Is the Bible Unscientific? w/Jason Lisle

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today, my guest with me is apologist,

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PhD, astrophysicist and author, Dr. Jason Lyle. He has written quite a bunch of books.

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I can't number all of them but some of them include Why Genesis Matters, Discerning Truth, Exposing Errors in Evolutionary Arguments, An Introduction to Logic.

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This is actually a book. I teach logic, eighth grade logic and debate, and this is actually one of the main textbooks that I use.

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I highly recommend Dr. Lyle's Introduction to Logic. He's written a book,

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Keeping the Faith in the Age of Reason, which talks about Bible contradictions and how to resolve them, things like that.

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I believe his most popular book, I might be mistaken on this, but his most popular book is The Ultimate Proof of Creation.

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This is an excellent resource for those who are interested in the topics of the creation debates and, more specifically, presuppositional apologetics.

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I'm happy that Dr. Lyle has joined me this evening to discuss the question, is the Bible unscientific?

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Before we jump into that though, I want to make folks aware that I have started a second YouTube channel.

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We have this channel here and then there is another one called Revealed Apologetics Plus. It focuses on short -form content.

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It basically provides answers to general theology questions, apologetics, Bible questions. Right now there are only two videos posted as of now, but I would love it if folks show their support and subscribe to that channel as well.

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I really want it to be a resource that we can kind of point people to a channel with quick apologetic theology and Bible questions.

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I'm kind of just taking popular questions and answering kind of off the cuff. Hopefully that will be a blessing to those who listen in.

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Lastly, my new course on Presuppositional Apologetics Applied, Presupp Applied, is available for sign -up if folks want to support what

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I do here. Signing up for my courses, which are available on the website, is one of the ways that they can do that.

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It is super useful and beneficial to what I do here. All right, well, without further ado, why don't

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I give you the floor, Dr. Lyle, and just say hi to everyone, maybe update folks on what you've been up to, and then we'll jump right into the discussion today.

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Okay. I'm Jason Lyle. I'm the founder of the Biblical Science Institute. What we do is we show people, basically, it's pertinent to this topic, we show people that science confirms the

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Bible. I kind of specialize in biblical creation, the defense of the literal history in Genesis, and how science confirms that, because that's the most attacked and ridiculed book of the

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Bible, because people have been taught that millions of years of evolution is what science indicates. What I do is

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I refute that. I show people how science confirms what the Bible teaches, and that science even provides the philosophical framework necessary for science to function properly.

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I go around speaking and writing on these topics. We have the website, biblicalscienceinstitute .com,

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a lot of free resources on that website, and our web store is there as well, videos and all kinds of stuff.

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Then occasionally I get to do a little bit of research, too, and that's always fun. I've been researching James Webb Space Telescope images and fascinating stuff coming out of there.

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That's all in the very near future. Excellent. Well, for folks who follow your work, they know that you travel and you speak.

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How might someone get in contact with you if they're interested in having you speak at their event or church?

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Yeah, just go to our website, biblicalscienceinstitute .com. There's a Contact Us form, and you can send in an email that way, and we'll get in contact with you then.

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Let us know how to touch base if you're interested in hosting me for a speaking engagement or part of a conference, whatever.

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Excellent. Very good. Well, now that everyone is acquainted with you, and they were already acquainted with you,

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I always get messages, like, when are you going to have Dr. Lyle? I'm like, come on, man. I don't know. I'm sure he's super busy, so I'm very happy that you always make the time to hop on when

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I ask, and so I really appreciate that. All right, well, let's jump right in. The question for tonight is, is the

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Bible unscientific? Now, I want to ask you a question relating to worldview and science, and so here's my first question for you, and perhaps you could unpack it for us.

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How does one's worldview influence their interpretation of scientific evidence and scriptural texts?

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So this is a super fundamental question in these sorts of topics, so how would you answer that for us?

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Your worldview, basically your most fundamental beliefs, the network of all those beliefs determines what you make of the evidence, which is why creationists and evolutionists can be staring at exactly the same fossil and draw very different conclusions about what it means.

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They have a different worldview. They have a different way of thinking about how the world came to be, how old it is, how it came to be the way it is today, whether or not there was a global flood, and that will affect the conclusions they draw from the evidence, and that's in the field of paleontology, but in my own field of astronomy and astrophysics, the interpretations that my secular colleagues draw, especially when it comes to making estimates or guesses about past events, which science isn't really equipped to do well because it involves, science requires repeatability.

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Past events can't be repeated, but nonetheless, we tend to draw very different conclusions because we have a different way of thinking about things, a different worldview.

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Worldview, you can think of like mental glasses. You put on your glasses, it will affect how you see things.

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I think of the biblical worldview like corrective lenses because the Bible gives us the correct view of history. You snap them on, everything looks sharp and in focus.

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You see the world as it is, and then I like to think of evolution like red glasses. You'll put red glasses on, you'll say the world is a way because those are the glasses that you're wearing, and your worldview is very much like that.

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It's your way of thinking about things, and it will have a very profound and strong influence on the interpretations that you draw.

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Yeah, that's excellent. What I appreciate about that, Dr. Lyle, is your answer is relevant to more than just science.

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That's relevant to literally every field that we can cover, whether it's philosophy or history or anything along those lines. Now, what happens when someone says, well, wait a minute,

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Dr. Lyle, that's your presuppositional dodging of what's obvious, right?

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Clearly, the evidence for maybe evolution or billions of years, it's so clear presuppositional apologetics and worldview discussion has just been constructed to avoid what is obvious.

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If I had a dollar for each time I heard this, I probably would have better camera quality because I'd have a lot more money, so how would you address that,

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Dr. Lyle? Whenever I hear somebody say that, I know I'm dealing with someone who has not thought through their own worldview, their own presuppositions, their own basic beliefs about reality.

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They haven't given it a clue, and frankly, most people haven't, and so most people have not thought about.

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Most people take certain things for granted that their senses are basically reliable, that their memory is reliable, that there are laws of logic, and they say, well, you believe in those things.

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Yes, I do, but I have a reason for them. On a Christian worldview, I can make sense of those things. My senses were designed by a creator, so of course, they're going to have truth value and laws of logic reflect

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God's thinking and so on, so I have a reason for my ability to reason. My secular colleagues can reason, but they don't have a reason for their ability to reason in the secular worldview.

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Most people just don't think deeply about these things. They take for granted things that only make sense on a

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Christian worldview. They're stealing Christian presuppositions, building their house on them, and then claiming they want nothing to do with Christianity, and the way

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I like to think of it, your presuppositions, your worldview, your worldview is just all your presuppositions put together.

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Your presuppositions are a lot like kidneys. You can't live without them. They are constantly, constantly processing and working, and yet most people are not aware of their own until something goes wrong with one of them.

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If you ever had a kidney stone, you are suddenly very aware of these things that you've been taking for granted for a long time, and so what

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I like to do as an apologist is give people the intellectual equivalent of a kidney stone. I like to give them some information that their worldview can't process, and suddenly they're aware that their worldview has a deficiency in it.

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That's the way I approach apologetics. So now when we say that the unbeliever cannot provide a foundation for science and the presuppositions, but we say, but the

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Christian worldview can, a lot of people think that we're just making an assertion. Can you kind of unpack for us how is it the case that the

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Christian worldview does in fact provide those preconditions that make science meaningful or history meaningful or even rationality itself?

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Sure. I'd love to, and there's different aspects to this. One that maybe we'll get into later is induction.

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I love talking about that one, but it takes a little while to unpack it. Just to start out though, the fact that I have basically reliable senses, that's essential for science.

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I mean, if I'm looking through the telescope and I'm drawing conclusions about what I'm seeing, I've already presupposed that my eyes are reliably giving me information from the universe, and in a

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Christian worldview, that makes sense because my eyes were designed by God. The seeing eye, the hearing ear, the Lord God made them both, the

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Bible says. If my senses, however, are simply a result of evolution, there's no guarantee that they're truthful.

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Somebody says, well, they have survival value. I'll grant that, but so does photosynthesis.

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What if I think my eyes are perceiving and my ears are hearing? What if that's really just a byproduct of photosynthesis?

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It would have survival value, but it wouldn't be truthful, would it? The secularist takes for granted that his senses are basically reliable as if they were designed by an intelligent mind, and not simply the result of chance.

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Or the rationality of the mind, the fact that my mind can consider various options and then choose the best, rationally.

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That makes no sense if our mind is just our brain and our brain is just chemistry, because chemistry has no choice.

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There's no choosing best options. Chemistry just does what chemistry does. I fizz one way, you fizz another way if we're just chemistry.

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And so there's no rationality there. Or laws of logic by which we reason. Laws of logic are these abstract principles of correct reason, but where do those come from?

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How do you account for them if you're an atheist? Well, we just find they work.

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Well, that's not much of an answer. And how do you know they work? I mean, you've analyzed them logically, but isn't that circular and so on?

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In the Christian worldview, I could say no laws of logic reflect God's thinking and his thinking, unlike ours, his thinking determines what's true.

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And so if we're going to think properly, we need to think in a way that's consistent with God's character. And that's what laws of logic are.

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And so just as a 30 ,000 foot overview, science makes sense in the

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Christian worldview. For that matter, science presupposes that there are patterns in nature to be discovered.

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And that makes sense if there's a God who has created the universe and upholds it in a consistent way such that there are patterns to be discovered and were made in the image of that God.

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And so we have the capacity to think in a limited way like he does. And so we can discover these patterns with the senses he's given us and the mind he's given us.

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None of that makes sense in a chance universe. Why would there even be patterns in a chance universe?

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Now, secularists take it for granted. Oh, I don't know. But there are. But how do you know that apart from assuming the reliability of your senses and things like that?

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So all these things that we take for granted are things that we do know to be true because we know in our heart of hearts, the biblical

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God and God has revealed those things to us most propositionally in his word. And so that's how we know that science is possible.

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It stems from a Christian worldview. And just as a matter of history, it's not surprising that most of the founding fathers of the various disciplines of science were

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Christians. They expected to find patterns in nature because they believed it was upheld by the mind of God.

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Sure. Excellent. So when we say, how do you know that's not just a gotcha question or a question that we're trying to be nitpicky over something that this is obviously we all know that the senses are reliable or we all have to use them.

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But we're not asking that just to be nitpicky. We're asking that to say, hey, if you don't want God make sense out of these things in a worldview without him.

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So that's why we're asking them. We're really asking you to give an account for your worldview, the foundations of your worldview.

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I like that. All right. Well, let's jump into some other questions here with respect to presuppositional apologetics and the specific question that we're addressing here.

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So from a presuppositional standpoint, why is it even important to address the topic of whether the Bible is scientific?

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I mean, does it does it matter as presuppositional as Christians that we even address this question? Is the Bible even meant to be scientific in any way?

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How would you address that question? Well, yeah, we probably have to define our terms as well. When I say the

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Bible, it's when I say the claim that the Bible is unscientific is false. I mean that when the

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Bible touches on scientific issues, it touches on them truthfully. It gives us accurate information. And secondarily and more importantly, the

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Bible gives us the foundation for doing science, trusting in scientific procedures along the lines of what we're just talking about.

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And so that's what I mean by that. I'm not claiming that the Bible is a science textbook. That's not its primary purpose.

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Its primary purpose is primarily a history book, although it contains other types of literature, poetic and so on.

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But it's primarily a history book giving us the important information we need to understand our relationship with God, how that relationship got broken and what what can be done to remedy that situation.

