The Historical Adam

Revealed Apologetics

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All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and I am again excited to have

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Jason Lyle on the show to talk about the historical Adam So if you've seen the YouTube thumbnail, you know, that's the topic that we're going to be covering very important and very controversial

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Topic so definitely looking forward to inviting him on in just a few moments.

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Just real quick by way of announcement I know folks are When they follow this channel, they're kind of up on the whole presuppositional apologetics and the methodological debates

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We got a real treat for you on November 23rd. I'm gonna be having

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Joshua pillows and David Pullman who is a very outspoken critic of presuppositional ism.

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I'm gonna be having those two gentlemen on the show to discuss the the ins and outs of Apologetic methodology from a presuppositional perspective which

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Joshua pillows holds that perspective and David Pullman representing the Evidentialist perspective.

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So that's gonna be a very exciting. I'm sure very lively, but very respectful Interaction, so please stay tuned for that.

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That's on the 23rd at 9 p .m. Eastern All right.

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Well just to give folks a heads up We're gonna be talking about the historical Adam and more specifically I mean not too specifically, but the ideas of Dr.

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Craig's book and we're gonna be talking about the book directly You could know what dr. Craig's position is

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That's reflected in this book by reading some of his articles listening to some podcasts If you have a good background on the topic and kind of generally know where he's coming from I've read portions of the book.

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So I'm not speaking from a place of authority in this area, but definitely Dr. Lyle is someone who is very knowledgeable in the area of Genesis the historical

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Adam And so I'm very much looking forward to hearing what he has to say and hopefully this conversation is going to be a blessing it's going to be edifying to those who are interested in this topic and Hopefully will be challenging for folks.

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So really think about these things. We're talking about the story of Adam and Eve We're talking about the Bible the issues of biblical authority come up And Biblical interpretation.

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So there's a wide range of topics that are involved in these sorts of conversations All right, so hopefully you guys will enjoy

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I know I'm gonna be blessed. I always love having dr. Lyle on he's such a clear and good speaker and really knows his stuff and so Looking forward to having them on in just a few seconds

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If you have not subscribed to revealed apologetics, please do so hit the notification bell so that you know

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Upcoming videos that are gonna be coming up I will also be moderating a debate between a presuppositional list haven't announced his name yet and an atheist

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So that should be a really great opportunity to see presuppositional apologetics in practice So I'll let you guys know when that's going down as well.

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All right well without further ado, we got a little crowd going and thank you so much for your Your support and without further ado.

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I'd like to invite. Dr. Lyle on the screen with me. How are you doing? Dr. Lyle? I'm very good. How are you? I'm doing well.

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I've been busy, but you've been busy as well I look tired and you're really good at hiding being tired.

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So Why don't you take a few moments and let folks know what you've been up to before we jump into our topic

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Okay. Well, I've been really on the speaking circuit for the last month. I've done I've been I feel like I've been everywhere in the

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Last month I was up in New Jersey and New York Pennsylvania doing a bunch of speaking engagements defending

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Genesis defending the Christian faith Presuppositionally and then and then just last week.

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I was in Washington State and then California and then back to Washington State and I met some just wonderful brothers and in Christ brothers and sisters in Christ.

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It was it was a wonderful experience Washington State, California Interesting, but I'm glad to be back in America.

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Oh Very good Well, I haven't been traveling I'm just teaching and I have three kids and My wife is amazing.

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She helps out so much while I crawl into my bed exhausted at the end of the day So so you look really good when you're busy.

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You look like you got it all together. That's really good You got to tell me your secret for me, it's coffee and Jesus not in that order you go

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All right. Well, let's let's jump right into our topic. We're gonna be talking about the historical Adam Let's just start with a very generic but very straightforward question

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Why is the historical Adam the question of the historical Adam so important and foundational to the

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Christian faith? Well, if you think about the Christian Christian theology how much of it is linked to Adam the connection between The the first Adam and Jesus Christ the last

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Adam Jesus is called the last Adam because of the connection Adam brings sin into the world sin and death passes that on to us

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Jesus Christ is the one who then alleviates That that problem through by paying our penalty by dying on the cross for us

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So that's certainly a big issue the fact that Christian theology is linked back not just to Adam but to a literal reading of Genesis and I think two other issues that that come into play here are if if Adams not the way he's described in Genesis if Genesis is myth or mytho history

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If we can't trust the details in Genesis Then we have some theological issues because one of the things that we learn in Genesis is that death is the penalty for sin

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It was introduced when Adam sinned that brought suffering into into a world That was originally very good originally by God God's own standard very good

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And so death being the penalty percent now, of course, that's reiterated throughout the scriptures, but it has its origin

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It has its foundation in the book of Genesis. So that's Very really very very important the whole idea of original sin and the fact that we need we need help even

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We can't even declare Jesus as Lord without the help of the Holy Spirit as the Bible teaches so we need that change of our nature and then the other issue too is one of perspicuity because You know, it's it's easy enough to debate against people who you say well

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The Bible is not inerrant and so on but there are people who say the binds the Bible's inerrant I just don't read it like you do it.

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That's not that's not how I interpret that passage and When you take something that really is as clear as Genesis and say well, it's not clear

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It could mean this that or the other that really is a subtle attack on the perspicuity of the clarity of Scripture God is a linguistic being he spoke the universe into existence

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He created Adam able to speak and for that reason God does know how to communicate The issue and granted

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I realized there are difficult sections of Scripture the Bible itself says that but nonetheless The main and plain teachings of Scripture are pretty clear

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And if we can't trust that that calls into question God's omnipotence Is he really able to communicate to us clearly and so it brings into this issue of is the

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Bible really meant to be? Understood. Is it something that we need a PhD in philosophy to understand or is it something that everybody if they do their homework?

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Can understand that I've been I take the ladder. I take that the Bible is the clear Word of God Okay. Now, of course, there are people who will disagree with your interpretation, right?

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And they'll they'll believe the Bible is the Word of God. They'll believe it speaks clearly, but we need to identify

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Genre things like this. Why is it? is why is it the case that this is an issue in terms of These different interpretations.

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I mean you come to Genesis and you say that this is clearly historical narrative and then you have other people who

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Yeah, you do have people who are influenced by Science and kind of the external factors, but you do have people who are like,

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I think there's something else going on in the text here How would you kind of address? Those sorts of folks who think the

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Bible is the Word of God I believe in the authority of the Word of God, but the issue is who is using the correct interpretive model here

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How would you how would you speak to that issue? Well first I would want to make sure that I would want to Sort of analyze that individual and analyze for evidence of Sort of a post -modernist way of thinking because many people think that they have the right to interpret the

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Bible any way that they wish That there are multiple interpretations And the way I like to say this to people is there are an infinite number of interpretations of the

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Bible There's only one meaning the author had a particular thing in mind that he wanted to convey

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And so although there are an infinite number of interpretations because you can interpret text any way that you like Only one of them matches the meaning of the text.

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There's only one correct interpretation now in some cases It might be difficult to get to that correct interpretation.

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I don't deny that again There are difficult sections in Scripture and most of us read a translation of Scripture anyway

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And so sometimes we have to do our homework and go back to the original Languages and do a little work there and that that can be tricky

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But I would affirm that the main and plain Doctrines of Scripture are clear and I would affirm that you do not have the right to read to interpret

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The Bible according to your preferences. I would argue that the Bible itself gives us the rules of Interpretation for how it should be interpreted and in fact, that was my motivation if you don't mind a little shameless promotion

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That was my motivation for writing my book understanding Genesis. This this book really is a it's it's it's less about Genesis.

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It's more about Hermeneutics and what I did in this book as I said, how do we approach?

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Hermeneutics the study of interpreting the Bible in a presuppositional way and I've seen people kind of Kind of do that a little bit, but I wanted to approach it, you know and say, okay

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Can we know trick can I make a transcendental argument for the clarity of Scripture that it must mean

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X? because of the impossibility of the contrary and I think I can make that argument because the

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Bible itself does give us rules of Interpretation and if that bugs people because it brings up this this idea of circularity that presuppositionalists are always accused of anyway

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But there is a degree of circularity there because people say well if the Bible gives us the rules for interpretation

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Then how do we get started? How do I how do I start reading the scriptures? You know and it's answered the same way really as anything else.

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It's a spiral. It's a hermeneutical spiral God give us God has given us enough innate ability in terms of linguistics to be able to read and Understand the main and plain teachings of the scriptures and that helps correct some of our misconceptions and when we read it again

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We have an improved understanding of it which corrects more misconceptions and so on And so the more you read the Bible and think through it logically

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I believe you can get to the to the meaning of the text and it's not the main and plain Doctrines not that difficult at all and then the more nuanced doctrines

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I think it takes more readings of scripture because we do have that sin nature that we've inherited from Adam And so again, it goes back to Adam, but yeah

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All right, and okay. So okay. Those are good points. So the issue of hermeneutics having a proper Hermeneutic is vitally important and it's really a key central issue when we're dealing with Genesis Of which the issue of Adam is just one element

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I mean we we get into this issue of whether someone's interpreting Genesis correctly when you get to other parts

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You know, whether you have global flood local flood these sorts of things Okay Talking about dr.

