June 29, 2017 Show with Dr. Terry Mortenson on “The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology… Before Darwin!”

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This is Chris Arnson your host of iron sharpens iron radio wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 29th day of June 2017 and I'm delighted to have back on the program.

Dr. Terry Mortensen he is a Historian and a historian of geology and researcher for answers in Genesis And he's the author of a number of books including the one we'll be discussing today

The great turning point the church's catastrophic mistake on geology

Before Darwin and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to iron sharpens iron radio.

Dr. Terry Mortensen And in studio with me is my visiting co -host

Charlie Liebert the founder of six -day creation .com great to have you back in the studio

Charlie Thank you, Chris. Great to be here. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for dr Terry Mortensen our email address is

Chris Arnson at gmail .com Chris Arnson at gmail .com

Well a lot of the information that we have discussed in regard to the age of the earth and in regard to Evolution and and so on a lot of that content involved

Charles Darwin, but it's interesting that the great turning point this book that you have written deals with this issue corrupting

Christianity before Darwin if you could explain What was the catalyst behind writing this book and how you discovered this?

Corruption of scientific thought within the church before Charles Darwin well,

I was a missionary for many years over in Eastern Europe and I Had a burden to study this issue further and I went went back to seminary

And I I had already been studying the scientific side of the question for over 14 years

But I in seminary I wanted to get a deeper understanding of the biblical and theological exegetical issues and and As I was doing that I thought

I want I want to know more about the history of this Controversy and I from my reading at that point in the late 80s

I I knew the problem didn't start with Darwin, but I didn't know what was going on and So I applied for a

PhD program and was accepted and I Didn't really know what I was going to find and it was

While I was doing some preliminary work just in Kind of a general overview of the history of the development of geology

I read about a group of authors that collectively became known as the scriptural geologists and I thought that's that's what

I'm going to do my thesis on in fact I I read a I was reading one of the top historians of geology and on some controversy in the 1830s and he just had a footnote that said the scriptural geologists still await their historian

And it was like a neon sign for me. And so that's what I I began to dig into and What I realized what

I learned was that Actually Darwin built his ideas on the old earth thinking of Charles Lyle he freely admits that in his own writings, so It was critical for me to understand what was going on how that idea developed and in particular

What was the church's response to those old earth ideas? before Darwin That's funny that you mentioned the name

Lyle because there's actually a young earth creationist Named Jason Lyle Yeah, that's

L -I -S -L -E The other one is L -Y -E -L -L So what did the church believe about the age of the earth before Darwin?

well, what I documented was looking at commentaries and and and other writings that up until the really up until about the 1830s

The commentaries were all holding to a young earth view. I document this in my book most of them had ushers dates right in the margins of Genesis 1 and But the church began to reject that view in in the first few decades of the 19th century and a lot of Christians quickly accepted the millions of years idea and And reinterpreted

Genesis using the gap theory of the day age view and a local flood view of Genesis of Noah's flood.

Now, why did they so quickly catch on to this and tell us more about this old earth

Lyle not our Contemporary with us Jason Lyle the young earth creation.

Yeah well, I In my in my study,

I've come to the conviction that the Enlightenment was was a satanic counter -attack to the

Protestant Reformation and the rediscovery of the authority of Scripture and the

Enlightenment, of course in the in the 17th and 18th century elevated human reason

As the final authority for determining truth. Well, that was concurrent with the development of modern science

But modern science was born in the womb of the Christian worldview so Newton and Kepler and Galileo and and on and on into the 19th century all of the

Almost all of the great founders of the different disciplines of modern science were

At least professing Christians if not very biblical Christians But that was all beginning to unravel as the

Enlightenment Progressed and as As science was modern science started with with applying

Experimentation and observation to the world to figure out how we could

Manipulate the world to find cures for disease and develop new technology.

So in the in the late 1800s and the world especially in Europe was getting very excited about how science could just improve life and eradicate disease and Raise the standard of living and so science was was becoming the queen of knowledge previous to that Theology had been the queen of knowledge.

And so that was very much in the atmosphere and what happened in the early 1800s was that Historical historical sciences began to develop particularly the field of geology

Which isn't looking at doing experiments to figure out how things work but looking at rocks and fossils to try to figure out the history of of the world and that's a different kind of science so tell us about this individual that you mentioned

Lyle who was such a Great influence unfortunately upon Charles Darwin Well Lyle was actually

He was trained in law at Oxford University In in the 18 early 1800s there were no university degrees in geology there were no paid there were no

Professional geologists who did geology for a living that didn't happen until about 1840 so Lyle was independently wealthy studied law

He was a brilliant mind and he built on the ideas of several others especially

James Hutton up in Scotland in the late 18th century and he argued that that all of the geological evidence that we see is the result of slow gradual processes

Over long ages now, he didn't come up with the idea of millions of years or long ages

There were others in the preceding 50 years before he published his book principles of geology three volume work beginning in 1830, but He was he was the one who really

I would say nailed the coffin closed on the Genesis flood and the biblical

Chronology and he convinced a lot of people that his way of looking at the rocks interpreting the rocks

Was the only way to correctly interpret the rocks? now

I have heard known as Uniformitarianism because he said the processes of geological change have always been going on in the past at the same rate and frequency and power that we see today and it's mainly slow gradual processes of Erosion and sedimentation, you know occasional earthquake volcano

Hurricane here or there but the primary forces at work are slow gradual processes and One of the things that Kind of took the wind out of my sails is when

I found out that one of my Christian heroes from the 19th century BB Warfield one of the great minds of Princeton seminary before the liberals really took the institution over and Brought it down to a horrible state theologically that it is today.

But there was a time when Princeton was a Very biblically sound think -tank if you will of great minds and I was just so disappointed to learn that BB Warfield I don't know if he was a hundred percent convinced of Darwinianism and the old age of the earth and so on But I know that he at least had a great impact

Upon his way of thinking where it where it he at the very least Offered it as a very plausible if not probable

Answer to the questions on the age of the earth. Do you know how he became corrupted in that way?

Well from from what I've read He was a ardent evolutionist until his

Conversion to Christ at about age 18 if I'm not mistaken and He wrote quite a bit on on the subject of creation and the age of the earth over his scholarly career

It's I think it's all been published in one volume by Mark Knoll and David Livingston who edited it all

So he had these ideas before becoming a Christian Sure, yeah, because what

I from my research by about 1850 basically the whole church had compromised with the millions of years

They resisted against Darwin initially when When Darwin's theory came out in 1859, although it was it was scientists who opposed

Darwin more than the church Why were the scientists opposing

Darwin what's that why were scientists opposing Darwin at that time?

Because they knew the science and they they believed that Darwin hadn't even come close to presenting scientific evidence for how his theory of evolution could happen and then they being

Convinced that living creatures exhibited in Incredible evidence of design and of course that and since they were contemporaries of his they they knew that he was not a

Scientist really they knew that he wasn't somebody to be respected in the field of science Yeah, well, he was he was a he was a good naturalist and observer of the world

And he bred pigeons and studied all kinds of things and he went on that I know plenty of people in New York City that do that, but they're not scientists

Yeah and he went on that famous five -year voyage around the world in 1831 and Did a lot of work studying geological formations?

