Engaging Tim Keller on Theistic Evolution: Part II

Welcome to part two of engaging with Keller on the topic of theistic evolution.

I usually do one chapter, one video, and in this case, I had to divide it into two because we just took too long going over the

Keller clips on this particular subject. So if you want to see part one first, I would suggest doing that.

Some of what we talk about will build on understandings previously gleaned in that particular video or audio as the case may be.

So go check that out. We're going to continue with our critique though, and really though, it's going to be more so the critique that comes from our author in engaging with Keller.

Now this book is written by a number of different authors. In this particular chapter though, it's William M. Schweitzer who critiques

Keller's view of Darwinian evolution or really theistic evolution, a way to try to bridge the gap between Darwinian evolution and biblical creation.

And then title of the chapter is not quite theistic evolution. Does Tim Keller bridge the gap between creation and evolution?

Now this was written in 2014, so there are things that have come out since then and some of those that I played for you in the last episode on this particular subject.

And I've gone online, I've tried to find other places where Keller talks about this subject.

I think I have a decent handle on what he believes now and it hasn't really changed since the time that these critiques were being made, but he has repeated himself,

I would say. And so this is very relevant. It's very current. I don't think there's anything outdated about this.

Keller hasn't changed his views on any of this. And so we're going to start here. We're going to start with the dilemma that Keller is addressing.

And I'm going to make myself disappear for those who are watching or I'll put myself up here so you can see what

I'm actually reading from. This is a quote from a article that Keller wrote in 2009 on BioLogos.

BioLogos, for those who don't know, is a website, well, it's an organization, it's bigger than a website.

Keller actually has done a number of things with BioLogos. He is an author there.

He's done a podcast. The last one he did was with the founder of BioLogos, which is

Stephen Collins, or Francis Collins, sorry. And of course,

Francis Collins of the fame from the National Institute of Health. And so Keller is involved with BioLogos to some extent.

He's written a few articles. He's done some podcasts. BioLogos is, according to them, an organization that believes that God created the universe, the earth and all life over billions of years.

God continues to sustain the existence and functioning of the natural world and the cosmos continues to declare the glory of God.

We believe it says that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God ordained process of evolution with common descent.

Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes.

Therefore, we reject ideologies that claim that evolution is a purposeless process or that evolution replaces

God. So they are very clear about believing in, in this case, it's

Darwinian evolution and also believing in what they would consider to be biblical orthodoxy.

Now there's people online who have done all kinds of work showing that there's tons of contributors and statements made by BioLogos fellows or people associated with BioLogos that are not orthodox at all.

I'm not here to bring you all of that just to show you that this is an organization that Tim Keller is somewhat affiliated with and it's not all above board.

Here's one quote and this is a quote that our author here, William Schweitzer, who critiques

Keller brings up in this book, Engaging with Keller, and it's from 2010. It's Bruce Waltke.

He says this, if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality would make us a cult, some odd group that is not really interacting with the world and rightly so because we are not using our gifts and trusting

God's providence that brought us to this point of our awareness. So BioLogos had no problem publishing in 2010, at least,

Bruce Waltke saying that basically if you deny evolution, I mean, you're a cult, I mean, that's pretty steep charge, right?

So that gives you a little bit of a sample of kind of where they're at and this is where Tim Keller has written this quote that I'm about to read for you.

Many secular and many evangelical voices agree on one truism that if you are an orthodox

Christian with a high view of the authority of the Bible, you cannot believe in evolution in any form at all. New atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins and creationist writers such as Ken Ham seem to have arrived at a consensus on this and so more and more in general population are treating it as given.

If you believe in God, you can't believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you can't believe in God. This creates a problem for both doubters and believers.

Many believers in Western culture see the medical and technological advances achieved through the science and are grateful for them.

They have a very positive view of science. How then can they reconcile what science seems to tell them about evolution and their traditional theological beliefs?

Seekers and inquirers about Christianity can be even more perplexed. They may be drawn to many things about the

Christian faith, but they say, I don't see how I can believe the Bible if that means I have to reject science.

Now the reason I read this all to you is to reiterate something I said I suspected in the last video, but you're seeing more clearly actually spelled out by Tim Keller here and that is that the problem that he sets out to try to rectify is that people see this, especially in New York, but people in the world see this belief in creationism as such a barrier.