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Craig then I am based on your understanding of his position then. I mean, I would assume he's coming to Genesis presumably with the intention of understanding what it means.

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How does his interpretation differ with yours now? Obviously he we know he's not a young earth creationist.

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He doesn't have that that position. What is dr. Craig's? Understanding of Genesis and how does that affect how he interprets the first 11 chapters?

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Well He takes it as what he calls mytho history, which is to say that he believes it has elements it has elements of history in it, but is clothed in the language of myth and Therefore should not be taken a straightforward history his words that it shouldn't be straight.

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It's not straightforward history I would say it is straightforward history and I would say there isn't any evidence of Myth in and we'll have to define our terms too because I've noticed that Craig actually subtly equivocates on the word myth

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Okay, he may not be aware that he's doing it, but I believe he's doing it and we thought we can talk about that But it myth in the sense that it's not it didn't literally happen or that it's symbolic or something like that I would say no, there's no evidence of that in Genesis and and granted

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Genesis might contain statements of people that are wrong or you know We understand this that but I'm suggesting that what

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Genesis affirms is factually true It really did happen in the way that God says it did and really did happen in six days.

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There was a literal Adam He really sinned the sin was exactly what the Bible says God told him not to eat from that tree he ate from the tree and we've inherited that sin nature

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And so we want to rebel against God by our very nature. We need a change of heart We need our sins paid for and we need our and forgiven and we need to we need a change of heart to be made

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Like Christ in terms of our nature and so but Craig looks at it more figuratively

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But it's interesting because he notes there that there are indicators of history there and so and he can't deny that which

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I appreciate it Okay. So, um, what are some of the points that he brings up to to?

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Validate that, you know that position. So he said that Genesis is Cat should give at least the first 11 chapters.

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I believe that it should be categorized as mytho history What are some of the data points he uses to support that because obviously he's not just making a bare assertion

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He's trying to Def by the way, I mean in his book if you just look at the table of contents I mean he goes at great lengths trying to support his position

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Which is what he's supposed to do if you if you have a position you want to make sure You know, you're supporting that position and we know that Craig.

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Dr Craig is a he makes good and at least trying to attempt to defend position. We might disagree with how he does that What are some of the ways in which he defends his position that the first 11 chapters is is categorized as mytho history

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Okay, there are several and and as you know, I've been writing a series of articles critiquing

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Craig respectfully He wrote an article that kind of summarizes his book And I've been going through and just kind of going to point by point of that and in that article the first Argument that he makes is he claims that the style of Genesis or Perhaps the content he kind of combines both he says is very similar to ancient and East Near Eastern mythology

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Okay. Okay. So that's his that's his first claim is that there's a similarity between Genesis and these other

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Pagan mythologies, which he would reject obviously, but nonetheless he says there's a connection there and that's something that I will dispute

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We can come back to the details of that but and then he also argues that there are certain

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Aspects of Genesis that would be extraordinary if taken literally such as the ages of the patriarchs the talking

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Serpent and so on and so forth. I would reject that too because well, but let's go back to the first Let's go back to the first one the idea that Genesis has all these similarities to Near Eastern mythologies

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It really doesn't now. There are two mistakes that I see Craig making here first of all

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He's trying to say that Genesis has kind of a style that's similar to these Myths and it really doesn't

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I had the pleasure of taking a college class on myth Folklore and legend when

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I was at Ohio Wesleyan University is fascinating class I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did I really loved it

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And I got to read hundreds and hundreds of different myths in different cultures and the interesting thing is most of them almost all of them have a universe that be either either is eternal or begins in a chaotic state and Then one or more gods sort of evolved out of that state really it's it's their evolution based these these mythologies

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And there's a chaos monster that has to be defeated in Order for the world to become the good place that it's today and that theme was almost universal and it was interesting because our professor

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Apparently not a Christian. She threw in Genesis into these different, you know, she grouped that into and it was remarkable how different it is from these other mythologies

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So if you really read them, you know, it's not similar at all. Would you would you say though? there are some key differences, but would you say that the

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The literary structure as to kind of like the days and like the creation of different category

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Do you think there's similarities there? Is that maybe what he's getting at that the the way that the narrative is playing out is very similar to ancient

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Near Eastern myths But the content is unique and that I think that dr Craig would think that Genesis stands unique in very important ways, even though there are some similarities

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He may he may claim that but I would disagree with that because most of these myths are written in a very

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Either a poetic or literary literarily enhanced They're not just straightforward narrative most of them are not and so I think the style is very different but the other thing that was that I thought was interesting and I thought this was a

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Mistake and reasoning on Craig's part is that he argues that the content is so is so similar

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In that and he gives specific examples and that it deals with the creation of the universe and of mankind

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And of a global flood and let's let's consider those Let's let's put the flood off for a moment, but those first two categories it deals with the creation of the universe and of mankind

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Well, yeah, Genesis does and it's true that Near Near Eastern origins myths deal with those because if they didn't they wouldn't be origins myths so it's you know by construction any

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Alleged either myth or historical Report of the origins of the universe would have to deal with the origins of the universe

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So to say well, it's similar on that basis. Well, we're excluding all things that are not origin stories

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Of course, that's going to be similar and that would be in it But the same would be the case for the Big Bang and Darwinian evolution, which

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I think Craig would not classify as myth But by his by his thinking they shouldn't be they fall into that same category

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They deal with the origins of the universe the origins of mankind That's that's what the Big Bang and Darwinian evolution were invoked to explain.

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I'll be it in a secular humanistic way Craig Rejects the the atheistic component of that but he accepts those origin stories and so they would they would be very similar, too

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So I think if he's gonna be fair and say well, we're you know, let's these things are similar He would have to include the Big Bang and evolution as well

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But I would argue that Genesis is very different in that. It's giving us An Historical report of these events it's not trying to explain them from somebody who came afterwards and is sort of speculating on the past and and Telling stories that would be more along the lines of the

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Big Bang and evolution but Genesis, I believe it's recorded by eyewitnesses, but at the very least it's it's written by Moses and Inspired by the

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Holy Spirit who saw these events occur. And so it's not giving us there's there's no compelling evidence that it's

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Mythological in any way in terms of its content or Or the structure they're very different and and again the content would have to be the same in terms of Dealing with the origins because that's what it is.

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It's an origins account now with regard to the flood Here there are similarities and in that class on myth legend and folklore

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I I was astonished at the number of ancient myths that teach a global flood And not just in the

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Near East around the world you can get just about every culture there for a while There were two exceptions.

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There was I think Egypt and Japan and one of them they since then they found it They found a flood account there, too.

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There's no flood accounts in Japan. Wait. No, there's one Yeah, so basically every almost every culture has a flood account if you go back far enough into their history

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Sure, and I guess you know Craig takes that as well. See there you go Similar to myth, but I take that as it really happened

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This this was a real event that happened in history. You're saying that the diverse accounts of Global floods and these other cultures is not similarity of myth -telling but it's a similarity in the sense that there is this common

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Memory of a global event that is reflected in a lot of these myths from these different cultures

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Yeah passed down. Okay. Yeah passed down by word -of -mouth eventually written down Genesis being the accurate account because it's inspired by the

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Holy Spirit and if I'm right I think Moses had access to previous documents that documented these things.

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There's some evidence of that in Genesis We don't know we can go into that or not. But in any case but I think it's very clear and Genesis is certainly the original because one of the things when

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I read these other accounts of Epic of Gilgamesh was one of the ones that we read and Gilgamesh meets the

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Noah figure which is a different name Like wouldn't have pitched him something like that and he meets the

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Noah figure and describes the the ark the ark is a cube in the

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Well, that doesn't work physically because a cute, you know, that doesn't make sense We've had engineers study the the actual shape of the ark that the

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Bible is that one is designed to weather a worldwide flood So it's very clear not just on the basis of the inspiration of Scripture, but for these other reasons that Genesis is the original and these other

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Legends have spread around the world have distorted some of the details but nonetheless most of them have God or the gods were angry at mankind.

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They sent this flood. It's a global flood And humans and animals were saved

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On board an ark and those elements are common themes and that's not something that we would be inclined just to kind of make up Sure, because if you think about all these other if you go back and talk about the origin of the universe and of man almost all these ancient myths are

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Evolution based there. There's a they're either an eternal universe or at least one that's very old And then there's this

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K There's this chaotic state and then there's this chaos monster that has to be defeated for the world to become the good place

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It is today and Genesis is the opposite and that starts with us with a in the beginning

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There's a beginning of time God starts it. It's already perfect when it as soon as God's finished making it's already perfect and chaos is introduced

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Ultimately because of human beings and so it really has the opposite kind of structure as these ancient Near -eastern that's that's super fascinating.

