 Thank you, it's very important, thank you, thank you. Okay, good morning and welcome everybody to BC 212, course on Christian apologetics. Just quickly reviewing a few things from our previous class. We had a further bit of a gap in between. So I'll just quickly touch on a few things and then we move forward. In lesson three, which is we spoke about faith and science our relationship between faith and science that for us people of faith, we are not afraid of science because science is only teaching us more about God. I mean, if it's done properly, it's only opening our eyes to the glory of God's creation. And we just, it makes us stand amazed at how marvelous, how great, how powerful our God is. So we are not, you know, threatened by any way in science and we people of faith can also be people who study science because we're just exploring God's creation. So we said a few things around that and today what I want to do is we're going to talk about creation in two lessons. In lesson four, we're going to look at creation pointing to the creator. So just highlighting some amazing things in creation that are pointing us to the creator. And then in lesson five, we're going to look at Genesis chapters one and two. I last week, I just requested some of you to do the question, read it. And then if you have any questions to post it, so I've collected the questions that you've shared, put on the classwork and we will try and answer that. As we look at, you know, we will summarize Genesis chapter one and two and how to correctly understand that. And then in the process also answer some of the questions that students have raised in the coursework, the classwork section, right? So that's our plan. So let's get started. Let me go ahead and share. All right. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at creation and how various aspects of creation are actually pointing us to the creator. Of course, we're not going to go into, you know, great detail, but I just want to give us sufficient information so that, you know, when you're having a conversation with somebody, you can just point these things out to people and say, look, God has given us evidence that he is there everywhere in his creation. They look way out into space, you look into a small cell, a single cell. We can see the wisdom, the intelligence, the design of God everywhere, everywhere. And we can, you know, point to some of these things. So we will look at six areas, cosmology, physics, astronomy, biochemistry, biological information, consciousness and just point, you know, see, if you look at each of these, of course you can get into any great detail, anybody wishes to, but if you get in there, you will see how great, you will see the fingerprint of God, you will see God's presence, glory being revealed. So that's what we want to do here in this lesson. And science, Stephen Meyer is a journalist, science journalist, he writes, he says, you know, science done right, points us to God. So cosmology is basically the study of how the universe started. How did this universe come into being, the origin of this universe? So that whole space of study is called cosmology. How did the cosmos come into existence? No, you know, it's very interesting, up until recent times, as recent as 1980, so we're talking about, you know, 40, 50 years ago, scientists used to believe, and this started way back with the philosophy, Greek philosophers, Aristotle and so on. The common thought was the universe had no beginning. You know, that was the original thought. They had no basis to prove it or disprove it, but that was the idea, which was generally accepted. The universe always existed, don't even talk about a beginning. But then there was always a problem because the Bible always spoke about a beginning. The Bible always said in the beginning God created, whereas the common part in philosophy and that which later on fed into science was, the universe always existed. And the basic premise was, you know, energy cannot be created or destroyed, a matter cannot be created or destroyed. So that was the premise. And so you don't create it, you don't destroy it, it's always there, it just remains like that. Until then, you know, Einstein's theory of relativity came in and said, well, you know, the universe cannot be static, it had to have had a beginning. So then everybody started saying, oh, okay, maybe the universe had a beginning because according to Einstein's theory, the universe is expanding, it's growing. So if it is growing, then if you go back in time, that means it was smaller and smaller and smaller until you go back in time when it had a beginning. So, you know, people started changing, as they began to hear these theories, ideas, you know. And then later on, this whole idea of a big bang, that means there was a particular point in time when things started, began to propose that. And so eventually by the 1980s, which was about 40 years ago, most scientists changed and said, okay, we agree the universe had a beginning. But of course, how do you explain the beginning? And that's when there was this whole theory of a big bang that something started, something happened. We don't know what happened, but something happened that gave rise to this whole universe. But the whole problem is this, well, cosmology, that is understanding about how the universe came to exist, has changed over time. It still isn't answer everything, you know. So, while people are making attempts to explain, you know, what could have happened? What was there before that initial point in time and t is equal to zero? What would have been there before? What could have happened? And so