 I have, as my guest in this hour, none other than a man I like to call, Dr. Hugh Ross. We've had him on the program before, he's a huge crowd favorite, although the elites may sneer at him, but he's a huge crowd pleaser, people just can't get enough of this guy. He has written books that have changed my life, I've used what he writes in his books in my books, and he's on the phone right now, Dr. Hugh Ross in California, welcome to the program. Well, thank you. You, people always say, I love it when you have Hugh Ross on, and I say, well, so do I, that's why I have him on. And I just thought we haven't talked in a while, and I would just love to check back with you, talk about your books. It's always, it's just fun to you to talk, fun with, for me and my audience to talk to you about anything. Now you've got so many books that I don't really even care which one we talk about, but maybe Beyond the Cosmos, what do you think? Yeah, we could talk about that. And we had a Four Views book just released a couple of weeks ago. And you had a what? A what? Yeah. A what released? It's called Four Views on Creation, Evolution and Intelligent Design. It involves the presidents of the four largest science, state organizations. And for the first time, the Clarity State, where they stand and why and how they do their ministries. Well, see, this is interesting because one of the big questions that comes up from people, particularly who don't know what they believe with regard to the faith. They say, I have a problem with the whole creation story that the world would create in six days and so on and so forth. And I always say to them, well, wait a minute, you know, because I've read books by Dr. Hugh Ross, it seems to me that the word, the Hebrew word yom for day doesn't need to mean 24 hour day. Some people will dispute that, but it gets into this huge. You realize there's a vast continuum of belief on this. It's not simply I believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago in six literal days, or I believe there is no God and the universe just existed. Just came into being by random chance or something like by accident rather. You're saying that they're all different kinds of views. But in this book, you spell out four views. When you say four views, do you mean four views that the people adhering to these views would say these are biblical views of creation? Yes, yeah, it involves the presidents of answers and Genesis, biologos, the Discovery Institute, and I represent the reasons to believe. OK, so let me ask you if you don't mind. I think this would be great for my audience. What are the four views and others? These are represented, as you say, by you represent reasons to believe, which is your ministry answers in Genesis. Is that Ken Ham? That's Ken Ham. He was one of the four authors. OK. Then you have the folks at Biologos. Yeah, that was represented by Debra Harsman, the president. Right. And Steve Meyer for the Discovery Institute. OK, now these are all people that I have met and people that I revere. And I I love the idea that you have done this helpful thing and put these four different views into a book. So is the title of the book four views? Yeah, four views on creation, evolution and intelligent design. OK. By Zondervin. OK. So if if you could, I don't know if you're if you're interested, but I was going to say, can you summarize the four different views? I think this is very helpful. Yeah, that's what's most valuable about the book. You clearly see the four views laid out and answers in Genesis takes the viewpoint that the creation days in Genesis one or six consecutive 24 hour periods and that there is no time between Genesis one one and Genesis one three and therefore the earth and the universe would both be younger than 10,000 years close to 6,000 years. Steve Meyer, representing the Discovery Institute, says we believe that the life was intelligently designed but does not take a position on the age of the universe or who the intelligent designer is. However, I knew that and basically said in my response to Steve, but I know where the Discovery Institute stands. Tell us where you stand. And he did. And he said, you know, I take an older perspective and my view is very similar to yours, which it is. Then you got Deborah Harzma representing Biologos and they would endorse that the earth and the universe are billions of years old. But when it comes to life, it's God working through the natural process in a way that we can't distinguish. So she does claim that God is involved, but in a way that we can't measure or detect. And then I represent the position that the days in Genesis are six literal long periods of time and consecutive and that therefore the earth and the universe have been here for billions of years. But that the history of life is one of God directly, miraculously intervening at the origin of life on multiple points beyond that in a way that we scientists indeed can detect and distinguish from a non-theistic interpretation of life. OK, I want to I want to break this down because I know that there are many people listening that we've lost them. I'm looking at my engineer, Air Canson, he's totally tuned out. And I think I'm just joking. He's never tuned out. But the point is that this is not something typically that is explained. You don't typically have this explained and took me a long time to figure out. And your books helped me immeasurably in trying to come to terms with all this. So first of all, there is Ken Ham and answers in Genesis. They are what's called Young Earth creationists. They believe that the Bible teaches that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. And they believe that the the creation took place in six literal days of 24 hours. So that to most people seems no longer possible to believe. And I think that you and I are two in the camp that we say it. That doesn't quite make sense. But let's be let's play devil's advocate or let's try to help Ken Ham's position and try to to say, what what is it that compels him and people who believe this to believe