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Let's let's let's kind of focus back on it on Adam now. That's interesting I think that that that's worth a completely other conversation with the issues of the

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The myth of the flood being global or local. That's that's very fascinating So with respect to Adam though when we speak of Adam as opposed to like other parts of the

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Bible He's usually connected with the scientific conversation, right? where you have this kind of people having studies in genetics and things like that and how man came about how does

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The biblical Adam cross hairs and some of these scientific discussions with respect to you know, what we can know

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Right about the earliest humans. I don't know if my question makes sense

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I think it does and let me This will illustrate to one of the differences between my approach to the

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Bible and William Lane Craig's approach to the Bible Okay, I start with the Bible as my basic presupposition

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I built I have a philosophy so to see we all do whether we're conscious of it or not But I try to build my philosophy on the

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Word of God and let it inform my understanding of other things That includes my understanding of science Some people think that that's a weakness

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I think it's a tremendous strength most of the founding fathers of science to would agree with that They based their thinking on scripture and that's how they interpreted the data.

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And so when I in my second in my My friends my

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Christian friends who have a PhD in relevant fields and genetics biology What have you when they look at the data and I look at it with them.

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We tend to come to the same conclusions We interpret the data in a way that's consistent with what the Bible teaches and we find great harmony there

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The the secular stories don't agree with the Bible, but I would argue the data the scientific data Align they make sense the data the evidence that we see in the present makes sense

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The Genetically, we are descended from Adam Eve genetically and in fact, my friend

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Nathaniel Jensen has been working on that very topic He's a PhD from from Harvard actually and one of the one of those brilliant creation scientists.

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I know and he's been studying DNA and the lineages you can trace back through either mitochondrial

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DNA or the y -chromosome Y -chromosome is passed on in the male line and the mitochondrial

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DNA is passed on mainly by the woman and so you can trace that back and get back to Adam and Eve and they do go back

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They do go back to two people and even the timescale is interesting too because some of dr.

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Jensen's work Researched mutation rates and we can see the rate at which mutations accumulate in the human genome and in other organisms as well

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We can see the rate at which the mutations accumulate and he goes back and says, okay now how many how many mutations do we have?

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What's the mutation rate? How long ago did this organism appear on the earth and he gets very close to 6 ,000 years based on all these studies

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Which I think is it's interesting if it's not surprising to me, but that's like that's that's what I'd expect And I know

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Rob Carter's done some work on y -chromosome and getting back to the original DNA of Adam and Eve which you can because we all are descended from Adam and Eve We all have bits of the information that was in them.

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We've got some mistakes mutations that have accumulated but It's it's interesting stuff and it's something that confirms that we really do come from two human beings.

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Hmm. Excellent. That's interesting and maybe at the back end of the episode you can point people in the direction of maybe some good books that deal with The whole issue of Adam and Eve genetic studies and things like that.

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I think folks would find that interesting Now you wrote a three -part article interacting with dr. Craig's work and I want to read a quote from dr

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Craig that you provided a response, but maybe you can kind of share it here. I think it'll be Helpful for folks.

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Dr. Craig says the following He says what historical claims does the Bible make about Adam and Eve and is belief in a historical

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Adam and Eve Compatible with the scientific evidence. Why don't you share with us?

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What issue you took with kind of that phraseology of his question?

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I thought that was interesting when I read the article. I maybe you can unpack it for us Well Craig basically accepts the the secular origin story now

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He would say God did it but he would accept as he would accept Darwinian evolution in some form

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He would accept the Big Bang the billions of years and so on. So in his view, that's what we know about humanity what the secular scientists say

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And I take issue with that because I would say what we know about Humanity is what the Bible teaches what we know about the origins of the universe is what the

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Bible teaches now Can scientists make guesses about the past? Absolutely. I have no problem with that But that's not what we know.

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What we know is what God has said in his word Well, what we know historically is what is recorded in history books and the

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Bible is that it's a history book that Tells us the history of the universe how it began in the history of mankind how they began

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So I want to stop you there. So so you're saying okay from science someone someone could say we know this from science

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And let's see if it's compatible with what the Bible says you're saying well, wait a minute what we know is what God has said and science is

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Confirmatory if you have the right presuppositions, I suppose right? Yeah, so you're starting with a very authoritative

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Dogmatic position which you would you would openly admit right? This is the Word of God if it's the Word of God It speaks dogmatically.

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It speaks self -attesting Lee. So you understand the Word of God is saying this is how God did it This is what it means.

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We're able to interpret it. And this is what we know. We don't come to the discussion from well science

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We know this. Let's see what the Bible says and see if there's a compatibility. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, and particularly the opinions of secular scientists

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Craig makes this reification fallacy mistake of taking a science Teaches this we know this from science

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Science is not an opinion. It's it's not a person that has opinions on thing. It's a it's a method now scientists

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Have certain beliefs that they teach and different scientists have have different conclusions that they draw about the past And so we need to be careful about that It would be more accurate for him to say that keep he accepts what the majority of scientists believe about the past that would be honest and I would say and I Disagree with them because I got to tell you the majority of scientists do not believe in resurrection from the dead

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And so if we were going to use that as the standard by which we interpreted scripture We would have to reinterpret the resurrection as being a non -literal non -historical event.

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Yeah, I thought that was interesting So and I don't know what dr. Craig would I wish he would come on?

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I'd love to have a conversation with this man We have like a dialogue going on between you and that'd be an interesting conversation. I'm not sure if he'd ever do it, but He I this is this is an issue for me sometimes

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So people will make a big deal about how Genesis is compatible with science, right? We can talk about in a way that Genesis is not irrational

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Look, I mean if you understand it this way, it makes sense and people team seem to bend over backwards Trying to say look

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Genesis is reasonable if you understand it this way Yet, you know when the resurrection is in question.

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It's like well, we don't try to reconcile that with science yet In order to make the Bible believable we try so hard to make it compatible when we're talking about Genesis.

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I think that's very fascinating I'm not sure. That's what he's doing. But I mean I see people do it. I mean, you know what

29:39

I mean? I think that's that's fascinating a real quick. I just want to give a shout out here Trinity Radio Who thank you so much for your super chat.

29:49

I think he feels guilty We had a folks know who Braxton Hunter is over at Trinity right is a good friend of mine

29:54

We we had some fighting words over the phone. I think he feels guilt. This is guilty money Braxton I'll take it

30:01

But I don't worry Braxton. I love you, man It is all good And thank you so much for your support

30:07

If you have not already subscribed to Trinity Radio, you need to get over there and subscribe. That is an excellent excellent

30:14

Apologetics channel not presuppositional, but hey, God can strike a blow with a broken stick right a crooked stick.

30:20

I love you Braxton Thank you so much for for that super chat and also Israel.

30:25

Thank you so much for your $5 super chat Well, we'll take some of those questions a little bit later So if you do have questions, you could ask away, but thank you for the support.

30:33

Thank you so much. That's wonderful Okay, so let's continue on here. So You said something to the effect of belief in a historical

30:43

Adam and Eve Is it compatible with the scientific evidence and you said that that was an odd question.

30:50

Can you unpack that a little bit more? because it's Normally when we talk about historical claims

30:58

We don't say now is that compatible with science? However, you know did George Washington really cross the

31:04

Delaware on this particular date and so on. What does the science say? That's a past event science is about understanding how the universe operates today the predictable orderly way.

31:14

God upholds his creation Historical events are not normally Conclusively discernible by the scientific method because there's there's no there's no repeatability.

31:24

There's no testability on the past That's not to say we can't apply the methods of science to make some guesses about the past But then to take that as the standard by which you then compare a historical document

31:37

That's that's backwards Ultimately when we want to know about a historical claim we consult history books and I realized that history books

31:45

I mean they can make mistakes too, but we compare them with others and so on That's how we learn about history primarily and then we don't say, you know, no, is that compatible with science?

31:54

Well Science isn't equipped to answer historical questions not directly and it's especially odd when we talk about the

32:02

Holy Scriptures because the scriptures I would argue that Genesis including a literal Genesis is necessary in order to justify our confidence in the scientific method because we

32:13

Scientists use a principle called uniformity in nature or induction by which we draw general conclusions about specific in specific instances and that makes sense

32:24

If God upholds the universally consistent way, which he's promised to do in Genesis 822 If that's literal history and not the myth part of it, right?

32:32

And so I would argue that the scientific method is predicated upon the history of Genesis being literally true

32:38

And so it's a very strange Question to ask about past events and whether or not that that's possible scientifically particularly

32:46

By a book inspired by God who can do what he wants well couldn't dr Because because the really the issue is

32:53

I mean really boil down to it. It's an issue of interpretation Now granted he might have a different view than you have with respect to like biblical inerrancy

33:01

I'm not sure with what his position is. I've listened to him make some comments I'm not sure where his position is, but I suppose couldn't he hold to his interpretation of Genesis But a biblical worldview as a whole provides a foundation for uniformity

33:16

So couldn't he have a justification for assuming uniformity given a biblical worldview as he understands it while understanding

33:22

Genesis? Literarily in the way that he does does that does my question make sense? Yeah And I don't think he can because the the verses that I would look at where God promises stability in nature

33:32

He either it's they're either in Genesis or they link back to Genesis. There's you know, the cut God's covenant with day and night

33:37

Well, where does he make that covenant Genesis? So I don't I don't think apart from Genesis you can you can really argue that at least that's the foundation

33:45

For it is in that first book of the Bible That's where we see God imposing creating a universe an orderly universe and then imposing a consistent order on it

33:53

Over time and since God doesn't change and knows the future we can we can count on that that uniformity in nature.