But when he went on that trip, he took the first volume of Charles Lyles principles of geology on the boat with him

And and he says I've got a quote I can't quote it off the top of my head exactly but he basically says if you want to understand my theory you just need to understand

Charles Lyles thinking because my ideas half came out of Charles Lyles head and so He was his theory would have would have never

It would have died in the womb if he hadn't had Millions of years to work with if if the scientific community wasn't already

Virtually Unanimously embracing that idea is his theory would have never gotten anywhere

But by 1850 most of it almost the whole church had accepted that that millions of years and The scriptural geologists are dying off.

They were they had no way of really reproducing themselves because now the universities did have geological degrees all the geology

Societies in different countries. They were all committed to this uniformitarian view. So everybody that went to school to learn geology was trained to think just like Charles Lyles and So You know on into the later part of the 19th century

Charles Hodge at Princeton Said the age of the earth doesn't matter He initially held to the gap theory and then

I think in about 1860 switched over to the day age view his son Hodge accepted the long ages

So My from my study. I personally think there were a number of reasons why

Princeton went downhill into feel theological liberalism But I think that this this compromise with the millions of years and toying with the idea of evolution under the under the providence of God Was was it was undermining the authority of Scripture and I think it contributed

Not only there but many many other schools What were the religious backgrounds of Charles Lyle and Darwin Charles Darwin?

well, Darwin Darwin had a Unitarian mother and a father who was

Borderline atheist his grandfather was as well his grandfather

Erasmus Darwin wrote a book on evolution and Darwin got a lot of his ideas about evolution from his grandfather and from some others and So some people try to present

Darwin as as a Christian and Darwin even in some of his writings kind of Described himself as Orthodox, but but when you really read what he said

When he described himself that way he wasn't Orthodox at all And although he went to Cambridge University where he had to study theology

He was hardly an Orthodox Christian now, how about Charles Lyle? Charles Lyle was

We don't know for sure from from Historical research most historians would say he was either a deist or maybe a

Unitarian These guys these guys were masters at giving a nod to God in their writings to keep

Their religious readers happy because we have to realize in in Victorian England you know the church you had a state church as you still do today, but the

Christian Church was was Massively influential in the culture and so to to be an atheist in Britain in the early decades of the 19th century

Was not a real good idea If you wanted to be socially acceptable, would that be something similar that was going on here in the

States in North America? Yes, I think North America there was maybe a

A little bit stronger resistance because Because we don't have an established church a state church and because of our

War of Independence, we're a little bit more a little bit more independent thinking maybe and the impact of the evangelical awakening

So you mean let you mean less of a resistance to? the atheistic and evolutionistic

Ideas would be here in the in the United States and in North America No, I think

I think more resistance more even though there was not a a church state and so on well,

I think I think There there's some positives and the negatives of having a state church if the state church becomes

Theologically corrupt and you you've got a big problem. So and it tends to You know stimulate maybe more groupthink than you would in a more open situation like we have in the

States, but Britain and America were that's where the resistance to these old earth ideas

What were were being presented the European continent had already been

Heavily influenced by liberal theology in the 18th century and so to my knowledge

There weren't very many people in the early 19th century in on the

European continent Who were fighting these? Geological ideas it was mainly and in Britain and North America and and I would say the most was in Britain because Britain was

The most powerful one of the most powerful countries at the time and it was leading industrial revolution and and England is a small country with lots of seacoast and lots of exposed

Rock Just geology. You don't have to travel long distances. It's all right there.

And so Britain was Was a leader in the development of the field of geology in fact, the first geological society in the world was the

Geological Society of London 1807 we have a listener in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania.

Her name is Jenny She has two questions. I am stumped on how

Charles Lyle determined the age of rocks What was his thesis that's her first question

Well, they they weren't determining the age of rocks in any specific Number They weren't saying what we're used to seeing now where you you go to a national park or state park

And they tell you well this rock layer was actually formed 340 million years ago And then the one above that is from 280 million years ago

They were just saying that Relatively speaking these rocks were formed over long long ages because and there were there were two reasons

I believe one is that they They rejected the biblical Testimony of Genesis.

They said they didn't come out and say in their writings But I can show you from their unpublished letters that Charles Lyle was very anti biblical

In fact, and he wrote in one letter to one of his good Uniformitarian buddies who was also a member of Parliament That he wanted to free the quote to free the science of geology from Moses Wow, isn't that an odd statement?

Yeah He was he was he was attacking the biblical account of creation and the flood and the age of the earth and It makes perfect sense if he was a deist or a

Unitarian So that was the first aspect of it. And then the second was he was embracing

What we call today a naturalistic worldview that everything can be explained by time and chance and the laws of nature working on matter

If you have enough time you can inform you can form that great beautiful white cliffs of Dover on the south coast of England Just slow gradual deposition and you can erode things like the

Grand Canyon by the Colorado River over long long ages so the assumption the philosophical assumption of naturalism that everything can be explained by time and chance and the laws of nature and the the conscious rejection of the biblical history in Genesis and Jenny's second question to you is

I saw the recent movie is Genesis history have you seen it?

And if so, what is your opinion concerning this movie? Yes, I've seen it and it is outstanding

People need to watch it and really ponder what is being said. Yeah, I saw it on Netflix advertised.

So I definitely will watch that Yeah You know that the scientific community today has done a very good job of brainwashing almost the whole world into thinking

Not only that evolution in millions of years are proven scientific But that creation scientists aren't real

They're pseudoscientists. They don't really know science. They don't really know how to do science.

They don't really know what they're talking about and That both of those are lies and is

Genesis history Helps to dispel that because the scientists involved in that documentary are all

PhD scientists There I think there are a couple Bible scholars in there dealing with the biblical text, but are these all young earth creationists

They're all young earth creationists. They're all the scientists all have PhDs and they didn't get those

PhDs From a mail -order catalog or a Christian College. They got them from secular universities where they had to sit under only evolutionist professors

Yeah, it's a shame that some of our old earth brothers and sisters in Christ use the same rhetoric against young earth creationists as the atheistic secular scientists

Yeah, it sure is Well, thank you Jenny for your excellent questions

And you have won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today the great turning point the church's catastrophic mistake on geology before Darwin and we thank

New Leaf Publishing Group for supplying These books for our listeners today, and we also thank

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for sending us These copies, well,

I'm sorry for sending you those who win the book We thank the

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for shipping them out at no cost to you or to iron sharpens iron radio And we thank

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CV BBS .com CV for Cumberland Valley BBS for Bible Book Service calm and We're gonna go to a break right now.

And what I'm gonna do. Dr. Mortensen is I'm gonna email you a Two questions from another listener who is actually a scientist

Her name is Debra from Durango, Colorado and Her questions are fairly lengthy.

