly what

01:22:00

Darwinian evolution is. Darwinian evolution is life and flourishing being brought out of death.

01:22:05

And like I demonstrated in my opening statement, it is a great opportunity to show that the

01:22:11

Bible is consistent with the scientific timeline. If you compare how the Bible matches up with the scientific timeline to any other creation story, it is not even funny.

01:22:21

There are other creation stories like in Native American stories that says the earth is on the back of a turtle, and that turtle is on the back of a turtle, and that turtle is on the back of a turtle.

01:22:29

Compare that to the Bible, having the exact same order of creation, plants, fish, birds, mammals, men, the exact same order of creation that the scientific timeline shows us.

01:22:44

And there's even other parallels. Like I said, when humans got bigger brains from the knowledge of good and evil, childbirth became more painful for women.

01:22:53

So like I said, Darwinian evolution, I think it fits best with the scriptural narrative. I don't just think it is something possibly that we could affirm.

01:23:01

Because when I first became Christian, I read through the Bible expecting it to contradict evolution, because that's what

01:23:07

I was taught in my atheist public school. And I was really surprised to find how beautifully it matched the scientific timeline.

01:23:16

And in a sense, my conversion to Christianity was when I realized how

01:23:21

God is compatible with evil. My conversion to Christianity was when I realized that God brings good out of evil.

01:23:29

Jesus says, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The gospel is

01:23:34

God's kingdom condescending to our fallen world and bringing good out of it. It is God taking on the evil and darkness of this world and bringing life and flourishing out of that.

01:23:44

I think Darwinian evolution is a microcosm or maybe even a macrocosm of that thing. That's why

01:23:49

I think Darwinian evolution is a beautiful picture of redemption. God is able to turn massive amounts of death into massive amounts of life.

01:23:58

And like I said, Darwinian evolution is consistent with how God creates things in the Bible. Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.

01:24:06

And then it branches into a big tree with many different branches, many different types. That's the way the church was created.

01:24:11

It started with a small group of apostles and it branched out into so many different nations and Christian nations and denominations, whatever.

01:24:20

The kingdom of Israel started with Abraham and it branched into many different tribes. And those tribes had smaller subsections.

01:24:27

And all of humanity started with Adam. And you could say also restarted with Noah and it branched into so many different nations with so much diversity.

01:24:36

So likewise, why should we not believe that all life came from one common ancestor, one common ancestor, one single celled life form around 3 billion years or so, who knows.

01:24:48

That branched into all the beautiful diversity of life that we see today. And God set aside one of these life forms to enter into a covenant with and to bestow his image upon, that image being the human soul.

01:24:58

Just the same way God set apart one man from all the many millions of men in the world to enter into another specific, even more specific covenant with to be the father of Israel.

01:25:09

And the way God set apart one woman, the blessed mother of God, to be the mother of himself in the incarnation.

01:25:19

Darwinian evolution is what is most consistent with the biblical narrative and the biblical story of redemption.

01:25:27

Thank you. Okie doke. Thank you, sir. Keith, your five minutes on your first word, sir.

01:25:39

Well, again, I want to thank you guys for doing this, especially Redeem Zoomer for bringing a good presentation.

01:25:47

I remember sitting in a debate between James White and Robert Price. Robert Price was part of the

01:25:53

Jesus Seminar. He held a view which called into question many of the

01:26:00

Bible's claims to miracles, and it was an interesting debate.

01:26:07

I remember sitting there listening, but during the time of questions—and this is, again, I encourage the audience to ask questions because I asked the question, and I think it was important—because there was a group of atheists who were there who were really rah -rah -ing

01:26:19

Robert Price, and they were there in support of what he was saying because he was calling into question the

01:26:25

Bible's claims to miracles and all those things. But it became obvious to me through Robert Price's presentation that his position didn't fit with them either, and so what

01:26:35

I stood up and said was, listen, Dr. Price, the atheists are here to support you.

01:26:42

Do you really believe your position is any better for them than it is for the other side? Are you really supporting—and his answer was, well, no, because I'm just saying nobody really knows.

01:26:53

And you can go back and watch the debate and hear my question, and he basically said it's really not any better.

01:26:59

And so it sort of took some of the air out of the wind of the sails of the atheist position because they were there saying, oh man, this guy's supporting us, when he really wasn't.