33:59

Hmm All right. Thank you for that Why don't you also you said something that maybe some folks who are not familiar with presuppositionalism and the way

34:07

I mean we can step two seconds aside from from Adam for a second you said something about the Having a literal interpretation of Genesis actually provides the foundation for Induction and things like that.

34:21

Can you unpack that a little bit because some people might think well, what does he mean by that? That's I don't see how connected. Yeah, David Hume.

34:28

For example, the secular philosopher was Stumped on the question of how do we know the Sun will rise tomorrow?

34:34

And it will do no good to say well it rose yesterday in the day before that in the day before that Okay, unless you already knew that there was some kind of underlying orderliness by which the future is somehow like the past And we use that principle in science.

34:49

We use it every day We use it when you get up in the morning you assume that gravity will work today like it worked yesterday We couldn't survive without that principle and David Hume wanted to know the epistemological justification for that Why is it that we know the

35:00

Sun will rise tomorrow? He knew that but he didn't know how he knew it and Genesis 822 gives us the reason

35:06

God promised in Genesis 822 that the basic cycles of nature nature and he gives specifically specific examples the day and night cycle

35:14

The seasons a specific examples. This is as long as the earth remains those will continue Now that doesn't mean that every summer will be as hot or as cold as the previous one

35:24

But it does mean there will always be a summer and there will always be a winter and there will expect regularity So again, we could expect regularity

35:32

Yes, we can expect regular in nature because we have a promise from God and that promise is given after the flood

35:39

Where there was a temporary disruption and what's at least it seemed like a disruption in the normal cycles of nature

35:44

There was no harvest in the flood year, right? And so it might have seemed like you know, that's that's a disruption and God's saying it's not gonna happen again

35:51

There are these basic cycles that will continue as long as the earth remains, right? And the expectation for regularity is not incompatible given the

35:59

Christian worldview with the expectation that God can also perform the miraculous Some people think there's an inconsistency.

36:05

All right. So dr. Craig also says this you mentioned this in your article He says only after having determined what the

36:12

Bible actually says about the historical Adam Shall we be in a position to judge whether those claims are compatible with what we know of human origins from contemporary science?

36:22

Why don't you speak to that? I know you mentioned in your article Why don't you unpack that a little bit for us? But my only object my only objection to that statement is his word.

36:29

No, and it should he's shown his cards He's shown that his faith is in what the secularists say about origins and let's just be honest about he's

36:38

Craig's a nice guy That's not the issue but he believes that the secularists are right when they teach the

36:45

Big Bang and Evolution and I mean, I find that comical as a scientist as a PhD scientist

36:50

I have I know quite a bit about the Big Bang. We covered that in in my graduate school classes So I know the problems with it and I'm thinking wow

36:58

That's what you have your confidence in not a good idea Part of the issue is

37:04

People try to equivocate the Big Bang. They try to make it equal to the kind of operational science that puts people on the moon

37:09

They're not the same thing the kind of science that puts people on the moon's testable people in the present Big Bang speculation about the past and it's got lots of problems.

37:18

Why don't you unpack that? I think that's an important distinction that you made. So there's a difference between operational science and historical science

37:24

Why don't you unpack what that difference is and why it's important to recognize those two elements there?

37:29

Okay Operational science is what we think of as real science is the kind of science that makes computers work puts people on the moon

37:35

It is it is based on the scientific method Which requires you know

37:40

You have a hypothesis and then you you perform an experiment or at the very least an observation that that potentially could falsify your hypothesis

37:47

It requires experimentation or at the very least Observation in the present and if you don't have that then you're not doing operational science whereas historical science says well, we've got these tools that we developed for You know the science testing the world in the present.

38:04

Can we use those to make an educated guess about the past answers? Yes, we can but that's all it will remain it will remain an educated guess about the past It's not something the past is not directly testable by the scientific method because we can't repeat it

38:17

And we can't observe it. Okay, so that's the distinction there. And so Go ahead. Well, well, okay, so I know that Dr.

38:24

Hugh Ross who you've had a conversation with on this show, which by the way, I still get comments in my email about Oh, there's a great ad conversation.

38:33

That sounds excellent. It very helpful if folks haven't watched it go back Dr. Lyle and Hugh Ross have a very engaging energetic, but very informative conversation.

38:44

So folks want to check that out, but Hugh Ross would say something to the effect that when you look out into the the sky you're looking at the past and So so it's not so it's not kind of like looking at you know

38:58

When we're talking about historical events on earth We can't observe that but some might argue that we could observe the past when we're looking you know at the cosmos through the telescopes and the technology that they have to kind of Map out what they think the universe looked like Earlier on how would you speak to that?

39:15

Is that accurate or do you take issue with that as well? I take some issue with that because he's Ross is assuming what we call the

39:22

Einstein synchrony convention, which is one Method by which we define what now means okay at a distance and I'm not suggesting that's necessarily wrong

39:32

But it is certainly not the only way to do it. There are other synchrony conventions There's the visual synchrony convention, which was used by everyone until the 1600s whereby

39:43

What you see happening in space happens in real time So we're not looking into the past if you use that convention

39:48

But either way even if we use the Einstein synchrony convention and we say well that actually happened in the past You still you still only have one point in time

39:56

You can still only analyze one point in time the fact that we're calling it The past is irrelevant to the fact that we don't we don't have a sequence

40:05

We don't have a sequence of events that we can see for a given location in the universe over time We can't we can't rewind the tape and go back and see what it was like in the distant past or in the future

40:16

Alright, so even astronomy still has that limitation of being We can only do astronomy in the present

40:22

That's you know Look at the stars in the present if you want to call the light that came from it past you can do that It's not required physics works just as well if you allow it to be instantaneous

40:32

I've written on that topic, but in any case it's Astronomy still has the same limitation. All right, excellent.

40:38

Now. I want to go back to the statement I read because you said that you think that dr. Craig shows his card

40:43

So why don't you tell us what that means and then unpack it as to how it's relevant to the statement here? So let me read the the dr.

40:50

Craig's quote here It says only after only after having determined what the Bible actually says about the historical

40:56

Adam Shall we be in a position to judge whether those claims are compatible with what we know of human origins from contemporary science?

41:02

And you said that dr. Craig shows his hand It looks like you've identified a presupposition somewhere in there that you take issue with why don't you unpack that for us?

41:10

The presupposition is that first again, he's reifying science science doesn't say anything

41:15

We don't we you know science is a method Contemporary science is a method and what are some of the results of that?

41:23

Well, it depends on who you ask Different scientists will come up with different Understandings of past events because we have different worldviews

41:30

My issue with Craig is that he has accepted the secular story of origins he has he thinks that's science

41:37

He thinks it's been established by science. He thinks that he thinks that's what we know from contemporary science

41:43

And I would say what you're really trusting in is a secular story About the past one.

41:48

That's not really compatible with the Bible that being said I do want to give him credit because if he were if he were to change that and say

41:54

Compatible with what most secular scientists believe then I would agree with this with with his statement

42:00

We should we should kind of try to be as objective as possible and not be influenced by our culture

42:06

We can't get we can't completely get away from that So you think dr. Craig doesn't think there's a distinction between because you're using secular

42:15

So you already are setting up kind of a category there's secular science and then there's the kind of science that's not secular science

42:22

Do you think and I wish I could I could ask him myself But do you think that that he's assuming that science is just this neutral discipline doesn't matter secular or whatever

42:32

There's just the science that we do Yes, we have presuppositions and there are different things that we enter but he's kind of seeing it as kind of this discipline

42:39

That's done really and in an objective fashion And so this is what the data tells us and this is what we know is do you think that's where he's coming from?

42:47

Yeah, there are secular scientists and there are creation scientists and we draw different conclusions about the data because of our different worldviews

42:55

Okay, science is not a monolithic body of knowledge. It isn't it's a method that we use to discover how

43:01

God upholds his universe today There's some of the predictable ways that God upholds his universe today

43:06

And I think the reason that Craig and frankly most Christians haven't thought this through either be perfectly honest with you

43:14

So I'm not I'm not trying to knock him but if he's gonna write on this he needs to step up his game a little bit and become knowledgeable of these things because the

43:21

Fact is when it comes to operational science creation scientists and secular evolutionary scientists largely agree on how things work

43:29

Because they're directly testable in the present because we at least agree on the scientific method which is based on creation But the evolutionists can pretend that it isn't and and at least they have respect for the evolution is triggered

43:42

Like hey, I'm happy to I'm happy to chat about that but I'm a presupposition list.

