History Of Faith And Science (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

3 views

May 29, 2022

Ecclesiastes 3 (part 2)

00:00: Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning Thank you for the the chance to rest and recreate this weekend thank you for the holiday weekend that we get to enjoy friends and family and and All the blessings that you give us here in this world
00:14: Lord. Thank you for our physical bodies thank you for all of our senses you've given us the the blessings of your world that you've created and ordered
00:25: According to your will and your purpose and Lord You do tell us that time has a beginning and time has an end and we do know that the
00:32: Lord Jesus Christ is going to return one day to take us all home and to Finally bring an end to history and Bring eternal life to those who believe in the
00:46: Lord Jesus Christ and we thank you Lord for this time And we ask you to bless it in his name. Amen So we're going to do today we're going to go through a history of science and faith
00:55: What we're going to do over the next three weeks is we're going to discuss eight Major faith in science.
01:01: We'll call them controversies for now or at times when the church has sort of went at a face value level that the data from science and the data from scripture have seemed to conflict and the the real question is
01:16: You know when when the the scriptures and the world seem to give contradictory messages, how does the church work through those things?
01:23: so what I'd like to do first actually, let me back out of this and let me give you a let me do an overview of What I would like to present over the next three weeks
01:37: So here's an outline and I apologize. I was going to give you handouts and I just wasn't organized enough. So I apologize
01:42: So next week we'll have handouts for everybody but here's basically where we're going to go over the next next few weeks this week
01:51: We're going to discuss the first issue of science and faith. We're going to discuss is the cosmos is the cosmos eternal
02:00: Or did it have a beginning is it finite? We're going to discuss how the church dealt with that and some of the philosophical issues surrounding that The second issue we're going to discuss is the structure of the earth is the earth a sphere or is it a flat?
02:13: Okay, if you go on the internet, you wouldn't be too sure today, I think Does anybody know what the antipodes are don't look
02:25: Anybody heard the word antipodes raise your hand if you have or antipodes you might have heard it pronounced that way
02:31: Okay, learn what we'll learn what that's about and learn why it was somewhat controversial Then next week we're going to devote the entire lesson to the solar system the question of our solar system and the nature of the universe is
02:46: The earth is set in the center or is the Sun the center? Why was that controversial? Why was that an issue end of the scriptures seem to teach something different?
02:56: Then the final week we're going to discuss all the fun stuff that pretty much is discussed today
03:03: First of all biological change part one. Sorry. I'm zipping ahead of myself Biological change part one what's called a fixity of species the idea that species once created by God never changed
03:15: That was an idea that was was predominant until really modern times And versus the change of the biological realm over time that by the way is no longer controversial
03:28: But those the following three are the cosmic age is it an old earth or a young earth We're not going to necessarily settle these questions.
03:34: By the way, it's not my goal my goal is to have a healthy discussion and and what the issues really Center around and finally biological change
03:42: Darwinism versus intelligent design Believe it or not. We're going to gloss over that in the same lesson and then the nature of man
03:50: Is there universal common descent slash evolution or is there a historical special creation?
03:56: So we're going to talk about those over the next three weeks and hopefully we'll have a healthy healthy discussion about those things
04:02: So let's back out of this. Let me back out of this and then we'll we'll get into the Death by PowerPoint.
04:09: So let's do this. All right So can you guys see the screen? Do we need to do the front lights or not?
04:15: Is that okay? All right And so the first thing I want to discuss this lesson is really background and it's pre
04:22: Copernican questions now Does anybody know when Copernicus wrote his famous work on the revolutions of the heavens?
04:30: roughly century -wise It's to orient ourselves Close 1300s.
04:37: It's actually 1500s so the 16th century so it took a long time for these things to kind of come up and get resolved
04:46: But there was a model prior that Copernicus is really kind of that watershed or that dividing line
04:51: Scientifically where it's really I think viewed historically as the advent of modern science
04:57: Where people started to do an empirical study of the universe and say, okay We can now our technology is improving.
05:04: We have better our math. Some of the ancient learning came to light that we can evaluate scientifically and Really Copernicus that's around 15 think think 1550 somewhere in that age 16th century
05:19: So First of all the question of how can we how do you know anything? It's a philosophical we're gonna go in the shallow end of the philosophical pool over the next few weeks epistemology
05:30: It's it comes from the Greek pistis it's the study of human knowledge or how we know what we know and how certainly we can know it and All of these questions when we make statements about the physical world
05:44: We're making claims of knowledge or we're making epistemological claims Another question our religious and scientific is religious and scientific knowledge hopelessly separated
05:55: Or is there a war between faith and science? Are they at war or in conflict?
06:03: That's known as a conflict thesis and it was it was developed during the 1800s pretty much
06:09: Discounted by all historians of science today, but I think it's still popular out there
06:14: Another question. How can we know about the physical world? Is it is it the Bible only is it
06:20: Bible and science together? Is it science only those are kind of philosophical questions about how we can know what we know
06:27: And finally, what is it? What is the difference between speculation opinion educated guesses common knowledge conviction and certainty?
06:35: And I think sometimes the church has had conviction and certainty on certain issues or common knowledge
06:41: But then it's had to revisit those things based on data from nature and data from science So we'll go over some of the cases where that happened
06:48: And I think it'll be helpful to us as far as the theory of knowledge or epistemology goes
06:55: There's a concept out there. That's pretty well established as knowledge Belief is what somebody holds in their heart to be true
07:06: Knowledge I'm going to define as justified true belief and what that means the difference between belief and knowledge So people can believe that the stars tell the future that is a belief
07:15: Doesn't count as knowledge because it's not justified. It's also not true Give an example, it would be superstition.