So I think it's a good idea if I forward you Her two questions so you could look them over a bit while we are on a station break and then

I will read The questions one by one when we return from the break

So if you're I'm assuming you're near a computer where you can read these fairly quickly

So I just sent you the two questions now And if anybody and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com chris A -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com

Please give us your first name at least your city and state in your country of residence If you live outside of the good old

USA, don't go away. We'll be right back with dr. Terry Mortensen I am Chris Arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio here to tell you about an exciting offer from world magazine my trusted source for news from a

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Eastern Time For a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in our guest today is Dr.

Terry Mortensen He is a historian of geology and researcher for answers in Genesis and we are discussing one of his books the great turning point the church's catastrophic mistake on geology before Darwin if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own

Our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com That's C -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com

Please give us your first name at least your city and state in your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA and before the break, dr. Mortensen as you know, I forwarded you two questions by a listener in Durango, Colorado named

Deborah and She says this is indeed providential I will restrain my desire to ask a dozen questions and keep it to two these two questions

Might not be exactly on the topic of the great turning point But feel free to use them if they seem to fit the discussion in any case, please earnestly.

Thank dr Mortensen for his work. Her first question is on an earlier iron sharpens iron show.

Dr Mortensen mentioned that old earth creationists generally seem to ignore young earth creationists and their research instead of engaging publicly in discussion and Interpretation of the physical data.

I believe this missing interaction is a serious problem since the secular scientists will engage neither group as Proverbs chapter 18 verse 17 says the one who states his case first Seems right until the other comes and examines him competing claims are very difficult to validate unless The various sides engage one another so that the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments emerge

Even between the various young earth creationist ministries. There seem to be limited interactions at least publicly

How can we encourage more interaction amongst scientists in the origins fields?

So that the strength of the available arguments can be ascertained by the way

This is not just for the benefit of those on the fence those of us who are committed to a young earth view

Wish to use only arguments that are valid and well substantiated and wish to avoid anyone who engages in misrepresentation no matter how lofty the goal and by the way

Our listener Deborah in Durango, Colorado Had already previously Made it clear to me that she is a scientist.

I'm not really sure what kind and what field but if you could Answer a

Deborah's first question and then we'll move on to her second one. I'm sorry

I had you and I had you on I had you on mute talking about because one of the things that I discovered in my research on the early 19th century was that the old earth geologists whether they were

Christian or not Almost completely ignored the writings of the geologically most competent scriptural geologists

They didn't refute their writings. They just ignored them and I I documented that some of these men they actually bought copies of the books by these scriptural geologists because They in those days they would often buy pre -put they they had pre -publication sales to finance the publication of the book, so The same thing has been going on For 200 years and it's going on today most

I've read a lot of older books and articles that criticize young earthers and I find in the footnotes and in the text itself

Very little evidence that they have carefully read competent young earth creationist

Research, you know, they might refer to some four -page layman's level article, but they're not dealing with The best research by our

PhD scientists, so this is a huge problem I was for a number of years involved in some closed -door meetings of old earth and young earth

Scientists and theologians at a major seminary and we'd meet for two days and we'd have a topic and we'd have a paper or two papers presented on each side old earth and young earth view and then we'd

The last night we'd we'd meet separately and prepare for Saturday morning to say what we learned new from the discussion and And Every time when our young earth group got together on Friday night

We'd say well, we didn't learn anything new Because we've been reading this older its literature for years and every morning on Saturday morning when we met

The young the old earthers would say well, we learned we learned this we learned that we didn't know that and The young earthers we just sat there and in our minds we thought well if you'd be reading our literature you would have known

It's really not a new idea that we're talking about here, so I don't know how to get older if there's to Engage or in theistic evolution is to engage with their literature

We are trying and You know, I pub I was a co -editor of a book coming to grips with Genesis Written by 14 authors most of them seminary professors

The book has been advertised and sold at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society It was reviewed in the

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society by a young earth creationist

Bible scholar, but it seems to have been just completely ignored and The great turning point as has been ignored by most

So it's it's a serious problem We we try to on our technical websites and and our popular websites

We engage with that literature by old earthers and theistic evolutionists

And we document so that people can cross -examine to see if we're representing their views accurately and quoting them accurately

But it's not going the other way very much I would also say though that there are three major websites of technical creationist research young earth creationist research and So in those venues the answers research journal that answers in Genesis as online the

Journal of Creation published by the Australian group Creation Ministries International and the

Journal of the Creation Research Society there there's very

Good interaction going on among young earth creationists disputing the finer details of the creation model so Well, perhaps

I can get my old earth creationist friend Ken samples to help me bring about some kind of ongoing dialogue

Ken is not a scientist, but he is a a theologian and philosopher with Reasons to believe and I although I disagree with Ken on the age of the earth

We have remained very close friends for quite a long time since the late 1980s And who knows and I also know

Calvin Beisner Who I'm not sure what his view on the age of the earth is but he's founder and national spokesman at the

Cornwall Alliance for the stewardship of creation and he has I know

Cal well and good friend and he has scientists that work with him on both sides of the age of the earth issue.

So Maybe maybe we could start to have some events or something that would be conducive for more dialogue between The opposing views because I I am disturbed when

I hear some of my old earth creationists Make it clear that they just want the younger folks to go away because they think that young earth creationists are an embarrassment to Christianity and that we're actually hindering the effectiveness and hindering the impact of the gospel on society because We are basically making a fool out of ourselves by holding on to a young earth and that's really disturbing to me

Yeah, let me add one other thing. I I'm very involved in the

Evangelical Theological Society And I'm the co -chairman of a steering committee for a group of four papers every year

We've been going for I don't know eight or nine years now where we have An old earth presenter or a theistic evolutionist and a young earth presenter or maybe three presenters representing theistic evolution old earth creation and young earth creation and So there is there is that kind of interaction going on And we've had topics where we've had some scientists present to the

Theological Society and others where it's been biblical and exegetical discussions and this next year at our annual meeting in November, we will be having a geologist and a

Paleontologist from both the young earth and the old earth view in kind of a debate format with each other on the edge of the earth, so We're trying there, but in the literature, there's very little interaction

I would also say that I helped lead a trip on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon a seven -day trip

We're leaving next Friday for our 10th annual trip and we invite we raise the money to heavily scholarship the trip is by invitation only for theologians and Bible scholars and we

We invite people who are older young earth or sitting on the fence undecided.

So we're trying to engage that way So Trying to make some progress great and Debra in Durango, Colorado's second question is

I previously did not think the lack of transitional forms Was a very strong argument against evolution

However, recently I realized that if evolution were responsible for the development of current life forms

Then there should be many Thousands of different classes or families of extinct animals and plants in the fossil record

Instead if I'm not mistaken almost all fossils seem to represent animals and plants currently living or slight

Modifications thereof I can think of only dinosaurs and tribulites as widely known exceptions

Is this the right way to think about the missing transitional forms argument or am

I? conflating it with a different issue No, this is a very important argument against evolution and Darwin himself devoted a whole chapter in his 1859 book to the problem that the fossil record did not support his theory and He got around it or dismissed it by saying well, we just haven't not found enough fossils

But the problem is actually worse today than it was at the time of Darwin and in 1977 the great

Harvard paleontologist and geologist Stephen Jay Gould said the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of Paleontology the evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of the branches

The rest is inference however reasonable and not the evidence of the fossils and that fact

Led him and Niles Eldridge at the University of Chicago to propose a theory that they called punctuated equilibrium that evolution happens very rapidly in Relatively short periods of time in small populations, and that's why we don't have any fossil evidence for This evolution of course the gradualists said you don't have any biological mechanism for such

Rapid evolutionary change and the Punctuated equilibrium guys said yeah, but you don't have any fossil evidence for your slow gradual

Change of one kind of creature into another and creationists just stood on the sidelines and said yep.