43:51

I know these things in any case there is a difference between the kind of science that we all agree in and these stories about the past and I think most people have the impression that They're the same thing that the

44:03

Big Bang Deserves the same kind of respect as say quantum mechanics. It doesn't

44:09

Quantum mechanics is something that's testable in the present by experimentation and observation of the results of those experiments

44:14

The Big Bang is not testable in the present. It's a speculation about the past and it has issues with it. It has problems

44:20

Problems that we really I mean, it's not that we don't have any issues in operational science either But they tend to work themselves out over time as we do different experiments and see the results of them

44:29

And so the Big Bang it's not that way another interesting See, I was I was raised on the when

44:36

I did apologetics and I gratefully and I'm glad I was exposed to dr Craig's work in a lot of areas the areas that I tend to agree with him on right but even areas that I've changed my

44:45

Position with respect to the the Big Bang it is spoken of by apologists, right as well as secular scientists, right?

44:52

But this is just a given. I mean, this is just nobody does nobody disputes this of course Secluding all of the young earth creationists who don't hold to that.

45:01

They're not real scientists, right? That's the the mentality right or or we tip their hat. They're scientists, but they're misguided.

45:06

You know, they don't they're not I Do you have a video on on your channel or your website or something where you talk about Some of the difficulties as you see it with the the theory of the

45:19

Big Bang and that's not our topic today But is there a resource you can point people to yes Definitely. Yeah our website

45:25

I have a Series of articles on the Big Bang and some of the problems with it And they're kind of it's kind of a short summary of some of the problems

45:33

But the nice thing is I stuck with problems that are acknowledged in the secular textbooks so that people can see

45:39

I'm not I'm not Making this stuff up. These are real issues that secularists are aware of they may think that they've solved it in some cases

45:45

But they are issues that you'll find even in the secular textbooks among honest secular astronomers

45:50

So yes, go to our article and and do a search for Big Bang. You'll get that. There was a talk

45:55

I did a long time ago called big problems with the Big Bang And I think that's I did that back when

46:01

I was working with answers in Genesis They may or may not have it anymore. I haven't seen it in a while and I haven't done it in a while So I need to revive that one.

46:08

Yeah. Well, maybe we'll have you on in the future. Talk about the Big Bang Sure, that'd be cool. All right, so dr.

46:14

Craig goes on to say with respect to The similarities of Genesis to ancient

46:21

Near East the ancient Near Eastern literature I'm gonna read the quote here Maybe you could speak to it because this really is wrapped up in his idea that Genesis again includes more than Adam But includes

46:32

Adam a Genesis is this kind of like mytho history mytho historical genre so so dr.

46:38

Craig goes on to say he says Old Testament scholars have long remarked on the resemblance of Genesis 1 through 11 to the religious

46:44

Literature of the ancient Near East. How would you speak to that? Because this is often comes up. There's similarities here

46:50

I know you brought you kind of touched on it before but maybe you could unpack that a little bit more for us It's it's not true that this is something that's very recent

46:58

Actually, it's been only the last couple centuries that we've even really had abundant knowledge of the the ancient

47:03

Near Eastern Mythologies, so it's not something that has been long remarked by theologians but there are a few theologians that in modern times have said that but as I pointed out earlier,

47:13

I think the similarities are exaggerated because the the only two similarities that I really see are that they deal with origins the origins of the universe and The origins of mankind and if they didn't they wouldn't be origins myth.

47:26

So I So it's like being surprised that Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday this year because of the way work we've classified them

47:33

They have to deal with those or they wouldn't be in the category That being said the details are very different again with these with these

47:40

Other myths the ancient Near Eastern myths you start with you an internal universe or a very old one It's sort of an evolutionary view the gods have evolved and then there's a chaos monster that must be defeated in order for the

47:51

Creation to become the very good place that it is today and Genesis is the opposite You start with one all -powerful

47:57

God who speaks the universe to existence? And and it's it's created very good every step.

48:03

It's good And at the end, it's very good and then chaos is introduced by our actions death and suffering. So It's interesting because this these secular myths

48:12

Which the Big Bang qualifies Darwinian evolution qualifies and then these ancient Near Eastern myths They have things in common in that they start with the eternal or very old universe

48:22

That evolutionary all the things come together and then and then mankind is sort of the pinnacle of create we're sort of the best thing that that came about other than maybe the gods and some of these other views and Man has always been mortal and so on whereas in the creation in the biblical creation view

48:37

It's just the opposite. We start with a very good universe We're the bad guys in the creation story because we're the ones that brought sin and death into the world

48:45

Hmm now, it seems that dr. Craig acknowledges the apparent resemblance of Well, let me just read the quote here before I screw it up here

48:56

So dr Craig says the following grand themes such as the creation of the world the origin of mankind and the near destruction of humanity in a

49:04

Cataclysmic flood are present in both the ancient myths and Genesis 1 through 11

49:09

So it seems that he acknowledges that there is this wide Testimony to these cataclysmic events.

49:15

What what is he trying to point out there? And how does he understand that as kind of supporting what he's what he's getting at as opposed to say something that you would argue

49:23

So I think he's combining two different things that need to be handled separately Okay, the the origin of the universe the origin of mankind

49:30

Yes, origins myths deal with those because if they didn't they wouldn't be origins myths So is that a similarity to Genesis?

49:37

It's a it's a necessary similarity and the Big Bang and evolution same thing Floods in a different category because the flood

49:44

I would argue is a real event and I would argue that yeah There are myths there ledge I would say they're more along the line of legends that deal with a worldwide flood

49:52

But again, you will see that in some of the ancient Near Eastern Literature you'll see that epic epic of Gilgamesh again refers to Those names are rough the names the names are different in different cultures

50:06

They'll have different names, but that might be explained by the confusion of tongues at Babel so so even so the literal history of Genesis can explain that to why they why they would have different names for these characters, but Almost all cultures do have that that memory that ancient memory of a worldwide flood because it happened

50:22

And so I think it proves the opposite of what Craig wants it to prove I think he wants it. He wants to say well

50:27

Genesis is kind of similar to these myth No it's not and the read and the only reason that the flood account is similar is because it happened and Genesis would be the historic record of that flood and then these other legends around the world would be

50:41

The distorted memories of that of that event Hmm. Okay. Now Craig goes on to say well

50:48

He asked the question should the primeval narratives of Genesis 1 through 11 be understood then as a compilation of Israelite myths

50:56

So you would give the answer to that question a start. No, right Okay, and then he says in raising this question

51:06

We're using the definition of myth employed by folklorists and classicalists a myth is a traditional sacred narrative explaining how the world and man came to be in their present form a

51:16

Seeks to explain present realities by anchoring them in the prehistoric past and so to validate a culture's contemporary institutions and values

51:25

Would you agree with that statement his understanding of myth and how is he using that to make the point that he's trying to get?

51:31

At okay a lot to unravel here two points. Would I agree with that statement as written? No One word prevents me from agreeing with that prehistoric because I would argue that Genesis is history in my view

51:43

There is no such thing as prehistoric because it's in the beginning. The beginning of time is recorded It's recorded history.

51:49

And so there is no prehistoric in In in my worldview. Okay, so I would disagree with that But if we subtract that word does

51:57

Genesis fit the other qualifications for his definition of myth as he's using it here Sure in that it grounds the the realities of Israel not just Israel but Christians modern

52:08

Christians as well the reason we have the reason we have marriage is because Adam and Eve and so on the reason we don't steal is because God ultimately owns everything and he's made the rules and so on the reason we don't murders man's made the image of God So yes, if these present realities are anchored back in Genesis and if he says

52:23

I'm gonna use that definition of a myth That's okay because that definition of a myth does not exclude

52:29

Genesis also being literal history Okay, so by that definition Genesis can be straightforward history and yet because it grounds

52:38

Present realities In that history you can classify it as myth and by the way If he's gonna use that definition he has to put the

52:45

Big Bang in there and Darwinian evolution as well Because they are used by secularists to explain the reality of our universe today.

52:52

The Big Bang is supposed to explain Why you know hydrogen is the most abundant element and so on that's a present reality that it seeks to explain

53:00

But they wouldn't modern folks today wouldn't call that a myth in this sense because they've already assumed.

53:06

Well, that's science As though that's given us kind of the final word on or at least the more probable word

53:13

On the issue so they wouldn't categorize used you think that's an arbitrary kind of like yeah, that's myth

53:18

But this this is really science. We all know that Universe began to exist Well, the issue is the word myth and the fact that it has multiple definitions.

53:27

I'm just suggesting that if we used Craig's definition But I subtract the word prehistoric from it

53:34

The Genesis would qualify but that doesn't mean it's also not literal. It's it's a little it is literal history

53:40

It really happened The events are accurate and I would and I would argue if he's going to use that definition and we'll put back in that word

53:46

Prehistoric he has to he has to put evolution and the Big Bang in that category because it fits verbatim

53:53

It fits verbatim. What are you saying? So if he's gonna call Genesis a myth by that definition, he has to call the

53:58

Big Bang and Darwinian evolution myth as well Okay now now see the the issue then is

54:04

I believe he switches to a different definition of myth later on because later on he'll Make the argument that since Genesis has all these mythic qualities.

