 Okay, recording is on. Good morning everyone. Let's take a moment just to pray and we'll get started and I'm sure others will join us soon. Good morning. All right, let's see. Samuel, why don't you please pray with us and we'll get started. Sure, pastor. Heavenly Father, thank you for this time. We are truly grateful that you've brought us together and you've given us this opportunity to spend time learning about faith, about our work, about Christian apologetics and supernatural ministry. Lord, these are very interesting topics. These are topics that will enable us to further spread your knowledge, your faith, your grace in today's world. Lord, we ask you to open our minds, open our hearts, speak to us Holy Spirit, fill us. We dedicate pastor Ashish into your hands. We commit his teaching. Lord, guide him, fill him with your spirit and this class so that we experience your understanding, your peace over us and everything that we learn into this class. Maybe we'll be able to use that to enhance your kingdom, to build your kingdom. Thank you for everything. This we ask in the name of Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. All right, good morning everyone once again. Thank you for joining the class. All right, so we are in our initial stage in this course on Christian apologetics and at this point we are dealing with the main theme which is on the existence of God and creation. So we touched on the existence of God a little earlier and they've kind of transitioned a little bit now into addressing the issue of creation, of course. When we talk about creation, obviously the implication is there is God, there is creator God who created everything. So we are kind of dealing with that issue, that topic and so last class, last week, we looked at creation and we said, okay, speaking, you know, at an overall perspective, now when we look at cosmology, at a high level, we gave six areas. When you look at it from cosmology, when you look at it from physics, when you look at it from biochemistry, when you look at it from a biology or genetics perspective, when you look at it from a psychology or a moral consciousness perspective, like when you look at it from these different angles, we ultimately come back to the same question or the same thing that somebody had to give rise to what we are seeing, the intelligence that we are seeing, the greatness that we are seeing, so it all comes back to saying, how did it all begin? What was the genesis of these things? Whether you look at it from a cosmology perspective, look at it or from a physics perspective, it all comes back to where did this come from? There is intelligence, there is design, there is so much of order and power and what was the origin? So we now kind of, what are we going to do today? So the real big question is where did it all start? Where did it all begin? So we are going to transition into that question, right? So we started from God, creation, beginning. Where did it begin? How did it begin? So there are two big, I wouldn't say too big, but there are two main thoughts as far as origin is concerned. One is the origin of life. So as far as the origin of life, we have to look at evolutionary biology, what they claim, and then the origin of the cosmos, the universe. And for that science presents the big bang as one of the possible ways. So science is presenting evolutionary biology as an explanation for the origin of life on the planet and also presenting the big bang theory as a possible explanation for the origin of the cosmos, the universe, everything that we see, the planets, the earth and everything else. So we are going to address that. Now before we transition into doing those things, we just want to look at Genesis chapter one today in the first hour today that we have. Just look at creation. So the Bible is giving us Genesis chapter one as the origin of everything. In Genesis one, you find the origin of the cosmos. In Genesis one, you find the origin of life. So we'll just spend some time, one session, one session in Genesis one. Then we will look at evolutionary biology, one session, that's the second hour. Next week, we'll spend one hour on the big bang, which is both these are science presentation from science as the possible origin of life and the universe. Now what I do, I just want to say, we are spending only one hour on each of these. Otherwise, you can spend many hours on each of these topics, but we can't afford to do that because we're going to move on to many other topics. But I do want to say that there's a lot of, especially at present, there's a lot of Christian scientists, let me put it like this, scientists who are Christians, scientists who are believers, who have written a lot of good books and some names. So basically I want to encourage you, if you are interested and each one has different interests, so we don't want to force it on everybody, but if you are interested, you could explore and read these books, just many of them. And John Del Nox, The Fancy Maya, there are many names, many names, but I'll just mention too, John Del Nox is a scientist, it's a believer, and he looks at things from the physics perspective, mathematical perspective. Stephen Meyer is a scientist who looks at it from a biological Christian, but looks at it from a biological perspective. They have done a lot of books. Now, of course, from the scientific community, you have some big names, you have Stephen Hawking was there, there is Richard Dawkins, he's a big name who has written a lot of books. So Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, from a scientific perspective, they try to say that give their explanations of how the universe came in. And you would find that both sides, but we want to thank God for these scientists who are Christians, who are believers, and were able to provide a response to the scientists who are atheists, and say that, look, this is what our things are. But what I wanted to point out is that there is a lot of good books, there are a lot of good books from different perspectives, and if whatever your interest is, then you can study it further. But I'm going to just try and address some things and yeah, it's not going to be comprehensive or complete, but there are good people there doing a lot of good work. Now, very interesting, you know, that and this was, I was reading one of John the Knox books, he mentions that between 2001, the last century, basically from 1900 to 2000, the last 100 years, over 60 percent of the Nobel Prize winners were Christians, people of faith. And then, you know, if you break it down, you know, for the different disciplines of Nobel Peace Prize, you know, it kind of crosses 60, you know, even goes up to 70 in some category, 70 percent were people of faith Christians, and they won the Nobel Prize for, you know, different disciplines, which goes to say that you can be a scientist, you can be very good in your work, and still have faith in God, you know, and believe the Bible, believe the truth, you know, so the idea that just because you're dealing with science, you shouldn't have faith. That's a wrong notion. Okay. All right. So the plan for today is in this lecture, we look at Genesis. What did God say as the origin of the universe and life? And of course, there are some questions around it. We'll deal with a few things. Then we get into the next hour, we look at evolutionary biology. It's going to be very short, you know, 15 minutes and trying to condense everything, but I will give us the main challenge there, okay, and give us an essence and just of, you know, what is out there, what people are writing and how they are responding. Okay. So I'm going to just share my screen and we will, okay, why don't we do this? Yeah, let's just read Genesis chapter one so we get it. I know we're all familiar with Genesis one, but sometimes we read it very rarely because most of us know it, but let's just read the whole chapter and then we will get into the notes. So let's go Genesis chapter one. Can each one just, you know, we'll just go through this very quickly, just three verses each, and then we'll get into the questions about Genesis chapter one. Could somebody do, let's start just three verses each, Genesis one. We'll go through it quickly. Okay. Let's start. I could start us off. Please go ahead. The creation of the world. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void. The darkness was over the face of the team. And the spirit of God was hovering over the faces of the waters. And God said, let there be light and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light day and darkness he called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Then God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. That's called made pivot and pivot the waters, which were under the firmament of the waters, which were above the firmament and it was whole. And God called the firmament heaven. So the evening and morning were second day. Then God said, let the waters be under heaven. Be together in one place. And dry land appears. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth. And the gathering together of the waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruits, fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself on the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to the kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And the earth brought forth grass and the herds, sorry, and the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. And let them be for seasons and for days and for years. And let them be for the lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser night to rule night. He made a stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give them upon the earth, to give light upon the earth. Okay, somebody, press 18. And to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw it, saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that had life and fall that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Thank you. So God created great sea creature, every living thing that moves with which the water abounded according to their kind and every wingbird according to his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth. So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind, livestock and creeping things and beast of the earth according to their kind. And it was so. And God met the beast of the earth according to their kind. Oh, sorry, I'm repeating myself. Question is back. Yeah. Oh, sure. And God met the beast of the earth according to their kind and the living stock according to their kind and everything that creeped on the on the ground according to its kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over the livestock and over all the earth and over everything creeping things that creeps on the on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female. He created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, see I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of all the earth and every tree whose fruits fruit yields seed. So to you it shall be for food also to every beast of the earth to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is life. I have given every green herb for food and it was so. Then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. All right, yeah it would be thank you, thank you. All right, so it does continue on into chapter two where you know God forms man out of the dust of the earth. We get those details in chapter two but in Genesis one we have the Bible account of how everything came into existence and it says God created. Now there are you know and we're going to get into a few specific questions but I just you know generally when people read Genesis one a lot of questions begin to come up. You know for instance I just highlight some differences right. So we see you know on day so first in the very beginning God creates you know verse one heavens and the earth which is telling us all the planetary bodies including the earth came into existence heavens meaning the vast expanse of this universe came into existence. Then there is light but the sun is created only on the fourth day. So people you know that's one of the questions we will look at you know. So where was light when the sun was you know there was light in the very beginning but on day one but sun was created in day four. So that people will question that in hey see it's wrong this is just made up. Another big difference between Bible's account and evolutionary biology is according to evolutionary biology somehow you know when all these things you know things came into existence life started like this came out of the water came into the land and then moved to flying birds that can fly the adaptation happened but according to Bible account sea creatures were made birds were made then on the next day land animals were created you know so it's a different sequence. So hey you know so there's an immediate mismatch in what evolutionary biology is saying well you had to start from the water you came onto the land and then you went into the air whereas God just created everything in the sea everything in the air and the next day he created things on the land a life on the land that's a difference then when we look at the big bang things had to begin with the stars and then the earth was formed so stars came in first and then earth was formed according to Genesis account earth was there then the stars came into existence on day four so again there's a difference earth came first stars came later according to big bang stars came first earth came later right so there's these significant differences right between what we are reading in Genesis what God is telling us about the origin of the universe and of life and what science is telling us about the origin of the universe and of life these differences are there major differences so today in this first lecture we will questions that you know people in general you will ask about creation based on Genesis we will go into evolutionary biology next class next lecture talk about big bang and then as we close we will take up some more specific questions connecting all these you know based on what science says through biology and through physics and some more questions more specific questions okay but let's talk about some general questions that people ask in relation to Genesis and ideas that are there which I think we should just be prepared to think about and provide a response okay so I'm just going to the notes here and so we've read Genesis one so a common question is you know okay the earth according to the you know according to science the universe as of now as of now according to science the universe is about 14 billion years old and the earth is about four billion years old now the numbers can change over time you know initially it began with eight and then ten and then it's somewhere now around 14 I mean what people are putting out but I'm just saying in general science tells us well the universe is 14 billion years old the earth is about four billion years old but according to Genesis you know everything happened and according to Genesis it all happened in a six day period right so how do we explain that how do we explain that now I spot a question too I will go into some other theories that you know that people put out but you know generally sorry going back to the first question my response and the response that I want to just place before all of us is that in the creative act of God and I mentioned this I think in the last week class last week that we believe in the creative act of God time was compressed in his creative act that means what we through our scientific from when I say we people scientists who through the scientific process come to the conclusion as thousands millions billions of years we believe that in the creative act of God it all happened the moment he spoke take for example the sun okay so we read here you know verse 14 God said that there'd be lights that means the stars the stars and and he created the lights the sun big big stars and small stars how did it happen he said let there be lights stars luminaries luminous bodies he just said the stars came into existence big stars small stars so you take one star the sun oh so today for what we know this the sun this you know comparatively for us it's a big star but comparatively it's a small star um is actually millions of miles in diameter the sun is so big and it's so intense in its heat it's it's huge just for us to understand how big one star is so obviously uh through the scientific process you know for something like that to take place and come together and and and generate so much of energy science says well it's would have taken so many millions of years or billions of years for all that to come together well what we are saying here or what the bible is telling us here is it took an instant and god said let there be lights in the firmament that means in this vast expanse of the universe the heavenly realms that there be lights in the firmament stars started popping up everywhere big stars and small stars but all happened as you spoke all the energy all the matter that was needed to come into existence came in as you spoke so in an instant these came into being so what we understand as something that would take millions of years for energy and matter to come into existence like this in this kind of fashion happened in an instant okay so similarly now let me see i think did somebody raise their hand so similarly uh when we say that the earth is four billion years old and we're saying well in the heavens god created in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth it is a creative act of god that brought the earth into existence so what we think was so many millions of billions of years took place in an act of creation okay does she have a question yes i do go ahead i wanted to draw referencing um what about the scripture that says a day is like a thousand years in the sight of god that's one they they would draw from to say it could be that the bible is saying it's a day but it's not really a natural day as in our day 12 over 24 our day um it's not a day that that could be an argument you know to support that theory yes yes yeah so um sorry i was saying so how would one respond to if that point is brought up because that one usually comes along with these theories yeah so we're going to look at that good good that she brought it up so that's going that's what we address in our second question under our second question uh where you know there is what we refer to as a day theory where people say and sometimes and this of course is from the christian community where they say that well each of these days that we see here in genesis is actually thousands of years because the bible says a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day that's a computer three but we will see as we will explain when we get into the next question that actually is it doesn't hold and and we will state the reasons right we'll give specific reasons why that doesn't hold when we read genesis one i mean i just give you a preview so that means we're saying god rested on the seventh day god rested for you know a thousand years why would god need to rest a thousand years you know if you are being consistent that every day is like a thousand years or every day is like a million years then when it comes to day seven uh god rested for you know seven million years or he didn't do anything for seven million years so he had everything and then if you also look at it a little closer he created adam on day six then he waited you know example a thousand years or seven million years before he created eve so by the time eve came along adam was seven million years old you see so and we will go into all these details in the next question so that day theory doesn't actually hold because it makes everything very absurd so yeah so we'll come into the details and we'll respond to that specific question in the next part okay all right but good you've brought it up and it's something we will address so to begin with we must understand the creative act of god that in the creative act of god what happened energy matter time and space are brought into existence and they were compressed in an instant so when you look at the big bang theory right which we will talk about next week basically through science they agree that there was a beginning so if you just look at the history of science about uh several several hundred years ago they believed that the universe I mean they couldn't explain it so they just believe the universe was eternal it always was there it had it just was it was always there but then you know science began to understand that hey actually things had a beginning and and there's a scientific reason for it so science redefined things saying no we things had to have a beginning uh so Einstein himself played a major part in helping us understand that the universe had a beginning so everything changed science said okay the universe had a beginning but if the universe had a beginning how did it start so science says there was nothing in the beginning there was nothing and out of nothing came space energy matter and time came into existence so time started at that moment so basically science you know in the big bang we're saying out of nothing there was nothing but out of nothing came energy matter space and time started so that's a big step of faith to believe that or we say everything had a beginning and as the bible says god created so god always existed and he created he brought into existence these four important components of time energy matter and space he caused it to come into being and in his creative act what we consider as millions and billions of years it all came together in a moment of time and most importantly like we pointed out in our last class last week the design for all of these things the design for all of these things so science cannot explain to us where did all this the design come from for instance science tells us there is gravity and gravity is so much you know 9.8 meters per second square this is gravity it exists here on earth and you go up you know science can give us all the details it goes up here to this point and then you're out of that gravitational pull so science can tell us all that it doesn't tell us how did gravity come into existence in the first place science can tell us about like this many things you know the electromagnetic pull is there can measure it for us so science only tells us what is there it doesn't answer the question how did it come into existence so that's the first thing as far as genesis one is we believe in the creative act of god and in god's creative act all of these things were compressed into time and that we believe it's by faith because we believe god is powerful enough to do that okay the second big question that i should point it out is what we want to discuss again based on genesis one is you know we read it we read six days you know what happened in six days so science is telling us no no no no no it's not six days it's millions and billions of years like i mentioned earth is you know earth is estimated to be four billion years old the universe is 14 million years old 14 billion years old so these six days don't seem right how would we respond to that now what has happened in the christian community in the christian community is that over the years you know we we respect science because it is a you know important field it's a valid field they are doing research but in an effort to make genesis and science to reconcile these six days in genesis and the information that science is giving us in an effort to reconcile the two christians have come put forward certain theories or ideas in trying to explain genesis chapter one so there are three main theories one is you know we they've just given names to it one is a gap theory and i've explained this there's a day theory and there's a theistic evolution or guided evolution now again these are theories you cannot even prove it from scripture but this is coming from the christian community as a way to try and reconcile science to genesis chapter one but i just want to point out the dangers in these theories and if you ask me i do not subscribe to these three theories and for the reasons i will share in the that i will mention now right so the first theory and i'll just go through this because you will read about it and you know and so we'll come to a conclusion here but let's just look at them so the first theory is this it's called the gap theory the gap theory is that there's a time gap between genesis chapter one verse one and genesis chapter one verse two because it says in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth so that means verse one the heavens space was brought into existence planetary bodies planets so that would include you know what we other you know saving asteroids you know whatever bodies that came in there are the non-luminary bodies that the non-stars were brought into existence according to genesis one one including the earth and then there is verse two