You're both, right You don't have any evidence And that was 1977 but Ernst Mayr who was considered the greatest evolutionist of the 20th century

Also at Harvard University and Also an atheist like Gould until his death the age of a hundred

He said this in 2001 given the fact of evolution one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to Descendants, but this is not what the paleontologists finds instead

He or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series the discovery of unbroken series of species

Changing gradually into descending species is very rare now one thing that we have to be clear however is

That species is a modern classification It's it's the most the smallest of the major classifications.

You have species genus family order and so on but creation scientists

Don't believe that the species is equivalent to the biblical classification in Genesis one of kinds and from research they believe that in most cases the created kind is at the level of What modern science classifies as family so you could have new species form, but it has nothing to do with Microbe to microbiologist evolution it's just variation within a created kind Well my co -host

Charlie Liebert of six -day creation calm has a question for you now Yeah, I one of the things

I'd like to hear you address is the concept of uniformitarianism is put forth in Lyle's principles of geology

But it goes back before that can you just kind of trace the history line as to how that comes up finally into Darwinism?

well The idea first of all of naturalism is already coming into science and in the middle of the 18th century and There were so there were people already thinking okay?

We can we can explain this by time and chance and the laws of nature They were rejecting the biblical flood flood and the biblical chronology but a very influential man was a man by a man by the name of James Hutton in Scotland and he he studied medicine at the

University But took over the family farm afterwards and his real love was geology and in 1788

He published a journal article and then seven years later. He published a book by the title theory of the earth and He died

The year that Charles Lyle was born and Lyle built on his ideas

And he was the one who really started pushing the idea of slow gradual erosion and sedimentation and he said

The continents are slowly being eroded by wind and water erosion Those sediments are carried to the creeks and the creeks take it to the rivers and dump it on the ocean floor

And then the internal heat of the earth hardens those sediments lifts them above sea level sometime later and They become new land masses which eventually will be eroded into the oceans

And so he said I can see no evidence of a beginning in the rock record it's it's just a cyclical process of erosion and sedimentation and uplift and and Lyle built on those ideas and Hutton was a pretty terrible writer.

He wrote really long sentences. They were convoluted and Lyle took those ideas and he was a brilliant advocate, you know law trained and He he made a very convincing brief

Any follow -up Charlie? Yeah, it's interesting to me that both these people Hutton and Lyle didn't have degrees or training in geology itself

One was all one was a lawyer and one was what was the other one a doctor? All right.

Yeah Up until about 1840 There were no professional geologists and you couldn't go to the university anywhere in the world and get a degree in geology

So this was the infant state of geology. They knew hardly anything about the rocks of the earth

Compared to what we know today They were driven by an anti -biblical worldview their assumptions

Were were the basis for their interpretation of the rocks and they crafted a story that sounded

Convincing to a lot of people and that's great. Thank you very much By the way,

I think I forgot to tell our listener Deborah in Durango, Colorado that she has not only won a free copy of the great turning point

The church's catastrophic mistake on geology before Darwin by our guest dr. Terry Mortensen, but since she is a first time questioner she is also winning a free

New American Standard Bible compliments of the publishers of the NASB so Deborah if you could give me your full mailing address in Durango, Colorado Because all's

I have is your city and state there and we'll have Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service ship

Those two things out to you as soon as possible Thank you very much for contributing to iron sharpens iron with your question today

And we hope to hear a lot more from you in the days weeks months and years ahead

God willing especially since you have a scientific background. So thank you very much We have

John and Simsbury, Connecticut My question is do we have my question is do we have to believe the gap theory?

To line up with science Earth's age Thanks No, you do not only not have to believe it.

You shouldn't believe it because No exegetical basis for a gap between Genesis 1 and 2 that idea was developed in the early 1800s as a knee -jerk reaction to the millions of years

This was made very popular by CI Schofield in his reference Bible, he had it the gap theory right in the marginal note of first gen of Genesis 1 to It it just it doesn't stand up under scrutiny with an open

Bible, but it also doesn't harmonize the Bible with older geology because The the order in which things appear in the fossil record according to evolution as Contradicts the order of events that we see in creation in Genesis 1 and the big problem is if you accept the millions of years you're accepting millions of years of death and bloodshed and violence and disease and extinction in the animal world before Adam sinned and That makes the curse in Genesis 3 nothing and It ends up being really an assault on the on the character of God because God looked at his whole creation at the genesis

At the end of Genesis 1 and called it very good and yet we find dinosaurs that have cancer and arthritis and other diseases

Dinosaur bones in the fossil record if those if those bones are really millions of years old We got a big big problem

There are thorns and thistles and rock layers that three three to four hundred million years old according to the evolutionists

But God said thorns and thistles came as a result of his curse on the creation. So They're huge theological problems and it doesn't harmonize

With what the evolutionists have to say So the gap theory has really

Been largely discarded by most old earthers today. It's only the older generation

The More popular views of the day age view or the framework hypothesis of theistic evolution or John Walton's view of a cosmic temple

View or John salehammers promised land view there's there's a lot of different views

Jack Jack Collins is analogical day view The gap theory is kind of falling on hard times.

Well, thanks John in Simsbury, Connecticut Give us your full mailing address because you've also won. Not only the great turning point by our guest.

Dr. Terry Mortenson But you've also won a free New American Standard Bible since you are a first -time questioner

So we look forward to having those shipped out to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CV bbs .com

we're going to a break right now And if you'd like to join us our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

Don't go away. God willing. We'll be right back after these messages with dr. Terry Mortenson Paul wrote to the church at Galatia for am

I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man if I were still trying to please man,

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Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts We strive to reflect

Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do

Than how men view these things that's not the best recipe for popularity But since that wasn't the

Apostles priority, it must not be ours either We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy

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Welcome back. This is Chris orange And if you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than an hour to go

Is dr. Terry Mortensen and we are discussing his book the great turning point The church's catastrophic mistake on geology before Darwin if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com chris Arnzen at gmail .com

Please always give us at least your first name your city and state and your country of residence If you live outside of the good old

USA before I return to our discussion with dr. Mortensen I have some very important announcements to make coming up in August the 3rd through the 5th the

Foundation Conference New England is being held in Portland, Maine and the speakers at this conference include pastor

Don Curran Who is the Eastern European coordinator with heart cry missionary society the organization founded by Paul Washer?

Also speaking is a very dear friend of mine pastor Mac Tomlinson Who is the pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas and an author of several books?

I'm also speaking as pastor Jesse Barrington of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas Which is the sister church of Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida Who has the radio station

Grace Life Radio that airs iron sharpens iron radio every day in its pre -recorded form?