54:11

It's not straightforward history. No, wait a minute That's a different definition of the word myth there

54:16

One of the definitions of myth is something that's not provable or not anchored in reality. Okay, something that's

54:22

Fictional or something of that nature? Okay, and therefore shouldn't be interpreted straightforward history, but that's not the definition that he just gave

54:29

And so I think it's a bait -and -switch fallacy I think he's baiting us in and I'm not suggesting that he's doing it with any ill intentions

54:35

He may have you may not be aware of it himself, but I think he's baiting us in on this definition of myth

54:40

That's actually almost again with one word removed It would Genesis would kind of qualify and then he switches to a different definition of myth to say therefore

54:50

It's not straightforward history. And so that's the that's the equivocation fallacy or fallacy of four terms. Okay Dr.

54:56

Craig also says this I think this is interesting, too So he says the lines between myth folktale and legend are apt to be blurry

55:04

But we can identify certain family resemblance that unite most myths.

55:09

I don't know if this is what he's getting at but Maybe maybe it's not I mean my maybe my question is completely unrelated to that but How does he

55:19

I mean because I don't a lot of people were accusing. Dr. Craig of denying a historical Adam Technically isn't yeah quite right, right and then that's important and I think

55:30

Just for folks who are very easily kind of they kind of get excited like oh, man. Look. Dr. Craig is at it again

55:35

He's saying something crazy, you know, like if that's their perspective, right? I'd be very careful not to accuse him of something.

55:41

He's not doing and this is this shows How can

55:46

I say this it shows a disrespect for the conversation when folks kind of just Join the bandwagon of like accusations without knowing kind of the foundation if you disagree with him fine

55:55

You know give your reasons, but we don't want to say stuff like well, he denies a historical Adam You need to understand his position.

56:01

So he doesn't deny a historical Adam, but I guess my question to you is if Genesis is mytho history, but it's getting at certain truths

56:11

How does he distinguish between the myth aspect and the reality aspect of like?

56:18

Okay, there's myth but there's a core of reality. How does he make that distinction? I mean, what is the the standard of making that distinction such that we can say?

56:27

Well, this this element here is historical and this is why this is important. It's foundational It gives a foundation for all this other stuff in Scripture How does he process that based on your own understanding of how he might do that?

56:38

Not consistently? consistently The bottom line is and this is based on what

56:44

I said earlier about you know him coming into this With with the worldview we all we all have that but he is accepted uncritically these secular teachings about Origins and I would say

56:56

I would suggest to you because he also has a commitment to the Bible He wants to say I believe the Bible. It's true.

57:02

I would argue that ultimately his Presupposition is those aspects of Genesis that are not compatible with the secular

57:11

Narrative on origins. Those are the parts he would attribute to myth and because he because he if he

57:17

Attributes them to history then he has to say that the Bible is not compatible with what he believes is

57:22

Contemporary science and he doesn't want to go that route. It would be a nightmare He says if that if that were true now, he would try to argue

57:30

I think he tries to say well now I've got textual reasons for that And what he does is he goes to other passages in Scripture that reference back to Adam and Eve He refers to you know,

57:41

Paul in in in Romans 5 talking about how death entered the world as a result of Adam's sin and Craig rightly recognizes that Paul must be talking about a historical figure because a fictional

57:54

Person can't have consequences in the real world. And I think Craig's reasoning is spot -on I just wish he would apply that consistently because then when he comes to Jesus Jesus also quotes

58:03

Genesis 1 and 2 Jesus quotes them as the basis for Marriage and in that area

58:10

Craig says, oh no, that's he says no, that's figurative. That's just a literary Adam Jesus is making sort of a comparison there and I get what he's trying to do

58:18

But that's not what Jesus was doing Jesus was showing that that marriage had its foundational origins in the creation accounts and Jesus quotes

58:26

Genesis 1 and 2 is literal history So I think if we were to if we really were to use the Bible consistently as we as we should do

58:32

There there every biblical author treats Adam and Eve and the events of Genesis as real history

58:39

I mean Jesus said that his coming would be like the days of Noah and what now there it's interesting because he's mentioning two people one of Which Craig would put in that in that mytho history and the other one because after Abraham Craig says no, it's literal history after Abraham.

58:53

So you got a lot there now Jesus. Okay, what's timeout? Okay, this is another question

59:00

I have okay, so Genesis 1 through 11 gets a lot of the flack this is that's the center of kind of these debates

59:06

I I Hate to sound like the traditional presuppositional list, but by what standard?

59:14

Okay, does someone stop at 11 and say all right now we're in history like I don't get that it seems like there's a presupposition of kind of like there's this just this

59:25

Disjointed of the first part there for the first 11 chapters and then there's something completely different going on How do how do folks work that out?

59:33

I I'm I've studied the issue But I still I don't understand how they do that.

59:38

Maybe you can unpack that for sorry for interrupting your flow. It's fine It's relevant. Well, what is Craig's ultimate standard?

59:45

And I would argue that Craig's ultimate standard is his philosophy and his assumption that these secular narratives

59:52

Regarding origins are correct. Now. He would he would even secularists will acknowledge that Abraham was a real person who lived and so See he can adopt that and say that's okay.

01:00:03

That's can that's that's compatible with contemporary science But all these other things that happen in Genesis or not and so because that's his standard

01:00:10

That's where that's where he draws the line. That's where he says. Okay now I can start believing some of this stuff It's compatible with my philosophy.

01:00:16

It's compatible with my Things that I accept our science I'm looking at it from the text and I'm saying the style of Genesis 1 through 11 is identical to the style of Genesis 12

01:00:27

The book the same style the the content is seamless I mean it goes for it you have the the patriarchs and even even

01:00:36

Craig acknowledges That's that's powerful. The fact you have these chronologies that go from Adam continuously through Abraham.

01:00:42

There's no sudden break at at chapter 12 now that the we focus in more on Abraham in chapter 12, but the the

01:00:51

There's no change in style And so I would argue that if Genesis 12 and beyond is history then so is

01:00:56

Genesis 1 through 11 They're written in the same way. They're written in historical narrative in Hebrew frequent use of the

01:01:01

Bob consecutive and this happened and that happened and so on that's always indicative of Historical narrative everywhere.

01:01:07

It occurs in the Old Testament of the Bible. So poetic sections don't use they might have an individual Bob consecutive

01:01:12

But not a chainer So there's no doubt from from if we're gonna be exegetical if we're gonna look at the text itself and let it determine what genre it

01:01:19

Is it's history? Mmm, that's interesting there. So, okay. So Dr.

01:01:25

Craig goes on to say with respect to myths understanding the roles and the role and the function of myth He says that myths are sacred for the society that embraces them and that's true

01:01:34

But you had kind of a zinger response in your article. Maybe you could unpack that You said something to the effect of all of the

01:01:42

Bible is sacred for Christians But what what are you getting at there in terms of kind of like a response to his acknowledgement that myths play this important role you're kind of pointing out yes, and Well, why don't you consider this thing over here?

01:01:55

Why don't you unpack what you said there in that article? I'm trying to press Craig to be logically consistent with his position

01:02:01

And if he's gonna argue that something is classified as myth on the basis that it's it's cherished

01:02:07

It's you know, it's it's held in high esteem. It's it's it's sacred all the

01:02:12

Bibles that way and yet I would hope that Craig would not argue that the resurrection of Jesus is a myth now I hold that to be the most sacred.

01:02:19

I mean all scriptures sacred, but that's that's important, isn't it? I mean, that's that's the foundation of our faith is the death the atoning death and the resurrection of Christ and I I Hold that as sacred and it informs my worldview and it it informs the way

01:02:33

I live And so would we classified as myth on that basis? And and again furthermore

01:02:39

The Big Bang and evolution are held with religious fervor by those people who believe them They really are and that informs their worldview in the way they think about things

01:02:49

And so I'm asking Craig to be consistent if he's gonna classify Genesis as myth on that basis He should classify the whole

01:02:54

Bible as myth on that basis and frankly a Darwinian evolution in Big Bang as well And then

01:03:00

I think but if he did that then I think he would he would recognize that he's he's Making an error in reasoning.

01:03:07

He's making an equivocation fallacy when he argues Therefore since it has since it's myth that shouldn't be classified as straightforward history

01:03:14

Not by that definition of myth. No sure because because the resurrection of Christ that is that straightforward history.

01:03:21

Hmm All right Well, I'm going to ask one more question and then I want to leave some time as we're on the top of the hour here

01:03:27

I usually go longer, but I you know what it is I usually have long conversations with my guests and then

01:03:32

I feel bad that I have them too long when we also go through the Questions I want to in hours good and then maybe we can go through some questions

01:03:39

We'll get a bunch of them in and then I'll let you go man. I appreciate it so much I know you're busy. So this has been excellent.

01:03:46

I'm sure folk folks. I've been looking in the comments Folks are really enjoying this conversation. So my last question

01:03:52

For you, dr. Lyle If dr. Craig was here right now you share in the screen

01:03:58

What would you say to him in terms of this issue of the historical Adam if you were to say?