the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the waters so the gap theory is that there was a big time difference between genesis one one and genesis one two now how big was it it doesn't tell us so people say well that could have been millions of years or billions of years so therefore when science says the earth is four billion years old well there's you know between genesis one one and genesis one two they say four billion years old that's why the earth is so old or maybe it was even more than that that's why the you know the heavens are 14 billion years old but then that has some problems biblically speaking first of all we are reading into the white space between verse one and verse two something that was is not explicitly stated for us in scripture there is not you know there's nowhere to be find any inference or reference to that secondly why would god you know just leave things like that for billions of years why would he even do something like that you know why would he leave something there you know verse two says the earth was without form and void so you know if we are saying there was four billion years old god created the earth and he left it for four billion years old why would he leave it like that for four billion years old you know yes so in response to that what some and I'm not saying this is widely understood but what widely accepted but some Christians have said there was a pre-adamic world between genesis one one and genesis one two that there was life on earth on the planet and things of that nature you know again there is not enough scripture I think this will be one or one or two verses from Jeremiah Isaiah and so on but it doesn't back it up doesn't substantiate a pre-adamic world right so my response so personally you know I'm just saying personally I'm making you aware of what's there in the christian community I'm not saying you should preach it or teach it I don't but I'm just making you aware because you might run into it so personally some people have tried to explain genesis one one like that and so I don't do it okay this only in this class in this place you would hear me talk about it I don't preach it from the pulpit or teach it no I'm just sharing saying that look there are people who do this and but it is it is not you know it's not backed up by scripture another theory that that people have used to try to reconcile genesis chapter one with science is what we call as a day theory which is what Thesha was mentioning where people say the day in genesis one could have been many thousands of years could have been now here's the first thing obviously the reference that that David quote is what is stated in you know in second Peter 3 where Peter writes you know forbid the lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day now very important and this is second Peter chapter 3 and let's see uh verse 8 second Peter 3 8 right a day is like that now just talking about second Peter 3 8 first of all we must understand the context of what Peter is talking about is uh uh he's talking about he's getting believers ready for the coming of the lord right so he says you know don't be slack concerning the coming of the lord so he's talking about the lord's return and in that context he's saying don't forget you know time is of no essence to god the second thing that i want to point out about second Peter 3 8 is he's using a comparison that means that with the lord one day is as a thousand years he didn't say one day is a thousand years but he said as a thousand years so we also so when we use that we're just using a comparison we're not stating a fact we're saying it is like something like this so it's not meant to be taken literally it's meant to be taken as uh you know a figure of speech as something representative you know so you know we even in our english language we use it you know use a man you know we use we use language like this you know um you know uh you know we for example if you want to say something about a person you would say well uh you know he is as like as somebody it doesn't mean that he is that person but he is like that you know whether you're talking about his mannerisms or character or so on as it's used as a comparison so that's something we need to keep in mind at second Peter 3 8 but more importantly if you take the day theory of thousand years and you start applying it to everything here in Genesis 1 because the day you know is repeated often you'll find that it gets becomes very absurd right so let's look at this day theory now in the day theory now in Genesis 1 verse 5 it tells us very clearly the first day what was it it was the evening and the morning so it repeats that over and over again Genesis verse 1 5 again in verse 8 and I've given on the the verses here you've been we know it and verse 13 and verse 19 it says the evening and the morning was the first day so it's not leaving anything ambiguous evening and the morning was the first day right now obviously some will say well the sun wasn't there at that time the sun was created on day four there's no sun so how could there be evening and morning well the answer is pretty obvious the earth was created and the earth was already rotating on its axis what defines an evening and a morning is a one full rotation of the earth not a revolution but a rotation of the earth defines a day so you don't need the sun to define the day a 24 hour period a 24 hour period is what is defined not by the sun it's defined by one full rotation of the earth so it's fair to say that a single rotation of the earth which defines an evening and a morning was it was a day and it is still possible for a day to take place simply by the rotation of the earth in the absence of the sun doesn't matter so that's the first thing what is it throughout Genesis it is explicitly stated evening and morning okay okay all right it's already 9 50 uh all right um okay we will have to take a break here all right so uh all right is my voice clear others can hear it i see uh i clear i see sam's comment so i'm sorry to saw it now it's clear okay fine all right um let's take a quick break i uh we'll come back to this and let's see how far we can go i'll try to go a little faster and okay let's take a quick break and we'll be back in uh yeah 10 minutes okay thank you