07:21: Okay Here, I'm going to define belief as a subjective element or it's internal to the person
07:29: Subjective element of knowledge and it can be based on many things Things can be believed that are false or have little or no justification for example speculation or conspiracies
07:40: Who killed JFK does anybody have an opinion on that? I'm not going to ask you to share it. Okay. I have an opinion
07:47: What is my opinion based on? Oliver Stone Maybe is that a valid way to decide that question?
07:57: I'm not going to go there, but I am going to say that People can believe things just because they they guess or they their gut reaction is
08:06: I'm going to believe it on this basis Secondly belief may be justified if a person has warrant for that belief
08:12: So you believe it it's something you hold to be true and you can show a rational reason for that belief
08:18: This is why I believe what I believe our Christian faith. We believe what we believe because The Apostles said we were eyewitnesses to his majesty to his miracles to his resurrection
08:33: Christianity at the core is Justified true belief because we hold it to be true we can justify it based on eyewitness testimony that we have recorded in the scriptures and It is true.
08:47: We know it to be true and Jesus validated that by rising from the dead and that's also a historically provable
08:54: Event. Okay. There's a recent book by Jay Warner Wallace. Does anybody know it? Just came out he's he's sort of a retired
09:02: LA detective But he wrote a book about the resurrection about how that can kind of be through the rules of kind of historical science
09:10: You can establish it beyond a reasonable doubt that kind of idea. So what we have is a historical faith so we have to think rightly about history and about past events in the context of Christian faith and so a
09:24: Belief is objectively true if it represents reality independent of other subjective or objective factors
09:29: People can believe that Allah is a true God That's a belief they justify it.
09:35: But is it true? We believe it's not and we put we base that belief on on The scriptures and what we know to be true about the
09:44: Christian faith so we can make judgments about things. So just to get orient you about epistemology as a concept
09:54: Quickly two types of science observational historical some things we can do experiments on some things we can repeat also known as experimental science
10:03: So the first one involves inductive reasoning so your reasoning From what we know to what either is no is real generally or true to what will be true or what will happen in the future
10:17: It involves a study of repeatable phenomena observable in the present and Inferences are drawn as to regular operations and laws in the natural realm.
10:26: This is observational science Conclusions are fairly certain depending on how much data there is.
10:31: So the more data you have the more justified you can believe in Observational type science the operation of the cosmos the expanding universe things like that examples of observational science
10:45: Historical science on the other hand involves abductive reasoning what we call inference to the best explanation
10:51: It generally involves a study of non -repeatable singular events in the past and it infers or draws forward infers about past causes
11:01: For things phenomena and effects we observe in the present okay, and We'll give examples of that as we really the historical science that is going to really involve the third week
11:13: There's a little bit of historical science today, but it's mainly going to be observational or experimental type science
11:19: We're going to discuss but there is one issue the beginning of the universe. Is that historical or observational science? Historical science why
11:27: I mean if you look at those two definitions did it happen more than once can we do it again?
11:34: Can't redo it, right? So we have that's that's historical science historical science question, right?
11:40: Doesn't mean we can't know it. It just means that It's not it. Your conclusions are going to be different and the process you go through is going to be different you can't repeat it and Then finally the conclusions are tentative and open to revision when the new data arise
11:54: And just let me say this about the third week when we discuss issues of biological origins the age of the earth
11:59: That's very important to keep in mind. We have to remain humble because as Ken Ham famously says well,
12:06: I wasn't there You weren't there, but God was So, how do we come about our knowledge? It's a good point and when
12:12: I first heard that if you've ever heard the Ken Ham bill nye debate 2014 think everybody's seen part of it anyway
12:19: When you watch the whole thing, it's very interesting He made this distinction and a first reaction was like no, that's not right
12:25: But then the more I thought about I'm like no that is right. He's right Whether you agree with we can't know anything before you know a certain time or not
12:33: That's a different question his conclusion is debatable, but his point about the difference
12:38: I think is very real and very true So we have to make certain adjustments when we're dealing with issues of historicity or historical science
12:48: Okay, when science and faith seem to conflict, how do we resolve the conflicts? We should ask certain questions First of all, what does the
12:53: Bible say on the matter? Does the Bible even address this physical phenomenon the physical world? Secondly, what does the science indicate?
13:01: Is there any data? Do we have anything to work off of work with? Thirdly, how did the church navigate similar conflicts in the past?
13:09: Did the church run up against this or something similar to this and how do they work through things hermeneutically or interpretively?
13:15: with the scriptures and the science Fourth can we maintain biblical errancy inerrancy and good science?
13:23: That is going to be our goal. How do you do both? can you do both me some people say no you can either be a biblical inerrantist and Forget about science or you do good science and the
13:33: Bible Well, that's not really useful in telling us about the world beyond faith salvation things like that, right?
13:41: All right. So here's here's my model for formation of theories in the physical world
13:48: Yes question. Yeah Yeah, I Am yeah, that's shorthand for Christian faith or faith in the scriptures or what the scripture seems to teach on any given matter
14:10: That's a good point. Yep. Good point Brian. Yep So here's here's how
14:16: I think this is a pretty solid way for looking at how theories form
14:21: So we're talking about science. It involves formation of theories and models When you want a solar system we all have in our mind right now model of the solar system
14:30: It's very different than the model that Augustine had for example or Ptolemy or Aristotle How where the planets were how the stars worked how all that did what the earth did is it stationary?