it? Now, if I say to them, hey, geology, we know from geology that there are that there are rocks and stones and things that are millions of years old. We know that. What would Ken Ham and company say? Well, typically what goes on in these discussions is they tell people you got two options. It's Young Earth or theistic evolution, which is God working through the natural process in a non interventionist way. And when people are stuck with those two options, they say, well, if I go with the Bible, I got to go with the Young Earth or if I'm going to trust the book of nature, I got to go with theistic evolution. Well, but but I don't want I don't want to I mean, I understand what you're saying. But but even before we get to that difficult choice or that false choice really, because I don't think that, you know, you and I don't come out on on either of those to the false dichotomy. Right. So but but but getting away from that, what does somebody say? You know, what would Ken Ham or somebody who believes in in an earth that is a Young Earth, what do they say about the geological record? Well, they say that the geologists are wrong, that, you know, we're simply misinterpreting the science. And fundamentally, what they fall back on is they believe that the laws of physics radically change at the fall of Adam or the flood or both. And by radical, I mean up to a factor of a billion times. OK, but but that's but I'm glad that that that I got that out of you, because I'm trying to understand myself. How do they? What is the argument that they make? In other words, you don't want to disagree with somebody unless you've heard their arguments, right? And that's something that I've probably encountered at some point, but I forgot it. But you're saying that they say that at the fall or after the fall, some of the laws of physics change. Now, I don't find that insane. I might not agree with it, but I certainly don't think it's insane. It helps explain where they're coming from. We're talking about this new book out called Four Views of Creation and the four different views that Christians have with regard to how the universe began, how human beings came into existence. And we're talking about the one the first view is, you know, where Ken Ham and the young Earth creation is coming from. They say the world is 10,000 years old or less. They say that the world was created in six literal days of 24 hours. Your books were the first that helped me see that not all Christians who believe in the Bible need to believe that. And I I guess, ultimately, as I looked at the evidence, I came around to adopting your view on these things. But to get back to to Ken Ham and company that they they have good reasons, even if we might not agree with them, they have, nonetheless, good reasons for believing what they believe. And you said that they argue that the laws of physics changed at the fall. And I guess what does that mean that that when you that carbon dating doesn't work? Yeah, that way they can say the radiometric dating methods don't reliably tell us what the age of the earth and the universe are because they decayed a million to a billion times faster at the fall or at the flood. But that contradicts what the Bible says, which says that the laws of physics don't change. Now, what does the Bible say that Jeremiah? Thirty three is one place. Romans eight is another one. Genesis one and Revelation are another place. And what you see in Jeremiah 33, God criticizes the Jews and says, you change your mind all the time. I am God. I never change. I'm immutable as evidence that I'm immutable. Look at the laws that govern the heavens and the earth as they have never changed. I have never changed. And likewise, you got in Romans eight where it says the law of decay governs the entire universe and then cosmology can't separate the time dimensions from the space dimensions. So literally means the entirety of the universe and space and time has been subject to this one unchanged law. Well, what do you say to somebody who would argue that immediately after the fall, human beings lived to be six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred, nine hundred years old and that as time passed, the lifespans got shorter and shorter until now you end up with, you know, four score years, something like that or three score in 10. Wouldn't that argue that things have changed since the fall? Well, you wouldn't have a change in the laws of physics. You do have a change in the conditions. I addressed that in a chapter in my book, Navigating Genesis, where I said, keep in mind that we astronomers are aware that there is a supernova explosion that took place in the last hundred thousand years. That's responsible for about 95 percent of the killer cosmic rays. For people who lived before that event had the potential of living much longer than we do. I'm sorry, when did this happen? Well, we don't know. And we do know what happened somewhere between 20 and 100 thousand years ago. But that's compatible with the rough biblical date for Noah's flood. And so people living before the flood would not be exposed to the radiation that people living after the flood would be. Also note that the Bible tells us humanity did not become global until after the flood. And so with humans living in sedimentary planes, they have also been isolated from igneous rocks, which is loaded with uranium and thorium. So if you're not exposed to that uranium and thorium, you're not exposed to those killer cosmic rays. You can and you're out of vegetarian diet. Notice the Bible says that vegetarian diet until after the flood. And so with those conditions in place, people could potentially live to be eight or nine hundred years. Whereas after the flood, that would be impossible because of that different radiation environment. And what was the event that precipitated the change in radiation? I don't recall what you just you just mentioned it. Well, astronomers think it's a monocerous rain. It's an accostalation monocerous. It's a supernova remnant about 25 degrees across from the sky, which tells