01:27:08

And I say that only to say this as part of my closing statement. If you're watching this, if you're an audience member, and you're a

01:27:14

Darwinist, and you think that in some way Redeem Zuma's position is somehow a blessing to you because it's supporting what you believe, in the end it's really not.

01:27:26

He's not able to get to where you get without God. No one is. No one can get to where he's saying these things happen.

01:27:34

He's saying God's providentially in control of this. He's saying Satan is involved in this. He's saying all of these things. And that's important to recognize, that purely naturalistic

01:27:43

Darwinism, purely to say that this all happened without the intervention of a supernatural

01:27:50

God is absolutely beyond the pale. It is unscientific. It is unbiblical.

01:27:55

It is unrealistic to come to that conclusion. And so I felt the need to simply remind everyone that if you're here as a

01:28:05

Darwinist, thinking that you have a Christian supporting your position, well, he is and he isn't. And that has to be pointed out because he's still saying that there's providence here.

01:28:14

He's still saying God's involved. And if you believe God's not involved at all, then you're denying the very creation around you.

01:28:20

The Bible says when you look at creation, it says in Romans 1 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

01:28:29

For God's existence, his eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen in the things that have been made.

01:28:35

And so if you're looking at this and you're thinking all of this was made and it was simply made by natural processes and God wasn't involved, then you're denying the very thing that your conscience tells you is the truth.

01:28:47

And so my call, I wanted my last bit here to be a gospel call, is to say if you're still struggling with how

01:28:54

God created the world, if you're still struggling with those things, just understand and take a step back and say none of this could have happened apart from a creator, apart from a divinely guided process.

01:29:05

And I believe that process was very short. I believe God commanded it and it happened, and I believe that's in accord with what the Bible teaches.

01:29:11

But we cannot say that this is all a cosmic accident. That leads to a terrible morality, and that's not what my opponent is saying.

01:29:18

I'm saying if that's what you're saying, if that's what you as a person who's watching this is saying, that somehow this all came about through some kind of cosmic belch, you know, four and a half billion years ago or 13 billion years ago or whatever, that's not the truth.

01:29:33

The Bible teaches that God created the heavens and the earth. I believe He created them out of nothing.

01:29:38

I do believe He created them in a relatively short amount of time, and I do believe He did it by the word of His power, because we see that word of His power throughout the

01:29:45

Bible. We see the word of His power being expressed every time we see a miracle happen. God is doing it by His word.

01:29:51

He's doing it by His power, by His Spirit, and we see this all throughout the Bible, and this is what I believe creation is.

01:29:56

I believe it's a miracle of God. I believe it's something that is really inexplicable when it comes to science. We can learn certain things about it, but we can't see the whole picture without saying

01:30:04

God did this, and I don't shy away from that. I don't shy away from saying there are some things that do not make sense apart from God, and creation is certainly one of those things.

01:30:15

So my encouragement to you is when you know God as a creator, then you know that you are responsible to Him.

01:30:20

You know that your sin separates you from Him, and your sin must be dealt with.

01:30:26

The Bible says it's either going to be dealt with by you standing before Him and being judged and receiving the penalty thereof, or it's going to be dealt with at the cross, and you are going to have

01:30:35

Christ as your Savior, and He's going to take your sin, and He is going to become your righteousness.

01:30:41

Really, that's the only option. Either your sin is going to be dealt with in you, or your sin is dealt with at the And so I encourage you to turn from your sin, to repent, and believe in the

01:30:50

Lord Jesus Christ, because there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. And that's my final thing.

01:30:58

Thank you, sir. Okey -doke. So that concludes the formal portion of the debate.

01:31:03

If there was an audience, this is where I would ask them to clap for you, so maybe some clap emojis in the chat or something like that.

01:31:09

We'll throw that out there. I want to thank you both for conducting yourselves in a respectful and yet challenging manner in which you really want to push the position that your opponent has.

01:31:22

I think that's valuable. So I'm now going to move into audience Q &A. Thank you to our audience. I've gathered a few questions here.

01:31:29

I won't be asking all of them, because I'm intending to not have us here until, depending on your time zone, sundown.