14:44: Did it move? so One way to do it. I have a 1a and 1b 1a is you start with a philosophical commitment and we'll talk about this with regard
14:54: To the eternality or finiteness of the universe of the universe have a beginning Aristotle thought no
15:00: Because he thought nothing comes from nothing The words of Maria von
15:05: Trapp or in Latin. He said X knee Hello knee hello fit or out of nothing nothing comes nothing comes from nothing
15:14: So he thought if there's something now There's no time. They couldn't have been nothing. It always had to be something
15:19: So Aristotle taught the eternality of matter and of the universe Well, that's how you start with a philosophical commitment without any data
15:29: You're just philosophizing and you come up with a theory of the eternality of matter in the universe Or you can start out with a biblical passage
15:36: Genesis 1 1 and no physical data in the universe. I can't look back Singular as Brian said can't go back in history and repeat history the initial theory is the finiteness of The cosmos and the universe had a beginning so step two you have that initial theory
15:53: Corey stretching you're asking, okay Step two is you have either one of those ways you form an initial theory or initial model
16:02: Then step two is you start coming up with empirical data and historically we'll see this is true these questions continued for a period of time because there was no data so both could be true until the data comes in and Finally when the the proofs become overwhelming as Augustine put it convincing
16:24: Proofs Overwhelming and I have his language here later, but finally the theory becomes more accepted
16:30: It's more of a common knowledge type of thing. So that's kind of the the progress if you will of theory or model formation
16:36: So issue number one, let's start with the first issue cosmic time Is the cosmos eternal or did it have a beginning in time?
16:44: Did time have a beginning itself? Good question as I said Aristotle and others before Christ theorized an eternal cosmos the
16:53: Bible indicates a finite cosmos and beginning to the entire creation Genesis 1 1 In fact, the
16:59: Hebrew word for Genesis is literally in the beginning Right in Hebrew, so it's not called
17:07: Genesis. It's called in the beginning the whole phrase. That's the title of the book. I love that So but a lack of data at the time makes both theories possible.
17:15: Okay Do you like Aristotle? Do you like Moses? I know what you're gonna go with it.
17:20: So let's pick sides but the two views There's a disparity and and the two realms are now brought into conflict whether we like it or not
17:30: Okay, you have two competing theories about the world about reality really so in cosmic time in this question
17:39: There was a philosophical pre commitment to the eternality of matter and time which drove the theory outside of the biblical witness
17:47: But the Bible clearly indicates the cosmos had a beginning and that it is distinct from and contingent upon a creator creator
17:55: God so as opposed to the ideas of Pantheism or pan entheism the universe is not
18:03: God. God is not embedded in the universe God is separate and And the universe is dependent and contingent upon him and the issue persisted believe it or not until the 20th century
18:16: Without resolution, by the way, we go out through all these other debates including Darwinism They thought they had an eternal
18:24: Cosmic time frame to work with isn't that interesting? Darwin thought he had an unlimited amount of time
18:31: Let's fast forward a little bit today. What is what are two of the ways that people theorize how?
18:38: Dealing with life and how it started and chance and it's because you don't have an eternal time frame now
18:44: Even the oldest old earthers believe 13 .8 billion and only about 3 billion for life well
18:51: Genetically, that's not enough time to produce anything of use, right So it's there's still a problem whether you're young or old earth doesn't matter
19:00: So, how do they solve that issue? What do they come for? Well, they come up with the multiverse So they're infinite you there's not infinite time we see time hasn't ended up We'll talk about how that that kind of get resolved later in a second here
19:13: But if you don't have infinite time you need infinite rolls of the dice infinite spins of the cosmic
19:21: What you would call it? What do we call those slot machines right spin them enough? It's gonna hit we're gonna have life
19:26: We're gonna have this world. That's great. You don't need a creator or there's also this idea that aliens seeded the planet at some point
19:33: I mean, that's the biological right because you you have multiple problems. How did things start? How did life start?
19:38: How'd the first cell start had a DNA star had information get in there, you know information spontaneously creating it doesn't match up, but Without God you need you need ways of making that happen.
19:49: So So how did the issue play out the idea of an eternal universe persisted until the 20th century when
19:56: Edwin Hubble? measured a red shift in distant stars It's the analogy
20:01: I've heard is I'm not an astronomer. I'll be up front, you know I'm more of a biology and geology guy, but let's you know, so astronomy
20:07: I'm elementary level education if some of you physicists or you don't want to teach me anything, please
20:14: So but there is the idea of a red shift The idea is when you hear a train going by you have that Doppler shift
20:19: You know the train the pitch goes up and then it goes down again as it passes you Well, the idea is is with light and stars.