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But in the context of God giving us all this historical information, he does mention some things about stars and about the shape of the

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Earth and about the water cycles and things like that, things that are matters of science. And they turn out to be right.

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And I think that's I think that is important because science is a very, very powerful tool.

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It's a tool that I would argue the Lord's given us and works because the Bible's true. But people rightly have some respect for the scientific method.

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I think they should. And so when this narrative comes around and it's just a narrative, it's the secular narrative that the

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Bible's unscientific. People see attention there because they think, well, you know, here's this method that we've relied upon that gives us computers and makes technology possible and puts people on the moon.

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Isn't that a wonderful tool? Yes, it is. And when people think that's incompatible with the Bible, it leads them to reject scripture for,

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I think, false reasons. And so that's why it's important for us to know, no, no, the Bible is accurate when it touches on science and in fact gives us the foundation for doing science.

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That's why it matters. Sure. So you're saying that the Bible is not a science textbook, but any time it speaks about something reflecting the natural world, it's accurate.

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Exactly. And it would have to be by virtue of the fact it's God's word. That's right. OK, very good. So how should

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Christians respond then to the claim that the Bible is not a reliable source of scientific information? So now you have the question of or not the question, but kind of the accusation that knowing what the

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Bible says about nature, it's inaccurate. So it's not a reliable source for scientific information.

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How would we interact with a question like that? I'm tempted to ask by what standard? How do you know that? Not to be not to be coy, but I mean, that's that's really the question, isn't it?

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Well, we know that because we rely upon sensory information. That's a biblical principle. Well, because logic.

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Well, that's a biblical principle. Well, because the scientific method relies on induction. That's a biblical principle. So if the

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Bible were unreliable, you shouldn't trust in the methods of science. That's my point. That being the case,

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I can give specific counterexamples. And that's sometimes what I do. I mean, it's all fine to stay up in the realm of the theory and clouds and philosophy.

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But I do like to give people some practical examples of things that they know are scientifically true, that the

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Bible does touch on the spherical nature of the Earth, which is mentioned in Job twenty six ten, where God inscribes a circle on the boundary of the water or at the boundary between light and darkness on the face of the waters.

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And that's describing that's biblical language for what astronomers call the Terminator, where light stops or terminates.

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And that's where evening and morning occur. And it's always a circle because the Earth's spherical. It's a very clear reference to the spherical nature of the

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Earth written at a time when most people didn't believe that most people, Job, we think is around 2000

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B .C. Most people thought the Earth was flat at that time. It wasn't till around 500 B .C. where you have the

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Greeks finally realizing, no, the Earth really is spherical, just like the Bible said one thousand five hundred years in advance.

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And so that's just a little little taste of that or or the stretching out of the heavens. The fact that the universe is being expanded or stretched out is mentioned in Isaiah 40, 22.

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God stretches out the heavens like a curtain, spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. That wasn't discovered by scientific means until the 1920s.

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And so, you know, Isaiah is around 700 B .C. So God got it right long before secular scientists caught up with that and realized actually the universe is expanding throughout the

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Middle Ages. Most astronomers believe the universe was static and unchanging. I mean, they knew the planets moved, but they thought the stars, those were set and they don't they certainly can't expand or anything like that.

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And then in the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered by measuring redshifts of galaxies, they're all kind of moving away from each other as if the universe is being expanded.

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And you need modern technology to discover that by scientific means. You need telescopes and spectroscopes to make that discovery.

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Telescopes were invented in 1608. Spectroscopes were invented a century later. But yet God's mentioning this 700

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B .C. That's pretty neat. And in several other places in scripture, that's mentioned as well. So those are two specific examples of places where the

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Bible makes a claim that could be considered a scientific claim. It's dealing with the shape of the earth, the nature of the universe being either static or expanding.

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And the Bible gets it exactly right. And today we'd have to agree the Bible got it right. Even though at the time those statements were made, most people would disagree with them.

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There's a lesson to be learned there. Yeah. And when people when you give these a response like, oh, well, OK, the Bible was a little accurate.

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It doesn't it doesn't matter what you say. The issue that the unbeliever has is not typically the fact that they don't know the answers to those questions.

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Right. You can answer their questions and you're going to find quickly that your answers aren't good enough because it's a deeper issue that's involved.

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It's a hard issue. Right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I want to give a shout out real quick to Ginger Cat Cookie.

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I love Internet names. That's Ginger Cat Cookie. I love it. Thank you so much for your fifty dollars super chat or super sticker.

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I really appreciate the support there. Thank you so much. Yes. Folks are asking if you'd be willing to take questions towards the back end of the live stream.

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That's completely up to you. There are already questions coming in. All right. Cool. But since I'm the host,

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I get my questions answered first. So so let's jump right into our next question for Dr. Lyle.

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And this question is pertaining to new discoveries in science. What does a Christian do when there are new discoveries?

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And I'm going to say seems that seem to be in conflict with what the

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Bible is is teaching, because that's, you know, I remember a while back when the

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God particle was discovered, you know, with the Higgs boson, Higgs boson, Higgs boson.

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That's right. And everyone this this article was was, you know, circulating people like, oh, my goodness, they discovered, you know, a particle that explains why, you know, things have mass in the universe or blah, blah, blah.

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I'm not a scientist. I don't even know if that's accurate. But how do we navigate that new discoveries? It seems to conflict with the

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Bible. Where do we go from there? I'm going to give a counterintuitive answer. If you're a presuppositionalist, you understand this.

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You celebrate because that discovery would not have been possible unless the Bible is true. OK, so unless the

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Bible is true, you couldn't have made any discovery, let alone ones that seem to contradict the Bible. So so any discovery is a good discovery.

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That being the case, I've never seen one that actually refutes anything the Bible says in terms of specific information.

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There are things that we might falsely, you know, because we build on Scripture and then we make some guesses and our guesses might be wrong and we might have to correct those.

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But in terms of things that directly contradict Scripture, what is there in science that directly contradicts Scripture? I mean, the Bible says that animals and plants,

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God made them according to their kinds. And so when they reproduce, they reproduce the same kind. Go plant strawberries and see what grows.

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You'll get strawberries every time. I mean, there's there's nothing in terms of the observational world that contradicts anything the

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Bible teaches. Mutations can happen, though. Have you ever poured a bowl of cereal and you have that you have that mutated cornflake?

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Yeah, but there's still strawberries. And that's that's that's that's the key. And the Bible talks about, you know, mistakes can happen because there's a curse and so on.

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We'd expect that, too. So whenever there's a discovery that somebody says, well, you know, this evidence proves millions of years.

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No, it doesn't. Take take a look at the data. See, see what see what assumptions they're making. The observations never contradict scripture, but sometimes the assumptions that are made and the conclusions that are drawn do.

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But that's a result of bad assumptions. It's not a result of faulty data. I agree with all the data that exists.

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Sometimes people say you're ignoring data. No, I'm not. I agree with all. I have the same data you have. We just interpret it differently because we have different presuppositions.

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But there's nothing in science that would contradict anything that the Bible actually states or affirms.

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So when a scientist says new discovery tells us fill in the blank and whatever they fill in the blank, we have to understand that what they're filling the blank with is going to be theory laden and with presuppositions that dictate the thing they fill the blank in with.

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So we need to calibrate that with the biblical presuppositions. Yeah. And a lot of times, you know, most times laymen, they just get the journalist's summary of what the scientist discovered.

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I like to go back and I know it's tedious for most people. I like to go back and look at the the actual peer reviewed literature, see what they actually what they saw and then how they drew the conclusions that they draw.

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And you'll always see that where the assumptions are. Sometimes the assumptions are fine and the conclusion is pretty good.

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And it turns out it doesn't really contradict scripture anyway. But I have to tell you, Eli, because sometimes

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I'll get people, they're frantic, they're worried Christians and they say, Dr. Lyle, there was this new discovery and they're worried about it.

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When they're worried about it, I know I'm dealing with an evidentialist. I know I'm dealing with someone who doesn't understand the nature of worldviews, presuppositions and so on, because if you're a presuppositionalist, you would have realized, hey, there was a new discovery made by science.

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Science is only possible in the Christian worldview. Therefore, this is yet another confirmation of the Christian worldview. Whatever the discovery is, it's a confirmation of the

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Christian worldview because it would not have been possible unless the Bible is true. Great point.

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Now, my next question here, and I think this is something that a lot of people struggle with, Dr. Lyle, and it is the the issue of when does our discovery in the natural world impact how we understand certain texts of the scriptures?

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In other words, the Bible is our ultimate authority. But is there is there ever a time when it is appropriate in which a natural discovery forces us to go back and reconsider whether we're understanding a biblical text correctly?

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This is this is something that many people struggle with. How do you speak to that? Yeah, that's that's a very good question and challenging one.

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My short answer is I do believe in a in the ministerial role of science in scriptural interpretation, but not a magisterial role.

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In other words, science is the servant of the scriptures. It's not the master of the scriptures.

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And so if if we can read a text in most of the texts of scripture really are pretty clear and it's clear what they say.

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And there's some scientific discovery that seems that seems to challenge that. I'm going to look at that scientific discovery and say what assumptions were made because one of those is wrong.

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OK, I'm not going to use that to reinterpret the clear text of scripture. But there are some texts of scripture or some things that the scripture doesn't say at all that we kind of have filled in the blanks.

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And then some some new discovery challenges are filling in of the blanks. And we need to say, wait a minute, maybe

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I didn't fill in those blanks properly. That's a ministerial role of science. And I think that's appropriate.

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Or there are some places where because of the Hebrew Greek text, there's a text that is genuinely ambiguous.

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It could mean this or this. And from context, you really can't tell. I mean, there's not an infinite range of meanings, but there's two legitimate meanings.

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And you'd say, well, from science, this one science seems to close this one off. And so this is the better interpretation.

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I think that's legitimate. I think there is a ministerial role for science and biblical interpretation. But science should never be used to override the meaning of the text because science is not science doesn't give us certainty.

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It's not designed to. It gives us it's probabilistic in its nature. It's inductive. And so what science does is it tells us how

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God normally upholds his creation. That's what science is about. It's discovering the normal, systematic way that God normally accomplishes his will in creation.

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But God's not required to do things that way. And so, for example, I think it's pretty good science that dead people stay dead.

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Science has confirmed that thousands of times. But you know what? I still believe in the resurrection of Christ because God because God is not required to normally do it that way.

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And I know at the end of time, there's at the end of time, there's going to be another resurrection of all people when God does death.

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So so the fact that science is established, I think quite well that normally dead people stay dead does not eliminate the fact that God can make an exception to that.

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That's right. All right. Very good. That's awesome. I love it. Just a quick shout out here. A couple of super chats that if you guys recognize that last name, that is my father,

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George Ayala. Thank you so much for the twenty dollar super sticker. I really appreciate it. And I love you.

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Appreciate the support. And then, of course, the owl. I think it's the owlcoon project.

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Ten dollar super sticker. He says or she says, I don't want to be presumptuous. The doctoral.

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Thank you for your book. Introduction to logic. It's been super for apologetics. And I highly recommend folks use it if you guys are just tuning in.

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I use Dr. Lyle's introduction to logic when I teach my logic class, my eighth grade logic class.

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And so I highly recommend that book. All right. Well, thank you for that. Now I've been giving you softball questions.

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Now we know we need to kind of move into some specific biblical examples that are often brought up.