us it's relatively close. And two astronomers have been able to determine that the vast majority of very high velocity, heavy nuclei cosmic rays come from that one event. And those are the kinds of cosmic rays that give you cancer. I I'm amazed that I've not heard this before. How do you how do you spell that the monocerous? How do you have one of the constellations is near the constellation of Orion? And yeah, there's a big diffuse supernova remnant in that constellation. And so they just refer to it as a monocerous rain. But I describe this in detail in my book, Navigating Genesis. OK, well, that's I just I just love this. Every time I talk to you, I'm learning something new. So in any case, there are four views in this book, the four views of creation. Now, are you the general general editor of that book? No, Jim Stump of Biologos is the editor of the book. And, you know, even though he's certainly in the evolutionary creationist camp, he was a very fair editor and made sure that the four views were clearly stated and critiqued. Well, it's just a wonderful public service to create a book that explains clearly these four different views. Very, very important. Just I think for anybody who wants to understand, you know, how what am I supposed to think about this stuff? So so the answers in Genesis folks believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. And I think the reason I'm bringing this up so much is that I think a lot of people believe that you have to believe that to be a Christian. And because I had the fortune of reading your books, I think it was 1990 that I was first exposed to your books. I I realized, no, that's not the case. There are many different views of this. And I think we have to be serious because, you know, I want to believe what's true. And if there's something that I don't know, I want to be able to say, I don't know. I don't know where this comes from or that comes from. Well, a lot of the debate is over which books of the Bible you give priority. I mean, answers in Genesis basically says the narrative texts in Genesis are key. You know, my response is we need to look at all 66 books, take the Bible literally, but also take it consistently. So that all 66 books concur. And what is there in books outside of Genesis that that makes you say that we have to look at them? I'm not I guess I'm not clear on what you mean by that. Well, a big difference between Ken Ham and myself is I give a lot of credence to the wisdom books of a Job, Psalms and the Proverbs. And, you know, those books address the flood, for example. And tell us that once God sets up the continental land masses creation day three never again will the water cover the whole face of the earth. And that's repeated five times outside the book of Genesis. And likewise, when you get inside the book of Genesis and look at the flood text, it makes it clear that the flood wiped out all of humanity and all the soulless animals associated with humanity. But that doesn't mean that God has to flood Antarctica. If humans weren't in Antarctica and had never domesticated the penguins there, there's no need for God to flood Antarctica to take care of human reprobation. That's the world of the ungodly that was flooded. You see that in Second Peter, too. So you that's my point. You look at all the biblical texts, not just one book. And so you you don't believe that the flood was a worldwide flood is what you just said. I do believe it was universal that a white dot all of humanity, except those on board the Ark, but you're saying humanity did not exist in the extreme parts of the various continents. Yeah, I read the Bible. Humanity did not become global until after the flood. And therefore, God did not have to flood the whole of the planet to take care of human reprobation, although I do have a flood model that's much bigger than your typical old earth creationist model. And what is your flood model? Well, basically, I say it's not just Mesopotamia that was flooded, but all of the Persian Gulf and large sections of southern Arabia and Iran, because I put the flood during the last life age. And during the last life age, you got the sea level three hundred and thirty feet below where it is now. And so you have a flood that's covering over a million square miles as opposed to just two hundred and thirty thousand square miles. OK, so let me back up. So when was the last ice age and what where roughly are you dating the Noah flood? Well, the last ice age was between about fifteen thousand and one hundred and thirty thousand years ago. And because it took so long for the waters to recede, Genesis, Chapter eight, that tells us that Noah's flood was an ice age event. You said that you believe that the flood of Noah occurred during the last ice age and that that is significant. Tell us again, why that dating? Why do you come up with that dating and why is it significant? Well, first of all, Genesis two makes it clear that God created Adam and Eve during the last life age, because notice the text has four named Noah and Rivers that come together in the Garden of Eden. Right. And the only location where they come together is about two hundred and fifty feet below sea level. It's in the middle of the Persian Gulf. But during the last ice age, almost the entirety of the Persian Gulf was dry land. So you got Adam and Eve during the last ice age. And with the flood, it tells us it took seven and a half months for the flood waters to recede and to make it have that long of a time. There have to be a lot of snow and ice melt. And so again, I would argue that means that Noah's flood took place during the last ice age. OK. And and you said that another reason that that's significant is because you said during that period, the water level, the water levels around the world were different because so much of the water was in ice form. Right. You got the sea level three hundred and thirty feet lower. And so with the flood during the last ice age, you wind up with a much bigger flood than its typical and most older creations models, instead of just flooding