it's all about theory, meaning let's try to imagine what could have happened. And so all these things are being proposed. But to sum it up, science has a theory, you know, refer to as a big bang theory or the theory of evolutionary cosmology, which is attempting to give an answer about how the universe started. But the problem is, you know, we can ask very simple questions, you know, and say, hey, what are you telling us to believe? You're telling us that chance could produce intelligence. That means, you know, they go back in time to when t is equal to zero or it's known as the point of the singularity that moment in time somehow huge amounts of energy came at that particular moment in time and huge amounts of space and matter was created. So we don't know how that energy came together, how we don't know, you know, I'm saying about the theory of big bang theory, huge amount of energy in a single moment of time gave rise to this huge universe, which is growing and matter just came into existence at that moment. And, you know, they were trying to calculate how much of energy was needed and so on. But the basic thing is they're saying chance produced intelligence. I mean, as we look into the universe, we see so much of intelligence or an accident resulted in purpose, non-life created life, something came out of nothing, chaos produced order. So these are big steps of faith, big leaps of faith that scientists who propose big bang theory are expecting us to take without having answered the question. In contrast to that, if we, you know, instead of believing that something came out of nothing and chaos birthed order, you know, all of this, which actually is very counterintuitive, instead of that, we look at what the Bible says. In the beginning, God created. So Bible is saying there was a beginning, but there was someone who was there before the beginning, God, and he was the one who gave rise to everything. It's very simple, very clear. Just believe in the God who created everything. So by just looking at the, what has happened with this whole space of cosmology, it's telling us that we have not been able to answer this basic question. How did the beginning come about? And instead we look at the Bible. In the beginning, God created. Very simple. God was the source of the beginning. He is the one who brought everything into existence. Extending from that, when we look at physics, physics is basically the study of all the material world, the physical side of things. What we find is that the universe is made up of what is known as constants, that there are various parameters, about 30 or so constants in this universe that are very precise, and they're always fixed. For example, we know gravity. So as far as the earth is concerned, example, one example, gravity on the earth is fixed. So we say it's 9.8 meters per seconds when the force of gravity is fixed. And therefore, we are able to do a lot of things. We understand gravity. We are careful when we go to high places. We can use gravity for our advantage when we design various things, aeroplanes and so on and so forth. But we know gravity is a constant, meaning it's there and this is how it will work. And like this, there are many such constants in this physical world, on the earth and out in space, which we have been able to recognize, identify, measure and we can say, this is what it is. So the question is, could just coincidence or just accident give rise to such precision that we are seeing all through the universe? That the, for example, the energy density of empty space, the amount of energy in empty space, we have to refer to as the cosmological constant. It's there. It's keeping everything where it is. It's preventing this universe from this collapsing. And it is so fine tuned that even if it was to change in a fraction, it would cause things to just collide or come together. But then that constant, it's there and it's so precise and it's keeping everything in place. So like that, there are all these precise constants. And so what we see is there is the fine tuning of the universe, the fine tuning. The universe is very finely tuned and it's amazing. How could this have happened by chance? How could this have happened? How could all these physical constants come in place and remain the way they are by a random explosion? That's the second thing. The third evidence, again, this is looking at space and looking at how things are out in the universe is looking at earth and its relationship with all the other planetary bodies, whether they are stars or other planets or a place in our galaxy and the place of our galaxy amongst all the other galaxies. It tells us that the earth is so perfectly positioned for life to take place on earth. This earth, this planet is the only place on which we humans could live. I know we're making attempts to go to the moon and maybe build a base on the moon, maybe look and explore the possibility of life on Mars and all those things. People like man is doing that as part of the exploration. Okay, fine. But this planet is the only planet that sustains life as we know it. And if you look at the place of the earth, it is so precise where the earth is in relation to the sun, in relation to all other planetary bodies, whether you talk about planets or stars or so on, the earth is so perfectly positioned. If we were to change the location of the earth anyway, you know, towards the sun or away from the sun, life would not be possible. Life on earth would not be possible. If we got a little more closer to the sun, too hot, too much of heat, we would be destroyed. Move a little away from the sun, too cold, life would be