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Ultimate Questions: Evolution
13 Plays19 days ago
There are four essential questions every worldview must answer: How did I get here? What is my purpose for being here? How should I live while I am here? What happens when I die? Today Paul and Dustin explore how the naturalistic evolutionary worldview stacks up to these ultimate questions.
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Transcript
Introduction to Worldviews and Evolution
00:00:13
Speaker
Well, welcome in to another edition of Answering Pilot. Dustin, glad to see you. Glad to be back. Yep. And today we're going to be talking about worldview issues, ultimate questions.
00:00:26
Speaker
We want to get specific with reference to the doctrine or or the theory of evolution, per se. But just as we wade into it, I think maybe maybe most of the folk that listen to us are aware of this, but You know, everybody has a worldview and the things that you not only believe and say and put into practice comes from a worldview. You know, the way you view the world, the the set of assumptions that you just, ah you know, they're there sometimes they're just most of the time they're
00:00:58
Speaker
you know they're You're not consciously thinking about those assumptions. You just have them. And so, ah you know I assume that God is real, and so that affects how I view the world.
00:01:09
Speaker
and And there are those who assume that God is not real, and so that that affects how they view the world, and so that makes
Influence of Worldviews on Beliefs and Laws
00:01:15
Speaker
sense. When we're talking about, just by way of example, civil government, you know a lot of folks say, well,
00:01:21
Speaker
You know, we need to be neutral. You know, we need to come up with laws that everybody can agree on. Well, the problem is there there is no such thing as neutrality. Right. Philosophically speaking, any law that you make comes from some kind of worldview.
00:01:36
Speaker
And so it's rooted in biblical Christianity or rooted in something else. And so the same is true with reference to economics. The same is true with reference to science. Hence the discussion on ultimate questions in evolution. Yeah, we would call these presuppositions.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yep. Would be another another term that gets used. That's right. That's basically the the definition of what a presupposition is, is that's our starting point. Where where do you and all of us have them, as you said?
00:02:05
Speaker
Every human being has something that they presuppose. They have a starting point of something that they believe about the world and everything else that they believe stems from that. Yeah, that's And so, yeah, we're going to apply that to yeah the theory of where did we come from. Yeah, exactly.
00:02:24
Speaker
And, you know, not to get too bogged down, I think, again, most of our listeners are pretty informed. but we're hoping that there are some listeners who maybe haven't thought about these things so just real quick illustration we came in here a few moments ago at our undisclosed location we joke about that it's top secret looks like we're in like a abandoned warehouse or something but uh we're not it's just an abandoned mill but that's okay we just found that cave Yeah, yeah, the Batcave, yeah. Yeah, we're just walking through the woods one day and happened upon this space, so here we are. But, no, but we walked in a few minutes ago, the lights, so you know, it was dark, we hit the switch.
00:03:04
Speaker
Well, we assume that when we hit that switch, the lights are going to come on, which presupposes... that somebody's paid the electric bill, right which presupposes that somebody's wired this thing, that ah the wires are in good working order, that the light bulbs are in good working order. bulbs are in good working That's right. And, you know, the electric power plant in this part of the world is working, et cetera. So we don't think about it. Just flip the switch. And only when the lights don't come on, wait, what's happening here? All right. So anyway.
00:03:35
Speaker
um So let's get back to those foundational presuppositions that that we're going to be talking about through Ultimate Questions.
00:03:45
Speaker
You know, everybody, you know, Everybody at one level or another wrestles with certain unalt certain ultimate questions, maybe not as intentionally or as consciously as others.
00:03:57
Speaker
Some maybe maybe never, but we should. And there are a whole host of ultimate questions, but I kind of, like a lot of others, boil it down to four.
The Four Ultimate Questions
00:04:07
Speaker
Where do I come from?
00:04:08
Speaker
Why am I here? How do I live now that I am here? What happens when I die? sure That's what we mean by ultimate question. So question of origin, where do I where do i come from?
00:04:20
Speaker
Question of purpose, why am I here? Meaning, question of ethics or morality, how do I live now that am And then a question of destiny, what happens when I die? Those are big questions. That's what we mean by ultimate questions.
00:04:32
Speaker
And... um The reason we're going to talk about evolution, and we're not really critiquing evolution as a whole, we can do that, maybe we will down the road, but we're just trying to to talk about things at a worldview level. This profitable for evangelism, for defending the Christian worldview.
00:04:51
Speaker
um And we're going to talk about, i would say, over time, different issues like relativism from at a presuppositional level. We've we've already, just in in our just our dialogues over the past several weeks, we've already talked about lots of things at a presuppositional level. We just haven't pointed it out. And so I think Christians in particular need to learn to think at a worldview level. That's that's the way I would put it.
00:05:19
Speaker
yeah you know when you're doing evangelism or defending the faith or whatever the case may be or or when you're just trying to make decisions i mean there's a ah personal practical application as well now don't only get too bogged down as i do typically but um you know think about evolution i mean when you think about that you know the the bottom line is they presuppose there is no god so it's a naturalistic way to explain how we got here what our purpose is, how we should live, et cetera.
00:05:50
Speaker
And we're gonna say before all is said and done that they can't explain any of that on their worldview. right And that's why the Christian worldview is so powerful. We used a term the other day,
Metaphysical Capital and Evolution
00:06:00
Speaker
metaphysical capital.