01:31:36

A literal 24 -hour day, I will say. No, I'm sorry. That was bad. It's actually six billion years.

01:31:44

That's right. Yeah, yeah. So the day is just, yeah. What do we mean by all day?

01:31:51

Okay. So we'll start off. I'll try and alternate these as best I can. The format

01:31:56

I'd like to take, and I'm not going to be timing this super hard, but just kind of keep in mind that we're trying to get through some questions. So the person to whom the question is posed, take about a minute.

01:32:06

The other person, please take about, try 30 seconds, somewhere around there, just to kind of give your thoughts.

01:32:13

We know these are not going to be full -fledged statements. We know that there's going to be some abbreviation that has to happen.

01:32:19

So audience will show grace in that. I'm going to take a day age approach to my one minute.

01:32:25

There you go. That's right. That's right. Yeah. All day, all day. Before we do this,

01:32:32

I do want to say, and I just want to make sure this doesn't not get said, but when you were on with Joel the other day, you gave an explanation about the

01:32:40

Darth Vader and he amended you. And I just have to say this publicly. That was my favorite part of your interaction.

01:32:45

And Joel, if you're watching this, he said, I think you said Darth Vader was to George Lucas, like God was to Satan or something to that effect.

01:32:52

And I just heard his voice say, amen. And I was like, that's the best part of that interaction.

01:32:57

And I just thought it was funny. So I had to say it. Sorry. No, you're good. First question from Joe Pavlik to redeem

01:33:05

Zoomer. How is it? I'm just going to read, I'm not going to editorialize on these. I want to read them as the person wrote them to accurately represent them.

01:33:13

How is it possible to interpret Exodus 20 verse 11 without interpreting literal 24 hour days in Genesis?

01:33:19

That would be the 10 commandment in the Decalogue to keep the Sabbath. Yeah. Is that where it says four and six days

01:33:27

God created the earth? I believe so. We will not start your timer yet. Cause unlike my opponent,

01:33:35

I am a Sabbatarian. So yes. I have thought about that verse many times.

01:33:42

I think you could just apply the same hermeneutical method because Genesis one says it's six days, but like we say,

01:33:49

Moses who wrote that Moses who wrote the Decalogue also says a day for the Lord can be like a thousand years, a thousand years, like a day.

01:33:55

So I think the same interpretive method we apply to Genesis one, we can also apply to that verse. I don't think that verse really changes the debate much.

01:34:03

Okay. Keith. Um, I, I, I agree with the, with the questioner that that does, that does limit it to the days, but I think the, the answer is implied in the question.

01:34:14

So I won't, I won't go too much with that. Okay. All right,

01:34:19

Keith from Romans eight shaman. And I have so many questions about this name. Um, that just makes me want to ask more, but, um, apparently he's thought about this passage a lot.

01:34:31

Uh, well, yeah, I reckon so. Uh, if he's a shaman of it and I will, I will, the, the, the question is phrased a little challengingly, so I'll try and do my best with it.

01:34:40

Um, if you apply your hermeneutic principle consistently, why would you not also conclude on, uh,

01:34:50

A and E flat earth? I believe that's ancient near east flat earth cosmology, uh, being correct. Why would you not accept that?

01:34:59

Okay. This is, this is a difficult question because he's, he's pointing to something in Romans eight, but I don't exactly know what he's pointing to.

01:35:05

I'm assuming that, oh, I'm sorry, that I referenced the person's name. That's his username,

01:35:10

Romans eight shaman. Oh, I thought, oh, I turned to Romans eight in my Bible. I thought I was asking specifically about, so I was like, what, what in Romans eight does that?

01:35:18

Okay. Yeah, no, uh, that is, that is his username just to give him a shout out. So the question is, and again, I'll clean this up a little bit.

01:35:23

If you apply your hermeneutical principles consistently, you should conclude, uh, you should conclude with an ancient near east flat earth cosmology.

01:35:31

Why don't you? Okay. All right. This is where I, and I do, um,

01:35:37

I haven't mentioned Ken Ham yet, but I'll go ahead and mention him. Uh, even though I know, I love

01:35:44

Ken, but not, you know, they're, they're going to be those who have some issues with some of what he teaches. And again, I, I, I have some thoughts myself, but, um, he does make a good point.