It's off -putting. They don't want to believe that. They don't think it's true. They've been taught their whole life it isn't.

And if they have to become creationists in order to become Christians, or if that's just part of the package, well, they'll just reject it.

And so how do we get around this? Well, we have to form some kind of a middle path here between Ken Ham and Richard Dawkins.

We have to show that, well, you can be a Christian and a faithful Christian and you can reject creationism.

And I think this drives Keller's whole view of this because he's not starting out with the view that we need to go to the

Bible and look for the truth there and whatever it says we need to just hold to it because that's what the Bible teaches and that's what

Christians believe. Instead, he wants to start off with what do non -Christians, especially secular progressives in New York City, have against Christianity?

And oh, creationism is one of them. And how do we make the Christianity more palatable? Well, we can excise the creationism.

We can take a scalpel and root it out. And that's how we're going to make it more palatable and winsome and just compelling.

So he says this, this is his position from the same essay. There are a variety of ways in which

God could have brought about the creation of life forms and human life using evolutionary processes and that the picture of incompatibility between Orthodox faith and evolutionary biology is greatly overdrawn.

And so this is the middle way he wants to forge. There are ways, there's multiple ways that we can navigate this and we can show that there is compatibility between Orthodox faith and evolutionary biology, actually, that the people who think that there is incompatibility there, they're just mistaken.

And so that's his goal and that's his position. And there's three problems that engaging with Keller seems to suggest about this.

Schweitzer says that Keller's framing of the problem is misplaced. He seems to think that the great problem in urgent, in urgent need of solution is the difficulty people experience when they have to go against the proclamation of prestigious authorities.

And that's, that's true. That's, that's what I encountered in college. That's what I think people in academia are particularly clued into, that they're concerned that there's all these smart people who are saying evolution's true and man, you're going to be an ignorant dumb -dumb if you say it's not.

I mean, this is, if you read the 1994 book, I think it's called Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by, oh, who wrote that book?

Now I'm blanking on it. I need to look it up here. Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. It's by Mark Knoll.

Yeah, I figured. Okay. Mark Knoll. I mean, that's the kind of view you get there. So, I mean, these, these hick creationists out there, these evangelicals who make us look bad and look what they're doing.

They believe that God created everything. Can you believe that? We believe we came from a rock 4 .6 billion years ago and from the, you know, as one person said from the goo to the zoo to you, that's of course more intelligent people.

That's what they believe. And so that's what we need to hold to. And so the problem is that Keller starts out his framing with this and in Keller's framing of the problem, the only possible solution is some form of accommodation.

So he's saying that's the first problem with Keller. He's trying to accommodate. That's how he starts off this whole discussion.

And it's true. Number two, Keller notices that there is a big difference between the objective findings of biology and a grand theory of everything, which is an unwarranted extrapolation from them.

The very same line of reasoning would also show why we need not capitulate when confronted with the Darwinian theory of origins.

And so this argument is, is, is like this Keller makes a distinction between, he phrased it in the last video we did macroevolution versus microevolution.

But here in the article from Biologus, he basically says, well, you have evolution and as a biological process, and then you have evolution as a worldview and Christians shouldn't accept it as a worldview as an explainer for everything, but they, they can, they can accept it as a biological process.

And Schweitzer basically says no, because that in itself is an argument against it.

If, if Darwinian evolution can function, it is actually very similar to the critical race theory stuff that people who say, well, it can be an analytical tool, can't it?

You can just use aspects of it, but you don't have to accept it as a worldview. This is a, this is the thing that Neil Shenvey, as I remember when he came out with his article in the gospel coalition a few years ago, which

I think has served as a template for how to navigate this particular issue from people who want to still give critical theory, some kind of a semblance of authenticity and while rejecting it as a worldview or standing against it or saying they're not critical theorists, they've forged this middle path.

That sounds an awful lot like this, the way Keller's navigating evolution. They'll say, well, in the one hand, you have some things that critical theory or that evolutionary bio,

I said theology, biology teaches that are very, they seem very true and very compelling.

And we seem to, they seem reasonable and we can accept those things.

But yet at the same time, we can just say that we don't want to go too far. We don't want to have an overarching interpretive framework that takes into account every facet of human existence.

That's for Christianity, that we relegate that to the realm of religion. Well, it sounds good.