00:06:02
Speaker
And what we mean by that is metaphysical being capital. We could say philosophical power or metaphysical power, but capital is like, we usually think of capital as money. Well, you can spend money, you can do all kinds of things with money. right Well, metaphysical capital just means it has explanatory power. Evolution has no real explanatory power in terms of those ultimate questions. I know a lot of folks think it does, but it doesn't.
00:06:29
Speaker
In fact, the only worldview that has genuine explanatory power is the biblical worldview. And that's really why we want to learn to think at a worldview level and a presuppositional level sure and dialogue on that level. So that's where we're coming from.
00:06:41
Speaker
And we'll we'll talk about it more over time. But with reference to evolution, i mean, let's just sort of wade into it by, okay, according evolution, where do we come from?
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah. and There's different theories yeah within an evolutionary mindset, but ah somewhere along the line, some organism or cell split or evolved, began to change and adapt to its environments yeah to become a different organism. yeah And then that organism adapted to become a different organism and and yeah so so on and so forth down the chain. yeah And so we got to Homo sapiens. Yeah.
00:07:23
Speaker
That's right. You got this whole issue of macroevolution, you know, um you know ah a cat can become a dog or something like that. And I'm just, I'm oversimplifying.
00:07:33
Speaker
The way you you put it was a little bit different, but I mean a little bit better. You know, like ah you got this... sea creature and all of a sudden somehow it develops rather than gills lungs and begins to crawl on the ground um so macroevolution and there's no real evidence for that and we're going to talk about that i would think too at a future date but um you know i was thinking too if you go back even further How did the entire, see evolution, and I like the way you put it, you said, i forget the words you used, but you said there there are different explanations, and that's true, but but really evolution is is um really a subset of the naturalistic worldview.
00:08:18
Speaker
Okay, well, what does that say? so let's just go there. Well, it says that at some point, You know, there was nothing. but So the universe is not eternal. They used to think it was eternal, but the universe is not eternal. They know that.
00:08:31
Speaker
And so at some point there was nothing. Now, the question is just when you think of nothing, what do we mean? Well, we don't mean empty space, you know, no planets, no stars, but just empty black space. Well, empty black space is something. Something. Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
And so they're saying at some point there was nothing, and then there was something. And again, the question then is, at least in my mind, okay, well, hot what listen, it's the question in everybody's mind. How does something come from nothing? And we actually have scientific laws. I mean, there are laws that something can't come from nothing, right?
00:09:06
Speaker
Life can't come from non-life. and Order can't come from chaos. what What are these... Oh, my goodness. It just went out of my head. But they're the first few laws. The the the laws of thermodynamics. Thank you, thermodynamics. Yeah, see, there you go.
00:09:20
Speaker
um Listen, i was a philosophy major. Didn't do math. Didn't do science. Didn't do English. I could go down the list. I'm just kidding. But um didn't do philosophy. Great. But anyway, so yeah, so something came from nothing. That's their explanation. And that's part of what I mean when I say, well, there's no real explanatory power there because we know that's not possible. It's not possible on their worldview. It's not. Yeah, it's it's a scientific law because it's never been observed.
00:09:51
Speaker
to be true. yeah We've never seen that ever repeated again throughout recorded history where something came to be out of nothing. yeah Something had to have something to start with yeah to become whatever it became. That's right. And so according to the laws of science, if it if it can't be observable and repeatable, then it can't be a scientific fact. Yeah, that's right.
00:10:18
Speaker
And um and we all we all agree with the scientific method. And of course, the more things we you know investigate, the more science changes because we learn new things and scientists will readily tell you that.
00:10:29
Speaker
But nevertheless, there are certain laws that govern the universe. and um so there's no real explanatory power or metaphysical capital, to use a different phrase, in that evolutionary worldview with reference to how we got here.
00:10:43
Speaker
just violates the laws of science, the laws of nature. But with reference to the Christian worldview, and we haven't even got into what we want to talk about yet. we're just This is just kind of a lengthy intro, which we're prone to do.
00:10:55
Speaker
But my fault may be. But anyhow, the Christian worldview has explanatory power because we believe that God exists outside of time and space.
00:11:08
Speaker
And by the way, I'm not saying this proves the existence of God. right But I'm saying at a philosophical, you know, at a worldview level or from a philosophical perspective,
00:11:19
Speaker
Our worldview, and that's not all we're going to say, so hang on, but our worldview has explanatory power. Something cannot come from nothing. Well, we presuppose the existence of God, and God is eternal. He had no beginning. He has no end.
00:11:36
Speaker
He's not bound by time and space. He's not part of this universe. right He's outside the universe. And so he spoke, and the universe came into being. God is being itself. This is what he said to to Moses, I am that I am. And so that's ah that's a metaphysical truth claim. I am existence itself, essentially, is what he's saying. Yeah, it it wasn't just a name.
00:12:00
Speaker
Right. He was explaining something about his nature yeah when he called himself I am that I Yeah, I am that I am. So, yeah, and and we often overlook that as Christians because... ah Anyway, we just do. We don't think at that level.
00:12:14
Speaker
But here here you are all the way back in Genesis, and man, it's right there. It's like, whoa. So anyway, so we believe God exists outside of time and space. And so just to sort of highlight that Christian worldview, yeah you know, well, let's go back. Evolutionary worldview, where do I come from?
