 Okay, welcome back everyone to our second lecture on BC 212. We're just going to answer some questions on Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Sean, go over the question. When you see Genesis verse 1, it says, the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And then verse 2, it goes on to saying that how the earth was formed. So when you read those verses together, it kind of seems like, you know, it's like this is the heading like about God creating the universe. And then you see how that process happens is what you see. It doesn't seem like this is created before. And then like, then you go like further into creation about then it's look at earth. It kind of seems like this is the title. Then you have the story like that. It's like, okay, what I'm, you're right. Like he's saying, this is what I'm going to tell you about. And then he gives us step by step different things that happen. Yeah. Any other questions? Let me see online. So I just want to take up questions. Okay. I'm passing. He says on the seventh day God rested, right? But, but then we know that God never rests. God always works. So God never tires. He never becomes very tired. He doesn't sleep. And why it is saying God rested on the seventh day. So I think it's there. And this is my, my thought that it is there more for our benefit. Right. So when it, when it says God rested, we had to understand it as, not that God was so tired. I spent so much energy now. I need to regain my energy. Because God is infinite. Right. So we have to, it's not from that perspective, but we don't understand it as God didn't finished his work and he paused. It doesn't mean he was not working. He paused and he did it so that he could set us an example. That's all I want you to pause. See, like when, for example, one day a week on some places, two day a week, and now Europe is saying three days a week, we want to pause. We want to rest. I mean, like doesn't mean we stop breathing or stop cooking or, you know, we're going about, even in our rest day, we're going about our activity. This is it. We are not doing intense work on the, like the other days. So God paused on that day and he did it more for, to set something in place for us to follow. We have to understand it like that, not as a herald of strength and not to recharge and things like that. Okay. Yeah. Like the question I was getting in my mind, sir, is, like when we see God made heaven like one day each thing, right? So is it took the entire day to like, when God spoke, let there be a light. Is it took the whole day to make, to become like when he told that there be, yeah, like is it took one full day to happen and come those things into existence? If not, if like, if it happened just by a word, like if God spoke, let the water divided. If it happened in, in stand, he would have told other thing, like how we're telling day one, day two, all then can be happened in one day. Okay. So now you want to hurry up even faster than that. So one side people are stretching one day into billions of years. So your question is why did God have to take one full day to do something? So the answer is we don't know, right? Like it just says that on such and such a day, God did such and such a thing. Now, did it take the whole day for what God spoke to actually come into thing? Did it take 12 hours of daylight to happen? Or did it take full 24 hours to happen? Or did it happen in an instant, right? My thought would be it all happened in an instant, right? And it happened in an instant and it, from that moment, it became a process. It became something that was set in place. And especially when you think about the vegetation and the creatures, the sea or the birds or the land, when God spoke, these things started happening. And from that time, it's continuing to happen. The earth is still giving vegetation, like plants and things still keep happening. Creatures are still being, whether it's in the sea or in the air on the land, creatures are still being born and it's just going on. So it began that instant and it is continued as a process. It is continuing as a process till now. So to me, it doesn't matter that I would say it all happened in an instant, but it continued and it still continues happening as a process. Why did God select, you know, day one, I'll do this, day two, I'll do this, day three, I'll do this, day four, I'll do this, day five, why did God, that's because He's God, He just chose to do it that way. And again, we can say in all of that, He was giving us an example. He was going to set something in place for us saying, six days you work and then you rest on the side. If you finished everything on day one, He'll say, you work one day, rest six days. That will be a reverse of the intent of what He wants for us. So I'm just trying to make some deductions. Pastor, when we are talking about this all the creation and pre-ademic period. So when all these happened like about this Lucifer story and he got through this Lucifer down and when it actually happened maybe after the creation of heavens and the earth or after before or... Yeah, so what do we know about Lucifer and angels, right? We know that they existed before man was there. So because man was on the earth and then we see Satan appearing. That means Satan became Satan most likely before man was created. Most likely. Did it happen during Genesis chapter two? Because it's very unlikely because very short time. So it's probably, yeah, it happened somewhere before. Now these angelic beings were created, they were created in heaven. In heaven means where God dwells. So God didn't need the heavens and the earth. They were in heaven in the dwelling place of God. And when it talks about the glow in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 talks about how Lucifer was his glory and all of that. It could have all been in heaven. Does it necessitate that there had to be a pre-adamic life for Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 for some of it to be... Does it necessitate, not necessary because a lot of it is very descriptive language. And especially in