Also a pastor Nate Pickowitz who we just had on this past Tuesday on iron sharpens iron radio as a guest

He is the author of reviving New England and a soon -to -be published book why we're

Protestant Pastor Nate Pickwitz is also pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmont and ironworks,

New Hampshire If you'd like to join me at the fellowship conference, New England, August 3rd through the 5th in Portland, Maine Go to fellowship conference

New England comm fellowship conference New England comm and You will find out how to register there

Then after that November the 17th through the 18th The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is conducting their

Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania The theme is for still our ancient foe

Obviously a line from Martin Luther's classic reformational hymn a mighty fortress Speakers at the

Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology include Kent Hughes Peter Jones Tom Nettles Dennis Cahill and Scott Oliphant if you would like to register for this conference from November 17th through the 18th

Go to Alliance net org Click on events and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.

That's Alliance net org Then after that we have coming up in January From the 17th of January through the 20th of January.

We have the g3 conference Returning to Atlanta, Georgia on the 17th of January.

It is a Spanish version of this conference And then the 18th through the 20th is the

English G3 conference on the theme knowing God a biblical understanding of discipleship and speakers at that Conference include

God willing Paul Washer Stephen Lawson Votie Balcom HB. Charles jr.

Tim Challis Josh Bice. Dr James R white of Alpha Omega Ministries Tom Askell Anthony Matheny and Michael Kruger David Miller Paul trip

Todd Freel Derek Thomas and Martha peace if you would like to join me at the g3 conference

Go to g3 conference comm g3 conference comm and click on g3 2018 and please make sure you look for me if you happen to go to the g3 conference look for me at my iron sharpens iron exhibitors booth

Now comes the time That I have to do something unpleasant. I have to ask for money and It's because my

Advertisers who are currently sponsoring iron sharpens iron radio have urged me to make public appeals for donations

So if you are able to donate to iron sharpens iron radio, we would love to receive a check of any amount from you

All you have to do is go to iron sharpens iron radio calm click on support and you will have an address there where you can mail can mail a check made payable to iron sharpens iron radio to that address and I Always want to remind you never ever siphon money out of your regular giving to your local church and never take food

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But if you are abundantly blessed above and beyond your ability to do those things we would love to receive any financial support that you can provide and Also, if you want to advertise with us whether your business your corporation your professional practice your church your parachurch

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Chris arnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line, but now we are taking questions for our guest

Dr. Terry Mortenson at chris arnson at gmail .com Chris a

RN Z n at gmail .com and we have a question for you. Dr. Mortenson from Scott in Bryan, Ohio Scott says recently iron sharpens iron featured a two -day creation discussion of Old Earth and New Earth topics as a layperson that has not studied geology or astronomy

I hear convincing arguments on both sides for an old and a new earth

How do we discern what is hard evidence and what is hypothetical? Also is the answers in Genesis Creation Museum affiliated with dr.

Carl bows Creation Evidence Museum in Texas, and I don't know if I have mispronounced that name

Charlie Lieber did you know how to pronounce that name? It's called bore and the answer is no, they're not affiliated. That's called bore

Yeah bore. Okay, not affiliated. Well a dr. Mortenson What our guests Scott and Bryan, Ohio is talking about as far as the two -day event we had you may have heard about it

We had old earth creationist, dr. Greg Davidson of solid rock lectures

Have one day to defend What he believed in regard to the age of the earth

He is a contributor to the book the Grand Canyon monument to an ancient earth And then on the following day, we had dr.

Taz Walker of creation ministries international also known as CMI in Australia and he was defending a young earth in that two -day event that we had and So if you could address

Scott in Bryan, Ohio's a question in regard to How do we discern what is hard evidence and what is hypothetical?

In terms of the scientific evidence you you you do have to compare opposing arguments

That are are actually talking about the same thing. So, you know, if you if you hear a presentation and it talks about Points one two and three and then you hear the opposite presentation, but they're talking about points

XYZ That doesn't help you too much because then you're saying oh

You know, those look like really good arguments on that side, but then over on this other topics Those look really good, too.

So, you know as best as you can if if you're You need to compare apples with apples.

So the authors need to be talking about the same layer in the Grand Canyon or The same geological feature so that you can compare the argument that way

And it's difficult if you're not if you're not a trained geologist But what I would encourage you to do is to try to ask.

Okay. What are the assumptions that the person has? Behind his position and if you if you sense

If you sense anti -biblical assumptions or Assumptions that sound like uniformitarian

Things that well the all that he's assuming that the rate of change that he's observed in this particular process whether it's that for example the erosion that a river is doing if he assumes that that Rate of erosion has always been the rate of erosion in the past.

That's a uniformitarian assumption and He has no scientific basis for saying that that river always has eroded the same amount that it is eroding today.

So But I think ultimately That the real question that you have to ask is what do the scriptures teach and older its proponents denied that the flood of Noah was global and I would submit that that position cannot be defended biblically

The the Genesis 6 to 8 is not describing a local flood in the Middle East I'm at a lost as to why that would be so important to them to deny a global flood.

Why on earth? Would that eat? Well, why would that even destroy an old

Earth's? Old Earth advocates position. I mean it seems like it's a strange thing to oppose adamantly

Well, the reason is because according to the secular geological

World which is what the old earth Christian Proponent is following But the secular geological world says there is no geological evidence for a global flood ever in earth history and So you really can't with any kind of logical consistency?

believe in a global flood as Genesis describes that lasted a whole year and Is described as being catastrophic because it talks about the fountains of the great deep bursting open and You can't have a global flood that leaves no geological evidence so that's just not logically possible and so they have to then say that the flood was either a myth and It's just a grand story to teach some theological truth or It was a local flood in the

Middle East in the Mesopotamian Valley, and it's described in exaggerated language

Or effect or something, but I would I've read the arguments for a local flood and they are incredibly shallow

Pardon the pun Yeah, and and they they

They are are basically cherry -picking a word here or a phrase there

But the purpose of the flood the purpose of the ark Point to a global flood if the flood was local.

There's no need to build an ark God could just tell Noah to go on a vacation to Europe or Africa And If it was a local flood there's no need to build the ark for the animals because Animals outside the flood zone don't need to go in there right birds

The birds can fly wherever they want to wherever it stops raining and even if all the animals died in the flood zone

You the animals outside will migrate in and repopulate the area. So no need for the ark and A lot of people don't pay attention to Genesis 6

It says that the purpose of the flood was not simply to destroy sinful man But also all the land air -breathing animals and verse 13 says this that the earth itself

Which meant not the whole planet but the surface of the earth where we're man and animals live

The fact that the Bible says the waters covered all the high mountains under the heavens water seeks a level plain you can't have a flood covering all the mountains in in the

Mesopotamian Valley that Just stays in the Mesopotamian Valley The ark landed on the top of a mountain in the mountains of Ararat and it was 74 days before he could see another

Another mountain so it wasn't landing in the valley somewhere The rainbow promise in Genesis 9 that God said he would never send another flood if the flood was local

God lied Because there have been many local floods that have killed some animals some people some birds and destroyed some of the earth

So we could we could talk about a lot more biblical evidence in that chapter that this was a global catastrophic year -long flood and It's impossible that it left no geological evidence in fact

We would contend that the evidence that we see of thousands of feet of sedimentary rocks on every continent

Containing billions of dead things buried in layers that were laid down by water is

Massive evidence for that flood before my co -host asked a question something just popped into my head now

Obviously, I'm sure pretty much. Everybody's aware that I'm not a scientist, although I've been called a rocket scientist

But I think it was a derogatory remark but The It seems that even some secular scientists believe that there have been massive shifts in the positions of continents on the earth and that even continents were once joined together with other continents and then broke away it would seem that a global flood

Would help explain why that may have happened. Am I wrong on that? I'm not a scientist, but it would just seem as a layperson

Yeah, that that's that's very good thinking. But the problem is you see

Most scientists are not believers most secular geologists certainly aren't and If you're going to accept a global flood you're confronted with a holy

God and if you're not prepared to bow the knee and And repent of your sins and trust in Christ.