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's that process, but how did that process get started? Well, something came from nothing. Okay, well, that doesn't make sense. Essentially, we're here by accident. I mean, it's just a random chance of yes with it.
00:12:44
Speaker
some of them Some scientists call it like a quantum fluctuation. How do you have a quantum fluctuation when there's nothing there? Right, yeah, there still has to be a cause yeah for that to happen, whether it's the Big Bang or whatever. this Something still has to cause the bang. Okay. That's right. which again in contrast to the biblical worldview we believe that god is the cause yes of life yeah um that there was a time when the physical universe didn't exist and there was a time before time but
00:13:15
Speaker
God caused things to come into being. That's right. But in the evolutionary theory, there's no cause. Right. So whether you accept that there was some sort of free matter that existed or there really was nothing, something still had to be a cause. Yeah. And there's no explanation for that cause would be. Yeah, that's right.
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, so there was ah an original cause. I'm going way back in my philosophy days now. think Anselm referred to it as ah the unmoved mover. So anyway, just throwing that out. Like I said, i didn't I didn't listen too much when I was in college, but anyway.
00:13:55
Speaker
No. So I want to come back to those ultimate questions, but let's just talk about evolution for just a moment. I want to talk about evolution versus religion, if that's okay. Okay.
00:14:07
Speaker
And again, i i don't want to sound like we're jumping around because that was just sort of an intro. Okay. So evolution versus religion. The reality is we're told that evolution.
00:14:20
Speaker
wo Do you know of anybody anybody that calls evolution religion? and No. No. Certainly not anyone that believes in evolution. Right. Right. That's what I mean. Right. Those. And by the way, to go ahead. So did i interrupt you? No. Seems like I can interrupt you. Sorry. Sorry.
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah, they call it science. And a lot of folk call it settled science. Well, it's certainly not settled science, and real scientists know that. In fact, it is a fact that most ah genuine scientists today, whether Christian or not Christian, I'm talking about even atheists, they'll tell you that that Darwinian evolution is full of holes. and they They don't really buy into Darwinian evolution anymore. That's a side issue. That's not what we're talking about. But I just find it to be interesting.
00:15:03
Speaker
But they say that evolution is science and Christianity is religion. And that's why, you know, well, we're going to teach evolution in in school, but we're not going to teach Christianity in school. Okay, I understand that. There's that attempt to be neutral.
00:15:17
Speaker
Problem is... It's definitely not neutral. Right. Because, again, it's anti-religion. It's anti-God. Yep. So it's not taking a neutral position. It's right it's standing in opposition to faith. Yeah.
00:15:32
Speaker
And it's rooted in ah and a particular set of presuppositions, rooted in a particular worldview. And I guess I want to stay organized because if I don't, you know, we again, we could take five episodes just on this one one topic yeah and we may talk about different things. It's like we've done that before. Yeah, I think so.
00:15:51
Speaker
But as we've said, christian Christians have a worldview, but evolutionists have a worldview. We both have certain presuppositions, as as you said.
00:16:02
Speaker
And so we assume, as I said earlier, that God exists. Evolutionists assume that there is no God. Now, here's the reality. None of us were here when the universe came to be.
00:16:14
Speaker
And so, again, when when we talk about science versus religion, i think one of the things—maybe I'm just going have to get out of order because I don't want to be i don't want to be bogged down with with our notes, ah e etc. But the point is, if I'm thinking about evolution and religion, okay,
00:16:38
Speaker
I just said, you just said, we just said that we believe that God
Faith Claims and Evidence in Origins
00:16:43
Speaker
exists. We believe he's the particular God, the God of the Bible. So he's independent, self-existent, eternal, all kinds of other things. He's always been.
00:16:53
Speaker
And so we believe what he has told us about the origin of the universe. And I have no problem calling that religion. Sure. Right? Okay. and And we weren't here when the universe came to be, but he says he created it.
00:17:06
Speaker
And so we take him at his word. Now, evolutionists, they weren't here either. And so they this is why you have so many, and you said so many different theories. And that's true. Was it a big bang?
00:17:19
Speaker
Was it something else? i mean, there are different ways of explaining that. Not all evolutionists hold to the Big Bang. a lot of them do, but some them hold to to other theories. And the reason you have so many theories is they don't they weren't here. They don't know what happened.
00:17:33
Speaker
So here's the question. Do they take it on faith? They do, yes. That's exactly what they do. And, course, they'll tell you well, it's science. Just hang on. Well, they they take what they believe on faith, just like we take what we believe on faith. So we're each making a faith claim, and while I don't have...
00:17:57
Speaker
incontrovertible proof that God spoke the universe into existence, and neither do they have incontrovertible proof that there was whatever their explanation, that that something came from nothing. In fact, we have incontrovertible proof that says otherwise because these scientific laws. right Life can't come from non-life.
00:18:15
Speaker
The laws of thermodynamics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, again, in order for something to be a scientific fact, we're going keep coming back to this, but it has to be observable and repeatable.
00:18:27
Speaker
So if no one was there, it couldn't be observed, um and we can't recreate it. Yeah. No pun intended. Yeah. but we can't recreate those circumstances to observe how it would have happened and so if none of those things are true then it can't be a scientific fact yeah so just like we said with god creating by the word of his mouth We can't say that's a scientific fact because according to the scientific method, we couldn't observe it.