destroyed. So even from this, we ask the question, did this happen? How could the earth be so precisely positioned? And it's rotating on its axis, it's revolving around the sun and life, human, all kinds of plant, animal, human life on the earth is being sustained. Could this have happened by accident? Just some random explosion and earth came right there, sun came right there and it is so perfect. Could this have happened by accident? Or is it something beyond that? Then the fourth part is we look at the cell. So we know that every living thing, so plants, animals, humans, animals and birds, humans, the organic life is made of a single cell and the cell is so complex. It's a tiny part of us, or if you talk about plants, you talk about animals or birds, whatever, it's a tiny part of us of life or living things. And yet that little cell is so complicated, it's so complex in its design. And the processes involved in that cell are so complex. So just a little bit of explanation here, even if you think about the cilia, which is on the cell, if it's like a animal cell, if it's like a hair like thing, a hair like structure, thin structure that comes out of the cell or that's protruding out of the cell. So a single cell may have about 200 of these cilia. And so they serve a certain purpose in what happens in getting rid of foreign particles, foreign things. And they also help the cell move around. So each hair like structure from the cell, each cilia has about 200 protein parts to it, protein molecules, 200 of those, each one. And they're all arranged in some sort of a mechanism. So it's not like these protein parts just randomly came together. They're all arranged in some sort of a mechanism that kind of gives it motion, a complex system of rods, linkers and motors that allows this little, the hair like structure to have motion as well. So these 200 protein parts, we're talking about protein molecules, are so intelligently connected like a minute machinery in a cell. So you can think about a very, precise machine, motor system connected to the cell. So what we're saying is, hey, we are looking at a very small portion of the cell which is like the hair like structure. And we are seeing something very amazing. We are seeing 200 different kinds of proteins that go to make up that little hair like structure. And not only that, but they're all connected in such a very unique way as though it was a little machinery set up there to make the cilia function as it should, cause the cell to move and so on. How could it all come together with such precision? So no one is able to explain how this could possibly come together like this. The point we're making is that when you look at a single cell, a single cell is so amazing. So amazing. We only looked at one part of it. We look at some more information in the cell. But even a little part of the cell, we can study it and say this is what is happening. This is what it's made of. But we can't say how did this all come together for it to function like this? That means there is a purpose that is designed in all of this. And so we can say, it's not by accident that these molecules came together and became like this. No, somebody who could think of this or could imagine this put it together. So we just pointed out one part of the cell. Think about biological information. Now we will see in Genesis chapter 1 when God created living things right from plant life to the sea creatures, to the birds, to the animals and then to man, God said and we will look at this in Genesis chapter 1. God said everything will reproduce after its own kind. And so he created a mechanism by which every species would reproduce after its own kind. That means a cat will always produce a cat. Dogs will always produce dogs. Elephants will always produce elephants. Everything will produce after its own kind. And while there may be adaptation, that means every creature is able to develop certain things because of the environment in which it lives, there is no crossing over of species. A catfish will never become a cat. A catfish will always reproduce catfish. A cat will always reproduce cat. Maybe they'll adapt a little bit to their environment but never cross over. So this is amazing. How can every species keep on reproducing after its own kind? That's when you study the cell and you go down to what you refer to as the DNA or the genes and you find that God has programmed in every cell. He's created this thing called the DNA, the structure that carries the genetic information of every species and unique to every species. And that is amazing. And if you look at the structure of the DNA, the DNA structure is very simple. It is just made up of sugar and phosphate molecules as on the backbone. It just has four bases that keep combining each other chemical compounds. Just four base, they form the runs of the ladder. Very, very simple structure. And yet the simple structure is giving rise to the uniqueness of so many millions of species because of the sequence in which these things assemble themselves. We call it the genetic information. And it's so amazing. So we think of, okay, who could have thought of this? How could this have come to play? How could this have even been put in place? It is so simple yet so profound and it is given rise to millions of kinds of species of plants, animals, birds, and then people. So even among people, we all have the same DNA structure. About 90 plus percent, I'm talking about us human beings, about 90 plus percent of our DNA is just the same. And that little bit of variation, each one of us become unique, different. That gives rise to our, you know, each one is