20:28: It's the same thing as they're moving away from you The color of the stars turn more reddish if you will, it's a red shift it's called and so from that the idea is that well the universe must be expanding or moving a way and This indicated that they were moving away from the center in all directions
20:45: Which suggested an expanding cosmos this strongly indicates the universe had a beginning or a point of singularity
20:51: This was mockingly by the way called a Big Bang All right Well, the guy who came up with that is not
20:58: Einstein the guy on the left The young Albert handsome looking guy probably a
21:04: German photograph That's Albert Einstein. He's important because he had a problem with this
21:11: He did his calculations and he said This the time stops we have a beginning
21:19: That's Fred Hoyle Astronomer he advocated what's called the steady -state theory, which we'll talk about in a second
21:26: But he didn't like the idea of the Big Bang not only because of the theistic implications, but also
21:33: Because he thought he thought he had a better model So that's Einstein and Hoyle So it ultimately got resolved in the 20th century because of this red shift idea
21:46: That pointed back to a point of beginning Again, you just draw time backwards. You just run the clock backwards run the tape back and there had to be a start
21:56: And The idea was initially resisted do it as I said do theistic implications
22:01: Fred Hoyle Who I showed you supporter of the steady -state theory meaning that everything like Aristotle has always been here never changes just there
22:09: Coined the term Big Bang to mock the theories in a debate with somebody. He's like, well, there's some kind of Big Bang You know that kind of idea and the name stock.
22:17: It's stock I remember here you guys remember Paul Harvey back in the day the rest of the story guy Remember I was listening one day
22:24: I was working between college or something and he was on there and he said the whole issue could Be resolved if we just added a few words to Genesis In the beginning there was a
22:33: Big Bang and God created the heavens and the earth. I'll never forget that I was a non -christian at the time. I'm like, wow, that's kind of cool, you know
22:40: So so that's just a simplistic example, but he thought that would solve everything But it started as a way to mock the theory you kidding a big bonus thing just blow up and it did everything happen
22:51: So Einstein as I showed you earlier, he famously fudged the calculation called his cosmological constant
22:58: To maintain the eternal universe idea and he later said it was his only regret in science.
23:03: He didn't like the idea and Your question John. No, he he didn't like the idea the theistic implications so he literally said that's the only thing
23:15: I ever regretted doing in science is I knew it implied a Created was needed. I didn't like that.
23:21: He later and confessed. He made a mistake So at that point the empirical evidence was decisive.
23:27: The theory became widely accepted in the Bible ultimately the idea of the model so to speak from the biblical concept of a beginning was affirmed and There's there's this idea of today a lot of space scientists will refer to as the horrendous space kablooey
23:43: As the idea and that comes from a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon From 1992 and and if you
23:49: I haven't kind of watched the Big Bang Theory a little bit But apparently this is an idea
23:54: Calvin and Hobbes Calvin's talking to Hobbes And he says I've been reading about the universe the beginning of the universe. They call it the
24:00: Big Bang and Calvin says to Hobbes isn't it weird from site that scientists can imagine all the matter of the universe
24:08: Exploding out of a dot smaller than the head of a pin that they can't come up with a more evocative name than the
24:14: Big Bang and That's the whole problem with science we've got a bunch of empiricists trying to resolve things of unimaginable wonder and Hobbes says what would you call the creation of the universe and and Calvin says the horrendous space kablooey, of course and Hobbes says that is better and almost anything would be right so it's a pretty pretty lame name
24:38: But I think horrendous space kablooey is much better So that's kind of that issue kind of nobody really argues that unless they want to come up You know you don't kind of find a workaround like the multiverse or something like that to get away from the idea the point of singularity
24:53: It's really not under much debate at this point So that's kind of how that issue resolved in the end so issue number two
25:02: Let's get into this the earth shape so the church had to deal with is the earth a flat with a dome
25:07: Or is the earth a sphere Has anybody here seen the Netflix film behind the curve so maybe watch that it's about flat earthers
25:15: Let me seen that mark sergeant. Oh, you gotta watch it. It's like a half hour of fun Or maybe longer, but anyway they go into why the earth is really flat, and they're really really sincere
25:28: They're really sincere. They believe there's some kind of government conspiracy the whole thing right So You know
25:36: I don't spoil the ending for you, but there's a little little twist at the end that that you know Makes one think okay
25:45: But so in ancient Near Eastern cosmology, I'm gonna preface this by saying this One of the main ways people get around some of biblical
25:54: Implications today is they appeal to ancient Near Eastern things like Eastern Near Eastern Eastern sorry we see it slowly
26:02: Ancient Near Eastern culture to explain why the Bible describes things the way they do well
26:09: That's kind of fair, but it's kind of a way to discount it as well So I'm going to preface my comments by saying
26:15: I'm going to show you a slide in a second that shows from a theistic -evolutionary Website to show a model of the ancient
26:21: Near Eastern view of the earth with Bible verses attached So just be aware. I am presenting this for critique a little bit but if anybody of you want to look up these verses you can kind of see how somebody could take them a certain way and Create a model out of them not saying the church did or the ancient
26:38: Hebrews did I'm just saying that this is out there, so But in general the idea was like when you look up at the sky
26:46: It does look like there's kind. I mean, it's blue What's behind it? What is that and why does it change color is there water?