Operational vs Historical Science
00:18:57
Speaker
We can't repeat it. yeah So we have to accept that by faith. We understand that. We acknowledge that. But the evolutionist also needs to acknowledge that he is accepting his perception of how it all began on faith. Yeah, that's right.
00:19:12
Speaker
Not on scientific. No, that's exactly right. And what you're talking about with the observable, repeatable scientific method, you're talking about what the scientists call, and we affirm, operational science or I think there's another word, but we'll just stay there.
00:19:32
Speaker
You've got the scientific method behind it. And um operational science Gosh, we have to have it, right? ah If you're having chest pain, they can go in, they can do an EKG.
00:19:45
Speaker
that We warrant something more than that, like a catheterization. catheterization, you put the dye in the arteries. Oh my gosh, you've got a blockage or you don't have a blockage. but So we know what to do. We we have those kinds of things. or how to build a rocket ship and send it into space and bring it back and all the rest. Okay, all of this is is operational science or a experimental science, observational science, whatever you want to call it. Flipping the light switch and knowing that the circuit's going to connect to make the light bulb light up. operation Operational science.
00:20:16
Speaker
Then you've got another discipline that the scientists refer to as historical science. So operational science is, okay, well, we test this, you know, formulate the hypothesis, the theory, the law.
00:20:28
Speaker
It's all scientific method. But historical science is, okay, well, we observe certain things that are here now. and we try to extrapolate how they got here.
00:20:39
Speaker
But like you said, but we can't observe it. We weren't there. And so they they acknowledge that, and so they just come up with a different term. Their term can't be religion, historical science. and And so the only point that we're making is that Christians engage in religion or make a faith claim, a worldview claim,
00:21:01
Speaker
Well, evolutionists do the same thing. And evolutionists engage in historical science. Well, Christians do the same thing. we That's what we're doing. We're essentially saying, no, we weren't here when when the universe was formed, but we can observe.
00:21:19
Speaker
Actually, we take God at his word. That's what we do. um We're going to come to the the things that we observe. But, well, maybe we should go ahead and come to that. the The question then is, well,
00:21:31
Speaker
Not that um I don't want to base, I know this is going to sound crazy, I don't necessarily ultimately base what I believe in terms of God on evidence or lack thereof, because it is a faith claim.
00:21:46
Speaker
And evolutionists, they don't necessarily make their faith claim based on evidence either, because there is a mountain of evidence contrary to Darwinian evolution, which is why a lot of scientists just flat out reject that today. lot of scientists, ah certainly I'm not saying most secular scientists, but a lot of them, they look at that whole design issue. You know, why is it that at my age, brother, these these terms that are so common, I just can't dial them up when I need to, but they look at the universe and they see order. And so they like conclude that there must be a designer, you know, intelligent design. That's the term I was looking for. You know, you find a a yeah a watch well you don't just on the beach. You don't just assume that it popped out of nowhere. Right.
00:22:36
Speaker
You assume that there was a watchmaker. There was a watchmaker. Yeah, thank you. So anyway, so they kind of go down that road, a lot of them. But the bottom line is when I look at evidence, I want to say two things.
00:22:50
Speaker
A lot of people say seeing is believing. Right. right That's kind of a common thing. Well, in some sense, that's probably true in some instances. But ultimately, when you're talking about ultimate questions, when you're talking about questions of being, question you questions of origin and purpose and meaning and destiny, those kinds of things.
00:23:13
Speaker
ultimately believing is seeing and that's what the bible affirms right i'm going to read a verse here in just a few minutes that says exactly that but um but the second thing i'll say about evidence is okay you just take something like the grand canyon so the question is we've got this massive hole in the ground and if we're talking about evidence Which worldview best explains the things that we observe observationally in the Grand Canyon?
00:23:47
Speaker
And so, first off, evolutionists are going to presuppose what? An old universe? Millions of years. Yeah. And this Grand Canyon must have been formed by erosion or something like that? Yeah, the Colorado River just over millions of years just yeah carved it out. Yeah.
00:24:06
Speaker
And so that's based on a set of assumptions. Haven't even got the evidence yet. The Christians, we can look at that and we can say, well, that looks like something that that, I mean, we don't presuppose the earth is millions of years old. We presuppose the earth is thousands of years old. and But we look that Grand Canyon, well, how did he get here?
00:24:26
Speaker
Well, i mean, God could have created it just like that. Could have. But at the same time, we think, well, that could have been caused by a worldwide flood. And so there are a lot of things that look like they were caused by that worldwide flood of Genesis 6. And so we just presuppose that to be true. But now let's look at the evidence.
00:24:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't bring a list of the the things that, you know, we scientists have observed in the Grand Canyon, but I know this because I've read enough to know.
00:24:55
Speaker
And I just recommend people look it up. All you got to do is is look it up on on the web. But when you look at stra layer stratification, when you look at maybe in in whether it's the Grand Canyon or somewhere else, I think it's the Grand Canyon. There's like a...
00:25:09
Speaker
a tree that goes through several strata that's supposed to be millions of years in the making. Yeah. You can't have that. Right. So it all looks like something that happened rapidly.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah. In a catastrophic event. Exactly. Yeah. you You just said succinctly what I was laboring to say. Sorry. Well, no. and And like you said, we when were talking about historical science and I guess another way to define that is that all human beings view or observe the universe in light of what they believe by faith to be true. um And so when we observe something like the Grand Canyon, we're observing it in light of what we believe by faith to be true. The evolutionist is attempting to do that as well.