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And I have not shared these questions with you, but I would imagine you're probably anticipating a few possible chapters, portions of scripture that are brought up in these sorts of discussions.

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Joshua and the sun standing still. OK, how should we understand the account of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still?

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Does this imply a geocentric view of the universe? Now, don't wiggle out,

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Dr. Lyle, by saying, yeah, that's a great question. People and then don't answer the question. You need to answer the question specifically, because if you don't,

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I'm going to get I'm going to get bombarded in the comments. Dr. Lyle, you know, dodge the dodge the question. So go for it.

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Yeah. First, I was going to say, gee, I've never heard that one before. But no, I know it does not imply a geocentric universe.

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Joshua gives the reference frame. All motion is relative. All motion is relative because you think about it.

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Motion is a change in position over a change in time. That's how it's defined. And but a change in position, you have to say position relative to what?

26:55

If I if I ask you, where where are you? And you said, I'm 30 miles north. The actual question is of what?

27:01

Right. You have to have a reference frame. And the Bible normally and as we do in everyday conversation, the

27:07

Bible uses the earth as a convenient reference frame. And we always do. And Joshua specifies at least because there's two in that same chapter.

27:15

There's two places where he mentions the sun standing still. But one of them says in the midst of the sky. So he's giving his reference frame.

27:20

The reference frame is Earth's sky. And he gives some features on the earth that it's apparently over. So he's giving his reference frame as the earth, what that passage means.

27:29

And all you can pull from it biblically is that from Joshua's point of view, the sun and moon halted their normal motion in Earth's sky.

27:37

That's all you can conclude from the passage. Now, in terms of how things are actually moving in space and what does it even mean to talk about actual motion of motions relative.

27:45

But in terms of Newtonian motion, for example, Newton has certain categories of things that are moving and rotation doesn't count because that introduces fictional forces, centrifugal force and Coriolis forces.

28:00

But in any case, in terms of Newtonian motion, the earth orbits the sun and it's rotating. And so I could say scientifically, probably what would happen if I were watching this event from an overhead view of the solar system, probably what happened is the earth's rotation just stopped.

28:14

And in its orbit around the sun as well and the moon, they all just stopped. And so that would that would produce the effect that Joshua describes in Chapter 10.

28:23

But Joshua doesn't say that the sun and moons move around the earth in a

28:28

Newtonian sense and they stopped in a Newtonian sense. He doesn't say that. He just says they stopped in the midst of the sky.

28:36

And so he's giving his perspective and therefore we need that's all we can conclude biblically. And then this is another example of ministerial world science.

28:43

We know that the planets orbit the sun. We have good evidence for that. And so we can now speculate on what it might have looked like from above, as I just did.

28:51

Yeah. Now, that's funny when you said that, that he didn't say the sun stopped and then he had like a

28:57

Newtonian kind of understanding. Someone could easily say, well, he wouldn't speak in that way. Exactly.

29:02

And so because he didn't speak that way and because he didn't give all this great detail, we can only draw certain things from the text.

29:08

We can't import a bunch of other things and create a contradiction or, you know, misinformation based upon importing something in the text that's not there.

29:18

So that's a great, great point there. Now, now, again, you've heard this and I'm sure people have had you on their channel to talk about this.

29:26

But what about those passages in scripture that seem to be describing a flat earth?

29:33

How should these be understood in their historical and literary context so that we can show, because we obviously believe the

29:40

Bible does not teach that the earth is flat, that there's actually a woman, I think, a parent of a student that my wife had who was a flat earther.

29:50

She, she, my wife worked at a Christian school and this person believes the Bible and they take a very literal reading of those passages.

29:58

How can we definitively show biblically that the Bible is not teaching a flat earth?

30:05

And then maybe you could speak to the scientific observational aspects of that question to kind of reinforce that.

30:10

Sure. And, you know, first of all, you know, you'll see these lists on the Internet, 200 flat earth verses.

30:17

First of all, you should look them up because most of them is like, how in the how in the world did you pull a flat earth out of that verse?

30:26

There's nothing remotely in that verse that says anything about flatness. Nothing. You know, I've seen one that says, well, you know, because the

30:32

Bible talks about this, the surface of the waters and the Hebrew word means a flat surface.

30:38

No, it doesn't. The Hebrew word panin, it actually means face. And it's the same word that's used for a human face.

30:45

Is our human face flat? No, it's kind of round actually. I mean, it's closer to a sphere than anything else.

30:53

So, you know, so most of most of them are nonsense and and the flat earthers should be ashamed of themselves for using that.

31:00

There's a few where they have imported in a secular pagan cosmology. Well, you know, it talks about the firmament.

31:06

A firmament means a flat or it means a hard dome. No, it doesn't. The Hebrew word there, rakia, it means stretched out thinness.

31:14

It doesn't mean solid. Where are you getting that? You're getting it from pagan theology. You're getting it. You're not getting it from scripture.

31:20

So, again, they've imported just like we talked about earlier. They've imported stuff into the text. The text doesn't say there are one or two, though, where I'm like,

31:28

OK, I can see how you would draw that conclusion. And one is where I think it's it's one of the dreams.

31:36

I think it's Nebuchadnezzar's dream where there's a tree that's that grows and it's visible to all the earth. They say, see, it's got to be a flat earth because only on a flat earth could everyone see the tree.

31:45

I'm thinking, OK, but it's a vision. It's not describing the actual maybe in his vision, the earth was flat, but that doesn't mean the actual earth is flat.

31:54

And then the other one that people use, and I get it, but you need to read the text more carefully.

32:00

It's where it's where Jesus is taken to a high mountain to be tempted by Satan. And Satan shows him all the kingdoms of the earth in their glory.

32:08

And people here's where people important to the text. They say they assume that the reason that Jesus was able to see all of the kingdoms of the earth in their glory is because he's on a mountain that's tall enough that it can see everywhere on earth.

32:20

Now, the text doesn't say that, but that's the assumption that goes into that. And then my obvious question is, if that's the case, if there's this really tall mountain where you can see everywhere on earth, shouldn't everywhere on earth be able to see that tall mountain?

32:33

Where is it? OK, let's step outside and you show me where this tall, because everywhere on earth ought to be able to see it, no matter where you are, you'll be able to see this tall mountain where Jesus could see everywhere on the earth.

32:43

But you can't if you're in the middle of Kansas, you see nothing on the horizon. I mean, you don't see anything.

32:49

There's no mountains anywhere because of the curvature of the earth. Sure. Obviously, if you read the equivalent count in Luke, it says he showed them in a in a moment in time.

32:58

And so it indicates that it's a vision that Satan was giving Jesus a vision of all the kingdoms of the earth, perhaps even past kingdoms and things like that.

33:06

But it's not it's not a physical location on earth. So those are the two that I'm like, OK, I can see how you draw that conclusion.

33:12

But one of them is definitely a dream and the other is apparently a vision, because if it were, then we would be we would all be able to see this mountain from which you can see everywhere.

33:20

OK, all right. Now, can we kind of unpack the kind of the ancient cosmology kind of objection where they say that the

33:27

Bible appears to describe and kind of this solid dome over the earth? Can you kind of address that more specifically?

33:34

Because people say, look, this is what they were presupposing. This is kind of their view of reality. And you can see evidence that the way the text is written, it seems to be assuming this very ancient model of cosmology.

33:45

And so therefore, you know, the Bible is teaching error because this model of cosmology is, as we know, is inaccurate.

33:55

How would you address that? Yeah. And you'll see this. You'll see sometimes an actual picture of it. You'll see this solid but transparent dome and the sun, moon and stars are up here.

34:06

And then you have a flat earth and then below it you have, you know, Hades or the Sheol or the realm of the dead.

34:12

And you have the windows of heaven. You open them when the waters come out and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can and you can you know, you can make those kind of claims.

34:19

But but the fact is, and that does reflect certain pagan cosmologies. There are pagans that believe that in the past.

34:25

But it should be obvious. First of all, again, Job 2610, oldest book of the Bible, already describing a spherical earth in that the the where light terminates, the boundary between light and darkness, which is on the surface of the waters because earth's surface is mostly water.

34:40

Seventy one percent water is a circle. And that that that won't work on a flat disk on a flat disk.

34:46

There is no boundary between light and darkness. There is no terminator on a flat disk. That's not going to work. So the oldest book of the

34:51

Bible, they already knew the world was round. Now, how Job got that information? Did he get it by divine revelation?

34:57

Maybe. But in any case, they already knew that. And so later scriptures are not going to contradict that. But the idea that the dome is solid, the

35:03

Bible doesn't say that. A friend of mine who's a Hebrew scholar, he he he believes that the best translation of rakia, which is the expanse in older translations, you know, the firmament is stretched out thinness, stretched out thinness.

35:18

So it's not solid. Some people say, oh, but there's this passage in Job that says that that it's strong like molten glass, that the rakia is strong like molten glass.

35:28

They say that means it's solid. No, it doesn't. I looked up the Hebrew word for strong. It does not mean solid.

35:34

In fact, that same word is used for a strong wind. Is wind solid? Clearly not.

35:41

But it's strong, right? Wind can be strong and the firmament can be strong in its ability to hold up water, which which it can do.

35:48

Clouds are liquid water droplets and suspension. So there's again, this is all reading into the text.

35:54

But people come at it like, yeah, the Bible had this picture of it when it's first written. No, it didn't. It just had the text.

35:59

You have that picture in your mind and you're reading that into the text. But you certainly can't extrapolate it from the text. You can't get the idea that the firmament is solid.

36:07

You can't get that. The bird's flag crossed its face, which would be difficult if it were solid. So I think so.

36:12

I think that's that's not a reasonable interpretation. So they're reading into the text based on pagan theology.

36:18

Sure. All right. Excellent. Thank you for that. Now, what is the role? Maybe you can define for our listeners what phenomenological languages, phenomenological and what role does phenomenological play in how we understand certain biblical texts that are often brought up in discussions over whether the

36:36

Bible is scientific or not. Can you kind of unpack that for us? Sure. Phenomenological language is language of appearance.

36:44

And so when I say, you know, it's a beautiful sunset this evening, the sun is setting. I'm using language of appearance.

36:50

I don't mean that in a Newtonian sense, the sun is orbiting the Earth and it's setting in that way. But that is a much more concise way, say, the sun setting than to say, oh, look, the

37:02

Earth's rotated such that the plane of the horizon is now above where the sun would be. That's I mean, that might be more accurate in a

37:08

Newtonian sense. But the Bible uses language of appearance. Sometimes people have asked, you know, well, which text, which texts of scripture are phenomenological?

37:17

Well, they all are, because we all use it. It's just a question of how how far do you push that? But the

37:23

Bible uses language of appearance. And so when it talks about what you see, that's that's what you see. And when the stars appear and so on, that's what that's what they look like.

37:31

And so and there are other examples of that, too. But sunrise and sunset are clear examples of that. The landers that we have on Mars, they've taken pictures of sunrise and sunset on Mars.

37:43

Now, does that mean that the sun goes around Mars? Because if it does, it's not going around the Earth. It's going around Mars. Right. No, they're using language of appearance.

37:50

And that's perfectly appropriate. And astronomers do it today. And I would sure hate if a thousand years from now somebody picked up my book on astronomy where I talk about sunset and they say, see,

38:00

Lyle believed that the Earth was stationary and the sun moved around because he used the sunset. No, I'm using phenomenological language.

38:06

And so does scripture. And it's perfectly appropriate to do that. It's not it's it's not false. It's just it's maybe less precise than the way we would say things in our modern scientific age.

38:17

But it's the it's the ordinary way people communicate. People communicate phenomenologically. Yeah. OK, now, in your opinion, in hearing countless questions on these on this topic of like showing that the

38:29

Bible is unscientific by bringing up these examples, if you can just be straight,

38:35

I mean, obviously you're going to be you're being honest, right? If you be as honest as possible, what do you think is the most challenging scripture to engage with with respect to this idea that, see, look, the

38:47

Bible here is wrong scientifically. Is there a specific passage or story or something presented in scripture that, yeah, we have an answer for, but that that one can be a little difficult to to grapple with?

38:58

Or do you think they're just all easy as long as you understand them correctly? And, you know, because people really do grapple with these these issues.

39:03

And they're like, I hear you, Dr. Lyle, and I understand presuppositions are important, but this one's really hard.

39:09

How would how would you navigate something like that? I don't think there are any that that are hard in terms of my ability to embrace the text.

39:16

I believe the text and and I think I'm interpreting it properly. And I have brothers and sisters in Christ that can challenge me on that if I'm not sure.

39:24

But for me, there's no challenge. But there there are certain things that are difficult to explain to people because they have misconceptions or false.

39:31

They have preconceptions that are false or are pushed to an unbiblical extreme.

39:37

I think the age of the earth is one of those issues where people have we've been so inundated. We've been so brainwashed with the millions of years.

39:43

The Bible very clearly teaches God created six days clear from the text. Those are ordinary days.

39:48

Those a few thousand years ago. And that really challenges people. So that's one. Now, I'm fully committed to what the Bible teaches.

39:54

I don't think there's any issue there, but there are some scientific issues. How do you get the starlight here?

39:59

We have a good model for that, but it is hard to explain it to people because you need to know a little bit about the physics of Einstein and most people don't.

40:06

And so that's that's one of the harder issues to explain to people. But I'm I'm convinced that we have a really good answer to that.

40:11

It's not it's not genuinely challenging in terms of knowledge, but it can be challenging in terms of explaining that to other people in a way that they can understand and in a way that's satisfying to them.

40:22

So I think age of the earth, age of the universe, distant starlight, stuff like that can be challenging to people.

40:29

Thank you for that. Well, I'm speaking with Dr. Jason Lyle, author of The Ultimate Proof of Creation.

40:34

He's been on the channel multiple times to talk about a wide range of issues. And tomorrow, actually,

40:40

I won't be having Dr. Lyle on. I'll actually be having Dr. James White on. And so folks want to tune in for that.

40:45

I forgot to mention that at the beginning, but I have some more questions, Dr. Lyle. But just real quick,

40:51

I know there are more people watching now. Why don't you share with everyone your website where they can follow your blog and all of your latest kind of insights and thoughts?

41:01

Yeah, the website is Biblical Science Institute dot com, and it's a great resource. Biblical Science Institute dot com.

41:08

We've recently been going through a series on stellar astronomy, the astronomy of stars and how they're classified and how we know what we know about stars.

41:16

That's a question a lot of people legitimately ask. They want to know how much of what I read in a text, but how much of it's true and how much of it's based on secular assumptions.

41:25

That's a great question. I wish more people would ask that. And I did that series to kind of cover that.

41:31

But we have articles on theology as well. We have articles and presuppositional apologetics. But my specialty science, so there's a lot of science on the website and coming up very shortly, we'll have an exposition on these new discoveries from the

41:42

James Webb Space Telescope that are just devastating to the Big Bang and very confidentiality of creation.

41:48

Folks are not familiar with Dr. Lyle's blog. I highly recommend he has. I've read some of your hard stuff.

41:54

I think you have one on on Einstein's physics. And I was like, hey, let me let me let me give that one a gander.

41:59

And I saw a bunch of equations. I'm like, all right, we're going to pass on this. You can skip the equation, skip them, still get the main point.

42:11

All right. Maybe I'll return to it. It looked it looked difficult. Perhaps it's not if I if I pass the equations and whatnot.

42:19

But I think you are particularly gifted in being able to take very complicated concepts and simplify them.

42:26

And so that was a roundabout way of complimenting you on your ability to simplify science and the

42:33

Bible and things like that. And every time I have you on there, I always get people kind of giving me feedback.

42:39

Hey, you know, thank you for having Dr. Lyle on. I love the way he explains this, that or the other thing. And so I really appreciate that.

42:45

And your demeanor, us presuppositionalists tend to come off a certain way in the in the

42:50

Internet realm. You know, I try my best not to give off those vibes. And you're just so calm and gentle.

42:57

And I'm sure folks appreciate that as well. So thank you. Appreciate that. All right.

43:02

Well, my next question for you is from from a Christian versus atheistic, naturalistic, evolutionary perspective.

43:10

And we can give kind of, you know, we can talk about presuppositions and how, you know, Christian presuppositions support science and how, you know, the evolutionist is unwarranted in drawing evolutionary conclusions.

43:21

What about the Christian who says, yeah, I believe in the authority of Scripture. But I think the difference between us, you know, myself, if I if I were a theistic evolutionist,

43:32

I'm not I would say the difference between you and I, Dr. Lyle, is not our presupposition of the authority of Scripture, but it's our interpretation.

43:38

And so I think that I am warranted in holding to the idea that God used evolution.

43:46

And so, see, you can't say you can't say, Dr. Lyle, on my worldview, I don't have the necessary preconditions for logic and rationality in science because I believe in the same

43:56

God you do. I just think he created everything through evolutionary means. How would you interact with that?

44:02

Well, several, several problems there, several problems there. I think one of them is there are certain presuppositions you can't take anymore from Scripture because you've given up at least a literal understanding of Genesis.

44:14

I think you're going to find it very hard to defend induction because one of the best verses that I go to for induction is

44:20

Genesis 822, which is at the end of the flood year.

44:26

But you reject a global flood. You don't think that happened. And so you can you can say, well, yeah, but, you know, you can you can dance around that.

44:32

But but theistic evolutionists don't believe in a global flood because it would it would account for the fossils. They have to.

44:38

Well, couldn't they couldn't they affirm that passage, though? Let's get the passage up real quick. Let me just say 22 is the passage.

44:44

OK, so it's me. Yeah, it says as long as the earth remains, sea time, harvest, cold night or cold heat day and night shall not cease.

44:54

Right. So if I was a theistic evolutionist, why couldn't I affirm that but just disagree with how, you know, my understanding of the global flood?

45:01

You can try, but I think you can't because the whole point of that is that those things did cease during the flood year.

45:08

There was no sea time and harvest. But if you believe in a local flood, well, there was sea time and harvest during during the flood year.

45:14

It was just local. So that verse doesn't make any sense. And therefore, God's promise never to do that again doesn't make any sense.

45:20

So I think it's hard to to defend that. And in general, I think I would challenge a person like that.

45:26

I would say, really, because I have to tell you, just looking, just coming to the text without all these extra assumptions, how can you tell me how you can walk through the text and come away saying, oh, yeah, clearly

45:38

God created over millions of years of evolution. How could you walk through the text and draw that conclusion?

45:43

And I think any honest person would say, well, I can't. I just think the text most and most theistic evolutionists and old earth creationists will say this.

45:51

They'll say, I just think the text allows for it. But I don't think hardly any of them. Hugh Ross is one exception that you would say he thinks the text demands an old earth interpretation.

46:01

I've challenged him on that. But most of them would say, no, we have to admit, even folks who who believe in old earth, they'd say, yeah, the hermeneutics of the young earth creationists are very strong.

46:10

And so there you go. There you go. I believe in the perspicuity of scripture. So if somebody says, well, I believe in the authority of scripture,

46:15

I say, but you don't believe in the perspicuity of scripture. You don't believe that scriptures are really clear and that they're self -interpreting because you would never come away believing in millions of years of evolution.

46:24

And historically, nobody did just from scripture. It's just you wouldn't get that. Caveman, what's up with cavemen?

46:34

I get all the time. What is it? Does the Bible was Adam a caveman? Where did the cavemen come in?

46:39

And people asked this question all the time. Yeah, they do. From a young perspective, where do they fit in?

46:46

So what's a what's a caveman? A caveman is a man who lives in a cave. And do I believe that cavemen existed?

46:51

Do I believe that sometimes people lived in caves? Yes. Sometimes people live in caves today. I know one. I know a

46:57

Ph .D., Emil Silvestro, who spends a lot of time in caves. He's a spelunker. That's what he does professionally.

47:03

He's a caveman. He's a caveman. Yeah. So Lot, Abraham's nephew,

47:09

Lot, according to scripture, lived in a cave for a while when he left Sodom. He was in a cave for a while.

47:14

So, yeah, people lived in caves. So there's no problem there. And they drew on the cave walls. And these are human. What about when we think of the

47:20

OK, so I'm dumbing it down. So when we think of cavemen, we think of like the Ooga Booga guys with the big foreheads and the clubs.

47:28

Are those regular human beings? Like, are they just people with deformities? I mean, these questions come up.

47:34

Let's get more specific. So when we think of cavemen, yes, that's that's correct. People do live in caves, even caves.

47:40

Yeah. But that's all you see. That's that's the point, though. When people draw on cave walls, all you know is that somebody lived there at one point.

47:45

That doesn't tell you what they looked like. Now, there are varieties of human beings that have very minor differences in their skeletal structure.

47:54

Just like today, we have different ethnicities, although for the most, it'd be hard to tell ethnicity from skeletal structure.

48:00

But in the past, there were ethnicities that had a little more diversity than we have today. Neanderthals, Neanderthals are human beings.

48:07

But they did have statistically they had large brow ridges. Now, there are people today that have large brow ridges.

48:12

It's just that Neanderthals, almost all of them did. So that was typical of that particular ethnicity. They had a large bridge for their nose.

48:21

So do I, although I'm not a Neanderthal. I don't have I don't have the bridge, though. So there you go. And they had a recessed chin and they were they tended to be stocky.

48:28

But all their features are 100 percent human. They're the rib cage, for example. Human beings have a distinct rib cage that's different from apes.

48:35

Apes are kind of cone shaped. Human beings are vertical on the sides and then and then round up at the last.

48:40

Neanderthals had that. So their bone structure, an upright posture. They were human beings. The way their hips are designed, human, human beings have sort of rounded hips that allows us to walk upright.

48:50

Apes, their hips are out to the side like that. Lucy's are out to the side like that. I was challenged on that recently by an evolutionist.

48:57

She suggested, though, they were rounded. I checked. They're straight out to the side. I checked with Dr. Carl Werner, who's an expert on that.

49:02

So, no, human beings are very different from apes. And Neanderthals had all the characteristics that are typical of human beings.

49:10

All of them. It's just they had a few ethnic traits tending to be stocky and so on.

49:16

But they're human beings. There are four varieties of human beings that can be recognized by very slight differences in their skeletal structure.

49:24

Neanderthals are one of those. OK, then there are two others. Everything else we find is ape. So and some of them lived in caves.

49:30

And that's fine. That's fine. Yeah. How does the young earth creationist understand the ice age?

49:37

When was it? How long was it? And why is the young earth perspective so different than what most scientists say?

49:46

The young earth explanation makes a lot more scientific sense than what the secularists say. We do believe there was an ice age.

49:52

We believe it lasted somewhere around 700 years. Now, the exact figures are difficult, and we believe it happened right after the flood and as a result of the flood.

50:00

A lot of people don't realize this, but secularists have had a very difficult time explaining how you get an ice age.

50:06

And there's reasons for this. And they believe there are multiple ice ages. We think that we think the evidence is that it was just one. But in any case, a lot of people think we just turn down the earth's temperature.

50:15

That won't give you an ice age. All that does is give you a cold earth. It doesn't produce more ice because when you turn down the earth's temperature and the oceans get cooler, there's less evaporation, you get less precipitation.

50:26

So that's not going to work. You know how sometimes it gets really cold and it's too cold to snow. Those people who live in parts of the world where it gets very cold because the air can't hold the moisture when it's that cold.

50:38

So turning down the earth's temperature does not give you an ice age. What does give you an ice age? A worldwide flood gives you an ice age.

50:44

And Michael Ord has done studies on this and has done some remarkable research on this, and I highly recommend his work.

50:50

Mike Ord is an expert on weather. He's a he's a weather guy, meteorologist. And he did some studies and demonstrated that if there was a worldwide flood, the natural aftermath would be an ice age.

51:01

Here's how it works. So during the flood, all kinds of tectonic activity. We think the continents were pushed apart during the flood year.

51:07

The Bible says the fountains of the great deep burst forth. That might refer to underwater volcanoes. What that does is it heats up the water.

51:13

The oceans would have been warm after the flood. But with all that volcanic activity, that's going to eject aerosols into the atmosphere.

51:22

And even after the flood, the continents are probably still coasting into their positions. There still would have been a lot of volcanic activity when you have these aerosols in the upper atmosphere.

51:29

It cools down the earth's temperature. Even today, when a major volcano erupts, earth's temperature drops a little bit because it reflects back sunlight and the land tends to cool much faster than the oceans, because ocean water has what's called a high specific heat.

51:43

It maintains its temperature well. It can store thermal energy. That's why coastal areas tend to have a very pleasant climate.

51:49

They don't have the extreme seasons that you have when you're in a landlocked state like Colorado. But after the flood, you're going to have warm oceans, cold continents.

51:56

What's it going to do? Warm ocean water is going to evaporate easily because that's what warm water does. It's going to move over the continents and then the continents are cold.

52:05

So the air gets cooler and then it can't hold as much moisture. And so it falls as snow. So you get increased snowfall.

52:12

That's what you need to get an ice age, increased snowfall. And that's what the worldwide flood naturally does. And we think that would have built up for about 500 years and then tapered off for about 200 years.

52:22

Those are Mike Ward's numbers. Some creationists disagree a little bit on the timescale, but it would be a few hundred years after the flood. And interestingly, that's about the time that Abraham lived and about the time that Job lived.

52:33

And so we might expect some scriptural indications of this. And sure enough, if you look in the book of Job, there are more references to ice and snow and Job than in any other book of the

52:42

Bible. And the other thing is during the ice age, people think, well, the earth was a big snowball during the ice age.

52:47

No, no. It's just it had more glaciers than it does today. Today, the earth is 10 percent covered with glaciers during the ice age, 30 percent covered with glaciers.

52:55

They have three times more glaciers. But some parts of the world would have been very pleasant that today are deserts because of the ice age.

53:02

Think about what happened when Lot split off from Abraham and he pitched his tent towards Sodom because the land was green and delightful.

53:08

It was like the garden of God. Right. Today, it's a desert because the ice age is over today.

53:14

But the ice age was going on during the time that Lot lived. So there are even scriptural indications that our scientific theory is on the right track.

53:21

So it's it's the creationists that have the best explanation for an ice age. It's the evolutionists and old earthers that can't really come up with a good explanation for it.

53:30

They rely on Milankovitch cycles and so on. But that has all kinds of problems and can't really demonstrate.

53:35

It can't really generate an ice age. Ice age fits naturally into the biblical timescale. Thank you for that.

53:41

Well, we're at the 53 minute mark, and I want to allow the audience to ask their questions.

53:47

And thankfully, all of their questions are on topic in terms of creation and the stuff that we've been talking about.

53:53

So there are a lot of questions. You can keep your answers short and succinct unless you think you need to expand on them, because obviously

54:01

I don't want to dictate the way you answer the questions, because some of them require background in the in the area of your study.

54:08

So you know how much you need to say. But let's see if we can get through a lot of these. There are some unbelievers,

54:14

I think, in here as well. I can't differentiate them necessarily, but I suppose from the comments and questions, we can hopefully get to those as well.

54:21

All right. All right. If I if I skip a question, please forgive me. I will try my best to get to as many as possible.

54:30

All right. Jayhoo Jayhoo asked, given the is it anisotropic anisotropic synchrony convention?

54:42

I don't want to be speaking in tongues here. What would we see if we looked into a mirror 6 ,000 light years away?

54:49

That's a great question. I think we would see nothing. I think we would not see the reflection of the Earth if the mirror were that far away.

54:56

The great question, though, unfortunately, we don't have any. But if we did,

55:01

I think I don't think we would see the reflection of Earth yet. The light would not have had time to reach and return. OK.

55:08

Nate Werner asks, Dr. Lyle, how did you decide to go into ministry and not academia? And now that you're in ministry, how do you fund scientific research?

55:18

Well, my plan when I started grad school, my plan was to continue in academia. Pardon me.

55:24

Sure. In academia. But I'm going to take another drink of water. I don't think I know how that goes. So that's my plan starting out.

55:34

I taught some classes. I was I was frustrated. I caught a kid cheating one time and that kind of soured me on the whole secular academia.

55:44

It felt like it was not about truth. It felt like it was more about success in the world.

55:50

There's nothing wrong with success in the world. But I'm interested in science for science sake. And and I just got frustrated.

55:57

And with with the constraints that would have been placed on me in a secular academic session,

56:02

I got to teach some some labs and even a class at the University of Colorado. I'm very grateful for that.

56:07

But I felt even though nobody came and told me you can't teach creation, it was sort of implied that, you know, you have to go along with the secular curriculum.

56:16

And I'd known people that had gotten expelled for teaching creation. I wanted to teach students the whole truth about the universe, about its creator, why it works the way that it does, why it's so beautiful, because it is the creation of God.

56:30

And so I went into a ministry where I could teach science and do it from a Christian perspective.

56:36

And I've never regretted that. I'm very, very grateful I got to do that. And now that I'm in ministry, we're funded by by donations and by book sales.

56:46

When I do a speaking event, I do charge a little bit for speaking event. And otherwise, I'd be doing it all the time.

56:52

It keeps the requests down a little bit. I'd like to speak to everybody, but I just don't have time. Yeah. So that that pays for a little bit of it.

56:59

And book sales at events pays for some of the ministry. And then we have on our website, you can donate to us.

57:05

You can go to there's a partnership thing. And most people who are partners with us donate twenty dollars a month.

57:11

And because we're a small ministry, we can do that. Yeah, I'm glad you you mentioned this. And I appreciate the question, because a lot of people think, oh, there goes those apologists always asking for money.

57:20

You do realize that to do the things that people want us to do and the things that need to be done, a lot of that requires support.

57:28

So, yes, you do have people who are trying to scratch a dollar. And unfortunately, those people exist.

57:35

But, you know, the Bible says the worker is worth his wages. You're putting in the work. You're you're trying to share this stuff.

57:40

It's good that people support ministries that they are being blessed by. So I highly recommend your ministry to folks.

57:48

If you want to support what he's doing, you can check that out at the Biblical Institute. Is it Biblical Institute dot org?

57:54

Biblical Science Institute, Biblical Science Institute. And don't hesitate if you need to clear your throat, because I know that feeling when the throat gets dry.

58:03

So just to give you a few moments to recover. Guys, I'm speaking with Dr. Jason Lyle. He's taking questions now.

58:10

And just to throw this out, I know there are some people, much more people listening now just to give folks a head up, heads up.

58:17

Tomorrow, I'll have Dr. Jason, Dr. Jason Lyles here with me today. I'm having Dr. James White on to talk about pre -supping pride.

58:26

How do we talk about issues of homosexuality from a kind of a biblical worldview perspective from within a presuppositional framework?

58:33

Also, I made mention at the beginning of this video that I started a new YouTube channel called Revealed Apologetics Plus. So if you haven't already, please go over there and subscribe to that.

58:43

And my new apologetics course, Drop Presupp Applied. Just real quick in that course, you learn how to navigate apologetic conversations, how to apply presuppositional apologetics to atheism,

58:56

Roman Catholicism. Here's a new one. How to apply presuppositionalism to presuppositional

59:01

Eastern orthodoxy and how to apply presupp to the cult. So all of that there is included in the course there.

59:08

It's one of the ways to learn in a more structured way and to support what I'm doing here on Revealed Apologetics. All right.

59:14

Now that I think he's I think he's recharged. So sorry, because I know how that feels being a speaker myself.

59:21

You get dry and you're like, we don't want we don't want to lose Dr. Lyle here on the live stream. So all right.

59:28

Let's jump right in back to our questions. Apologetics 101 says, how do you respond to the accusation that claimed that the biblical writers believed that the earth was a flat disk?

59:37

So maybe maybe not. That's not what the Bible teaches, but that's definitely what the biblical writers believed. How would you interact with that?

59:44

Well, I don't know. I mean, we only know what they wrote and what they wrote, at least in Job, is that the earth's round and that's that being the earliest book.

59:52

You'd think others would have read that and would have known that. Sure. Then there are other passages that may indicate a sphere like Job or like Isaiah 40, 22, or talks about the circle of the earth.

01:00:02

Although you could argue, well, that's a flat disk. It's it's compatible either way. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I have no doubt that God's people had wrong beliefs about things.

01:00:10

So a lot of might have believed in flat earth. I don't know. But when but because scripture is

01:00:17

God breathed when they're penning scripture, whatever they write, it's accurate. And so that's what I was thinking.

01:00:23

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Second, Timothy three, 16. We have to make we have to make a distinction, Dr. Lyle, I'm sure you know this, that we do not say the biblical authors were inspired.

01:00:31

It is all scripture, the graph, the writing that is inspired. So they might have believed any number of things. The issue is, what does the written finished product teach?

01:00:40

And that's what we're concerned about. So, yeah, great point. All right. Thank you for that apologetics.

01:00:46

Alyssa Scott asked, what systematic theology do you recommend? I think that's a question for you. I don't know.

01:00:54

I don't know, I'd have to think about that a little bit. I have a lot I mean, I have a lot of different theology books. I've learned a lot from Bonson, even though I don't agree with him on everything.

01:01:03

There's a lot I mean, you know, he's written a lot on that topic. So, yeah,

01:01:08

I don't have a specific recommendation for you. All right. Well, we're not going to skip over that one because I love theology.

01:01:13

So I'm just going to recommend these real quick. Very easy to understand. Wayne Grudem.

01:01:19

OK, he does take a reformed perspective and he is. I think he does also support kind of the charismatic gifts being in function today.

01:01:28

I don't know what people believe about that. That's kind of a diverse perspective there. But generally speaking, I think this is an excellent systematic theology for the average layperson, especially the way it's written and how it is categorized.

01:01:41

Also, I have to recommend John Frame, his systematic theology as well. Very good systematic theology.

01:01:48

And actually, this recommendation came from Dr. James White. Let me move. These books are so thick.

01:01:54

Holy cow. There we go. And this one I highly recommend. It's a little bit more technical, but it's an excellent systematic theology.

01:02:01

And it's called A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith by Dr. Robert Raymond, by Dr.

01:02:09

Robert Raymond. So you can get that on Kindle as well. I highly recommend those systematic theologies. All right, let's see here.

01:02:18

Let's see the Bible. Here we go. Someone says James Cool Kid says the

01:02:23

Bible states that the earth was made before the sun. Is this false? Well, no, the

01:02:29

Bible states it, so it's true. The earth's made on day one, the sun's made on day four. So the earth is made before the sun and even the plants are made before the sun.

01:02:37

Although there's still light, God provided light for the first three days. And then he made the sun as a permanent light bearer to take over for that temporary light.

01:02:44

He did that on day four. Bible doesn't say why it could be so that the Hebrews would be less inclined to worship the sun.

01:02:50

Perhaps God's way of saying the sun is not the primary source of life. He's saying I'm the primary source of life. So he displaces it a few days.

01:02:57

But most pagan cultures worship the sun anyway. So that might have been God's way of displacing it. But yeah, the earth's made before the sun.

01:03:04

And that's one thing that that secular astronomy gets wrong, because secular astronomers believe that the stars came first and then the earth billions of years later.

01:03:13

So someone says, well, that's a very unscientific view to hold to. Why? What question can we ask?

01:03:21

By what standard? That's right. That's right. So when someone says unscientific, when you appeal to science.

01:03:28

Right. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. But science is a method of investigating the natural world. The method doesn't tell us anything.

01:03:36

We draw conclusions when we apply that method, along with applying our presuppositions to how we interpret the data.

01:03:42

So to say that something's unscientific, I mean, that's not just a data issue.

01:03:48

That is a presupposition issue. That is a worldview issue. And so you want to you want to keep that into consideration when when people bring make comments like that.

01:03:55

Yeah. And with that issue in particular, I'm thinking, what experiment did you do to determine that the sun came before the earth?

01:04:01

What I mean, what data do you have that would support that idea? I know why secular astronomers believe that.

01:04:06

And it's not data driven. It's philosophy driven. So, you know, they draw that conclusion, but it's not something that you would get from science.

01:04:13

So I would challenge somebody who would say, well, scientifically, we know the sun came first. No, you don't. You don't know that science is about the universe, how it operates today.

01:04:21

It's very hard to scientifically determine what happened allegedly in the distant past. Right. We got to be careful, too, with the words we know from science and to quote atheist cosmologist

01:04:34

Sean Carroll. He says that science doesn't give us truth. It gives us theories that work. So atheists who are aware of the philosophical underpinnings of science know that science is a pragmatic discipline.

01:04:46

It is very much undergirded with philosophical assumptions. And that's not a bad thing. But we need to be careful when people make these kind of bare assertions.

01:04:53

Science tells us, you know, and we could know this from science. And of course, by no, they often equivocate on the term no and no just means highly probable.

01:05:03

And that's all baked into assumptions and presuppositions and things like that. So Nate Werner has another question here.

01:05:10

Dr. Lyle, how do you personally deal with doubts about your faith? Do you ever catch yourself falling into an evidentialist mindset?

01:05:16

It's interesting when I just when I read the first part of that question, I really don't.

01:05:22

I really don't have doubts. And ever since I became a presuppositionalist, honestly, once I really once I really had that cemented, once you really get it, that logic, science, morality, these things.

01:05:35

And you have you have to you have to think through the issues. You have to consider what are the alternatives. How would a secularist try to respond to that?

01:05:42

And I've looked at those. They don't have answers to those, not ones that are logical. And so once you realize that our whole existence and rationality and science are predicated on the truth of the

01:05:53

Bible, ever since I really recognize that I don't doubt I don't doubt the Christian faith. Now, there are certain specific things, you know, certain specific theologies

01:06:01

I might doubt. Am I really reading the scripture right? Yeah. I mean, I have that from time to time.

01:06:08

Do I do I ever catch myself falling into an evidentialist mindset? Not really. I've read so much

01:06:13

Bonson at this point. It just doesn't it just doesn't occur to me to think that way. And, you know, ever since I really got into studying

01:06:20

Greg Bonson and his works and seeing how powerful that was and how and it's powerful because it's biblical.

01:06:27

Sure. And once I recognized that, yeah, I don't think I would ever be an evidentialist sometimes in the way

01:06:34

I argue with people, because I do like using examples of evidence. And if you're not careful, you can go too far and think that that's going to persuade them to change the world view.

01:06:43

I might occasionally do that, but but not very often. I am I am in my heart of heart, a presuppositionalist.

01:06:51

I really am. And once you get that, the doubts really kind of really kind of go away. The people that are constantly bothered by new discoveries are not presuppositionalists.

01:07:00

I think, too, the use of the mention of evidence there, it's important,

01:07:06

Dr. Lyle, as you know, that there is it's important to understand that there is a distinction between using evidence that is helpful to us.

01:07:14

Right. And it kind of increases our faith when we know that our beliefs are supported by the evidence. But that's different than using evidentialism as a methodology.

01:07:22

And so a lot of people think, well, if you're going to appeal to evidence, then you're no longer a presuppositionalist. And that's that's just not true.

01:07:28

No. Yeah. In fact, I'm probably the example of the guy, the presuppositionalist that uses the most evidence because I'm a scientist.

01:07:36

I love using evidence. I do all the time. But hopefully people will notice that the way I use it never presupposes that my understanding of the evidence is superior to the clarity of God's word or the authority of it.

01:07:47

I use science in a supplemental role. I often use it as a reductive absurdum. And but that falls in line with the presuppositional approach of using

01:07:55

Proverbs 26, 4 and 5. You know, I'll use evidence to expose the unbeliever's false worldview so that he can't be wise in his own eyes.

01:08:02

But that's the way I always use it in a presuppositional fashion, or at least I attempt to. That's right, because you submit to the authority of God and the ability of God in his revelation to provide the necessary preconditions for the meaningfulness of everything that we do.

01:08:16

I asked a very well -known evidentialist. I won't mention his name, but I asked a very well -known evidentialist,

01:08:23

OK, maybe you disagree with presuppositionalism, but do you do you think that Christianity is a worldview that can provide the preconditions for it?

01:08:31

And they said flat out, no, I don't think as a Christian. And so it's just little things like that kind of tip me off there.

01:08:37

There's something off there. It doesn't seem like the lordship of Christ is is governing the specific area of this person's thinking with respect to evidence and science and and philosophy and things like that.

01:08:50

So. All right, this is the mighty czarlak. I could pronounce that because I'm a

01:08:56

Star Wars nerd, although recent Star Wars content has given me has given me minor bouts of depression.

01:09:04

But that's for another that's for another video. I'm not a Star Trek. I'm a Star Wars guy, but they just keep putting stuff out there that makes me question my existence.

01:09:13

So that's when I doubt my faith that God is good. If God was good, why does he allow the existence of Disney Star Wars?

01:09:20

That's the question. That's the question we need to be exploring. Maybe we'll do a video of that in the future. The mighty czarlak says, why does he believe,

01:09:28

I suppose, you or maybe someone in the chat, why does he believe in the resurrection of Christ when it's unscientific and without physical proof only?

01:09:36

Though there's so much baked into that question. Why does he believe in the resurrection of Christ when it's unscientific and without physical proof, only testimony which alien abduction or Bigfoot testimony would then be valid?

01:09:49

Oh, boy. Why don't you address that there, Dr. Lyle? But by the way, let's make this a teaching moment,

01:09:55

OK? Teaching other Christians how to evaluate questions like this. And by the way, the mighties are like,

01:10:00

I appreciate this question. I'm not putting this up there to kind of poke fun or anything. But the way you ask the question provides an awesome opportunity to kind of point certain things out that I think are important for yourself and for other people to recognize.

01:10:12

What are some of the words, Dr. Lyle, that should point that should stick out to us when reading a question like this?

01:10:20

Unscientific. By what standard? Because science is about the current, the present operation of the universe, how it normally functions.

01:10:27

And so it's it's not equipped really to deal with past events, especially ones that are claimed to be supernatural.

01:10:35

I mean, the Bible, the Bible claims to be a supernatural book. It claims that God occasionally does things that are not according to natural law and to and to say, well, that's that's unscientific.

01:10:45

Not really, it's just it goes beyond what science is equipped to study. And so now you could you could say, but everything that happens is within natural law.

01:10:55

But now you've gone beyond science. That's that's an untestable philosophical conjecture, right?

01:11:00

Because you don't know that. That's an assumption. How would you prove that logically? I don't think you can. Physical proof.

01:11:07

Well, when you talk about physical proof of a past event, that's really tricky. How do you know what would we look for for that normally past events, the way we validate them, the evidence for them is historical, right?

01:11:21

And so it's a little different with with things like Bigfoot and alien abduction, which allegedly are still occurring today.

01:11:28

And so those theoretically could be tested by science because they're repeated. They're repeating events that happen in the present.

01:11:34

And so you should be able to test them scientifically. And they don't they don't purport to be supernatural. So there'd be no problem testing them scientifically.

01:11:41

The resurrection of Christ was a past event. It claims to be unusual in that the Bible says that normally dead people stay dead.

01:11:48

But there have been a few exceptions and God can do that if he wants to. God's not bound by natural law.

01:11:53

They merely reflect the normal way that he accomplishes his will. So I would say that it's not it's not illogical to believe in the resurrection.

01:12:01

And in fact, it is illogical to reject the resurrection because we do have eyewitness testimony and it's not just a single witness.

01:12:09

It's multiple eyewitnesses. And that is a biblical criterion. You're supposed to have multiple eyewitnesses to an event. A lot of people saw the resurrected

01:12:15

Christ after he was resurrected. A lot of people saw him die on the cross. People saw him buried. And then they saw the resurrected

01:12:21

Christ afterwards. And outside a major city, I might add. That's important because I mentioned a Bigfoot here.

01:12:27

Bigfoot's out there in the woods somewhere. People may or may not have seen something. Jesus was crucified outside a major city at a time when the city was bursting at the seams with lots of people because of what was going on there.

01:12:40

So that that's puts it in a unique, unique situation. You know, Islam, Muhammad got, you know, the angel

01:12:47

Gabriel came to him in a cave somewhere. Joseph Smith's out in the woods in upstate New York. You got these people by themselves claiming a revelation.

01:12:56

Jesus was raised outside a major city. That that's very interesting and unique,

01:13:02

I think. So so in terms of evaluating a historical event, hands down, the

01:13:09

Bible fulfilled. Let's put it this way. If you didn't if you didn't come to the Bible with a presupposition that supernatural things can't happen by any of the normal criteria by which historical events are documented, you'd have to say no,

01:13:20

Christ was resurrected. Yeah. Also, the question seems to assume that, quote unquote, testimony of alien abduction and Bigfoot testimony is on equal par to the testimony offered for the resurrection of Jesus.

01:13:34

And that's just not true. Even even unbelieving scholarship would say that the quality of testimony is different.

01:13:41

They might not accept the testimony for Jesus, but the quality of it is is different. It's not the same as, say, someone says

01:13:47

I was abducted by aliens or I saw Bigfoot the other day. So that's just an ignorance,

01:13:52

I think, of of the scholarship in this area. All right. This is OK, so I'm going down in order.

01:13:58

So I'm going to the questions. You do not have to answer this, but I guess I'm interested, too. So it's a theological question.

01:14:04

And so is Dr. Lyle willing to share his eschatological leanings? Are you pre, post or dispensational?

01:14:11

No judgment here. You don't have to answer it if you don't like if you don't want to answer it. Sorry for putting you on the spot.

01:14:17

I better not. I speak a lot. I speak a lot of different kinds of churches and I and I and I'm primarily about getting people to believe the beginning of the

01:14:26

Bible. And then we can you know, once once we get people believe in the beginning of the Bible, then we can have discussions on the end time.

01:14:32

I do have a position, but I'm probably just not going to share it. No worries. No worries. The mighty

01:14:37

Zarlak is asking, are any of us Hebrew linguistic scholars? I'm not.

01:14:43

I know Dr. Lyle probably has access to some scholars. I do. In fact, you're going to have a

01:14:48

I mean, you're going to have James White on the show tomorrow and he's he can read Hebrew. I don't know if he'd consider himself a scholar, but he can certainly read it.

01:14:55

I can read it a little bit, but I'm no Hebrew scholar by my own admission. But I know people who have who are world experts in Hebrew like Dr.

01:15:04

Stephen Boyd. I know him personally and his Ph .D. is in or I don't know if it's a Ph .D. or Ph .D., but it's in Hebrew.

01:15:10

I mean, biblical, biblical languages. He isn't he is a world expert on the Hebrew language. And so I can

01:15:16

I can consult with them. I've got software. I've got a cordon software where I can look at the different manuscripts in Hebrew and immediately, you know, winds up with the

01:15:23

English word and so on. So I'm not an expert, but I know people who are. That's right. OK, very good. I like this response here because I guess they're interacting.

01:15:31

Neither are referring to us. What does that matter? Do you need to be a mechanic to drive a car? I guess that's true, right?

01:15:37

I don't have to be, you know, a presuppositional apologetic scholar, but that doesn't mean

01:15:44

I'm unable to answer questions relating to that. If you understand or you have resources that you can point to,

01:15:50

I think that's sufficient to interact with these ideas. Let's see here. Let's go through a couple more.

01:15:58

Let's see. Here is. Let me see. Revealed apologetics question.

01:16:04

Michael Jones. OK, so Michael Jones of inspiring philosophy. I had you on to respond to some of his stuff. Michael Jones claims that dominion and subdue are, quote unquote, violent terms.

01:16:15

And this proves that God's creation wasn't perfect. Are you familiar with this? This idea of subdue the earth.

01:16:21

And so that language has inherent this idea of violence. Now, how would you respond to this? It's just not true.

01:16:26

And there are other examples in scripture where at least one of those words, and I forget which one, Radha, I think is one of them.

01:16:33

But in any case, where they're used in a nonviolent capacity, a king rolling over his kingdom or the way a master treats a servant, they were not you're not to be brutal with your your slaves.

01:16:44

In fact, if you are, they're immediately freed and they're that's paid. So, yeah, so that's just not the case.

01:16:50

I'm not sure why he believes that they may be used in, you know, in some cases, because you can rule over something or subdue it in a violent way.

01:16:59

But the words themselves in Hebrew language don't they don't require that. They don't require that meaning.

01:17:04

I've answered that before. I've looked up the Hebrew words. I can't recall them off the top of my head. But yeah, they don't inherently mean that.

01:17:10

OK. Yeah. And I know there's a question about Michael Jones. I've had Michael Jones on this channel before.

01:17:16

He's a friend of mine. And while I disagree with him on these issues, he's got some great stuff on debunking kind of like the

01:17:24

Jesus mythicism stuff. So I don't agree with everything, but he's got some great stuff. And he's been helpful to me personally, you know, when

01:17:31

I have questions about certain areas that I think he is quite qualified to engage with. So I appreciate

01:17:36

Michael. Now, I do apologize if I'm skipping any questions. I actually am just looking for questions that are prefaced with question because there's a lot.

01:17:44

So if you didn't preface it with question, unfortunately, I cannot get to it. We're almost finished, Dr. Lyle, you're doing an excellent job,

01:17:51

I appreciate it. So let's scroll down and let's see. Maybe is the question.

01:18:02

Oh, those aren't creation questions. The one question about the charismatic gifts. Yeah. Let's see here.

01:18:11

Let's see here. OK. OK, so revealed apologetics. That's me. So Jason is asking for feels apologetics.

01:18:19

On that note, how would you respond to atheists that claim miracles break the uniformity of nature?

01:18:25

So why don't you unpack what that question is? Sure. Explain what that question is asking and then interact with it if you can.

01:18:31

Yeah. So uniformity of nature is the idea that there are repeated patterns in nature that are guaranteed to continue like the day night cycle, the seasons and so on.

01:18:40

We have a promise from God that there's a certain degree of uniformity in nature. And that's Genesis 822, which we which we referred to previously, where the day and night

01:18:46

God promises the base of the seasons, the day and night cycle will continue as long as the earth remains. So somebody claims that miracles break the uniformity of nature.

01:18:54

The answer is they might because the the uniformity of nature, unlike something like laws of logic,

01:19:00

God's always logical because that's I would define logic as the way God thinks. So there's no exceptions to that.

01:19:07

But God's promise to uphold nature in a consistent way doesn't mean he can't. It's not an absolute. It doesn't mean he can't make an occasional exception.

01:19:14

Like Joshua's long day, day and night happened. It's just that particular day was really long.

01:19:21

So and that breaks the normal pattern. But it doesn't break God's promise. There's still there's still consistency in nature.

01:19:27

And then after after the miracle happens, nature goes back to its its normal consistency. So if God wants to like like normally the amount of mass in a system is constant.

01:19:35

But if God wants to multiply fish and loaves, he can do that. It's not a problem. So the answer is miracles potentially can temporarily disrupt uniformity of nature.

01:19:44

God, God didn't promise an absolute uniformity of nature where there would be no interruptions ever.

01:19:50

It just indicated that there will be uniformity in nature, which there is. So it's not an absolute condition.

01:19:56

And then secondly, something something that Bonson pointed out that I think is worth saying, technically, we can't know if a miracle breaks the law of nature.

01:20:04

And the reason is we don't know what all the laws of nature are. You got to be real careful about that. There are some there are some miracles that God does that I would think based on my understanding of laws of nature,

01:20:14

God suspended a law of nature. But we don't know that because we don't know what all the laws of nature are. Something that's worth thinking about.

01:20:20

A miracle is just when God does something extraordinary and unusual for a specific purpose. Sure. Now, folks are interested.

01:20:27

I did a video precisely on it's literally entitled the problem of induction.

01:20:32

I just put it on in the chat there. Highly recommend folks check that out. I kind of go into some detail there.

01:20:39

Remember when we when we're talking about induction, we're saying that very likely the future will be like the past.

01:20:45

Right. So even though God can prevent the sun from rising tomorrow, that does not negate our justification.

01:20:52

Given the Christian worldview, that very likely it will rise because the likelihood and probability itself finds its meaning and intelligibility within a

01:21:02

Christian worldview. For in it, for the very concept of probability presupposes certain unchanging foundations that are grounded in God and how

01:21:10

God has created the created order and so forth. And so folks are interested in that. Got a whole video on that.

01:21:16

I put it in the comments comment section there. All right. Just a few more questions and then we'll wrap it up.

01:21:22

Once again, I really appreciate your time, Dr. Lyle. Don't mean to be disrespectful. I know you don't mind. But as I look to the side, it looks like I'm not looking at you.

01:21:28

That's because I got a big wide screen and the questions are all the way to my right. So I do apologize. Let's see here.

01:21:36

Um, question. Did it to do it's one relating to Mormonism.

01:21:41

How would you respond to a Mormon who says the two accounts in Genesis of creation are different accounts, one spiritual and one physical?

01:21:51

Never heard that one before. Yeah, I mean, I've certainly heard that they're different accounts. I don't think

01:21:56

I have heard the claim that one's physical and one spiritual. I think that's hard to defend because they're both describing physical realities.

01:22:04

The spirits mentioned when when God breathes life into Adam, he becomes a living soul or a living creature.

01:22:12

But yeah, no, it's just contextually it doesn't make sense. Genesis chapter two, really beginning in verse four, four is where it transitions.

01:22:20

There's there's the curse of chapter divisions, right? The chapter divisions are not original. They were inserted in the 1200s.

01:22:27

So really, the first account ends at around verse four and switches to the the the the second account, which is not a separate account.

01:22:35

It's rather it's a more descriptive account of the events of day six. And we know that because everything that happens in chapter two is something that happens on on day six of the creation.

01:22:45

We have the creation of the animals. You have the creation of Adam and Eve. And those all take the land animals. And those all take place on day six of the creation week.

01:22:54

So contextually that they. It's just an it's just an amplified account of the events of day six.

01:23:01

Jesus quotes from them back to back. He quotes from Genesis in Matthew 19. Jesus quotes from Genesis one and Genesis two in the same sentence.

01:23:08

He obviously believed that they were coherent and went together. Yeah. And we're doing exegesis, right?

01:23:14

So folks who are not familiar exegesis, we grab meaning from the text. Isogesis, we read meaning into the text.

01:23:20

The I think the arbitrary distinction between a historical account and a spiritual account or a spiritual or physical one that is an arbitrary imposition of meaning onto the text.

01:23:30

You don't derive the physical and spiritual from the text itself. And so if someone were to bring this up,

01:23:37

I would say, on what basis do they separate Genesis account chapter one and then the more narrowed and focused account in two?

01:23:45

On what basis is that an arbitrary imposition on the text that that this distinction is there? So those are the sorts of questions, the sorts of things that I would look for if I were talking to someone who brought this up.

01:23:56

We did touch on this before, but maybe kind of give a quick some scriptural references that someone could maybe kind of use to respond to flat earth.

01:24:04

And I know you addressed it, but what are some scriptural ammunition you can give to someone to say, hey, if someone thinks flat earth is is correct, here's some things you might use to interact with that.

01:24:16

Yeah, I'd point him to Job 2610, which I think there's no other exegetical way to interpret that other than the world's spherical because God inscribing that circle on the on the boundary between light and darkness on the face of the waters.

01:24:30

That only works on a sphere. You can you can see that you can shine a flashlight on a sphere and see how it always forms a circular terminator.

01:24:38

No really good way to get around that. You might look at the global flood. You can't really have a global flood without a globe.

01:24:44

So, I mean, a flat earth, how would you flood? It's water is going to run off the edge. Well, there's a hill around the edge.

01:24:50

Well, then you have a hill that's not flooded. But the Bible says all the high hills under the whole heaven were flooded. You could say, well, it's like a snow globe.

01:24:56

There's an invisible hill. Well, that's a hill that's not flooded. So I don't think you can have a global flood on a flat earth.

01:25:03

So that doesn't make any sense. So those would be two things worth considering. The Bible doesn't give a lot of detail on the shape of the earth.

01:25:10

But I do think it mentions very clearly, at least once, that the world's spherical. And that's in Job 2610. And how many times does

01:25:16

God have to say something before we take it seriously? And I think once is enough. That is true. Jason, not

01:25:23

Jason Lyle, says, I've had atheists then say to me, if miracles break the uniformity of nature, then we can't trust, then we can't trust

01:25:29

God. Kind of a dumb argument. Yeah, because without the biblical God, you'd have no basis for any kind of uniformity.

01:25:36

I had a secular reporter one time who was asking me about that. And he said, well, you know, if God can do a miracle, then that means there's not absolute universal uniformity.

01:25:46

So that's true. But in your worldview, there's zero basis for uniformity. There's none. How do you how do you have any probability that the sun will rise tomorrow?

01:25:55

And he really couldn't answer that. And that was that was a fun interview. He was he was an interesting guy.

01:26:02

He was probability presupposes certainty. What is the nature of certainty in your worldview? All right.

01:26:07

Let's talk about it. And then the Christian is happy to bring up where we get our certainty and why we believe, you know, what we believe.

01:26:13

So sure. Yeah. Yeah. James Cool Kid says with respect to the issue of,

01:26:19

I suppose, the resurrection and aliens and Bigfoot, he says, my point is that there are no firsthand attestations for the resurrection of Jesus in any of the gospels.

01:26:27

That is contested. The closest you come is a vague mention from Paul, and he can't even describe what he saw.

01:26:34

How would you interact with that? What? I mean, the gospels are firsthand attestations of the resurrection.

01:26:41

I mean, they saw. No, they're not, Dr. Lyle, because I can find scholars that say that they're not.

01:26:52

Well, they claim to be right. I mean, at the very least, right. So and no one in the early church doubted that.

01:26:59

I mean, you know, because Matthew doesn't say that Matthew wrote Matthew, but no one in the early church doubted that. There's no evidence of that anyway.

01:27:06

So no, as far as we can tell, they are firsthand attestations. And it wasn't just the gospels. Lots of other people saw them.

01:27:12

And even when the apostles make the argument and they say, hey, you saw him, the way they argue with other people shows that other people saw the resurrected

01:27:20

Christ as well. You wouldn't make an argument. Hey, you saw it. If in fact you didn't see it. So and the fact that Dr.

01:27:28

Lyle was that the closest you come to is Paul making a vague mention of it and he can't describe what he saw.

01:27:37

Like he goes around and says, I met the risen Christ. Like, I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure what he's

01:27:42

I'm sorry. I'm not sure what you're referring to there, my friend. But yeah, I mean, Paul clearly believed in the resurrection.

01:27:47

He saw the resurrected Christ, although his was his experience was a little bit different from everyone else's and that it was later.

01:27:54

But yeah, lots of people saw the resurrected Christ. And the beautiful thing is their testimonies agree and they give different details, which is what you'd expect.

01:28:01

I mean, if they were all the wording was the same, you'd cry collusion. But you get these little differences in the gospel that they're coherent, but they're different ways of describing the resurrection.

01:28:10

No, a lot of people saw the resurrection and they documented it. So I think it's very well attested.

01:28:16

And there's there's nothing else that really comes close to that in terms of manuscript evidence and things like that. It's very well attested in history.

01:28:22

Right. I think what's important to keep in mind, too, is say you take the letter of the first Corinthians.

01:28:27

You don't just have the New Testament documentation. You have pre gospel, pre

01:28:34

Pauline attestation. In other words, first Corinthians 15, Paul is quoting, you know, knowledge of the resurrection prior to and his knowledge of it is based upon prior tradition.

01:28:49

Right. Then then the actual writing of first Corinthians. So you actually have the biblical sources and there could actually be discerned pre biblical sources within the text.

01:29:00

So I think that's that's a key point to keep in mind as well. You have another question here.

01:29:05

Is dark energy real? We don't know, but not necessarily. The it's it's a conclusion that's drawn on the basis of certain presuppositions and the data that we observe.

01:29:18

And the neat thing about that is I made a discovery last November, December regarding galaxies in James Webb Space Telescope data.

01:29:27

And if my discovery is right and I think there's very good evidence that it is, I've published it. It's been or it's in the process of being published.

01:29:34

It's been it's past peer review. So it is being published. It just hasn't come out yet. It's going to be in the answers research journal.

01:29:41

The neat thing is, if my new model is right, it eliminates the need for dark energy. There's it and it eliminates any evidence for dark energy, but it doesn't necessarily preclude it.

01:29:50

So I can't say that dark energy doesn't exist, but I can say there's probably no need for it.

01:29:56

There's no there's no evidence that it does. And I'm not inclined to think that it probably does exist then.

01:30:02

So dark energy would give sort of empty space, a little bit of mess. OK. And now, how are you doing?

01:30:08

Do you have time for a few more questions or do you want to wrap it up? No, go ahead. OK. All right. Scott Terry says, how did the ancient

01:30:16

Israelites think about astronomy? What was their name for popular constellations like Orion? If I'm not mistaken, the

01:30:22

Hebrew for Orion is Kaseel, which is also the Hebrew word for fool. It's kind of interesting.

01:30:29

So, yeah, so I think in the Pleiades and and it has a Hebrew name, too, and I can't remember what it is.

01:30:35

But yeah, so I do know a little bit of Hebrew, but not a whole lot. But in any case, yeah, so but they were well enough known that people knew what they referred to.

01:30:44

The constellation names are very, very ancient and the Hebrews had their own words for them. But we know how to translate that.

01:30:49

So kind of amazing constellations are very ancient. Josephus believed that Seth named the constellations.

01:30:57

So that's outside of the Bible. We don't know if that's true, but it's an interesting speculation. OK, this next question is a comment and question is based upon your answer to the global flood.

01:31:08

You said, how can there be a global flood without a globe? And so James Cool Kid says that has to be the world's worst defense of around Earth.

01:31:15

So the Bible says there was a global flood, so it has to be a globe. It never says global flood, you silly goose.

01:31:21

And then he said he asked the question, but by the way, I don't mind the questions.

01:31:26

I mean that we want to interact with these, but but you have a less chance. And this is like for people who write in my comments, if you ask in a snarky way, the chances are your question is not going to be addressed because it it can.

01:31:38

I'm not saying this to James, but just anybody. It gives the impression that no matter what the person says in response, you don't you're not really concerned about the answer.

01:31:46

So I'm not going to waste the time to engage, but I'm not I'm going to assume better, James, you know, and just give

01:31:52

Dr. Lyle the opportunity to respond. And then he asks the follow up here. Is the word globe used in Genesis?

01:31:59

No. And my claim is not that Genesis uses the word global. That's not my claim.

01:32:06

It specifically says all the mountains under all the mountains, under the all the all the heavens were covered. It's the same

01:32:12

Hebrew call this word meaning all. And when it's doubled like that, it means absolutely all. So all all the mountains under the sky were covered.

01:32:20

OK, and so and my point, if you listen to my previous response, a little more carefully, my point is that doesn't work on a flat earth.

01:32:28

I wasn't using the terminology global as my as my argument. My argument is on a flat earth, you can't cover all the high hills because the water runs off the edge.

01:32:36

You either would have to have a rim around the edge, in which case that would constitute a hill that's not covered by the waters, or you could put it like in a snow globe and then you'd have a transparent hill that's massive that which the waters don't cover.

01:32:49

So my point is the the specific statement that all the high hills or all the mountains under the whole heavens were covered is not consistent with a flat earth.

01:32:57

All right. Thank you for that, James. And here's the last one. I think there's a good question to kind of end on a question here from Christian Christian Channel.

01:33:08

What is something Dr. Lyle is excited about in his studies or ministry right now? James, well,

01:33:14

James Webb Space Telescope data, what we're discovering in that is amazing and it's very confirmatory of biblical creation.

01:33:21

Those of you that have followed my website know that two years ago, I made predictions based on biblical creation about what

01:33:27

James Webb Space Telescope would find. And those predictions were the opposite of what the secularists were expecting to find.

01:33:32

And then in July, the James Webb Space Telescope confirmed my predictions and refuted the secular predictions.

01:33:38

That's exciting. See, I really do believe the Bible. And because of that, I'm willing to step out and say, here's what

01:33:43

I expect to find. And it'll be different from what the secularists expect. And I even predicted how they would respond to it. And even that prediction was right, and I was able to make the prediction about how they would respond because I'm a presuppositionalist.

01:33:55

And so I knew that they would come up with a rescuing device to explain the data. And I was able to predict the rescuing device. But that was a lot of fun.

01:34:01

And then more recently, we're finding that the angular sizes of these galaxies is inconsistent with what's called the

01:34:07

Friedman -Lemaitre -Robertson -Walker metric, which describes the expansion of the universe. What that does is it shows that that metric is wrong.

01:34:14

Yes, the galaxies are moving away from each other. The universe is expanding in that way. But the mathematical metric that's used to describe that in the

01:34:22

Big Bang cosmology is wrong. And that means the Big Bang is wrong. It's devastating. And that's the thing that I'm really excited to be published.

01:34:29

Again, it's passed peer review. So I'm free to talk about all that because before it passes peer review, I don't mention it to laymen.

01:34:35

There's an ethical order in science, I think. But it's passed peer review. It's going to be published in the Answers Research Journal.

01:34:41

I am really excited about that because I think that's going to make some ripples. It not only it's not only devastating to the

01:34:47

Big Bang, but it's a creation based alternative that makes specific quantitative details. And that's cool because we haven't really had that before.

01:34:55

But now we do. I'm really excited about that. That's a big that's a big thing. A lot of people kind of discuss with respect to science that good science makes testable predictions and the

01:35:06

Bible satisfies that. But of course, you do have issues where science is going to disagree, not with science, but with interpretations of science.

01:35:13

And we have to take that into consideration as well. But that's super cool. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

01:35:19

I just want to give kind of a heads up for those in the comments. I really appreciate the questions and the conversation, but just kind of a little advice for both sides.

01:35:29

If you're an unbeliever asking a question, if you ask the question respectfully, chances are you're probably going to get a respectful answer and vice versa.

01:35:38

Christians, you don't want to be snarky or disrespectful. If the issue is truth, you want to interact respectfully and ask and listen and think about the responses and give a thoughtful response.

01:35:49

That's how thoughtful interaction happens. And communication is more effective. So not to say that there's anything disrespectful going on in the comments, but just wanted to throw that out there because I know these topics can can get kind of fiery in the comments.

01:36:01

So, Dr. Lyle, I want to thank you so much, not just for you coming on tonight, but all the times that you've come on.

01:36:07

They've been a blessing to many people, myself included. I always go back and listen since it's different when

01:36:13

I'm interviewing someone, I have to go back and take it in. Is there anything you'd like to share right before we kind of sign off with respect to where people can find you again and get a hold of your materials, books, things like that?

01:36:25

Yeah, go to the website, BiblicalScienceInstitute .com, all kinds of great resources there.

01:36:31

We got videos, too. If you click on videos, you got all kinds of stuff there. I'm going to try to post some new ones here in a short while.

01:36:37

But yeah, it's a great resource, a free resource. So check that out. If you want to support us, we can do that. I'm not the kind of person that asks for money very often, but we do we do need a little bit of money to be able to survive and do what we do.

01:36:48

So you can get on our website and donate to us if you like. And thank you, Eli. It's always a pleasure. My fellow presuppositional buddy,

01:36:55

I enjoy talking with you. Oh, same here, brother. And Jason, another Jason says, Jason, please come back again.

01:37:01

So I'll have you as often as you're willing to come back, because I do I like talking to you as well. So. All right, well,

01:37:08

I think my there we go. Did I lose my volume there? Well, that's it for this episode, guys. I'm hoping to see everyone tomorrow.

01:37:15

I'll have Dr. James White. We're going to be talking about presupping pride and so presupp worldviews, homosexuality, transgenderism, things like that with Dr.