01:35:52

I think the creation science, uh, movement, uh, the young earth creation science movement makes a good point about the distinction between observational science and historical science.

01:36:01

And observational science is that which we can actually see versus that which we have to interpret from the past, which we can no longer see, but we have to see what we have and then make an interpretation so we can see around earth.

01:36:12

I believe that we do. I know there are people who say the photographs have been doctored and that everybody in NASA is a liar and all those things.

01:36:19

Um, so I think that's untrue. I think that we can see around earth. I think we can see the curvature of the earth.

01:36:25

I think, uh, I'm a shooter. I, I, I teach shooting classes and I know that when a person shoots over a mile and there are snipers who can hit mile long shots, they have to take the

01:36:35

Coriolis effect into account when they're making that shot. And that involves the moving of the earth, the curvature of the earth and all those different things, because, uh, that's just how the world is.

01:36:45

And so I don't, I don't have a problem, uh, with the, with the round earth as a, as something that we see, observe, and we have to account for.

01:36:54

Okay. Zimmer. Uh, yeah, I think that actually is a good distinction between observational science and historical science.

01:37:01

I will agree that you can't apply the scientific method to prove evolution. I'd say it's more like a crime scene investigation than an experiment in the laboratory.

01:37:09

Okay. Good analogy. Okay. Um, let's see here.

01:37:18

Now I'm going to ask this question. If you don't know what the question is talking about, cause they just weren't specific enough in it, then that we can just pass.

01:37:24

It doesn't, you can take a pass on it. This one's for, uh, for Zoomer. Can you give more detailed reasons why not to take

01:37:31

IP's view of guided evolution? I don't know who IP is. Okay.

01:37:37

Okay. Good. So can you, can you read this whole question? The difference between him and me is that he is not a

01:37:43

Calvinist at all. He does not hold to the Calvinist view of Providence like I do. So he kind of needs to reject random mutations because he thinks rent, he thinks randomness is incompatible with God's Providence.

01:37:55

He kind of needs to say that God did some sort of supernatural intervention because he strongly rejects

01:38:01

Calvinism. However, I am a Calvinist. So I believe that God's Providence can be compatible with random mutations.

01:38:07

It's like, if you flip a coin, is the result random? I mean, yeah, but God still determine the outcome of your coin flip.

01:38:14

So I think the, the, the reason why I don't need to take his position is because I'm not a,

01:38:19

I don't believe in libertarian free causation in the universe. Okay. Keith, I don't know enough about his position to comment.

01:38:28

So I'll, I agree with Razim Zuma. What he said sounds good. Okay. For you,

01:38:35

Keith, the question is, without rapid evolution, how could all of the animals on the

01:38:41

Ark repopulate the Earth, and so therefore give us the millions of species that we have today?

01:38:49

This is a, this is a Young Earth Creation question. It comes to the issue of the Ark, and the, the issue of, what was the term that was used?

01:38:59

Rapid evolution? Rapid evolution is what the questioner used. Yeah. Well, I think,

01:39:05

I think the word evolution there is, is not the word I would use. I would say that there have been many, many changes within species, and those can happen in a relatively short amount of time.

01:39:15

And also I do believe that God intervened in the, in the repopulation of the

01:39:20

Earth, and, and, and producing the, producing animals, producing more animals through a rapid sequence of, of birth, and, and, and, and filling the population.

01:39:31

I'll give you an example that maybe this will help. If we go back to Adam and Eve, and so if Adam and Eve were the first, how do we get to so many people so quickly?

01:39:38

Well, I believe, one, I believe Eve was pretty fertile, and I believe that she was probably having twins, and things like that.

01:39:46

These things were happening to create that. So God was intervening in that sense to bring about that amount of, of population growth.

01:39:55

Okay. Zoomer, anything on that one? Well, I, I, I don't believe that,

01:40:02

I don't believe in rapid evolution. I guess I'm less of an evolutionist than the young Earth creationists are, because I, I don't think evolution really could happen that fast, fast enough for like,

01:40:11

I don't know, a hundred or so species to turn into all the millions and millions of species we have today off of Noah's Ark, so yeah.

01:40:18

Okay. This one has been kind of, you, you gentlemen have kind of addressed it a little bit already, but I'll just ask it so you could maybe put a finer point on it.