01:04:03

Hey as a Christian brother, here are some points of advice that I'd like to share. I know we have some disagreements here how would you share your heart with dr.

01:04:11

Craig on this issue if he was a If we slice the screen up and he was sharing the screen with us

01:04:16

You know one of the things going back to that earlier statement that he made about you know

01:04:21

It's best to just look at the text and then later see if it's compatible with what he thinks is modern science

01:04:27

I would say that's actually commendable sentiment But I would I would I would say respectfully you just haven't done that You you have a very strong conviction for whatever reason that the

01:04:36

Big Bang is true that Darwinian evolution is true that millions of years deep time is true and I Realize we get hammered with that over and over and over again

01:04:44

But you've taken that as a presupposition that you've imported into the text and I know and I would suggest that if you didn't do that you would not come to the conclusions that you come to because there's no indication that any

01:04:56

Biblical author believed in the millions of years or believed in anything comparable to evolution or a Big Bang They all took

01:05:01

Genesis as little history and Christ certainly did he quoted he quoted from Genesis in Matthew 19 quotes from Genesis 1 and 2

01:05:08

As history and therefore we as Christ followers we should do we should do the same That would be one that would be one thing.

01:05:14

I would say to him and then I would ask him also to consider What having death before Adam sinned in the world does to the gospel message because that's significant.

01:05:23

Okay. Thank you for that Alright, well, let's jump right into the questions I'm gonna get this one out of the way because I know a lot of people have been asking it

01:05:30

I'm not even gonna put it on the screen because I don't want it to become an issue But what is your rule for folks that you do engage in debates?

01:05:38

Why don't you lay that out? And so maybe that can answer people's questions because they're you know, the big challenges coming left and right

01:05:43

Why don't you just share your position that we'll move on from there because I know these sorts of things can get very confrontational like Oh What's your view on that and we can move on for you move on from there?

01:05:54

I want to make sure the person is is qualified so that the debate is good And therefore I require a

01:06:00

PhD or perhaps a PhD somebody who has a doctorate in the field Who is who has studied the issue who has studied there's some evidence where they've at least familiar with with what it is that I teach

01:06:12

Otherwise, it's just it's not gonna be a good debate and I don't want to get you know, cuz they're you know

01:06:17

There's 16 year olds. I want to debate you dr. Lau. That's not gonna be a good debate. It's just not gonna I don't mean there's a 16 year old out there.

01:06:24

Come on, but you know, it's just not gonna go well and and I and I also there are a lot of people that Although they're well -meaning.

01:06:32

I think they're doing a lot of damage to scripture And I don't frankly don't want to give him a platform Now somebody like William Lane Craig already has a platform and if you would want to debate me on this issue

01:06:40

I would be happy to do that. So you're out there Craig I would I'd be happy to debate you on this issue. It can be you're a nice guy

01:06:46

It would be a cordial debate, but I don't think your position stands up to rational scrutiny Well, I'd love to host that that'd be amazing.

01:06:53

That'd be a really great conversation All right This is a question from Nate Werner.

01:06:59

He says does dr. Lyle give research presentations at universities. Is that something you do? I have of course

01:07:06

I'm speaking a lot now, and I don't do a whole lot of original research I do a little bit, but I don't have the time

01:07:13

Scientific research is a full -time thing and I did that for years before I went into into ministry

01:07:18

And yeah, I've presented at universities in terms of presenting it. Maybe they're thinking original research that I've done

01:07:25

Well, I mean I have done it original research on the starlight issue and I presented that at universities But it's usually in the context of a

01:07:33

Christian group that has asked me to speak on campus It's open to everyone. So it'll be a combination of Christians and non -christians that attend those presentations

01:07:40

I don't get that opportunity very often. But when I do I take it. Hmm now, this is not a question, but I think it's

01:07:48

Interesting. It's I think it's an important point to go through Marlon Wilson who I know you've been on his show before He says one of the main disagreements

01:07:57

I have with William Lane Craig is his seeming denial of original sin And I think he says

01:08:02

I think he does this in order to substantiate his position on Adam I'm not sure if that's the motivation. But what are your thoughts on Craig's statements?

01:08:10

I'm trying to look for it here I won't waste too much time. Okay here I do have it here So on in his book in the quest for the historical

01:08:18

Adam, he says a couple of things He says thus while the doctrine of original sin depends crucially on the fact of a historical

01:08:24

Adam Christianity need not embrace the traditional doctrine of original sin But may content itself with affirming the universal wrongdoing of human beings and their inability to save themselves

01:08:35

Now before you address that I want to read another portion Here if you don't mind and then you maybe you could address it

01:08:41

So he says Paul does not teach clearly that one Adam sin is imputed to everyone of his descendants and to Adam sin resulted in a corruption of human nature or a privation of original righteousness that is transmitted to all of his descendants

01:08:58

That Christianity can get along without one is evident from the example of the

01:09:03

Orthodox Church Whose doctrine of original sin affirms only point to and then he goes on to explain

01:09:09

He seems to have a and I don't mean this in a pejorative sense He seems to have a weak view of original sin and that's just to say that he might hold to it

01:09:18

But he doesn't think it's a it's that much of a big deal Christianity can get along Without that doctrine as traditionally understood from a

01:09:26

Protestant perspective. How would you speak to that? I Just agree with them on that issue. I think original sin is important And I don't understand how you would reconcile that We'd have to define our terms too, but I believe that because of Adam sin

01:09:40

We're born into the world as rebels against God. That's what and so we've inherited that that sin nature

01:09:46

We sin willingly from conception. We're conceived in iniquity. The Bible says so I don't know how he would get

01:09:53

Around that as well as passages, you know that say things like No one can say that Jesus is

01:10:00

Lord except by the Holy Spirit. That tells me that we need help Just just to confess

01:10:05

Christ as Savior in a saving way is the is the implication in that in that verse so that tells me that we're born with hearts that are corrupted that And there's there's so many passages there's none who seek after God and so on I take that to mean there's none who seek after God I think that's what it means and so it those people who are saved or because God is has entered into their lives and turns their heart around and regenerated and Granted them repentance

01:10:31

That's such a weird thing to say, but the Bible does in more than one place talk about God may

01:10:36

God grant them repentance We tend to think as repentance is simple. That's something that I mustered up myself and it's something that God grants us

01:10:44

Very pardon me second Timothy 224. Yeah, and that wouldn't be necessary apart from original sin because if we were just if we were

01:10:54

Morally neutral agents and it could freely choose to serve God or reject him as Adam Originally was he had

01:11:03

Adam had the freedom to to choose to serve God or rebel against it I don't believe that's because of original sin.

01:11:09

I don't believe that we have that ability We're born dead in our trespasses and it and that's a theme that I think is just repeated throughout the scriptures

01:11:17

So I do think it's an important one Mmm, thank you for that Israel thanks again for the super chat.

01:11:22

He says can anything be done about the university's rejection of young earth creationism So on you know on a large scale, this is not really, you know

01:11:30

This is not a position that is that is popular and is often ridiculed by folks in academia

01:11:36

What can Christians do To work against that and maybe give not at the expense of compromising

01:11:42

God's Word, of course, right? But is there anything that? Christians can do in the scientific arena that can kind of turn the tide in terms of how young earth creationism is perceived

01:11:53

Yes, I think we need to be more careful than we've been in the past I don't endorse all young earth creationists

01:12:00

I have some great friends that I would endorse at answers in Genesis, for example, and I mentioned

01:12:06

Nathaniel jeans in earlier Dr. Georgia Purdom, dr. David Minton, dr. Danny Faulkner brilliant scientists

01:12:13

And I think they're doing very good work. And I think that's the kind of thing we need to be doing We need to be doing good quality scientific research.

01:12:19

I think it's helpful to teach students to think logically as young Start them as young as you can.

01:12:27

And in fact, I actually Wrote a curriculum For an introduction to logic that's designed for junior high or high schoolers

01:12:34

And boy if students could think logically that would help when they went to universities, but in terms of the universe's themselves we're seeing a cascade effect where Because you reject

01:12:48

And it's not just young earth creation. They reject the Bible in its entirety But especially Genesis they reject

01:12:53

Genesis you lose Genesis 822 you lose your basis for induction You lose your basis for the scientific method

01:13:00

You lose your basis for morality. I don't have a lot of hope for secular universities these days.

01:13:05

I don't I don't The wheels of justice turn slowly, but my my guess is they will eventually go out of existence because they're just they're not useful

01:13:14

Unless you're teaching things From a Christian worldview where knowledge is possible because we're made the image of God and we have reliable senses and so on So I'm not sure that anything to be done about the secular universities rejection, but there are fortunately there are a handful of really solid

01:13:31

Biblical universities that teach biblical creation. I'm actually adjunct faculty at the Masters University.