Isaiah 14, there is the dual reference. There is the reference to the physical king of the earth, the king of Tyre as well as suddenly changes to the angelic being that is Lucifer. So there's a dual reference happening in the chapter where the prophet is going between the literal king on the earth and demonic power which is Lucifer. So some of these things which necessitate or have reference to the earth we would say, okay, maybe it's referring to the natural king. It doesn't have to refer to Lucifer. So all we can say is it happened sometime most likely or I should say we could with confidence say it happened before Adam came on the sea. Sometime in the past we say, you know, eternity past or dateless past that Lucifer led the rebellion. He was the archangel. He was a worshipping angel. He was created on glory and beauty as described and he led the rebellion. And then he was banished from heaven and he tried to seek place on the earth. But the earth was given to Adam and Adam handed it off to Satan. Satan said it has been given to me. So the earth was given to Adam and it is through his disobedience he gained access here. So there is a lot that we don't know about Lucifer in, you know, what all happened in the past. So I think it's better not to imagine too much. Otherwise it'll be like, you know, like people writing fiction. We also writing Bible fiction or I shouldn't call Bible fiction but things that we just imagining. Okay, online Nina is saying his creative work was completed and that's why God rested. It was totally effective, very good. So Nina, I think you're asking a question is that God completed his work and that's why he rested. Yeah, that's, yeah. So is that a question? You're just sharing your comment, you know. Oh, it's a question. Okay. So I didn't understand the question. So I think the question is his creative work was completed question mark. And that's why God rested. It was totally effective, very good. Would you restate your question Nina so I can understand it? I didn't pick it up yet. The question had just come up about the, about why did God need to rest. So when I was just looking at Genesis two and versus one and two, it kind of mentioned that that way. That's the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. That's NIV or the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day, God ended his work, which he had done and he rested. So and 131, it kind of, he saw that was good and very good. So can we kind of say that what God wanted to do in this area? It was totally effective, very good. And so in that way rested to commemorate it. Can we say it that way? Yeah, yeah. That means God finished it. So it's okay. I've done all of all I wanted to do. So let me pause or stop or rest. Yeah, that's fine. That's perfectly correct understanding as well. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks Nina. All right. Some more questions here. So is it like, you know, when you make a machine or something, you have to see how it works. You step back and let it work. So is it like that to see how? So God said everything was good. Everything's exactly the way he wanted it. And yeah, it's very happy. Yeah, because you see like you step back and you're very pleased with all that's happened. So is that why like, you know, step back and see, you know, you see stopped working. It means he finished the process of the creation and everything, but everything else up there is still like my new things, you know, like, you know, it comes to birth and all other things like that. Those are all still like happening. They're all like small work, but it comes like a larger sense. He finished this part. Yeah. So yeah, that's kind of what the Bible is saying that he finished whatever he wanted to do. Yeah. And he was very happy with it. Yeah. And he paused. Yeah. That doesn't mean he never started working. Yeah. How does that work? And, you know, now he's working in us and a lot of work to do in each of us. Yeah. But yeah, he was very pleased. Yeah. It's a good lesson as a way to look at it. Yeah. Question. So passing in verse 90. Okay. Let's say verse 20. So Adam gave names all caliber to the birds of the entire pieces field. So, um, so in this, so like some animals can live only like a particular place. Let's say a polar bear for an example can only live in the article where it's really cold. So what about those seven animals? Like how did Adam? How did Adam name those animals that live in some far off. Regents. Yeah. Um, so, you know, this is kind of kind of leads into our next lesson, lesson number six about Darwin's theory where we will see some things where, uh, see the way things are today are quite different from Genesis chapter one and two. What we do understand in Genesis chapter one into God spoke to the whole earth. And, uh, things were happening all over the earth at the same time. Like it didn't grass didn't grow only need and it is growing all over the world. Uh, see creatures are coming, not just, you know, somewhere in the area. It is happening. So God speaking, the whole earth is responding. It means birds, creatures, everything was happening everywhere, uh, animals and everything. But in the garden, the animals were brought. It doesn't mean that every animal ever created. Right. But, and it doesn't mean like all the sea fish and all lined up on the ground in front of Adam. No, they were all in the sea. They had to be in the sea. Right. Uh, other birds. Everywhere. Right. So the understanding is that may be a representation of these animals and creatures. But, uh, came before Adam and Adam was the one who gave them their whatever he wanted to call them or designate names for them. But again, you had to think there's so many kinds of creatures in the sea. They didn't all start walking and coming to Adam. What is my name? Then go back. Yeah. Yeah. Today it is, you know. Um, so I think a Genesis to 20, the worst that you mentioned. Yeah. Genesis. Yeah. 220. It's, it's indicating to us that Adam was given charge of the earth. And he is describing designating names to all of creation. And, uh, uh, how exactly