00:25:55
Speaker
um But then the scientific evidence... can't back that up truthfully versus, again, it if you look at, for example, the tree that going through multiple layers that should have taken millions of years to lay on top of each other, then that more closely backs up something rapidly happening, like a catastrophic flood. Yeah, that's right.
00:26:18
Speaker
Everything in the Grand Canyon, and it's it's a multitude of things. So you're you're absolutely right. let me just Let's just step aside and talk, again, theologically for just a minute, because we're really trying to think at a worldview level. We're trying to think at a presuppositional level and want to talk to folk at a presuppositional level.
00:26:39
Speaker
But now we're talking about evidence, and I think evidence is legitimate. It's not the only way that I would talk to somebody because, again, not everybody believes certain evidence. and again, that's owing evidence.
00:26:54
Speaker
to their worldview to their to their presuppositions but theologically speaking the bible actually tells us that not everyone believes evidence for example just with reference to well let me just read the verse that i mentioned a few moments ago i wrote this down of here we go hebrews 11 3 says this faith says this by faith Now listen, that this is all over what we're talking about. yes By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. said Wow.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's not pointed to any evidence. It's just saying, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, of the Word was God. right Or you go back to Genesis 1, God said, let there be light. That's the creative Word.
00:27:40
Speaker
And we know that nothing was created without Apart from the second person of the Godhead, the Son, nothing that is created was created apart from Him. It's all created through Him. So we we understand those things.
00:27:54
Speaker
But the reality is when we're talking to let's just say we're talking to unbelievers and let's say we're in an evangelistic kind of conversation and we're trying to point them to Christ. We're also trying to answer questions, legitimate questions, not somebody who's just trying to be a hardhead. And I don't mean that ugly, by the way, but just sometimes people just want to be argumentative. Right.
00:28:16
Speaker
And you have to be, you know, wise there, but, um you know, you're you're you're trying to talk to them. And the first place a lot of folk will go is evidence. And again, that's fine. That's fine.
00:28:27
Speaker
I love... I used to spend a lot of time out on Creation Ministries website, creation.org maybe, and also Answers in Genesis. I think these things are fantastic. They're fantastic to shore up the faith of Christians.
00:28:45
Speaker
They're also fantastic when you're maybe... See, we love to sit around talk about theology and politics. At least I do. Well, theology, politics, and football. Oh, you like to talk about the Braves. Yeah, baseball. Yeah, I like to talk about the Braves in the playoffs. if Yeah, provide a presupposing they're there. Yeah, they get there, right. yeah But anyway, a lot of folk, you know they they love talking about science, which I do too.
00:29:08
Speaker
But anyway, evidence is is so useful. and you've got evidence in the New Testament. I mean, the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead. We're told he appeared to 500 witnesses, over 500 witnesses. That's evidence. Eyewitness testimony, that's evidence.
00:29:23
Speaker
So we're we're not opposed to evidence, but again, evidence, you want to be able to have something in your Gosh, if I could use this metaphor, you want to have a something in your... your Well, I'll use this, toolkit. I was going to say on your gun belt. But anyway, you want to have something in your toolkit that's more than just evidence because the Bible is very clear that the natural man, like the one who's not a believer, a Christian, Paul says, for example, 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural man...
00:29:54
Speaker
does not understand the things of God because they are foolishness to him. Now think about that statement. What does it mean to say they're foolishness to him? I mean, that it doesn't make sense. Right.
00:30:06
Speaker
It's philosophically foolish. Why would you believe in a God? We know what we know by our five senses, as you said a few moments. But, well, we're saying there's another source of knowledge. Right. You're saying the source of knowledge is just what we can observe with our senses. Well, we're saying there's another source of knowledge. It's called revelation. Mm-hmm.
00:30:23
Speaker
But Paul very clearly says a natural man does not receive the things of God because they're foolishness to him. Neither can he understand them. He doesn't have the ability to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
00:30:35
Speaker
What does that mean? Well, it means you have to have the Holy Spirit in order to discern them. You have to be born again. That's why Hebrews says by faith, you know, we understand these things. So, you got to be You got to be born again, and once you're born again, you'll believe the truth of the Word of God, and once you believe the truth of the Word of God, then you'll understand. So I think, you know, just launching from that...
00:31:02
Speaker
theological excursus, as it were, i just you know we can bring it back and say, okay, well, it is an absolute fact. it's not just We're not just playing word games here.
00:31:15
Speaker
It's an absolute fact, and you said this a minute ago, that both Christians and evolutionists believe what they believe about the origin of the universe based on faith, right?
00:31:25
Speaker
Based on faith. Even though we have a mountain of evidence on our side, I'm still fine to talk at a worldview level. Because what what if you're like me and you've read all kinds of stuff, tons of stuff, but my mind doesn't remember facts anymore in certain areas, maybe because I'm filling my mind with new stuff these days. And I try to memorize Bible verses and theological concepts because I'm a preacher. What else am I going to do?
00:31:52
Speaker
And so things like red shift and all those things and and the fossil record, by the way, just speaking of the fossil record, we're, uh, there's no transitional forms. Right. The missing link is to call it. Yeah.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. That's, um, again, not to get too far down, just picking apart evolution as a scientific theory, but, um, that that's always been ah glaring weakness is that we have no record of these transitional forms as you said yeah we don't have a fish that had gills and lungs at the same time those those kinds of things and also the another weakness would be the this the supposed reason for these adaptations is to adapt to your environment to survive but
00:32:42
Speaker
how do you transition from one form to another and still survive in the midst of the transition? Yeah. You know, how how could a fish start crawling on land before it has lungs? How could it develop lungs it's still in the water? Yeah. youre Right.
00:32:58
Speaker
um And so there's a big problem there in that if these different adaptations are needed in order for that species to survive, then how do they survive long enough to adapt? Yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
Yeah. so matt Yeah. There's no explanation. Yeah. So there's no, there's no explanatory power there. How about the issue of meaning evolution, you know, and meaning like it's going back to those ultimate
Meaning of Life: Evolution vs Christianity
00:33:26
Speaker
questions. Where do I come from?
00:33:28
Speaker
Okay, well, we say God created us. Evolution has no answer. They say, well, we're just a random chance accident. Okay, that's really satisfying, isn't it? It's basically say, we have no idea. That's basically what they're saying. All right, so ah we say God created us. Well, why are we here? Well, what does the Bible say?
00:33:46
Speaker
The Bible says we're here to glorify God and to know Him. Yeah, that's exactly right. So now we have the meaning of life, the purpose of life. created in God's image to reflect Him, to glorify Him, as you said.
00:33:59
Speaker
But again, if we're here by accident, as the evolutionists have to say, just a random chance event. I mean, their whole theory is based on that, just a random chance event. There was nothing, then there was a quantum fluctuation, we'll use that term, and then there was something.
00:34:15
Speaker
Just, it's random. Okay, well, then what is the purpose of life? Well, on that worldview, there There is no purpose.
00:34:26
Speaker
There is no meaning to life. In fact, what's the cardinal... I don't know, dynamic of evolution in terms of life. I mean... Survival of the fittest. Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker
Might makes right. Yeah. So it's it's literally, the meaning of life is literally just to survive life. Yeah. Because a dog-eat-dog world out there. And I mean, you would have to also believe, and I think many evolutionists do, that evolution isn't necessarily done.
00:34:55
Speaker
And so where we they would view human beings as as maybe the pinnacle of nature at the moment, but that's not going to stay the case. You know, a million years from now, oh yeah there's going to be another species that evolves from humans that's going to be right ah higher and more powerful. yeah And so then if you think about that, then really that makes us even more insignificant because we're just another wrote're just another rung on the ladder, so to speak. Yeah.
00:35:22
Speaker
A lot of evolutionists think that we're actually one of the worst species, right? That we're just like parasites or something. Right, yeah. We're in that's strip mining the earth. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of them believe in population control because we're causing the planet to suffer and we're causing all these other species to suffer. And they certainly don't believe that we're creating the image of God.
00:35:45
Speaker
But there again, even things like that, they're just... you're really defying reality. You're not just defying the Word of God. You're defying reality. We're actually talking at lunch today. Today. yeah And we weren't even thinking about what were go talk about here on the podcast, but it just came up in conversation. We were couple of other fellows from the church, and we were talking about I guess it was a clip that we had seen from Charlie Kirk. And basically, he was talking about the difference between, i don't know it was a puppy, but let's just say it was, or a kitten, but it a puppy and ah and a human.
00:36:22
Speaker
And he says they're both... um They're essentially a lot alike when they're first born. You know, they both just have to eat. They can't really do a whole lot. They mess up.
00:36:33
Speaker
You know, they wiggle around on the floor or whatever the case may be. But pretty quickly, you're going to see a big difference between the human being and the puppy. And eventually, within a matter of months, that human being is going to start to talk. And he said, we're the only species that talk. Now, he was connecting that.
00:36:48
Speaker
to John 1, 1, oddly enough, in the beginning was the Word, the word second person of the Godhead. Genesis 1, God spoke. So get the Trinity right there in Genesis 1, God the Father hovering above the face the deep, or the Spirit hovering above the face of the deep. and God the Father saying, let there be light, so Father, Son.
00:37:06
Speaker
But anyway, he said, we're the only talking species Okay, that's true. And a lot of people think, okay, well, big deal. Well, wait a minute. What does it take to talk? Not just the ability to form sounds, you know, a dog can bark, but sounds that are intelligible, sounds that are logical.
00:37:26
Speaker
where does Where do laws of logic come from? That's a whole different broadcast because they're immaterial. Evolutionary worldview laws of logic can't exist because all that exists is the material.
00:37:39
Speaker
In other words, you cannot account for laws of logic on an evolutionary worldview. And yet we have to have laws of logic in order for conversation to take place. I say things and you understand what I'm saying. You respond. You say things. I understand what you're saying.
00:37:55
Speaker
Charlie Kirk made the point, you know, any four-year-old, you can say, go into the next room, grab a pencil and bring it to me. Four-year-old, let's just say they've never seen that particular pencil, but they have in their head, in their mind, what a pencil is. Mm-hmm.
00:38:09
Speaker
So there's a lot of stuff going on there, and they know what it means to go into the other room. They know what it means to grab that pencil, bring it back. No other species. So I didn't mean to get out in the weeds, brother, on that. man That's okay.
00:38:23
Speaker
It's just basic because I just keep rambling. I'm so sorry. That's all right. No, again, that... that points out an inconsistency with evolutionary worldview. Again, going back to how you said that many evolutionists would say that we're we're actually bad for the universe, bad for the Earth, um because we just use up all the resources and...
00:38:46
Speaker
But really, if you think about it, that's inconsistent because, well for example, many of them would say hurting animals is bad. Hurting the earth, hurting the trees, you know, the vegetation is a bad thing. Yeah.
00:39:00
Speaker
But why would that be the case? Because every evolutionist would say that these other life forms were earlier developed. Right. The humans developed later.
00:39:12
Speaker
And again, if you follow the reason for these adaptations and these evolutions taking place is to create a a better species along the way, then why is it bad to mistreat a lesser developed species? Why would that be bad in that worldview? Yeah. We have an answer for that in a biblical worldview. Yes. But...
00:39:33
Speaker
really and truly consistently, they don't. Yes. And so we have to understand, again, the logic that you talked about, these things have to be consistent with our worldview.
00:39:45
Speaker
Why can we talk? Why can we communicate? um how can How can we, like you said, not just make sounds, but how can we form those sounds into something that conveys thought? Yeah. That conveys emotion, thinking, and we can put them together in unique ways to communicate well a vast variety of ideas and things that we want to communicate with one another, whereas animals don't have the ability to do that. They can communicate with one another on a certain level, yeah but not to the complexity that human beings can. So why is that? yeah Yeah, they don't have a language. We presuppose an intelligent God, you know, who who's a logical God. And who has created us in his image, exactly unique from the rest of creation. That's right.
00:40:30
Speaker
And if a lion kills a gazelle, there's no moral implications to that. But yet they want to say if we, you know, hurt a tree. And again, yeah we believe in being good stewards of the earth. We've said that before, but ah they certainly don't believe we're, you know, we're injuring a tree or, you know, there's there's some people who literally believe if you cut the grass, you're committing an immoral act. Right. Yeah.
00:40:52
Speaker
I can just tell you right now, my wife's going to make sure the grass is cut. Amen. Anyway, but no, you said something profound. That is that... um well but I'll put it in different words. They can't account for these things on their worldview. And that's what it means to think and dialogue at a worldview level. You could just as easily say, okay, well, even if we just grant you for the moment that we can hurt the trees, why is that an issue for you on your worldview? And you said it, it shouldn't be.
00:41:30
Speaker
Right? It's survival of the fittest. Yeah, because like you just said, and I don't know of an evolutionary evolutionist who would say that it's morally wrong for the lion to kill the gazelle. Right, I don't either.
00:41:41
Speaker
Because that's might makes might, that's survival the fittest, that's the predator killing the prey, he's going to eat that gazelle, and and there's nothing morally wrong about that. Yeah.
00:41:51
Speaker
But if I were to go on safari and shoot a lion, most of them would have a problem with that. Yeah. But why? Yeah, exactly. Why? They cannot explain that on their worldview. And here's something. They have to appeal to our worldview in order to make that claim. Right.
00:42:08
Speaker
And that that, again, that's when you're dialoguing. you you And, again, we just want to talk in terms of worldview here, but we want to be able to use this not only to strengthen our own faith but to dialogue with others.
00:42:21
Speaker
And that's where you you know you help people to see, listen, this naturalistic evolutionary anti-God worldview, it doesn't make sense out of reality. You can't stand up on a zone.
00:42:31
Speaker
To use the phrase that we've already used before, we used in the previous episode, it's borrowing capital from a biblical worldview yeah in order to try to make it make sense. That's right.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, evolutionists, even though but if we're here by accident, then life has no meaning, but they try to make life have meaning. They don't want everybody to believe in God because that's bad. And not only do they try to inject meaning into life, which they can't do, life has no meaning if we're just random chance accident.
00:43:03
Speaker
But then they also try to inject the moral and ethical dynamics there. Again, they make no sense. They can't account for them on their worldview. So in both cases, as you said, they're borrowing capital from that Christian worldview, from a biblical worldview.
00:43:18
Speaker
Life does have meaning. glorify God, and there is a moral standard, God's Word. he's he's revealed him to He's revealed himself to us, and he's revealed his will to us, and um what's right, what's wrong is what God says is right and wrong, which flows from his character, as you pointed out many, many times. Right.
00:43:36
Speaker
So, yeah, that that leads me, I guess, to the fourth question. I just hit this because We've probably got to wrap this up, and and we'll definitely talk about this.
00:43:47
Speaker
We'll go even deeper and and and expand it in in the future. Not necessarily the next broadcast. Maybe. Don't know. We'll find out. God's sovereign, right? Amen. But um how about destiny?
00:44:00
Speaker
What happens when we die? The evolutionist says... Nothing. Yeah. We just go back into the earth and yeah and decompose and and some other organism is going to feed off of us. Yeah, it's it. did Something like that. Yeah, that's it. I mean we're stardust. We're all stardust, right? That's what they say.
00:44:19
Speaker
Some of them anyway. who to Carl Sagan. Yeah. And it's really sad. So this is it. And gosh, i don't man, I don't even like to talk about this in public because you're talking to unbelievers and you you point out, well, life really has no meaning. It doesn't really matter what you do or don't do.