01:40:30

This question says, Corey and Woe from Stone Choir have argued that God created a billion -year -old universe in six literal days.

01:40:41

To Ke-, I'm sorry, this is just funny. I believe the person typoed, they said, to Keith and Boomer, with a

01:40:47

B. That's awesome. To Keith and Boomer, do you think this could reconcile your positions?

01:40:55

So again, could God have simply created a universe that appeared billions of years old in the six literal days of Genesis?

01:41:03

We'll start with you, Zimmer. Sure. Some people do call me Boomer, so maybe that was intentional.

01:41:12

So I don't think that's what happened. That's not, I don't think that's a fair compromise because I think that's the same problem of like,

01:41:18

I don't think God is a deceiver. I don't think God would make something look one way if it's not that way. So yes,

01:41:26

God theoretically could do that, but why would God put so much evidence in the world to the contrary?

01:41:31

There are some radical fundamentalists who think Satan put the dinosaur bones there to test humanity, but I don't think any of us hold to that position, so I would say no.

01:41:41

Okay. Keith, and we'll give you the full minute on this because this was addressed to you both. I think this is one of those times where evidence has to be interpreted, just like scripture has to be interpreted, right?

01:41:52

We have to look at the passage and we have to interpret what it means and we have to look at the evidence and interpret what it means.

01:41:58

And this goes along the same question that Radim Zimmer asked me in CrossX when he asked about why would

01:42:05

God make the world look old? Well, it only looks old if we have certain a priori assumptions of what old looks like, right?

01:42:12

And again, the position I'm taking today doesn't depend on young earth, even though some things might have to lean that way.

01:42:19

I mean, again, Darwinism is denied by men like Hugh Ross, who would say, even as an old earther, I'm not a

01:42:25

Darwinist. I can't hope because God created different kinds in the beginning. He didn't create one kind which became different kinds.

01:42:31

That's really what we're debating. Did God create one that became many or did God create many in the beginning?

01:42:37

And my argument is that he created many in the beginning, and whether that was a long time ago or a short time ago is still important, but it's not the heart of this debate.

01:42:45

But if we were arguing about the age of the earth and that was the issue here and that was really what we're debating, then

01:42:51

I think the question is, does God make things look old? No, we interpret things as looking old, and that's us, not him.

01:43:01

Okay, we've got two more and then we will wrap up because we are an hour 43 or so into this.

01:43:08

This is a more open -ended question, and so whichever direction you gentlemen want to take it, I'm not quite sure what the questioner was getting at, but we'll go ahead and read it.

01:43:17

Do Keith and Zumer's views of the natural world lead them to different conclusions about the nations of men?

01:43:24

So I'm not exactly sure what the questioner was getting at, but I wanted to throw that one out there. Perhaps it's something about God establishing the nations of men versus this being more of an organic process that just kind of happens, so to speak.

01:43:37

So Zumer, do you want to start with that? Sure. I mean, we both would affirm that the nations of men evolved from Adam, that all of them are descended from Adam or descended from Noah, so I don't think we would disagree on that.

01:43:51

Now, maybe the person is asking if, like, there were some, you know, racial supremacists that used

01:43:59

Darwinian evolution to argue that some races are superior to others, and I wouldn't follow that train of thought because that was, their science was shown to be bogus.

01:44:10

I don't think it leads to any substantial difference in how we see the nations, especially because we both agree that the nations evolved from Adam.

01:44:18

Okay, Keith? Yeah, I would agree, and also I would just add that we both, even though we both take a different view of the flood, being that I believe in a global flood,

01:44:28

Radim Zumer, and correct me if I'm wrong, believes in a sort of a Ortlund's view. I think it's Ortlund who has a view of a regional flood, but we both believe that all human beings died in the flood except for Noah and his family, and therefore every human being today is a descendant of Noah and his family.

01:44:46

You would agree with that? Well, I think, what I think is most likely is not all humans were killed in the flood, but then

01:44:51

Noah's descendants spread out and multiplied with all the existing humans, so that means all humans today are still descended from Noah.

01:44:58

Oh, okay. All right, so we do have slightly different, but either way, either way, so the nations we see after Babel, right?