You cannot entertain The notion of the existence of a holy creator who would judge a world now

Why would why would the idea of a global flood? Necessitate or require the belief in God?

Well Well because it would it would point to the truth of the book of Genesis For one if you did have a global flood

Well, I guess you'd have to believe that then evolution completely started over and all the creatures that died in the global flood

They evolved into existence again a second time Because the creatures in the fossil record are very very similar to the creatures we have alive today

So then you're going to have to really have a lot of faith that evolution didn't just happen once It happened twice

And by the way, Scott in Bryan, Ohio, you have also won a free copy of the book

We are discussing the great turning point by our guest. Dr. Terry Mortensen So, please make sure we have your full mailing address and thank you

Once again for contributing a great question to our program and now Charlie Liebert my co -host.

Yes Believe in what they call continental drift that the

Mid -Atlantic Ridge is Spreading it. I think they say from the satellite

Five centimeters a year or something. So they say North American Europe and South American Africa have been drifting apart but they use a uniformitarian assumption that the rate of Movement now has always been the rate of movement

Creation scientists who've studied this issue in depth and developed some computer modeling contend for Continental sprint that at the at the during the flood you had a catastrophic breakup of the pre -flood world

Into the present arrangement that we have Great. Well Charlie Liebert of six day creation calm now has a question

Yeah, I wanted to make a comment more the question One of the things that that's true here is that they deny the flood for a reason of related to their presuppositions

Because if all that thousands of feet of deposited rock It has to happen slowly

Because if they concede to happen quickly, then they're back to destroying their own model So their own presuppositions here are forcing them into saying they can't be a global flood

Because all this water deposit stuff's got to happen over millions and millions of years Yep And and then the rock record is not the record of the evolution of life over millions of years

It's the evidence of the death of all life in that global flood exactly

That's the key point key point We have another listener and I thank Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama I thank him for giving me an email with giant size fonts because he's been hearing me complaining

About how tiny the font is on many of the emails. I'm getting But Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama says

First I want to say how much I am enjoying Dr. Mortensen's book on Adam It has given me a lot to think about as I wrestle with the old earth young earth question

I have also listened to some of his debates on YouTube and they have been helpful as well

Now my question is I've always been curious as to why no one before Bishop Usher Appears to have calculated the earth the age of the earth

Using the biblical genealogies, it seems most unbelievable to me that it would have taken 17 centuries for someone to come up with this idea your answer to Ted's question dr.

Mortensen Well, it is unbelievable and it's actually false There have been many many

Scholars during the last 2 ,000 years who have tried to calculate the age of the earth based on the genealogies and other in Genesis 5 and 11 and other

Chronological information scattered through the rest of the Old Testament and New Testament the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 only give us the time between Adam and Abraham and so we've got to look elsewhere to Figure out, you know when

Abraham lived so Usher was not the only one he was just Became the most famous one because he he was an excellent scholar

Contrary to the way. He's often pictured today as a buffoon, he was he was one of the most brilliant men of his day a very careful scholar of not only the biblical text but also ancient literature and We don't we don't treat him as our

Pope. We don't believe that he was infallible, but he was he was not He was not hopelessly ignorant and We think he was he was he was in the right ballpark and there are lots of different dates for the age of the earth

I Can't pull it up on my computer real quickly here But we've got a chart on our website and one of the articles that lists about 15 or 20 different calculations and they range from Oh probably about 3900

BC to maybe six or up to maybe 7 ,000 or six to seven thousand years it depends on whether the genealogies in Matthew 5 and 11 in the

Masoretic Hebrew text are the correct years of the patriarchs or whether the

Subtuagent which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament done about 250 years before Christ whether the the numbers in Genesis 5 and 11 in that Text are right.

There's slightly different in a in a few places So that's what has led scholars to differ on their calculations

But there have been a lot of a lot of efforts Besides usher now, where do you know where Ted got that idea?

It might just be because the other the other Calculations are not widely known. So usher is ushers dates were in the

Bibles all the way up to the 19th and Hello.

Yeah, I can hear you but you cut out a couple of times. I think it may be on your end Somebody tried to call maybe oh, yeah, probably

The Yeah, so ushers dates went into the margins of Bibles up until the 19th century and and maybe even some

Bibles Farther than that. Yeah, but what about before usher though? That's what his main thesis was.

Yeah well You know, I don't know. I don't know how far before usher

I do know that for example Augustine or Augustine, however, you prefer to pronounce his name

He said that that the The time from his time to Adam was less than 6 ,000 years

So that was the fourth century He didn't do a detailed calculation, but he took the genealogies in Genesis 5 to 11 as literal and Chronological he believed that the patriarchs before the flood lived, you know an average of 900 years

That all is literal history Well Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, you have also won a free copy of the great turning point

This is a $25 book folks a really substantial work here By our guest.

Dr. Terry Mortenson, and we thank again New Leaf Publishing Group for supplying us with these books

We also thank Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service For shipping out these books to our listeners who have won them and don't forget the website of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service cv bbs .com

CV for Cumberland Valley BBS for Bible Book Service calm We're gonna be going to our final break right now

And if you have a question join us before we run out of time by sending it now Our email address is

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

USA So don't go away. God willing. We'll be right back after these messages with dr.

Terry Mortenson and more of our discussion on the age of the earth before Darwin One sure way all iron sharpens iron radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers

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That's the private story Welcome back.

This is Chris Zarnes and we're gonna go right to some of our questions for dr. Terry Mortensen We have

Seth in Greensboro, North Carolina Who says does the age of the sea the ocean aid in support of the young earth view if so, in what way?

Okay. Well, I Don't know of any effort to date the water, but there there are

There are dating methods related to the ocean one is to measure the amount of salt in the ocean and How much salt is going into the ocean and how much is leaving the ocean and There are various ways for salt to be added to the ocean and to leave the ocean and so it's probably been 10 or 15 years ago now that Dr.