26:53: I mean it kind of looks. I'm looking out the back window right now kind of looks blue to me And you look at it, and it really doesn't change it kind of looks like it's steady our ceiling here doesn't change much right if we
27:04: Had many earthquakes are settling lately Steve. I don't think so So I'm looking at this this ceiling hasn't changed since it was built since what
27:11: Charlie 1990 or something right? So you look at it, and you go. It's kind of like a roof Even today
27:17: Tim what do they call it at the top of the clouds? What's that's called? Yeah, thank you ceiling is it really a ceiling is it literally a ceiling no
27:25: It's just the top it's the top level so the top level of our world is the atmosphere it was described by a
27:34: Hebrew world called Rikiya well, it was the word they used to use for like a
27:40: Stamped or a metal kind of dome or something did they really think it was a metal dome
27:47: Probably not it changed colors doesn't look like metal So were they really trying to describe the physical reality of something or just how it looked really probably how it looked
27:59: So this was a common description of how things appeared to an observer standing on the surface of the earth the Bible seems to describe
28:05: In a manner consistent with this conceptual framework of the earth if we look around as far as the eye can see it looks pretty
28:11: Flat it might be a curve, but it pretty looks pretty flat I mean is that unusual they've actually surveyed fifth graders
28:18: Who've been trained from first grade and how the universe really is then they take him into a room and ask him
28:24: What the universe like they describe it pretty much like this. It's flat. There's a dome
28:31: The Sun goes up the Sun goes down are we surprised that people 25 5 ,000 years ago described it that way of course not it's how cultures today describe it that don't have you know scientific education like us
28:43: So Here's the here's the the Diagram I was telling you about this actually comes from a group called bio logos.
28:53: They're going to come up again and again and these guys Present this
28:59: I get this from Dennis Lamar. Oh, he's a theistic evolutionist It's conceptual model of a three -tiered cosmos based on biblical passages if you look closely.
29:08: I know it's hard to read If any of you want any of these things just email me I'll be glad to send you any of them so you can look these up but You look at the heaven with the waters above you see the nice little crests of the waves and the water above right?
29:21: It's kind of a silly diagram but conceptually This helped people make sense of where stuff was and kind of how it functioned but for example you look at Let's see the
29:34: Sun moves across the sky every day You look at Psalm 19 for example where it describes the
29:39: Sun like a chariot riding across right and I'll tell you what kind of How it looks we still say
29:44: Sun sets our eyes today. Is that a big deal? Of course not Some people try to make hay out of it.
29:49: I disagree with that. See the earth is immovable if you look at Psalm 93 Chronicles 16 1st
29:56: Chronicles 1630 Says the earth shall not be moved Well, people can look at that and say well, obviously the earth is stationary
30:03: You can see how we can get to that controversy of Copernicus, right? If the church says the earth doesn't move and the
30:09: Sun moves across the sky no matter how much you study the Hebrew the Sun still says moved means moved and Doesn't move means doesn't move.
30:20: So the church kind of went down that road and insisted This is the this is the model we should go with So just to give an example, this is not this is kind of the basic starting level of where these controversies start
30:32: So The earth's shape so Descriptions even today described the earth in common terms that match how things really look to us
30:39: We're standing on the earth how things look in 500 BC thereabouts the
30:46: Greek natural philosophers And that's by the way what scientists were called in the olden days back before scientists
30:54: Which is a which is a word in Latin that means knowledge, right? Scientia scientia means knowledge, but scientists wasn't really used until the modern science came about Natural philosophers was the term that was used but they observed the earth and theorized it was spherical at that point mostly the
31:10: Greeks Well, how did they find that out? For example, if you look at shadow links They were out in Alexandria Egypt and they were a few hundred miles north and they had objects of similar height
31:20: Same time a year same time a day and they just measured the lengths of shadows and it's amazing This is this is
31:26: BC when people actually calculated the earth's circumference almost exactly the 24 ,000 miles
31:33: Pretty amazing. That's that's pretty impressive But again, it seemed to conflict
31:39: Sorry, let me let me continue. So shadows on the moon when there's a lunar eclipse You can see if you've ever watched the lunar eclipse.
31:47: Well, that's the curve of the earth. Okay, it's probably spherical but So the church at first tentatively accepted the conclusions of the natural philosophers and concluded that the biblical descriptions were speaking of appearances only and We're not intending described the ultimate reality of things
32:05: The issue was finally settled settled in a 6th century debate by and large Let me just say this the first couple centuries of the church
32:13: The church kind of said yeah, the earth is probably a sphere. It's no big deal But really it was a 6th century debate that I want to just briefly highlight here to Christian scholars debated the shape of the earth in the 500s one was
32:27: Cosmos Indico Plutus and His name literally means India traveler. So he traveled in the
32:33: Indian Ocean a lot So he felt like he had some personal knowledge of these things. We'll call him
32:38: Cosmo and John Philoponus will call him JP because pronouncing these names is just ridiculous
32:46: So Cosmos objected to the pagan concept of sphericity Which supported the idea of an eternal universe?
32:53: Remember we talked about Aristotle who said the universe is eternal and the church said well a sphere
33:00: Is has no beginning and no end it just goes on forever so they kind of linked those two ideas together and so wait a minute if we
33:07: Accept a any spherical earth that supports the pagan concept of an eternal universe
33:13: So it was somewhat controversial because of that right kind of makes sense, I mean they had these theological concerns that are legitimate
33:20: But we would look back and say well they tied two things together. It's really didn't need to be tied together it was kind of but we have the benefit of you know, looking back and learning from that so Cosmos cited biblical passages like the ones we looked at earlier described the earth as a vaulted flat surface
33:37: Against JP and he wrote a book called Christian topography and in that book You put together a map that's the map of the world top view
33:46: The inner rectangle, that's the Mediterranean kind of that curvy upside -down animal looking thing is the
33:52: Mediterranean The rest of that interior is the known earth at the time and around that you can see the blue and the white
34:00: Those those are kind of that surrounds the land That's like the global ocean and then that outer outer
34:07: Thing is kind of like the boundary lands of the earth the four corners of the earth as it were again
34:12: It's kind of an over literalistic rendering, but his point was to defend scripture and so doing he created a model that he thought better Did that and I think
34:22: I think my numbers are wrong there the world according to cosmos. I have 4 ,000 by 2 ,000
34:27: I looked it up. I think it's more like 12 ,000 So the earth in his model was flat and it was about 12 ,000 wide and about 4 ,000 high
34:35: And that was the whole earth again because they hadn't ventured beyond that. So, how do you know?