different. We look different, we have different, we are human beings and yet each one of us have something very unique about us. So amazing. And so you look at this biological information, you can study the genes and genetics, and again all of these are just broken down into protein molecules and so on, like we said, sugar and phosphate and other molecules. And then you say, how could all of this give rise to something, a world that is so amazing? So amazing. You say, well, how could this have happened by chance? How could this have happened by some sort of an accidental process that caused such wonderful organization of protein molecules? How could this have happened? No. Because if you and I sit down and think about this, if we throw scrap letters down, you know, suppose you collect a box of alphabets and you put in any number of alphabets in the box, you shake it up and you throw it on the floor, there is never going to be a possibility of generating a book. It will never happen. We know it. We don't even bother trying because to write the book, it takes more than having the letters of the alphabet. It requires somebody with intelligence who can put everything together in a very meaningful way. And that's what got us. He created the alphabets, he created everything, and he knew how to put it all together. And the last one, when we look at consciousness, that means what we are saying is, look, if this human body is just a piece of matter, because if we evolved slowly from organic molecules, they became plants, and from plant life slowly came creatures, and from there slowly they became animals and they adapted and adapted and became man, that means we're just saying that we're just matter. If we are just matter, we know that there are certain things that about us, that are not just matter. So we have things like, which make up what we call as consciousness, which is we have rationality and morality. What is rationality? What is our ability to think? So our thinking is very complex, because in our thinking, which is a function of our brain and our mind, our thinking, we are bringing a lot of information past, present, and then we also project into the future. We're able to think of what if scenarios, if this happens, what about this, if that happens, what about that. So the rationality of the human brain is so complex. It is so amazing. You say, if we are just matter, where did we get this part of our consciousness, the rationality? Because you look at a piece of rock, it is matter. Can a rock think like us? No. But you say, okay, we came out of the dust of the earth, everything came from organic matter like this. But then there is something here that is not the function of just matter. So the rationality part is very amazing. Because in our thought, we are bringing in many, many things, we are bringing in information, we are bringing in a recall of emotions. We are looking at present information. We are also projecting into the future. And then we are thinking, we are thinking like this past, present, future. That's rationality. That's part of our mind. Where did that come from? The second part of our consciousness is morality. Morality has to do with our sense of right and wrong. It has to do with our belief system. And here again, say, where did this sense of right and wrong come? How do we know, in our sense of belief, how do we know this is right, this is wrong? How do we know that if we do this, it's going to result in something bad? The sense of morality. How do I know I have to treat other people well or love people? Those things, where do they come from? Because look at a piece of rock. A rock has no sense of morality. There's no consciousness, no rationality, no morality. But we human beings have rationality. And we also have a sense of morality. Where did this come from? So what we have done. Of course, all these are fields of study, right from cosmology, astronomy, physics, biochemistry, biological information, consciousness, other mind. People are studying all of these areas and trying to understand, wonderful. But there are these basic questions that tell us there has to be a creator who could have created such amazing things. So all of creation, like we said, and like the Bible points us to, saying Romans 1.20, since the creation of the world, this invisible attributes are clearly seen. The invisible attributes of God. His omniscience, his omnipotence, his omnipresence. Are they clearly seen? Where are they seen? They're seen in the things that are made. They're seen in the things that are made. So that means all of creation is in some way pointing to some attribute of God. The power of God is eternal, foreign God. So that we have without excuse. We can't say, you know, I didn't know God was there. So let me pause here. What we've done in this chapter is just looked at six areas. Six areas of study. And everywhere we look, we can ask some very simple questions that are pointing us to a great creator who has given, you know, those things that we are seeing. They're all pointing to this great creator. So let me pause here. Is everyone with me any questions so far? Any thoughts? All good? Anybody with any questions? So what we want to do now, and feel free to ask any questions anytime, right? As well as now move into Genesis chapter one and two. I know we are also doing a sermon series in church on faith and science. So some of you may have been hearing these sermons. I want to just talk about Genesis chapter one and two. And we'll introduce that then go for a break and come back and continue. We will answer the questions that students have asked in class. So Genesis chapter one and two describe the beginning. As God revealed it to Moses, and we know that the prophet Moses, he wrote the first five books of the Bible. And he must, he receded by revelation, most likely when he was in the presence of God in Mount Sinai, God would have, you know, we don't exactly when, but most likely when he was in the presence of God in Sinai, God would have spoken everything to him, you know, and Moses would have recorded these things the way God spoke to him. So this was around 1600 BC. So that means about from the time of, if you look at it chronologically from the Garden of Eden, from that time to the time of the flood was about 1600 years, Noah's flood 600 years. Then you go on to Abraham, which is about 2000 years. And then you come another 400 years, you come to the time of Moses. So we have about 2400, yeah, 2400 years from the Garden of Eden from the start of the Garden of Chronologically, according to Bible chronology, from the Garden of Eden to the time of Moses, that's about 2400 years, and Moses was writing. So obviously, Moses was not there physically, he was not physically present in the Garden of Eden, but he received by revelation that God wanted him to write. Now, as Moses wrote down, he, you know, understand God speaking to Moses in his context. So when God, you know, when it says this was the first day, this was the second day, this was the third day, this was the fourth, six days, seventh day, God rested. Moses was writing. So first of all, God always speaks to us using language and context of the writer. So here Moses was writing. So Moses was not thinking in terms of billions of years, right? Why? Because God is speaking to him in his context. Moses was not a scientist. You know, today's scientists will think in terms of millions of years, billions of years with this, that, no, Moses is not thinking like that. For Moses, evening and morning is very simple. It is evening, it is morning. That's his 24-hour day, right? So God is speaking in the context of the person to whom he's speaking, which is Moses, and he's writing it down, right? And so Moses is writing. And God also explains in Genesis chapter one, verse four and five, what the day is, right? So in Genesis chapter one, verse four and five, he says, the morning, the evening and the morning, that is the night part, the dark part, darkness part, and the light part, or the day part together was the first day. So Genesis chapter one, verse four and five, describes for us what the day is. It is the darkness and the light. 12 hours of darkness, 12 hours of light, that is day one, or the first day. So when we are interpreting scripture, we, you know, wherever scripture, wherever we have to take it literally, get it taken literally, only if it is poetry, or if it is some metaphorical language, or, you know, it is some prophetic imagery, then we have to interpret it, otherwise just take it literally. So that's why, you know, I, when we look at Genesis chapter one, we say, well, God was speaking, God has explained what the first day is already in Genesis chapter one, verse four and five. The context for Moses is evening and morning. Moses is not a scientist. He's not thinking in terms of billions of years. He's just writing as God has told him. So it's a very literal thing. So therefore, every of the six, of the seven days, given in Genesis chapter one and two, are just simple, literal 24-hour days. Okay? Now, why am I emphasizing this? Because when you read Christian literature, I'm talking about literature by theologians and scientists, Christian people, believers. They have tend to change the day into something metaphorical. They say, oh, well, the day is not really a 24-hour day. It is, means millions of years, some would say billions of years, et cetera. You know? And so you will, you'll find a lot of that from various theologians and Christian leaders saying that. Now, everybody has a right to their opinions. I'm not arguing or fighting or, you know, if they want to have that opinion, that is their choice. But what I want to stress is we must be faithful in reading the text and interpreting the text the way it is supposed to be interpreted because if you don't do that, then for any other passage in the Bible, anybody can come up with any idea and any theory and they can interpret it anyway, right? So then we can literally make the Bible say anything we want if we are not following simple rules of grammar, which is if something is stated literally, take it literally. If something is stated metaphorically, take it metaphorically. For example, if I can make two statements about how it ranks, I just give an example. I can say, well, it's been raining here all day. I can also say it's been raining cats and dogs all day. So one is a literal statement. The first one is a literal statement. It is raining all day. The second one is a metaphorical statement. So when I say it's raining cats and dogs, it doesn't mean cats and dogs are falling from the sky. It is just metaphor. It means it's raining very heavily. It's raining really bad. So depending on how I'm speaking, you will understand it, right? When it's metaphorical, you have to take it metaphorically. When it's literal, you take it literally. It's very simple. And in Genesis 1, God has already explained, this is what he meant by day. Therefore, we just take it literally and apply it to every part of those seven days in Genesis 1 and 2. So we'll take a break. I'll see Elisha's question in the chat. We'll come back after the break and we will go through Genesis 1 and 1 and 2 and then we will take up these questions. Let's take a 10-minute break. Thank you.