it all happened. We don't know. Right. Again, we're just using our imagination where perhaps Adam was at that my moment, maybe God enabled Adam supernaturally to comprehend every call of creation and designate names or even understand what names to give. Maybe God did it that way. Uh, but I can't imagine like all the sea creatures coming on the land, lining up in front of Adam and give me a name and going back to the sea on the birds. You know, how would actually happen? We don't know. But the implication of it, we understand that Adam is being put in charge of all creatures, all creation on the path. That's the implication. How exactly 220 Genesis 220 actually happened? We don't know. Uh, how it would have, you know, thing and because it's, it's hard to what we know is when God created the whole earth was responding. There's been all these animals came in one place. It's not practical. Right. So how it actually happened. You don't know. Sorry question. Uh, sir, what about dinosaurs? Yeah. So we'll come to one chapter. I think so what we're going to do is we're going to address. So what we get into now, and I just introduce it today and we'll develop this further. I just want to spend maybe this week and possibly next week on this whole creation part. We should finish it because there's a lot more to go ahead. But I'm, you know, I just want to understand Genesis chapter is one and two because we're important. Um, what we have left in this whole creation side is we have to respond to three sets of challenging challenges, questions that come from the scientific community to assess Christians as believers. Okay. So one set is the questions brought to us through evolutionary biology about how life came in on the earth. Okay. So it started with Darwin or actually started before Darwin will when we go into the chapter will say so actually before I mean before Darwin, there were people who were they didn't. And this was Darwin was, you know, 1800. So we're almost talking about 200 years ago, almost where they did not have as much scientific technique as we have today. Today, we have lots of, you know, you can have microscope, you can do research, you can all those days they didn't have all those things. Right. And before Darwin, so we're talking even before 1800s. There were people who are coming up with ideas or theories that maybe God didn't create. But things may have just happened just evolved. Okay. But it was Darwin and we when we get into chapter six, we'll understand it was Darwin who kind of gave it some. A more clear, more explanation and he made it more widely known through his writings. So that's why many people call Darwin as the father of modern evolution theory. Ever to Darwin. But actually those ideas were floating around even before that. You know, speed thinking, maybe just happen, maybe just you just change, change, change, change. Okay. And then today, the scientific community evolutionary budget people have studied people say so much our knowledge is there. So there are questions from evolutionary biology. How do we respond to that? That's one side. Second side is cosmology. That means, like we said, the Big Bang. So we need to understand a little bit about what they are saying in Big Bang. How everything started from some point in time in the past. There was nothing and suddenly somehow energy and mass just exploded from a single point exploded. And over billions and billions and billions of years, you know, planets and stars and all this thing came into existence. So we try to understand what they are saying. And then how do we respond to that? And then the last is what like what's on last is questions about findings today, especially in carbon dating and with finding of fossils, right? They say, look, we are using scientific technique. And this is telling us this has been here on like Earth is four billion years. And then they find other things. Okay, this has been here so many 100,000 years. This has been here so many things. That star is so many billions of years old. The universe is 14 billion years old. So how do we respond to those things? So three categories of challenges that we face from the scientific community, right? So today I'll just introduce Darwin's like his history. Then we'll get into, okay, what was his theory? How do we respond to it? What are the gaps in his theory? Like what are the mistakes he made? And then we'll, you know, do that. We'll try to finish this hopefully next week. And so, okay, let's get started. Let's see if we can, how much we can do today. All right. So let's go to lesson number six, right? So modern evolution theory, right? So now very interesting is what has happened. What has happened over time is the evolution theory, try to explain from a biology perspective. Then before Darwin finished his work, he extended that into trying to explain even the evolution of emotions. So not only biology, that is, the species are evolving. But with that, he tried to kind of extend it into psychology. The mind is also evolving. So he explained that, trying to explain the behavior of animals and the evolution of animal behavior to human behavior, so extended it. And then over time, this has been extended into social and cultural evolution. That means, why is the change in society and the change in culture? That is also trying to being explained with the same idea of evolution. So, okay, before people were living like tribals, then that was a certain social structure and culture. Now we are coming into cities. In cities, also things are changing so much. Society and culture is evolving. Things are changing so much. So this whole idea of evolution started there with biology, then has been extended to so many, like to psychology, to social and cultural behavior and so on. So people are trying to explain everything based on this evolution. Now, when we look at social evolution, cultural evolution, it looks very real. We understand, we can see even in our own time, how things are changing around us. Life in the city, how it was a couple of decades ago and how things are changing. And even now, things are changing the way society and culture and so on. We know it's changing. But is it, and so we say it's evolving or it's changing, but does it always mean it's getting better? Or is it a movement up? Is it or is it sometimes a decline? Actually, it's getting worse. It's going better. It's probably getting worse. So those things are debatable right there. Anyway, so Charles Darwin, let's just give some introduction before we finish today. So back in the 1800s, right, he was an English naturalist and basically he studied natural things, species of life and so on. And then his main theory, he referred to it as a theory of descent, or we could say how things came into being through variation and selection. That means variation means things keep on varying. As there is a reproduction, they keep varying. It's not the same thing. There are variations happening and there is selection. That means there's adaptation and certain things survive, certain things are eliminated. So through the process of variation and selection, things keep getting, have come to where it is today. There's progress to where it is today. During his time, remember we're going back to 100 years, in 1800s, his hypothesis was, and he based his ideas, his conclusions on mainly four observations. One was the geographic distribution of species. Why are polar bears only there? You don't find polar bears roaming around in India. I mean, we have bears. There's a different kind of bear. Why are bears found? So he was looking at, why are certain creatures here, certain creatures there, certain creatures there? Like he was just observing, but he came to these conclusions. So one was the distribution of different kinds of animals and birds and species. Second was based on fossils, whatever they could find in those times. Third was based on vestigial organs. So I was saying there are some organs that actually have no use. Then he said, okay, then maybe this species evolved to the place where that was no longer needed. And so it's a vestigial organ. It's not playing much of an important, but therefore he arrived, used that as a basis of his conclusion. And homology, okay, there are similar organs or similar parts playing different functions. Some can be used to fly. Some can be used to swim. They look like arms, what birds have for flying. Others have to swim. So he was looking at structures that seemed similar, but they used for different purpose. So he used these four things for observations as a basis for his theory. So those days, now, of course, he did not have as much, like I mentioned, as much scientific instrumentation, those kinds of things to validate what he was saying. But based on what was available to him, observations he could make 20 years ago, he did that. And then he started arriving at a lot of theories, a lot of ideas. Just a little bit about, okay, we'll talk a little bit about this background, but evolutionary biology, basically. So evolutionary, come to where things are today. A modern biologist will say, okay, every organism, every living organism has some sort of a biochemical metabolism. That is, something is happening inside. There's a chemistry that is going on inside the living organism. That's causing it to live. Second, every living organism has the ability to transmit information, reproduce itself. And it's transmitting information. And third, what comes out, the descendant may be different from the parent because of mutation, things that happen. So that gives rise to variety, variation. Okay, so three things. You say something is living. There are three characteristics. One is things are happening inside. There are reactions, chemical reactions that are going on inside the living organism. Second, the organism has the ability to transmit information. And third, it's reproducing itself, but what it reproduces could be slightly different from the original. Some variation would be that. So you say, okay, these are living things, fine. But two simple questions. One is, yeah, today we have studied. We know that this information is being passed through what we refer to as the genes. But genes are basically, we studied further and we found out these are just, you know, lipids or proteins. They're all made up of some chemical molecules there. Somehow these genes, the arrangement of these chemical molecules are so intelligent, they're giving rise to people like you and me. So you just take some chemicals, shake them nicely in a tube. Will you get a human being? You won't get a human being. So we are saying, see, we have studied everything so much. We know in the cell, it's just actually some chemical compounds are there, going down to the level of the genes. They're just chemical compounds that are arranged in a certain way. But that is driving life. The result of that is people like you and me. I'm just referring to people. But it's, you know, you can study all other living organisms. The very lowest level, it says compounds, chemical compounds, whether you study a plant or you study any creature, living organism. It says compounds, chemical compounds. They're arranged in such an important, you know, sequential ways arranged. So our question is where did this intelligence come from? First of all, to arrange all these things like this for it to keep on happening. And then it is giving rise to such wonderful creatures. We can say man or any other creature you want. Where did this intelligence come from? And so the next big question is, you know, how could this all have started by a random act? So we are just saying there are these chemical compounds. They randomly came together and produced such wonderful life. So how come? So that's the second big question. If life originated in such an extraordinary moment of absolute randomness, causing transition from prebiotic to biotic evolution. Before life suddenly, before there was no life, suddenly life came. Same compounds. Suddenly life came. Same compounds, prebiotic. And now it is a biotic evolution. How did a set of chemical compounds self-organize into a self-replicating system of macromolecules? Like how come you just had some chemical compounds? How do they all come together in such intelligence? And then they started, you know, replicating and, you know, suddenly you and I came. How could that be? So where did the intelligence come from? And how could these things just come together and transition from no life to life? Even if you assume, first of all, how did the compounds come into existence? So we're assuming these things were there, our molecules. So that goes back to the Big Bang theory that the Big Bang happened. And that had the Big Bang will have an explanation of how these molecules came into existence. We will see it in the next lesson. So Big Bang says, okay, somehow these molecules came. Somehow they landed on the earth. Somehow there was all these compounds formed over time. And then how did they all arrange themselves? Then how did they go from non-life to life? So these are two big questions. Now where did the intelligence come that these could arrange themselves so beautifully? And then how could it go from non-life to life? So evolutionary biology is trying to explain all these things. But we have two simple questions. Let's just give a little background to Darwin and then we will pause. So actually very interesting about Darwin. He was actually raised in a church background. And he was sent to study medicine. He didn't study, he neglected it. So he was sent actually to become a preacher faster. So he was sent to Cambridge to do a BA to become an Anglican pastor. So that was his background. So he had some exposure to the Bible and all that. And then he had a close friend who was a professor, a botany professor, who encouraged him in his desire to explore nature and so on and so forth. And so what happened is, after he finished his bachelor's, he went on a voyage on a ship, HMS Beagle. He went through South America, the Galapagos Islands, in kind of Central America, South America, through and through Australia, South Africa and so on. And so he was seeing all these different kinds of animals and so on. So he was studying all this. And he wrote everything down. He published his first journal of his experience on his voyage that made him very famous. Okay, people of course like to read. You know, you travel to all these places. What did you see? What was this? So it was a good thing. He wrote these things. But all of that, you know, so collecting all that knowledge and sort of thinking about it and looking at the wildlife, the fossils that he saw collected. He came up with this theory of natural selection that was around the age of 29. And we will talk about this later. How things may have, how all these species that he sees in different islands, in different places. Okay, this is how it would have happened. So he came up with the theory, trying to, you know, in some way respond to why are these things in different places and so on. And he continued work on that. Later on, around when he was about 50 years old, he published his major book on the origin of species, which was that one book that, you know, really tried to propound or promote the theory of evolution, the origin of species. Then he wrote the other books, The Descent of Man and Selection. That's 1871. And then he tried to extend that to, like we said, to psychology, the expression of emotions in man and animals. So what he had observed in biology is now extending into the area of psychology. And then he also looked at it, his last book on the part of movement in plants. Let me just make a few more thoughts, mention and we go. So like we said, actually there were people before Darwin who were thinking like this. So he was influenced, example, by his grandfather, who also had these evolutionary ideas. So he could have picked that up and, you know, try to expand on it. He was also influenced by the reading of another person's writing, Malthus, on how Malthus was, you know, trying to, he was trying to explain, you know, why people survive, what animals plants survive, and he was coming up with a theory on, you know, why some are preserved, why some are destroyed and so on. So he was trying to explain. So these, all these thoughts, you know, these ideas that he had picked up became the basis of, became a big influence for the basis of things he put out. But what we must also mention is that actually Darwin put out his theory as an argument against the Bible. So he was actually fighting against the Bible. So he was not putting necessarily ideas out saying, I have made a scientific discovery. His writings, the way he wrote it was, I'm trying to prove the Bible wrong. So in one sense, he was actually, his book was actually trying an attempt to disprove the creation account of the Bible, which was very clear in the way he wrote. And we will see, we'll have some quotes. Darwin's writings predominantly argue against creator. So he was trying to position that his writings and his theories and his ideas to try and disprove the creation account of scripture. Okay. So we'll pause here. So what we next week, I really want to finish this. We will go to Darwin's theory. We'll go through the Big Bang theory and we'll try to respond. What are some of the gaps in Darwin's theory? So that at least when somebody comes and says, oh, I believe in evolution, we can respond to it. I believe in Darwin's theory, we can respond to it. At least ask some questions. Same thing with Big Bang. We can ask some questions. And then the last part about dating and fossil carbon dating and the life of fossils. Okay. So let's pause here. Let's close in prayer and we'll wrap this up next week. Okay. May I request somebody to please pray? You can take the mic and pray. Heavenly Father, thank you very much for guiding us all here for this prayer and for this understanding of the word, Heavenly Father. And to know more about your creation, Heavenly Father. Please give us a nod, Heavenly Father, to read in all that we've learned here, Heavenly Father. And thank you very much for helping us so far, Heavenly Father. And bless each and every person present here in the Heavenly Father. And please pray. Amen.