34:41: Right, that's just this theoretical Natural philosophers coming up with these observations, but how do we know?
34:48: so What happened was cosmos concern about theological compromise was right, even though his model of the cosmos was not
34:57: JP won the day in the 6th century by appealing to sound science and theology to build a better model
35:03: Which set the stage for Copernicus and the others the church accepted the idea of a spherical earth
35:09: Even though it was unsupported by a face value reading of the biblical texts modern flat earth series theories rather invoke arguments similar to Cosmo and Reject the empirical evidence from science.
35:20: So we have to be careful and this is where you end up We would look at that and say well, they're probably wrong.
35:26: Well on what basis would do we say that they're wrong? Their models not real it's not true because we're we're we're kind of thinking of Other things we're taking into account when we make our judgments about them, correct?
35:39: Yes, Corey That's a flat earth by the way, little Yoda off the side just for extra.
35:45: Yeah Well, Augustine Augustine in the 300 400s.
35:56: He kind of he sounded sounded like he was riding the riding the fence a little bit So I don't think there's any official
36:04: Thing because again, I don't think the church thought it was theologically problematic Depending on who you read.
36:11: Yeah, that was one way of looking at it Yes Other people thought that the earth at the center was like the sewage dump.
36:18: That's where all the sewage ended up The highest heaven was where God was I was a purist and the earth was like the dregs
36:24: So it kind of depends on which historian you look at but yeah So there was a significance to the earth being at the center for various reasons, which will you know, we'll talk about next week
36:32: Good point. So we get to the third issue and we'll close here in a few minutes, but it's the antipodes also pronounced antipodes
36:40: But first the idea that people live on the opposite opposite side of us on the spherical earth It literally means opposite feet or upside down anti Antipodes pode podiatrists, that's where that word comes from, right?
36:53: So the antipodes you'll see pictures of globes It's coming up next one With people standing upside down stick figures right the feet are up the head is down, right?
37:03: But this is a map of 150 BC Kind of the known world and the theorized
37:10: Antipodes are down there at the bottom. You can see the torrid zone in the middle so that Oh Akuma, I'm not sure what that means, but that was the known world again the
37:21: Mediterranean like the upside -down animal with the legs and stuff So that was the known world you had
37:27: Kind of Africa North Africa at the bottom below North Africa. Nobody really went past it was too hot you couldn't survive the travel the ocean to your left
37:35: Asia to your right and Then maybe some of these areas where people might live on the opposite side of the earth trivia question
37:43: When you say we're gonna dig a hole, where are you gonna dig to where? Well, it's not really
37:49: China if you dig through the earth you actually end up in Antarctica I didn't know that till I look this up. You have to be in like Brazil to dig to China straight through the center little
37:59: Well, yeah They says Americans are weird is what they say Yeah, so it was around 500
38:15: BC where they started to really figure out the spherical earth thing So this this comes from a
38:20: Greek person Cradies of malice so he was a
38:27: Greek and He had he had come up with this. This is not obviously his cartoon, but you know, there's a concept he came up with So the idea of a spherical earth was already a few hundred years old, yeah against the flat earth so So anyway, so the idea was a popular concept of the earth was a five zone system you had these temperate zones
38:46: Kind of you if you picture this round globe with a belt in the middle the torrid zone You can't go below that you have two frozen zones on the top and the bottom
38:53: All right, there's one two three and they have a temperate zone We know where people live and you have this theoretical temperate zone where people might live
39:01: People didn't know because they'd only traveled in that square that you know Cosmos put together that rectangle.
39:08: That's all they knew So there was another known temperate zone where people lived so they knew that there's something below Africa, but it was so hot
39:15: But they theorized if he kept going there'd be another temperate zone below that but they hadn't really explored it There were theological and physical challenges posed by the idea and the speculative nature of the concept assured its rejection
39:28: So it was initially rejected by most people. There are no antipodes. There are no people living in the unknown parts of the world for example lactaneous
39:39: Who who opposed the idea this is around the 300s ad? What shall we say of those who think that there are antipodes with their feet opposite ours?
39:49: Okay, standing upside down. You're gonna fall off, right? It's the idea and he came up with he was the one who really came up with a lot of biblical
39:56: Passages to kind of where it talks about, you know, the Queen of the South, you know lived in Ethiopia That's as far south as things go and the four corners of the earth and you know
40:05: The whole world hearing the gospel the whole known world did hear the gospel in one form or another at one point so they objected to it on biblical grounds, but Augustine was a practical person and he evaluated on logical grounds
40:17: And he said if the southern region is people and as the scripture testify all men are descended from Adam How could some of his descendants possibly reach the
40:25: Antipodes Only by transversing the impassable ocean and settling in a foreign land
40:30: Also, how could the Apostles go places to spread the good news to the ends of the earth acts 1 8?
40:36: Without perishing on the way and failing to preach among those lost sheep So Augustine had valid reasons.