00:44:38
Speaker
I'm not trying to talk anybody into just you know yeah acting out on their feelings if their feelings are murderous, right? Sure, sure. And don't want to depress people because the only way to...
00:44:50
Speaker
you know To be consistent on your worldview when you realize, okay, well, life has no meaning and and this is all that there is, you've only got one of two routes to go. You can go the you know the what's it word what's the word the the skeptics route. the ah I'll just put it this way. You just kill yourself because it doesn't matter. Well, obviously, we don't want anybody to do that.
00:45:14
Speaker
But the other thing is you just eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow you die. And a lot of people interpret that, well, we're just going party hard then. Well, that can be really destructive, right, depending on what you're talking about.
00:45:27
Speaker
But you know the Apostle Paul said that, didn't he? Now we're back to the Word of God. And it's interesting that all of these philosophical dynamics that we're talking about theyre They're in the Word of God.
00:45:39
Speaker
You know, Paul was very familiar with Greek philosophy, but he said if there is no resurrection from the dead, and that's, see, by the way, that's the Christian worldview. There is a resurrection from the dead. Listen, if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in Him, there's a resurrection, but there's a resurrection into eternal death, right eternal punishment, and and and what you deserve, separation from God, all the rest.
00:46:01
Speaker
But if you if you know and love the Lord Jesus, you're putting your faith and trust in Him, there's a resurrection from the dead, but it's a resurrection unto life. And that's really the ultimate goal of the Christian, and we'll have stuff to do in the final state and all that.
00:46:12
Speaker
Paradise restored, we don't have time to get into that today. But I forgot where I was going again. Sorry. But that's the whole point. Oh, Paul, he said, if there is no resurrection the dead, then we might as well just eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die.
00:46:27
Speaker
That's certainly skeptic's, you know, what do you call A nihilistic kind of philosophical view. And Paul's not necessarily saying just party hard, but he's saying, I think what he's saying is just...
00:46:39
Speaker
The way it lands on me, just make yourself as comfortable as you can. Find the things that you enjoy. Maybe family's your your cup of tea. yeah Maybe a lot of money's your cup of tea or maybe just living on the beach or maybe you know serving poor people in India. Maybe that's your cup of tea. But all the it none of it matters.
00:46:58
Speaker
right But it's just what's going to make you feel good, eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow you die, and that's it. That's a pretty bleak outlook, isn't it? and Yeah, and that's true. there's A lot of people can ah have this nihilistic mindset that we're talking about, but it it can be expressed in different ways.
00:47:16
Speaker
Like you just said, it's not necessarily just going out and partying hard and and and living it up. But doing anything, and again, this it all comes back to having to deal with the creator in that doing things that might even be good. good and Like you said, going and feeding children and in in India yeah or or whatever.
00:47:39
Speaker
But if it's if it's merely done from self-fulfillment perspective, mindset then ultimately it does end up being empty. yeah And that that's the biggest reason why the evolutionist, the the naturalist wants to reject the concept of God because if God exists, then we have to we have to deal with that. yeah What does that mean? if if If there is a God and he is the one that created everything that we see around us, then we have to deal with that. That that has to mean something for
00:48:13
Speaker
Again, not just where we came from, but why am I here and how should I live and and what's going to happen to me when I die.
Purpose and Meaning in Biblical Worldview
00:48:21
Speaker
yeah And so the gospel, the the biblical worldview says that we are created by God, that he's given us a purpose. That purpose is to glorify and to honor him.
00:48:33
Speaker
And therefore, the things that we do, the there's a reason behind those things and it's not just for our own personal fulfillment because we're just going to, we're going to die soon anyway, but those things. And so then also, and again, this is going to, I don't want to get too far down another road, but yeah,
00:48:55
Speaker
We can eat and drink with the right mindset that gives glory to God ye instead of we're just merely eating and drinking for our own self-fulfillment, for our own pleasure. yeah And so, again, we've we've talked about you know that's what the definition of sin is. Anything that we do out of our own selfish desire, our own self-fulfillment is sin, even if it's feeding the children in India. That's right.
00:49:18
Speaker
But anything that we do on the reverse side of that, anything that we do for God's glory is a good thing. We can go and enjoy a good meal together. Yeah.
00:49:29
Speaker
If we're doing it to the glory of God, then that's a good thing. Yeah. There's a purpose and a meaning behind that. Yeah. We can go and we can feed feed starving children, not just to make ourselves feel better,
00:49:42
Speaker
But to do it for God's glory, then that's a good thing. yeah And so, again, the understanding that God exists, that he is created, and that there is a purpose for him creating us is what is ultimately at the heart of everything that you do.
00:49:59
Speaker
um not just the origin of the universe, but it's the heart of everything that you do and everything that you believe has to flow from that. so that's why that's why it's an ultimate question. That's why it's so important for us to answer it and talk about it and figure it out um because it does affect every little thing that we do is affected by that. Wow.
00:50:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a good way to wrap it. Unless you got something else. No, I think I've said enough. Well, I don't know about that, but you said a mouthful, so praise the Lord. All right. All right. So we'll do we'll do it again on Answering Pilot. Yeah.
00:50:33
Speaker
The Answering Pilot podcast is a ministry of Randall House Church in Greer, South Carolina. You can learn more at www.randallhousegreer.com slash church. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at at Randall House Church.
00:50:48
Speaker
Don't forget to like and subscribe, and we'll see you next time.