The problem is in the case of critical theory, as we've gone over many times, it is a whole set of assumptions that leads inevitably to a anti -Christian worldview.

There's no question about it. That's what it is by nature. That's what it is. And it exists in the minds, it first existed in the minds of sociologists and other academics who were playing out their own fanciful assumptions and then foisting that onto or overlaying that onto reality.

It's not a lot different than the Pythagorean theorem or laws of mathematics that are part and parcel to the natural world we live in.

That's not what you get with critical theory. And it's also not what you get with Darwinian evolution. There's a whole bunch of assumptions that are very actually theological in nature and very philosophical that you start off with before you get to the supposed observable or testable or repeatable scientific or things that you can notice with studies.

You have to make a whole set of assumptions before you even get to that point. I mean, with critical theory, you have to assume racism exists.

You have to assume there's this thing called white privilege. You have to assume that history has been shaped and our whole understanding of reality has been shaped by whiteness and all these kinds of things we've talked about.

For Darwinian evolution, you have to start off with the assumption that there isn't a creator who, and this is where it gets into conflict with theistic evolution, that there isn't a creator with intentionality who put evolution or placed evolution in motion.

That instead, there's a process of natural selection, which in and of itself came about through random mutations and blind chance that got us to where we are.

And it can't really render a morality or a system of ethics. It's in fact, it's incompatible with that.

It's just what is, is. There isn't an ought from it. You have to start off with these assumptions about the very nature of reality, that that's how we get ahead, that that's how advances are made in science or in progress, supposedly towards which progress would mean,

I guess, more, our species developing into higher beings.

I mean, that in and of itself is kind of a spiritual, quasi -spiritual assumption that doesn't come from biology necessarily.

So you have quasi -religions at the basis of both of these understandings.

And it's obvious it's Darwinian evolution from the beginning was an alternative to Christianity, and that's how it's been used.

It's been used as a wedge in that way. And some Christians like Tim Keller have tried to see it as something to get around to.

It's an inconvenient thing to try to either reconcile or try to stave off objections that are stemmed from it by showing that the

Bible is compatible somehow. So anyway, that's the distinction Keller makes. And that very distinction is, like I said, the same thing that people who think that there might be a place for critical theory or there might be a place for an intersectionality somewhere, it's the same argument that they make.

But the problem is, if it really is a grand theory of everything, evolution and critical theory, too, if they really are explainers for all, that's how people really do use them.

And that's how the people who develop them really did see them. And that's and there's whole departments now in universities based upon this.

And it's basically functioning like a religion for people. Then it's a really good argument not to use it as a biological template or a or to just accept certain aspects of it.

It'd be like trying to accept certain aspects of Islam by saying, well, as long as it's not a worldview that explains everything, you can bow to Mecca when you pray, just accept that one part of it.

You have to be super careful with these kinds of things. And I think the author makes a valid point here is that if that's what evolution is, then why did you do you want anything to do with any of it if that's what it is?

Now, if that's not what it is, then we could have a discussion about it. But Keller is on the one hand saying that's what it is.

And that's also it doesn't have to be that way. It can also be this. Which is it? All right.

The third thing is Keller suggests that we can affirm both the reality of evolution and also the biblical teaching of God's creation.

So it's a synthesis here. It's syncretism to some extent. Keller equivocates on science.

And this is a trick that I want you all to just see because you'll hear it in other places. If biological evolution is true,

Keller writes, does that mean that we are just animals driven by our genes and everything about us can be explained by natural selection?

The answer is no. Belief in evolution as a biological process is not the same as belief in evolution as a worldview.

We just talked about that. So he brings up there's a biological process evolution. There's a worldview evolution. But then he says many believers in Western culture see the medical and technological advances achieved through science and are grateful for them.

They have a very positive view of science. How then can they reconcile what science seems to tell them about evolution with their traditional theological beliefs?

Well, is Christianity pro or anti science? Well, of course, the foundation of science came from the very nature of belief that there's order to the universe came from people who believed in Christianity, at least a basic theism of some kind, that there's a

God who is upholding nature and that we should expect order in nature because there's an orderly God.

And without that, you don't have science. So, of course, Christians believe in science. But if science does give us a belief in evolution, which

Tim Keller seems to suggest here, and if that's that's truly scientific, it's observable, testable, repeatable.

That's my understanding of science. It's something that we've been able to ascertain is actually true from the scientific method.

Then Christians would be compelled to accept it, would they not? Because if that's what our observations are telling us and we believe that our observations are based upon a

God who has fine tuned us in such a way that we can trust our senses, we can trust the instruments we've created that our senses then can also look at and verify to be true.

Should we not then accept evolution if that's part and parcel to what science is? The problem here is that Tim Keller is playing loose with a lot of terms, worldview, biological process, science.

What is evolution? Is it science? Is it a biological process? Is it a worldview? What is it?

If it's science, then we got a problem. If it's not science, then and it's just a worldview, it's a competing religion, then we don't.

We need to get out there and compete with this religion. We need to show that Christianity is true and this religion is false.

But if it's a biological process that's observable, testable, repeatable, and I'm talking about macroevolution here, going from one kind, biblical kind to another kind in a progression like from apes, let's say primates to human beings, then if that's something that's scientific, then we have a problem.

And Keller doesn't really ever answer this. He just kind of throws it out there. And he makes the mistake of really making the consensus of scientists the same as science.

And they're not the same. Just because a bunch of scientists get together and say something's true doesn't mean that it is. And there's numerous examples from history on this luminiferous ether theory that light has to travel through this ether substance that's rejected now, the miasma theory, the flogiston theory, the spontaneous generation theory.

There's all these theories that scientists used to believe in that they don't believe in anymore. They don't think, people don't believe that if you just leave some food out that it means that gnats or bugs or living organisms are just going to spontaneously generate from the soil, the food.

We know now that there's spores that create mold and there's eggs that are laid by plant or by plants, by flies.

There's there's has to be something else coming in. It's not just biological material that spontaneously generates.

So just because a bunch of scientists say something doesn't mean that that's what the science says. They could be wrong. Science must take into account the possibility of true science that all evidence of environmental adaptation, which has not actually resulted in a new life form, is suspect because it might likewise prove only to be a reversible phenomenon belonging to a stable kind.

The example here that's given by Schweitzer in the book is the finches on the Galapagos Islands.

The story is that Charles Darwin, of course, went and visited the Galapagos Islands and he saw all these finches with different sized beaks.

And he thought, that's interesting. Natural selection seems to favor the finches with certain size beaks over others.

And that means that in another million years or so that you're going to get different that the finches with I don't remember if it was smaller or larger, we'll say smaller beaks are going to die off.

And that's how evolution progresses and makes finches that are more suitable for the environment.

Well, the problem is that on those very islands in the 70s, there was a drought. And guess what?

The finches with bigger beaks tended to do better. But when it's very wet, the finches with smaller beaks tend to do better.

Wouldn't you know? There's a range that the finches, a biological range they have where they can get smaller or larger beaks, but they cannot become another species altogether or another,

I should say, kind use the biblical language altogether. And that's the problem with evolution.

Darwinian evolution is it says you would have to believe that these finches would turn into something completely different based upon natural processes that Darwin did not live long enough to observe himself.

He made assumptions. And so if we're truly going to be scientific with the observations that we've been able to make since man has been around recording things, we would have to assume that it's possible that the evidence of environmental adaptation could be just like those finches, that it's not resulting in new life forms, that it actually might even be reversible depending on the environment changing.

And so that would be incompatible with Darwinian evolution. And that would be consistent, though, with science.

And that's what Schweitzer is trying to say about Keller. He's like Keller plays fast and loose here and equivocates on science.

And it gives you it leaves you with the impression that the science is supporting this biological process of evolution.

And it doesn't. Keller has ambiguity on man's creation as well.

Now, he's been more clear. I showed you a video where he was a little tentative, but he was at least saying that he believed that man was created from the dust of the ground.

But here's what he says in this article from Biologos. He says, however, there are many who question the premise that science and faith are irreconcilable.

Many believe that a high view of the Bible does not demand belief in just one account of origins. They argue that we do not have to choose between an anti -science religion or an anti -religion science.

They think that there are a variety of ways in which God could have brought about the creation of life forms and human life using evolutionary processes, and that the picture of incompatibility between Orthodox faith and evolutionary biology is greatly overdrawn.

Now, we've read this quote before in this video, but I want to focus on that one part, the creation of life forms and human life using evolutionary processes.