40:42: I mean he believed the earth was young and he said there's not enough time Just not enough time for people to repopulate and get across these oceans and you know move wherever they had no idea
40:53: North and South America were here the Americas to them. It was unknown for First many many centuries they were unknown.
41:02: So these are very reasonable things for people to say Here's an example. It's called the cloverleaf map
41:08: You can see Europe Jerusalem at the center the center of the world. It's kind of more of a conceptual map
41:14: But the cloverleaf on the left is Europe Asia to the right and then Africa North Africa down below and you can see a ship sailing there to what's now labeled
41:23: America And this was done in the later Middle Ages But you get the idea that they were just starting to understand there might be people elsewhere
41:31: And it's a very famous. I think it's called a cloverleaf map very famous map So here's how this issue was resolved and and we'll move through this
41:39: The American continents were completely unknown. Only a vast ocean was assumed between Western Europe and East Asia global exploration the 15th century actually settled the question by the way when one of the myths that's advocated by people who don't agree with the
41:54: Bible is that and This kind of conflict idea between faith and science issues Is that you know this whole flat earth myth that the church believed when
42:03: Columbus went out he'd fall off the edge all that kind Of stuff that was a myth that was perpetuated in the late 1800s by modernists and naturalists
42:10: It just wanted to abuse the faith Not true the in reality Columbus only thought the circumference of the earth was 8 ,000 miles
42:18: So they didn't want him to go because they go you're gonna run out of supplies You've miscalculated the distance you're gonna die on the way
42:25: So he was wrong ran into North America. The rest is history. So lucky him. I mean providentially blessed him
42:33: But but you know world would look at a go Gee, it's good thing good thing. The Americas were there because you know, he would have perished at sea
42:40: So also the missionary implications as Augustine alluded to there's a lack of gospel knowledge among the newly discovered people and the
42:46: Great Commission We have to fulfill that. So once we discover there are people living in foreign lands that had never heard the gospel that was the grounds for the modern missionary movement the
42:56: Moravians and others who worked off of this knowledge and and sent missionaries to preach the good news to those people who had not yet been reached to their knowledge and This is similar modern debate to extraterrestrial life, right?
43:10: Could there be life in other universes? Well, what lesson do we learn do we want to say absolutely not because the
43:16: Bible doesn't mention them we can but we don't know So I think that's fair other solar systems other places in the universe.
43:24: Sorry Now, I'm not a multiverse guy Brian good catch. That's a good catch so let's just quickly summarize this and we'll
43:32: We'll we'll answer any questions we can so to summarize the debate centered and before Copernicus the debate centered around the biblical data and or philosophical speculations before Empirical investigations and we had data
43:47: Biblical data was sometimes clear as with the finite comma finite cosmos or non -existent the
43:53: Antipodes We didn't have any data from the Bible really Or it seemed a conflict with the data from nature and natural philosophy earth shape
44:02: Data from Scripture that should say so The Scripture seemed to indicate again because it's talking about how we view things not necessarily how they ultimately are
44:11: So the earth shape question was kind of it was kind of tricky to navigate through Sometimes the questions involved primarily observational science the shape of the earth
44:21: You can actually take scientific measurements today and do the same things they did or the Antipodes You can go to South America and see there are people living there
44:29: You can go to Antarctica or Australia and see there are people on the opposite side of you or as we said a finite cosmos
44:35: Is a historical question, right? But it's interesting to note that the data once they came up with the red shift in the idea of a point of singularity
44:43: That people in the earth they weren't convinced by the scripture but they were confronted with the data from the world in the historical implications of that kind of point of Big Bang kind of cosmology which
44:55: Forced them to say well a beginning needs a beginner a Big Bang needs a Big Bang or so to speak, right?
45:01: a creation needs a creator So if it is created and it did have a start then somebody had to start it and that somebody is
45:08: God the creator Descriptions in natural world can be literal figurative or phenomenal and all three should be considered in the context both scientifically and textually
45:20: When the biblical text speaks in phenomenal language then the church is justified in Changing a traditional interpretation.
45:27: It is not always evident that this is the case But when the text is compared with when the text is compared with physical evidence
45:32: But once the proofs from the empirical study are conclusive the church did adjust And I leave you with two two verses that speak of natural theology or general revelation
45:46: Psalm 19 the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge.
45:55: There is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world and Then Romans 1 20 for his invisible attributes.
46:06: Namely his eternal This is God his eternal power and divine nature having been clearly perceived
46:12: Ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so that they are without his excuse
46:18: So that's just a general introduction to these pre Copernican questions and the issues of faith in science And how did the church work through those?
46:26: And that do we have any questions we have five minutes or so Does anybody have questions about any of these issues that came up?
46:35: We're gonna go next week we're gonna discuss Copernicus that's a that's a fun one and Then week three the modern controversies, right?
46:43: So the no way it affects you said, okay Sure. What are the no way it affects because you did define that?
46:50: Well, so what was the no way you said the no way data you said? Mm -hmm. Well, so Not really because we're not really getting into the science of things.
46:59: It's more. Okay. The science is out there. The data is there How do we reconcile that with Scripture? It's more of a hermeneutical exercise than a scientific exercise
47:07: It's not really the point we get a scientific stuff. So the question was about Noah's Flood and how did that affect things?
47:13: Well, if you see up until the new world was discovered the concept really was that there was that That with the world existed in this rectangle or in this three -leaf clover kind of idea
47:25: So how did the people that read that view the flood what certainly covered all the land?
47:32: But as far as they knew North America wasn't was just ocean So conceptually did they think it covered a whole globe that's a question open for debate because to your point the the word for earth or ground or world in Hebrew is the same one arets and That can mean everything from what's outside the door here
47:51: To the entire continent to the flat or to a specific land like America is an arets
47:58: That's a land or it can mean all of the dry land. It means the dry portion for sure
48:05: But that's what the Hebrew word arets means. So did the flood cover the arets did it cover all the arets?
48:12: We couldn't even see where there were no people. Well, that's a that's a question philosophical question and a theological question open for debate
48:19: And that's kind of the difference between I can think the flood you're alluding to the flood geology model kind of right
48:25: So so the the flood of Noah is seen either as local universal or global and in two weeks
48:31: We're gonna give a handout. We're gonna look at how different kind of models Approach these questions.
48:37: It's a good question So was the flood did the flood kill all the people yes or no at the time except for Eight right.
48:46: So eight in the ark didn't die. Everybody else did so in that sense the flood was universal, right?
48:52: And so when Noah reported the flood did it cover all of the dry land? As far as the eye could see for sure at least and we're talking minimum it killed all the people
49:05: Right. So so how high was the mountain that he was describing is the question? So again, we have to we have to make sure this is why there's a difference of opinion
49:15: So the most restrictive it was just a local flood left no effects and didn't kill all the people. That's not a biblical view
49:21: Right, you had to at least kill all the people and cover all the ground that was known or visible at that time The the maximalist view would say it covered the whole surface of the earth up to a certain depth
49:32: So there's a range of opinion on that. That's all within the range of the Hebrew both for mountains and for land
49:40: So that's why there's still a debate today But what you're talking about is a flood geology model which from George McCready price
49:47: Which I think is what Morrison Whitcomb in their book the Genesis flood promote Yeah, so but I don't think that really has anything to do with these early debates
49:54: That wasn't really an issue because again if you're only talking a small area of known land
49:59: It's pretty easy for a flood to cover that In fact, I don't know if you guys knew this but every every culture in the world has a flood epic and a creation epic
50:07: Most of the creation epics have six day timeframes in them as well Yeah, yeah to discount what the
50:14: Bible says kind of thing. Yeah, it's like a religion comparative religion thing Right, so if you can't hear Corey's describing, you know, it's
50:21: Is the Hebrew narratives about the creation the flood the way they are just to copy the other cultures around them in the ancient
50:27: Near East? Or do we have the right one and everybody else has a as a copy that got corrupted kind of thing?
50:32: Both are valid options based on the data and both are possible and I would agree with the second one. Yes, sir
50:39: Yeah, scientifically, yeah, it's called pan Gaia or Pangea you'll hear pronounced sometime The idea
50:45: I think all creation History of the earth models have a version of that with plate tectonics
50:52: I didn't know this but plate tectonics the idea that the continents moved around over time Well, not necessarily but it well maybe it started with the creationist but It's empirically verified, but it really wasn't accepted scientific knowledge until the 1960s.
51:09: I didn't know that we all grew up with it in school I didn't know that my father knew nothing of it
51:15: Didn't know how the continents look like they could fit together. You look at South America and Central American Africa Yeah, looks like it coulda sure puzzles
51:22: I can do puzzles But it really yeah So the idea is that at one time there was a super continent one or two or three different continents depending on you know
51:31: Your model of you know earth history, but yeah, and they kind of broke apart and drifted apart over time So yeah
51:39: Some models say attributed to the flood accelerated that other models say it happened over longer periods of time.
51:45: Sure Yeah, so just to be clear I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of present both sides of some of these especially the modern issues
51:52: I'm gonna take a side on the biological Darwinian issue, but on the age of the earth I'm just gonna present kind of so we can have kind of a thought experiment a little bit about the models and really we're talking
52:02: About models. We're not talking about violating scripture, you know, if I don't think the earth is is is
52:09: Stationary I'm not disbelieving scripture at all Okay But we have to understand so I'm just going to present that we have
52:16: Different models that are presented so we can critique models But still accept the scripture and understand there are three levels of understanding
52:23: I would think by and large we start with the literal, you know We rarely move to a figurative
52:29: Adam and Eve were not figurative representatives for example Sometimes the descriptions are merely phenomenal like the idea of a firmament.
52:40: Okay, the word is actually firm in it It's not expanse. You know, we like to think of the universe and expanse.
52:45: It's an atmosphere. It's airy But the conceptual idea was a firmament was a firm. What does this roof do?
52:52: Exceed keeps the good stuff in it keeps a nice air conditioning in what does it also do? It keeps the yucky rain and snow out.
52:58: That's what a roof does. That's what a rakia does Functionally and looking at it.
53:04: That's what our atmosphere looks like day and night. So next week. I think it'll be fun we're going to get into some of the ideas of Copernicus and the stars and the moon and The solar system and everything in the earth and it's going to be a lot of fun.
53:18: So hope you can make it next week Thanks for hanging in there. We're out of time. Let's pray Lord.
53:25: Thank you again for this time together. Thank you for Those throughout history who've desired to remain faithful to your word and who wisely work through these issues
53:34: Thank you Lord that we can know the world that our senses can tell us At least some level of truth about things and that you've given this world for us not only to live in and To enjoy your blessings
53:47: Lord, but also to preach the gospel and to reach the ends of this this earth Lord we thank you for all you've given us today and we ask you to bless the service the preaching of the word and The the worship songs we will sing in Jesus name.