Mesopotamia. You're basically flooding all the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia and large sections of Arabia and Iran. Is there evidence for a flood in those places? You often hear about archaeological evidence of things like the flood. No, there is no evidence. And we wouldn't expect any. The flood didn't last that long. It's how long the flood lasts. It determines what kind of deposit you get. What's interesting in Mesopotamia? We see six different flood deposits, but none of them correspond to Noah's flood. And yeah, I mean, we have evidence of that here in North America. That there's a large section of the Mississippi Valley that was flooded with 30 to 50 feet of water for four months. That was just 30 years ago today. No evidence of that at all. Wow. And so yeah, we wouldn't expect to find geological evidence of the flood, nor would we expect to find any archaeological evidence because it tells us that the arc came to rest on the mountains of Errat, not Mount Errat, the mountains of Errat. And that's a region of about 100,000 square miles. I think it likely came to rest on the foothills of Errat just north of Nineveh and given that the arc was made of a gopher wood, which we know would have to have a tensile strength greater than that of oak, because the arc was at least 450 feet long and the timbers would have had to have been very strong timbers. And therefore the post flood peoples would have rated that wood. And I tell people, if you want to find the remains of Noah's arc, the best place would be the ashes of Nineveh. But you're going to be finding ashes. You're not going to be finding the actual wood. Well, now that is if the arc had come to rest at a lower elevation, as you're suggesting. But if it had, in fact, come to rest on one of the tops of these mountains, if not what is today called Mount Errat itself, then it is conceivable that it would have been impossible to raid the wood and to sort of to cannibalize the the arc. Yeah, but that would require the flood to be global and extent. And there's abundant biblical evidence that it was not global. Well, why would it scientific evidence? Why would it require I'm not following. Why would why would the flood have to be global in order for the arc to have come up that high? We're not talking, you know, having the arc rest a couple hundred feet above sea level. We're talking about a resting 10,000 feet plus above sea level. OK. And you're you're suggesting the water did not raise did not go up that high. You're looking at, you know, way too much water, which is why the younger creationists claim there was massive plate tectonic activity during the five months of the flood. Well, now, but wait a second. You're you but but it doesn't it say in the scripture that the flood was 40 feet above the highest land? By that said, Genesis 722, where it says the flood waters covered the elevated hills, flash mountains to a depth of greater than 22 feet. But that's from Noah's perspective. Here is Noah on top of the ark. And it means as far as he could see all he could see with water. But if he's in a plane surrounded by hills and the hills are over the horizon, that's in fact what he would see. And so I've always, in fact, what you notice is you get the same phrase for the dove that Noah releases. Here the waters are receding. Noah can see the distant hills. He releases a dove. And the text says, from the perspective of the dove, water covered the whole face of the earth. The same phrase you see in Genesis 722's context. So I've argued that that phrase does not imply that water covered the depths of Mount Everest. It simply says, as far as Noah could see, all the hills were covered to at least that depth. I'm learning more than I even thought I would learn. The depth of the flood, the noetic flood, I have never heard anyone say what you just said. And I think it's fascinating that you say that when you read the scripture, it's from Noah's perspective. Therefore, we don't need to believe that the flood was above every mountain on planet Earth. Yes, and there are plenty of biblical texts that tell us that we're not talking the whole globe. I mean, twice in Peter, second Peter, it uses an adjective to qualify the word cosmos. If he meant the whole world, there would have been no adjectives. What's the adjective? Oh, well, one of them is cosmos tote, that's second Peter three six, which translates the world at the time the event took place. And the only reason for Peter's stadium that way is to distinguish Noah's world from the Roman world. Wait a minute. I thought tote is the Greek word for all. Yeah, no, it's t-o-t-e, and it's basically talking. It's a qualifying adjective, which basically says at that time that it existed for the world at that time. Oh, it's kind of like the modern Greek word, toto, afto. Okay, I'm just puzzling this through with you. I love it that I'm learning this. So your thought then is that the flood itself would only have that the ark would have rested on the foothills of the mountains in the region of Ararat. Well, yes, because it uses a plural. It's the mountains plural of Ararat, not Mount Ararat. And so that's basically the ancient territory of the Armenians. And so that extends all the way down to the foothills just above Nineveh, which to me is probably the most likely place it came to rest. And yeah, what being made of gopher wood, the peoples after the flood would have quickly used that wood for building materials. And what the heck is gopher wood? Do we have another way of another word? We have no idea what gopher wood is, but we do know it must be stronger than oak because about the biggest ship you can build out of oak is about 350 feet, and the ark was at least 450 feet long. So it must have been a wood that was of higher tensile strength than oak, which means would have been far too valuable for people just to leave there. Now I have to follow you down these rabbit trails just because I can't help myself. When you say that it had to be stronger than oak, are there woods today that we think of as stronger than oak? Are there candidates for this wood? Yes, they are, but they're rare and they're valuable. And the good one is lignavita. It's got a tensile strength that's about equivalent to that of aluminum. Lignavita. Where does lignavita? It's a tropical tree and it's very rich in different sap chemicals, and so it's kind of a rosin as wood. I think of fiberglass, dense fiberglass. That's kind of what this wood is like. Okay. It doesn't float in water. It sinks because of how heavy it is or dense it is. So then why would we make an ark out of it? I guess the same reason we make an ark out of, make a ship out of iron or steel. Right, exactly, because it's got greater strength. And why do you say that we could not make an ark 400 feet out of oak? Why do you say that oak could only build an ark 350 feet? Where do you get that idea from? Well, I mean, we were building ships 200 years ago here in America, clipper ships. And what they discovered is about 300, maximum 350 feet was as large as you could make them before they lacked the strength of BC worthy. Before they lacked the strength to be sea worthy. In other words, the forces of the waves and the wind would cause the timbers to break apart. Okay. If it was that big. I've just got to follow you down these things. I'm just fascinated because I'd love to know where you come up with some of this stuff. This has been a long rabbit trail. We've come all the way from, I don't remember where we started. I wanted to ask you though, so we're talking about this book for views. What is the title again, the whole title? It's for views on creation, evolution and intelligent design. Okay. So we've been talking mainly about Ken Ham is the proponent in this book of the young earth view. What is the next view that's represented in the book? Well, you've got the evolutionary creationist view, which says that the earth and the universe are billions of years old. And that God's responsible for life that he creates the light through the evolutionary process through common descent. So it's basically God just working behind the scenes through the natural process. Well, now wait a minute. We've skipped it. That's the fourth view. That's the Biologos view. Okay. Well, you've also got the Discovery Institute view, which is that there's an intelligent designer that's responsible for the origin and history of life. But they're agnostic on the Bible and who the intelligent designer is and the age of the earth and the universe. They don't take any positions there. So we're not getting Steve Myers views. We're getting the official views of the Discovery Institute. Well, the one thing that was good about the book is we each kind of state our position and give the evidence for it. And then we each critique the other three positions and respond. So what I said my critique is, you know, Steve, please tell us where you stand. We all know where the Discovery Institute stands that tell us where you stand. And I knew ahead of time that his position was virtually identical to ours. And he came out and said so. Yeah. All right. So then we really have three different positions. One is what's called Theistic Evolution. That's Biologos. The next one is your position mixed up with Steve Myers position. And then we have the Ken Ham view. So what is the website, Dr. Ross, for reasons to believe? Reasons.org. It's that simple. I keep forgetting how simple. Reasons.org. You must have grabbed onto that URL like in the 1980s or something. While we were the first Christian organization to have a website, we used to win Best Christian Website of the Year consistently, but we were virtually the only one. That's hilarious. Well, I should have known you'd be thinking ahead. We've been talking about the four views of creation, evolution, and so on. You were saying that there's the early, the young earth view. There's your view kind of mixed in with the Discovery Institute view. And then there's the Biologos view, which is really Theistic Evolution. What exactly is the difference between Theistic Evolution and where you come out? In other words, if I would say it, you would say that God has intervened at certain times in palpable ways. That's also what the intelligent design folks, Stephen Meyer, say, that the Cambrian explosion and other times, this was not natural processes. This was God intervening, injecting information into the system. And the Theistic Evolutionists, Francis Collins and Biologos, they would disagree. They would disagree. They would also disagree with me that Genesis is historical. I believe that Genesis 1 to 11 is an historical account. It's chronological. It's giving us details of creation. They would disagree. And they would say that it's figurative or poetic and has nothing to do with natural history at all. That's a major disagreement between our two positions. But another one is we believe that God does directly and miraculously intervene at the origin of life and at many places, thousands of places between the origin of life and God creating human beings. We also take the position that all of humanity is descended from two individuals, Adam and Eve, that God specially created, whereas they take the position that humans evolved from a common ancestor with the chimpanzees and the ancestral population of humans was about 10,000 individuals. So there's significant biblical differences as well as scientific differences. It's, I mean, one of the conundrums of life is trying to figure out everything we're talking about. There's no question that anybody who's thoughtful struggles with these things at least ought to struggle at some point trying to figure it out. You do believe Adam and Eve were historical clearly? Correct. And we've just got about 30 seconds left. Why is that? Well, we think the scientific evidence supports that. So, you know, we look at different papers and we also see that there's really no way to read the Bible consistently and literally without a literal Adam and Eve from whom we're all descended and from whom we all inherited sin. We look at that as a foundational Christian doctrine.