01:45:05

We see the generations that come after Babel. If that's what they're referring to, it still comes after Noah.

01:45:11

It's still after the Noahic incident after the flood, so yeah, I mean, it's still, again,

01:45:19

I think our positions will be fairly consistent after Genesis 11, at least as the timeline and everything happens.

01:45:25

Okay, last question goes to how we read Genesis 1 and 2, which one could argue that's been the whole debate.

01:45:33

Some scholars have interpreted the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 as a story of the creation of an ancient

01:45:43

Near East temple with the end being the insertion of the image of the god into the middle of the temple.

01:45:49

Do you think that this is compatible, incompatible, or does it work with your view or contradict it?

01:45:55

And we'll start with Zoomer. I guess that could be a something, a pattern you could notice in addition, but I'm not someone who says that that's the alternative to the

01:46:06

Young Earth, literal Young Earth creationist. I think it's a narrative. I'm sure a lot of you guys have seen

01:46:13

Oversimplified's YouTube channel where he explains historical events but oversimplifies them. I think Genesis is just oversimplified history.

01:46:20

I'm not someone who thinks that it's some weird temple inauguration thing like the Michael Heiser thing. Maybe it is that in addition, but it is a narrative.

01:46:27

It's just a simplified narrative. Okay, and Keith? I've heard the different arguments.

01:46:35

You mentioned Heiser, and I have a lot of respect for him. He recently went to be with the Lord. I think he introduced a lot of interesting ideas that we can debate.

01:46:44

I recently had a conversation with a friend who really enjoyed his work, and I thought we had a good conversation about it.

01:46:50

And there are others who have different views. Richard Barsalas's book Getting the Garden Right really introduces some ideas of what was happening in the garden.

01:46:59

Adam working the garden as sort of a priest figure in a temple. So these things have to be considered, and I don't think any of those would violate or take away from the overall idea of what's happening.

01:47:13

God's creating this thing. Now, is there a temple motif? Is there a temple idea here?

01:47:19

It's not explicit in the text. Certainly, there are things that are said later in Exodus and Leviticus that could point back to terms like,

01:47:27

I forget the language that's used, but when Adam is commanded to keep the garden, that language is used later for the priests.

01:47:36

And so there's certainly things that can be that. It's just not dependent in my position whether that is or isn't.

01:47:43

And I do think sometimes we can overread things, overread narratives, overread covenantal language into things that aren't necessarily there, even if they might be there.

01:47:54

We got to start with what the text says. And one thing we know, and this is my principle of interpretation, is the text can't mean what it doesn't say.

01:48:04

And if it doesn't say it, then we have to be careful when we start applying meaning that's not there. Okay.

01:48:11

Well, gentlemen, that concludes our Q &A time. We are at an hour 45, and I do want to thank our audience as well for your good questions.

01:48:19

This has been, I think, an encouraging example of brothers that disagree but do so with Christ in the heart, and hopefully doing so in a way that's edifying.

01:48:29

Even if no minds were changed in this trio, hopefully it helped people to think through their thoughts, think

01:48:35

God's thoughts after Him. So to our listeners, thank you so much for attending the debate. I will be concluding the stream, and we will be signing off now.

01:48:44

If you want to know more about these gentlemen and their content, their resources, we'll start with Keith.

01:48:51

Would you let people know where they can find out more about you? Yeah. Calvinistpodcast .com

01:48:58

takes you straight to my YouTube page. If you comment on a YouTube video, I read all my comments, even though sometimes there's a lot.

01:49:06

If you want to get in contact with me directly for a question or a possible show you would like me to do or someone you'd like me to interview, it's calvinistpodcast at gmail .com.

01:49:15

So just keep Calvinist Podcast in your mind. You'll find me if you type that into Google. Okay. And, Zoomer, how can people, if they want to know more about you, get in touch with you or see more of your work, how do they do that?

01:49:26

I'm RedeemedZoomer on YouTube and Instagram. If you want to know what I'm actually working on, go to kingdompresbyterians .com.

01:49:33

I'm trying to promote orthodoxy in my denomination of PCUSA. Okay. Well, thank you, gentlemen, and thank you to our audience.

01:49:40

We are going to conclude now. I pray that you've been blessed by this, and may God bless you as you attend the