Hmm. So human life using evolutionary processes, human life, too, not from the dust of the ground, but by evolutionary processes, that's that's possible.

That's Orthodox. You could have that. Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

Genesis 2, 7, Romans 5. Therefore, just as through one man sinned under the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned for until the law was sin was in the world.

But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who have not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.

But the free gift is not the transgression, is not like the transgression. For if the transgression of one, the many died by the transgression of one, many died.

Much more did the grace of God and the gift of by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to many.

This is Pauline theology. This is biblical theology. This is the assumption that Christians have held for two thousand years, that man was created from the dust of the ground and that death came through sin.

When man sinned, that's when we had a curse. That's when we had death. And that Christ is the second Adam who came about not through an evolutionary process, mind you, through a miracle.

And he is the one to roll back the curse. And evolution, though, an evolutionary process that creates human life would mean that there's death before sin.

And it also means that man wasn't created from the dust of the ground, but through a

God directly breathing into the nostrils, the breath of life, but through millions of years of changes.

Tim Keller also denies a worldwide flood. He says, I believe Noah's flood happened, but that it was a regional flood, not a worldwide flood.

He says after Genesis one, the rest of Genesis reads like historical narrative. And so he's we've talked about this in the last video, the difference between Genesis one and two.

So we're not going to go through that again. But I will say that on the issue of Noah's flood, there is a lot of biblical support for this.

Second Peter two, three through seven says, know that first of all, that in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lust and saying, where is the promise of his coming?

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.

But by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

Now, if you want to say it's a regional flood, then why not say that the fire that's coming to judge the earth is also regional?

A plain reading does not give you that it's a regional flood, that it seems to be very clear here that the world at that time was destroyed by being flooded with water.

It's funny that that's the very mocking, the very thing that Peter says is going to come and is going to, people are going to believe that they're going to forget this flood stuff that God judged the earth.

It seems to me like Keller's running in that circle a bit here, that he's purposely suppressing this and saying, oh, it's just a regional flood.

For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth, 40 days and 40 nights, and I'll blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I made,

Genesis 7. Also in Genesis 7, it says this, then the flood came upon the earth for 40 days and the water increased and lifted up the ark so that it rose above the earth.

The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth and the ark floated to the surface of the water. The water prevailed more and more upon the earth so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.

All the high mountains, the water prevailed 15 cubits higher and the mountains were covered. All flesh that moved on the earth, perished birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth and all mankind of all that was on the dry land in all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life died.

Thus, he blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land from man to animals to creeping things into birds of the sky and they were blotted out from the earth and only

Noah was left together with those that were with him in the ark. The water prevailed upon the earth 150 days.

I'm sorry, that is not regional. That is over the whole face of the earth, every living thing.

This is clear in scripture and yet Keller denies this and this is from, you can,

I put the links here for those who are patrons. If you want to go in the info section and download the link, you can go ahead and do that and it'll provide you here, but, or you could just type this in if you're watching,

I guess, and you can see this is a 2006, um, guide, a study guide that Keller made on, uh, it's called, what were we put in the world to do?

And this is where he talks about, he doesn't believe in a worldwide flood. Now, what is the implication?

What's the problem with all this? The effect of Tim Keller's approach on pastors and churches is this. He says this in his essay, creation, evolution, and Christian lay people.

He says, we are to be a bridge between the world of scholarship and the world of the street and the pew. Let me read that again.

We are to be a bridge between the world of scholarship and the world of the street and the pew. It's interesting.

And this is, I think how a lot of people today view being what, what being a pastor is, they think that a lot of people

I went to seminary with think that pastors are these great high minded intellectuals who are there to do just this and they give

Ted talks. They don't give sermons anymore. They give Ted talks. They even call them exegetical, which is weird to me, but they go through passage and then they bring in all these philosophers and I'm not saying it's wrong to do all that there's times to bring in outside sources.

I'm not saying not to do that, uh, especially for application, but, um, there is an emphasis and you see it in Tim Keller's sermons of, uh, shifting the authority from the scripture to these other things, these other therapeutic, uh, uh, ideas.

And we, we've seen this already in our series. When we talk about things like the Trinity or like the doctrine of hell, we see that there's more credibility given to thinkers like CS Lewis, it seems like in his view of these things, and there is to God's word and it's because I think

Keller has this view of what a pastor is that you, you are this bridge between the world of scholarship and the world of the street and pew.

And it gives you a sense of respectability and pastors have lost a lot of respectability. So it's attractive to a pastor.

And if they can sound super smart, it's also attractive sometimes to laymen who they want to feel like they've just listened to something super smart and they leave the building thinking, wow,

I just listened to something super smart. My pastor is super smart. I feel super smart. And, uh, it, it touched me too, uh, in a way, and it was palatable.

And I mean, it also allows you to do some ear tickling in there because you can, uh, say all kinds of things and avoid things in scripture that are inconvenient.

And, um, this is, I think one of the hallmarks of Tim Keller is being this bridge now in this context, it's being a bridge between Darwinian evolutionists and what the

Bible teaches. And he says, I'm aware of what a burden this is. I don't know that there has ever been a culture in which the job of the pastor has been more challenging.

Nevertheless, I believe this is, and listen to this, this is our calling. This is our calling.

So our calling as a pastor is to be a bridge between the world of scholarship and the world of the street. I am in the pew.

And I would suggest that if you read scripture and you look at what being a pastor is, you're not going to find this. You show me the

Bible verse that says this, you won't find it. Being a pastor is, well, there's a lot of things that being a pastor is, but it's not this, it is being keeping watch of the souls of your congregation, the sheep that God has entrusted to you as a shepherd.

Um, it is being ready to refute those who contradict. So in that sense, that's the closest you can come perhaps to trying to make this fit and does it still doesn't fit, but being, you need to at least understand the challenges.

And so in this context, it would be, Hey, Darwinian evolution is a challenge. Let's refute it. That's what being a pastor would look like in this case, not being a bridge, but refuting it, uh, being a pastor means that you are, you meet the qualifications and scripture for what being a pastor is.

You're hospitable, your family's in order. You're, um, able to teach. And that's your main job really is to teach, uh, and to make disciples and to train people how to do so.

And it's all the things scripture says about being a pastor, not what Tim Keller saying here. And I think that is the temptation.

And that's why there are pastors in following in Keller's wake who've gotten hung up on this.

And it's not just this issue. It's the issue of critical theory to Keller takes a very similar approach on that. Uh, and this book was written in 2014.

And so, um, it doesn't, it doesn't go into that stuff, but I've done so in other videos, and I think if it was written today, you would find a chapter probably on Tim Keller's view of critical theory, because it could be written in very similar ways to his chapter on Darwinian evolution.

So that's the danger, uh, is to change the calling of the pastor. It's to change the nature of scripture itself and how we approach it and its authority in our lives.

Uh, if we believe that scripture is not telling the truth when it comes to a worldwide flood, uh, then why should we believe it's telling the truth when it comes to the 10 commandments or the nation of Israel or Jesus and his coming or, uh,

Paul's writings or any of it really, uh, when, if we can't believe the scripture on that, then we can't believe the scripture on other things as well.

And it just opens the doors to, as long as there's someone who is a scholar who pretends to be smart about these things, or maybe is smart, but it's suppressing the truth and we have to listen to them.

And we're, we become slaves to that and we need to be free. We need to be just able to use, to, to approach the scripture as our final authority, using tradition and the very helpful things that people have said over the years in our

Christian tradition about the scripture, but not viewing those things as the final authority and not being a slave to what other people have said about scripture or what other people think scripture means.

We need to be, uh, as Paul said to the Bereans being able to test the scripture to see if these things are true.

And that means, uh, even being critical of an apostle was in bounds. So that's my, uh, stick for you on this whole, um, issue of Tim Keller and the, uh,

Darwinian evolution. And, and he doesn't go as far as some, he opens the door though.

And I think it is dangerous for that reason. Well, God bless more coming later this week. I have a lot of interviews this week.

You could pray for me, uh, interviews that I'm doing for other people and other platforms, and also some interviews that we're going to be showing on this particular platform.

And I still have some things, uh, I wanted to take care of last year, but I couldn't because of sickness and because of a family visiting and just, um, and I had a nice warm spell actually the last few days.

And so I was able to get some things outside done that I didn't think I was going to be able to get done, but, uh, but I'm focused more now and I have some things to share with you and some good things coming up.