01:13:37

That's a really good school and and I teach an astronomy class there every now and then we've had to kind of postpone it a little bit because of the all the shutdowns and so on but That's the way to look at it and I think that be students that get education at good solid

01:13:54

Bible teaching universities like Masters that have Great, but they got a great they got great faculty there I know most of the

01:14:00

PhD scientists there and they're good folks and they have a heart for Jesus and when you when you approach science that way

01:14:08

God will bless you with with results and I and I think the world in the future will see that Those students who are thinking as Christians end up becoming very productive members of society and I and I I don't know

01:14:21

I don't know what's going to happen But I just kind of secular universities the way they are they can't endure forever.

01:14:26

They can't because they're undermining themselves sure The secular humus humanistic worldview has the seeds of its own destruction built into it.

01:14:34

And so they can't endure forever. Hmm All right. Thank you for that Scott Scott Terry says I'm outraged that dr.

01:14:40

Lyle doesn't have a telescope So There's a conversation in the in the chat about God whether he used 24 -hour days or long periods of time and someone makes a comment here.

01:14:53

Maybe you could speak to this Conservative Christian says why would you constrain speaking to another commenter? Why would you constrain

01:14:59

God? How do you know? What scripture do you use to support God needs longer than a day?

01:15:05

So they have you have this idea of people saying that God used, you know longer periods you even have dr.

01:15:12

Ross He made mention of well, this is required for this this effect to happen and this is what you see what

01:15:18

I'm saying So they'll say something to the effect that it had to be longer because otherwise these processes wouldn't work

01:15:23

How would you speak to that? I would say God can do what he wants And so let's take him in his word if you know

01:15:29

Jesus turned water into wine He did that apparently instantly or nearly so now we wouldn't look at the text and say well

01:15:35

You know water can be turned into wine grapes do that But we know it takes several, you know, it takes a period of time to do that So really we need to reinterpret that text

01:15:44

God can do quickly what in nature would take a long time. And by the way, God's in control of nature anyway

01:15:50

So it's just that it's just that the way God the way God maintains his creation is not necessarily the way he he created it

01:15:57

The way God preserves his creation in the way he spoke things into existence. He's not doing that today

01:16:02

He's not creating new animal kinds. He did that at the beginning And so yeah, there's there's no there's no reason to say well

01:16:09

No, God has to work within within the natural processes that he's using today He may choose to do so, but he's not required to do that.

01:16:16

And so when the Bible gives us examples of God doing things that He's not going today like speaking new things into existence

01:16:22

We should take him at his word and if he tells us he did that in six days We should take we should take him at his word there, too.

01:16:27

Hmm. All right Thank you for that. Kenny Johnson says the Big Bang inflation occurring now is observable by astronomy

01:16:33

There's some reification going there Astronomy enables us to see into the past the further we view out into the universe.

01:16:40

How would you how would you respond to that? Well, no inflation is not observable. It's inflate the idea of inflation is the the idea that the universe when the

01:16:50

Big Bang first popped into existence and it's starting to expand it expands at a much accelerated rate and then drops back down to The regular rate and they do that to try and get around the flatness problem the monocle problem

01:17:02

Several other problems that the Big Bang has but no we don't observe inflation Some astronomers observe certain patterns that they see in the cosmic microwave background that they interpret as being consistent with inflation

01:17:14

But we don't observe inflation It's it's not something that we can see we can't see the universe ballooning out at a at a accelerated rate

01:17:22

So that's that's just not that's just not the case I'm not sure where he's getting that information. And again the idea of seeing us seeing into the past That's only the case if you define the past if you define time in a way that was very different than the way

01:17:36

Bible the Bible does and the way our Ancestors did the Einstein synchrony convention you can do that but Again, if you use the anisotropic synchrony convention, we're seeing the universe in real time

01:17:48

And that's not something that I came up with. That's something that Einstein wrote about It's been mentioned by other secular

01:17:56

Astronomers and physicists like Sarkar and Stachel there's even a YouTube video on it Which I think which is actually accurate and it's the funny thing is when there's this

01:18:03

YouTube video You know, we talks about the fact you can't measure the one -way speed of light and a lot of people are saying Well, how about that?

01:18:08

You know, well, I've been saying that for decades and it's like well now that it's on YouTube You believe it

01:18:17

Hey Scholarly source. I mean, I love you to be I learned

01:18:22

I learned most of my stuff through YouTube University That is where to go. There's some great stuff there But yeah, no,

01:18:28

I get the time the tongue -in -cheek there Okay, so there's a controversial question. Okay. I hope it's not I hope it's not too personal and you don't have to answer it

01:18:36

So question, please settle the debate is Jason a Calvinist No judge here.

01:18:42

Yes, you're Calvinist. Yes, five full full -blown five -pointer. Yes Okay It's you know,

01:18:50

I speak to all kinds of different churches and it's not something I make a huge deal out of it That's the way I understand this great. I'm reformed.

01:18:56

I like reformed That's awesome. All right. So let's see. Here is a question by Scott Terry as an amateur stargazer

01:19:03

Has anyone written say a guide to the night sky? That would be amazing. Is that something you've made?

01:19:09

Thank you for that that easy promotion. Yes I've written a book called stargazers guide to the night sky and that's exactly what it is

01:19:17

It's just to help you to enjoy it's not an apologetics book really it's just to help you enjoy the night sky But it is written from a

01:19:23

Christian perspective okay, and it does have the gospel in it because I'm hoping that some people pick it up and read it and as they enjoy

01:19:30

God's majesty as they enjoy God's natural revelation that they will be saved by God's special revelation.

01:19:36

This is gospel message All right, finding truth. There's another debate related thing.

01:19:42

So dr Lyle thinks that only PhDs are qualified to have a good discussion. I think I could answer that for you I think you believe non

01:19:48

PhDs can have good discussions But you have a rule of thumb that you want to stick to and that's your own personal conviction.

01:19:54

I think that yeah Yeah, I mean if somebody you know, there might be somebody who's really brilliant on these issues

01:19:59

But at the same time I don't have the time to go through and research all that Debates take a long time to really research your opponent's position and I don't want

01:20:09

I'm sorry But I don't want to get some 16 year old who thinks he knows everything and in fact doesn't have a clue I just don't want to be drawn into that situation and I don't know but what if he's in his 20s?

01:20:18

He's not 16. He's in his 20s PhD the idea of a PhD is

01:20:24

You've demonstrated you have to demonstrate To a team of other PhD in this case scientists that you know what you're talking about you have to show competency of the scientific method and make a new discovery that nobody's made and that that That gives you a certain credibility that Can non

01:20:42

PhDs discover new stuff in science, of course, that's that's not the issue it's just that the PhD it just kind of showed it kind of demonstrates that they that they have done that hopefully although again as universities go downhill

01:20:55

That may become a knowledge. The reality is there are a number I respect you and I love the the work that you put out

01:21:01

There are a number of people who don't have PhDs that I would love to see you have a debate with them But I respect the fact that you have your own reasoning right?

01:21:09

Look at dr. Craig as well There are certain people that he just won't debate. It'd be it'd be interesting. It'd be great I wish he debated some folks on certain topics that I think are important But I think it'd be very careful and I'm not saying that folks are doing this

01:21:21

But as awesome as debates are I listen to a lot of them we need to be very careful that we don't egg on debates for Fleshly purposes because I know a lot of people like to see these sorts of things for like oh

01:21:32

I really want to see this person against that person and you know They kind of get in that mindset and and I get it

01:21:37

Resonate with that, but I think if someone holds a position like hey, this is what I want to do And this is this is where I draw my line.

01:21:44

I think we should respect that All right. So that's my little my little throwing in my two cents.

01:21:50

All right. All right. Well, I think that's the last one There are a couple of repeats with the you know issues of debates and things like that.

01:21:57

Dr. Lyle I want to thank you so much not just for tonight But every time you've been on the show multiple times and I know that you're a very busy man

01:22:06

And so I greatly appreciate you taking the time to talk about these important topics. I'm happy to be on Thanks for having me on and by some act of Providence if I'm able to contact.

01:22:14

Dr. Craig I'd love to have you guys have a great respectful moderated conversation because I know both of you guys are gentlemen

01:22:21

So who knows maybe I'll reach out to someone. We'll see. Maybe he'll find the time. That'd be interesting.

01:22:27

So Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your questions your comments your super chats. I am immensely grateful for those and If you like the content here, be sure to Subscribe share the content and thank you so much for your support.

01:22:42

That's it for this episode and dr Lyle, is there any last thing you'd like to say? I have a series of articles on William Lane Craig and next one's coming out tomorrow

01:22:50

So you might check that out at the biblical biblical science institute calm All right, and I don't need like wrap me on appreciate it

01:22:56

No problem and are there any books you want to you want to just kind of advertise for two seconds that you think folks will

01:23:01

Understanding Genesis this this deals with a lot of the stuff that that it wasn't tailored to Craig But it deals with a lot of stuff.

01:23:08

It does it does deal with your us in some detail So am I favorite my favorite Jason Lyle moment?

01:23:15

do you have any sources that can that you can point to that can speak to this issue and you're like It's called the

01:23:24

Bible and it is written by God That's a bestseller it's really great

01:23:34

All right, thank you so much dr. Lyle and thank you everyone else for listening in that's it for this episode take care