Steve Austin and another scientist Dr. Russell Humphreys is a physicist

Search the scientific literature for all the estimates of the annual ways the annual amounts of salt that are being added to the ocean from various ways and being removed from the ocean and What the present salt content of the ocean is and then using uniformitarian assumptions that the rate of salt going in It's actually more is going in than is leaving so this the oceans are getting saltier over time but if we assume the uniformitarian assumption

That the rate the present rate that we can observe and calculate has always been the rate

Then Austin and Humphreys calculated that the maximum age for the ocean is 62 million years

Well, they don't believe that's the true age because Noah's Flood would have pumped a lot of salt into the ocean during the year -long event

But 62 million years even using the uniformitarian assumptions is totally out of sync with the evolutionist view

Another you could look at is the amount of sediments on the ocean floor and the erosion rates

The amount of sediments that all the river systems are bringing to the ocean and Again that the age even using uniformitarian assumptions.

It doesn't fit the evolutionary story. So those are a couple of ways that the

Evidence for the age of the ocean don't fit with evolution I think we're all getting saltier over the years aren't we that was a stupid question set up only kidding

Seth thank you very much for the question and You have also won

Seth a free copy of the great turning point by our guest. Dr.

Terry Mortensen So make sure you give us your full mailing address. Thank you very much for contributing your question to the program today and we have

Let's see we have Sterling pastor

Sterling van der Werker also from Greensboro, North Carolina pastor of Shepherds Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina And he asks or what is the best current resource in print on the radiometric?

dating errors I would say

Well, there's there's a layman's book That was written by written at a lay level by oh

My mind is going blank blank a little bit. He's a professor of physics at Grace College in Winona Lake And his name will probably come to me here in a second, but he wrote a book thousands not billions

And it summarized About seven years of very technical research that resulted in two 700 page technical volumes

He summarized the results of that research in that book thousands not billions and that's available on the answers in Genesis website

It's just a short book of about oh, maybe a hundred hundred twenty pages for lay people

If if you want something a little bit more meaty than that you can get the actual technical research

It's called the rate research which stands for radio isotopes in the age of the earth

And there were eight or nine PhD geologists geophysicists and physicists involved in that research a

Lot of that is summarized in dr. Andrew Snelling's two -volume work Earth catastrophic past it's two volume 1100 page book

By Andrew. It's really his life work and he's got a number of Chapters related to radiometric dating and he's one of the lead creationist researchers on that That whole issue

Today that book is also available from the answers in Genesis website, which is answers in Genesis org earth

Catastrophic past first hundred pages or so presents the biblical arguments for a young earth and global flood and then the rest of the two volumes deals with geology very readable, but thoroughly footnoted and and a very thorough bibliography for Any PhD reader who wants to really search the literature?

Well, thank you very much pastor Sterling van der Werker, and you've also won the great turning point So, please make sure you give us your full mailing address there in Greensboro, North Carolina and Yes, can

I just add one thing? I found that article related to Different dates or estimates of the age of the earth and if if you're reading your listener goes to our website and searches for Odie B ODIE That's the first name of the author and how old is the earth is his article and he's got several charts

Showing and documenting all the different peoples that have tried to calculate the age of the earth

So this would be answers in Genesis org you're talking about right answers in Genesis org

Great, and we'll repeat that before we conclude the program and Now I've got a question from an old friend of mine that I haven't spoken with in years it's

Joey from Clifton, New Jersey and He used to be a member of the church where I was a member before moving to Pennsylvania Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island located in Merrick, New York and Joey from Clifton, New Jersey Says I'm encountering

Christians who hold to an old earth while saying they embrace biblical creation In this view the earth is old while mankind is young Created but I see this as opening the door to theistic evolution

Because if Christians allow for long ages of the planet, the next step is to compromise the age of mankind

Are you seeing this trend? Are there any good? References books you recommend for those who believe in creation, but have compromised on the age of the earth

Yes, I would I Would recommend for for an in -depth study

Coming to grips with Genesis 14 authors defending the young earth view Biblically and theologically and historically not not any science chapters and then the book that I edited last year searching for Adam Which is a defense of a literal

Adam biblically theologically historically Paleontologically genetically archaeologically anatomically and ethically

So it's a full -blown defense of Adam and I wrote the chapter on when

Adam was created arguing biblically and then the chapter on genetics

The two geneticists that wrote that argued that actually the mutation rates that we see in the human genome

Confirm the biblical date for humanity not the evolutionary date I want to I want to second your your nomination for that book.

I've read that book and that book is incredibly good This is Charlie Liebert my co -host speak. The book is incredibly good.

Thank you for putting that in The 14 authors that was a great book But I think your listener is is right to be concerned because once you start undermining the

Bible's teaching about the chronology related to the earth your

You're undermining the foundations for believing what it says about Adam and that's what we're seeing happening

Today in a lot of our seminaries evangelical seminaries They are they're drifting towards evolution and even questioning the existence of a literal

Adam and a literal fall so that that's that's subversive to the gospel in serious ways, so And and one of the points that Well, I've mentioned two points related to the age of the earth that a lot of people haven't thought about and it's one

I've already mentioned earlier in the program and that is if you accept millions of years then you're accepting what the secular geologists say about the geological record and you are then accepting that there was millions of years of death and bloodshed and violence and disease and asteroid impacts wiping out whole species

Extinction all of that in the animal world in a time period before Adam that God called very good, which is a serious serious theological problem and I have found that most old earth proponents have either completely ignored that issue or Just offered very very superficial objections to the young earth position usually stating objections that we dealt with Several years ago the other key verse is

Exodus 20 verse 11 the fourth at commandment God tells the children of Israel to work six days and rest on the seventh and he gives the reason

He said for in six days the Lord made the heavens the earth the sea and all that is in them

So he didn't make anything before the six days. You can't have a gap before the six days and He made everything in six days and he uses the same word for day

Yom, it's actually the plural yamim that he used in the first part of the commandment.

So it that verse could not be more clear and Otherwise, you'd have a

Sabbath lasting in millions of years Yeah, and I have found in my reading that most old earth proponents completely ignore the fourth commandment

But it is a critical verse and it rules out putting millions of years anywhere in Genesis 1 or before Genesis 1 the

Charlie Lieber does another make I'd make a comment on the Exodus 2011 verse That that's not just a verse in scripture.

Although we will the scriptures inspired that's a verse that was inscribed on the tablet We're talking about God giving that directly to Moses So To me it all scripture bears the same weight

But it bears just an incredible thing that God actually wrote that intentionally to tell

Moses in six days By the way, I have to confess something I have discovered something that I believe is the strongest argument for an old earth

Last Christmas I bit into a fruitcake that is made me convinced that that that thing has been passed around for millions of years family

Yeah, anyway, I'm sorry I digress well, thank you Joey in Clifton, New Jersey and You're getting a free copy of The great turning point by our guest.

Dr. Terry Mortenson. And so please give us your full mailing address. And by the way Joey You have also won since you're a first -time questioner to iron sharpens iron radio

You've also won a free New American Standard Bible compliments of the publishers of the NASB and that and those two items will be shipped

Out to you compliments of our friends at the Cumberland Valley Bible book service

CV for Cumberland Valley BBS for Bible book service comm We have

Joe in Slovenia Dear brother Chris I've heard that the reason that the church rejected the young earth view for the old earth view

Was the result of the Enlightenment idea that man was autonomous not needing to explain reality with reference to God Is this consistent with dr.

Mortenson's research great guest great show That's Joe in Slovenia Yes, I think

I think the Enlightenment was what was preparing the ground for these older ideas and Man divorced himself from God and from his word and Asserted his own autonomy to discover truth apart from God and apart from his word

Well, thank you Joe in Slovenia. You have won the final copy of the great turning point by our guest.

Dr. Terry Mortenson Thank you for providing an American address where your daughter lives where we can have this book shipped

Compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible book service and we also want to thank again the generous and gracious folks

At New Leaf Publishing Group who supplied us with these books that we gave away today they have been very supportive of iron sharpens iron radio and making our programs even more of a blessing because every time we interview a

New Leaf Publishing Group Author they supply us with books to make our audience much happier

So thanks again to New Leaf Publishing Group and their website by the way is NLPG .com

NL for New Leaf PG for public publishing group calm and What was the controversy that rocked the church in the 19th century

England When what was the specific controversy it involved that rocked the church in 19th century

England Well the controversy over the over the age of the earth and geology.

Yes. Well The church was embracing much of the church was embracing the the older geological theories and Departing from you cut out there.

Dr. Mortenson. Are you getting another phone call? Yeah, I think so that's all right, we'll just ignore it yeah and And who were the scriptural geologists

Well, they were a group of authors who wrote about 1820 to 1850 they wrote anywhere from 30 page pamphlets to two volumes 700 page books and they were raising biblical

Geological and philosophical arguments against these old earth ideas

Some of them as I document in the book the great turning point some of them were very

Geologically competent by the standards of their day both by field work going out and actually looking at rock layers and fossils and By reading the geological literature of their day.

They were every bit as competent as them as The men that were developing these older theories

Others were just raising biblical arguments, but they were very discerning and spotted false

Reasoning and Arguments that didn't follow from the stated facts and so they had some helpful comments to make

We have BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and BB wants to know

Why are the Many of the old earth creation is convinced that the young earth creationists are actually knowingly being dishonest and They're basically just trying to make money with all these museums and tourist attractions and so on That's a

BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. How do you respond to something like that that because I've heard accusations like that, too

Yeah well I'm certainly not getting rich haha

In fact, you're more prone to becoming a laughingstock in the scientific community by being a young earth creationist sure sure and and even

Rejected by most of evangelical academia, so it's not it's not a

It's not a fun thing to be a young earth creationist. We're not creationist because we're trying to win a popularity contest

Creationist because we believe that the Bible is the inspired and errant authoritative

Word of God and that it clearly teaches Young earth creation if the Bible didn't clearly teach that we wouldn't be defending it and so that that kind of accusation is

That's an ad hominem attack. It's an attack against people. It's impugning the motives

And it's it's really a diversion from the real issue and the real issue is are our biblical arguments consistent with scripture when you open your

Bible and look at it carefully and Do our scientific criticisms of evolution and millions of years and our arguments for a a creationist model are they

Compelling to you and so everybody has to do their own thinking on that But it's not wrong to build a creation museum

It's not there to make people rich It's there to communicate the truth and it's not wrong to build the ark

I mean lots of churches spend millions of dollars on their facilities But anybody who's been to the ark

The ark encounter. I think unless they're a hardened atheist They have been blown away by the quality of the exhibits the thoughtfulness the fact that we are not browbeating people

We're not Attacking people. We're just presenting the truth as we believe the the evidence supports and letting people think for themselves and so We are we are convinced that we serve a great

God and he is worthy of our best effort. And so We didn't build an ark with paper mache and flannel grass

We thought we think why shouldn't God's people in honor of his glorious name do the very best that we can in In what we present to the believing and unbelieving world.

And so that's our commitment We're pursuing excellence for his glory not to make a name for ourself or to get rich No, are there any such?

museums or tourist attractions or anything else that you'd You can think of as a way of describing these

These things that you're speaking of are there any that you know of that? You do not recommend.

I mean a A Museum or a tourist attraction or an exhibit is only as good as the people who are running it and you might have cults running things like that you might have charlatan

Christians having a carnival atmosphere That really detracts from the seriousness of the biblical concepts being trying to be conveyed in these events and in these places

Are there places that you do not recommend? I don't

I don't know of anybody that I would say. No, you shouldn't go there. That's really cheesy

It's really inaccurate Our Creation Museum and ARC are obviously the largest of their kind but they're not the only ones and there are smaller ones in this country and in other countries and so but again

Every person needs to have their brain engaged and think critically and not just accept something just because it's

Christian but to open their Bibles and and to think carefully at what they're they're saying, but you know, all the secular museums are top -notch because they are trying to persuade the audience about evolution and millions of years and So they have they have gone to great expense to build

Animatronic dinosaurs and beautiful colorful displays and a lot of them are funded by the government

Yeah, they're funded by the government and they spend a lot more money than than we have So we would just urge people to come and see the

ARC encounter. We're approaching 1 million visitors after our first year of operation and Our Creation Museum just celebrated our 10th

Anniversary and we've had we're having over 300 ,000 people a year and Anybody who comes unless they're rabidly atheist and close -minded

They walk away even if they disagree and say it is very well presented.

It's not You know crammed down your throat you're allowed to just go through and look at it at your own pace and Think critically and nobody's going to browbeat you and and our staff have had all kinds of Compliments for the gracious way that they treat our guests

So I just urge people to to go and have a look for yourself and think for yourself and we have 90 seconds for you to Conclude with a summary of what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today,

Terry well, my My deep burden as I see what's going on in our country as we sink into moral insanity and Confusion and as I see as someone who's passionate about Theological education as I see more and more seminaries compromising on this issue

We in answers in Genesis are calling for another Reformation. This is the 500th year anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation and We are saying we need to metaphorically speaking nail

Genesis 1 to 11 on the doors of our churches and So I would just urge my all of my

Christian listeners Listening to me on this program to to read

Genesis 1 to 11 Carefully and really ask the question. Is this really describing?

Creation over millions of years and a local flood and and a man evolving from an ape -like creature

Is that really what it's saying? I don't think it is and we need to we need to submit to the authority of the

Word of God We have a crisis in our country and in the church and around the world

I just came back from Romania Czech Republic and Austria speaking and They got the same problem over there

And very quickly, can you answer a Karen from Waynesboro, Georgia She wants a good study

Bible that upholds the integrity of Scripture regarding the origin issues very quickly

Amen I Use the rivalry study Bible and he's not Infallible and you have to always remember that the notes are not a commentary on the

Bible The Bible is a commentary on the notes But it's a very good study Bible and go to NAS Bible calm for that Bible NAS Bible calm

And as far as answers in Genesis that website is answers in Genesis org answers in Genesis org thank you so much, dr.

Terry Mortenson for being our guest today and Karen if you could give me your full mailing address because you've won an

NAS Bible a New American Standard Bible We need your full mailing address. I want to thank Charlie Lieber also for being my co -host today

Thanks for coming into the studio Charlie. Thanks I want I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater