 Okay. All right. Welcome back everyone. This is our second lecture on BC 212 Christian apologetics. We are continuing in chapter 2. We'll finish up chapter 2 and then move into our next chapter. So let's just go back to where we stopped. Okay. So we're looking at the philosophical response to the question about God, the existence of God, and so on. So we're asking some simple questions. One is we're saying every effect has to have a cause. That's a first argument. So to have a universe, you've had to have a cause for this universe. And that cause we're saying is to create a God. Second, for design, there has to be a designer. It's an impossibility for design to happen without a designer. And so if we're saying creation, for creation, you have to have a creator. And so creation itself acquires a creator. Second argument. Third philosophical argument is materiality cannot acquire rationality and morality on its own. So what we are saying is what we see in this world is not just matter. We're also seeing rationality. We are seeing people. We are seeing creatures. They have some sort of a mind, a thought, ability to think and make some, and of course, us human beings, we have a very highly advanced logic and reason, so on. And then we're also seeing morality. That means a sense of right and wrong. I mean, this is right. This is wrong. Do this. Don't do this. Be kind. Don't hurt. You know, speak the truth. Don't lie. That sense of morality is... And of course, people can blur it and people can overwrite that sense of morality and corrupt it, but in general. So what we are saying is how can lifeless matter produce this? In other words, how can just material things acquire this sense of morality, rationality, and so on. So it had to be imparted, had to be given to matter, because matter cannot create this by itself. And the last one is philosophical or a spiritual response is, there is supernatural phenomena, which again cannot be denied. For instance, when you... One thing, one example we can point to is deliverance. In ancient people who are demon possessed, even in our world today, and we see demonic manifestation, they begin to manifest, and that cannot be explained through psychology and psychiatry. They may attempt to, but they cannot, especially the cure. So when demons are cast out in the name of Jesus, and a person is completely delivered, and it was through an act of deliverance in the name of Jesus, then psychology and psychiatry cannot explain that. But it's a reality, it's happening before our eyes. So that means demons are real, the authority of the name of Jesus is real, and the individual's experience of possession and thereafter deliverance is real. We can't deny it, it's happening right before our eyes. And that's, we're just referring to that as supernatural phenomena, which cannot be explained by science that studies the mind, whether it's psychology or psychiatry or neurology or so on. We can't explain that, it's a supernatural work. And that is pointing to the existence of a realm that we can't get a grip on just through scientific research. It's a realm outside of science and scientific. It's supernatural, but it's a real. So we are responding, so we're saying, look, think about these things. We are responding from a philosophical and a spiritual side. So theologically, that means biblically, we've said this is what the Bible says about God and creation. You can think about it philosophically just by its natural reasoning or reasoning about life and so on. These are things you can think about that we've given just four simple thoughts that you can think about and say, look, this has to tell me or point me to something outside of this realm, point me to God and create a God. Let's go to chapter three now. Let me pause here. Everybody is with me. Any questions so far? Any questions so far? Everyone's okay? All right. Let's go to chapter three. So now we're going to spend a lot of our time. Maybe at least another three or maybe four lectures on science, scientific approach, faith in science. As I said, the kind of questions we face today are quite different from, you know, the early church or the Middle Ages. Today, a lot of questions are scientific in nature. They say, okay, no, scientists discovered this and scientists discovered that. And so what do you have to say? You know, is what the Bible is saying still relevant? How do we answer those questions? So we are going to spend quite a bit of time looking at it from a scientific thing. Now, if you find it a little heavy, don't worry. Take whatever you can and I'm not going to ask you scientific questions. I mean, make it difficult for you to examine. So don't worry about the exam. Take what you can if it's a little outside of your field of study because many of us come from different backgrounds. Don't worry too much about it. Just know that that information is available. And if you were asked that question, at least you know where to go, where to find information. And you can, you know, share that with people who might ask you those kind of questions. Okay, so it's just going to be a few more lectures on that scientific. Then we will move on into other things. We'll talk about the Bible. Where did the Bible come from? How do you know the Bible is true and reliable? Then we'll talk about Jesus Christ, about, you know, his resurrection. And then we go on into other social issues and so on. Okay, so we are going to make that journey. We are going to be spending a few lectures on science and faith and science. So bear with me if it is a little bit heavy for some of us. It's just going to be a few lectures on that. So let's get started. So now as a way of introduction to this part, we'll talk about faith and science. Now we're going to be doing a sermon series this, this starting in September on faith and science. And you know, some of these things will be shared. And so it will be interesting as well. So the, when we talk about faith and science, it's very interesting that when you go back a few hundred years, many of the great scientists were actually people of faith. So we've given the list of names here, you know, Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Ferde, Maxwell. Many of these, all of these people were believers in God. And they were pioneers in science. They laid the foundation for modern science. Very interesting. But then what happened, more so in the last 30 years or so, the, you know, we refer to them as the new scientists or the new scientific movement. These new scientists came up with the idea that faith and science cannot mix. So it was a presupposition or it was an assertion that was made by modern scientists or new scientists. It actually contradicts scientific foundations or scientific history, if you will. Because if you go back into history, you find, like I said, the pioneers of the scientific field, many of them were people of faith who believed in God. But it is these new scientific, it is this new scientific movement or the new scientists who have presupposed this separation and said, if you are a person of science, you cannot be a person of faith. But that doesn't, so the question is, you know, is that true? It's an assertion that's been made, but it doesn't have to be true. It's a wrong presupposition because for us people of faith, science is not a discrediting of God. But it is an exploration of the works of God. It is an investigation into God's creation and it's not opposed to the Christian faith. It's not opposed to our faith. So you can happily study science and whatever field of science you're studying, you know, whether it's biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics or whatever field of science you want to go into, you can happily go into it as an exploration or an investigation into God's creation. Not as something outside of God or independent of God, but it's something that is helping us know and see and understand how great our God is. So, and you will find, if you look at, you know, the books that have been written in the last 30 years, there's been, there is this whole, you know, argument going on between a group of scientists who are atheists and scientists who are believers. And it's, you know, it's almost like, okay, one group is saying, if you're a scientist, you cannot believe in God. And then there are other group of scientists and thank God for them who say, no, you can be a scientist and you can still believe in God. It's not a contradiction of faith. Right. So that's very interesting to observe in the last 30 years, 30 years or so. There's been numerous books and articles, you're writing, being written from these two sides. And, and the argument is, or at least what we want to opposition is that you can be a scientist. You can be a person of great faith in God. And science is not a challenge to your faith. It's just an exciting journey of faith into exploring God's wonderful creation. And like we said earlier, Psalm 115 verse 16, we did this, it's, you know, it says that the heavens belong to the Lord. The Lord has made, but the earth is given to man. He's given this, he's put man in charge of the earth and whatever man can do from here. It's great. It's for us to explore and understand how great our God is. In Isaiah 23, Isaiah 28, 23, 29, may I request somebody to read that? We see something very interesting. Isaiah chapter 28 verses 23 to 29. Could somebody read that for us please? Isaiah chapter 28 verse 23 to 29. Does the plow man keep plowing all day to sow? Does he keep turning his soil and breaking the clots? When he has levelled its surface, does he not sow the black cumin and scatter the cumin, plant the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in its place? For he instructs him in right judgment, his God teaches him, for the black cumin is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cumin, but the black cumin is beaten out with a stick and the cumin with a rod. Bread flour must be ground, therefore he does not thresh it forever. Break it with his cartwheel or crush it with his horseman. This also comes from the Lord of hosts who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance. Amen. So what is the passage telling us? Basically the passage is saying, hey, look at the farmer. How does the farmer know that he has to plow the ground a certain way and then he has to put the seed in the ground a certain way? And then how does he know that? So how does he know to do that? So answer to that is verse 26. God teaches him that his God is giving or has given the farmer this understanding of how to engage with the soil and the seed. Then he continues verse 28. How does a farmer know how to harvest different kinds of grain and how to process it differently? The cumin, he threshes it out. The bread flour, he knows he's got to grind that and make it into flour. And how does he know to process the grain differently? Then he says, answer is verse 29. This comes from the Lord. And God is wonderful in counsel and he's excellent in guidance. Now remember this was written in Bible times. This was written more than, you know, 2000 years ago. So in that day, as I say, hey, how does the farmer know what he has to do? How from where did he get this understanding of sowing seed, plowing the ground, harvesting, processing the grain? And his answer is, God gave this farmer this understanding. The intelligence to engage with creation in this way and to leverage it, to harness it and to use it for one's own benefit. That understanding comes from God. So here we are 2500 years later. Today farming has advanced significantly. And even the knowledge to be able to engage with the soil, the seed and the harvest. We can say that understanding we are learning and that learning and the insight God is giving it to us people. And then it's not just farming, but we are engaging in so many other ways. We've learned how to generate electricity. We've learned how to transmit electricity. We've learned so much, so much, so much, so much more that we've gained, which we are leveraging and putting it to our use for our own benefit. Where would that knowledge have come and that ability? And we can say that God's hand is guiding man in his research, in his understanding of his creation. So our exploration of creation, our engagement with creation, our understanding and leveraging of whatever is around us for our own benefit. It's not against God. It's actually being empowered by God. And God is guiding us and he's instructing us and he's encouraging us and come on explore. I'll show you how to make use of what I've given to you. So a scientist who's on the front lines of this kind of discovery can actually be a person of faith and actually be empowered by God in doing, in exploring all of these things. And like we said also from Romans 120, as we look deeper into creation, we are only going to find the invisible attributes of God revealed to us. So for us, science and the exploration of creation, nature around us does not contradict our Christian faith. It only enhances our Christian faith. The next thing about faith in science is, you know, what about discoveries made in science that cannot be explained by biblical accounts? So how do we respond to that? Right? So the Bible as a book, the Bible, we can put it like this. First of all, the Bible is not an encyclopedia of everything. Right? So the Bible is not an encyclopedia of all the birds that God created. It's not an encyclopedia of all the animals God created. It's not an encyclopedia of all kinds of people that God created. No, it's what God has revealed to us for what we need to know in his plan for mankind. But it's not an encyclopedia of, you know, all the stars and all the planets and all of this universe and all of creation. So obviously, we are going to discover a lot of things in creation which is not written about in the Bible. We're going to see a lot of creatures that are not mentioned at all in the Bible. We're going to read about a lot of birds and animals and other things. We're going to read about the, we're going to discover things in space about stars and planets and other things that are happening that are not written about in the Bible. And that's perfectly fine because the Bible does not claim to be an encyclopedia of everything. It has information for us on things that God wants us to know. And the Bible itself makes this statement, Deuteronomy 29, 29. It's an easy reference to remember in Deuteronomy 29. And I'll just read that. He says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God. But those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. So there are things that have not been revealed to us, but what has been revealed to us is for us to live by. So the Bible is saying, look, there are many secret things, hidden things, unknown things that are not revealed here. So we are not unsettled by the fact that the body of knowledge that's available, which is constantly growing, is far beyond the information contained in the Bible. That's okay. Because the Bible is not a repository of all knowledge. It's not. The Bible is God's book for us to show us how to walk with him. So it's perfectly fine when people in science or through science discover so many things. It's okay. It doesn't unsettle us. It doesn't negate the fact that we believe God's word. And so in a future lesson, we'll talk about the Bible itself, but this is something we need to keep in mind. Another related question is should we use science to interpret the Bible? That means, can I superimpose science on the Bible and then change what the Bible says to accommodate or to explain the things that science claims about the material universe? Should we do that? So here's the thing. We do apply knowledge or our science or scientific knowledge. We do apply that in order to understand the text of the Scriptures. But we don't have the right to change what the Scriptures are saying in order to accommodate what science would claim. Let me explain. So in trying to understand the Scripture, of course, we use knowledge. We use the normal language of speech or language, rules of language to understand the Bible. So when we look into the Bible, we read it. We understand it using knowledge, using our understanding of language. And this is how language is written. This is what it means. And in language, there are figures of speech and there are metaphors. There are things that are not literal. There are things that are figurative. There are things that are representative and so on. So when we read the Bible and the Bible, for example, uses phrases like the foundations of the earth. Well, that's a phrase. It's a metaphor. It's not literal. It doesn't mean that the earth is standing on some foundation. No, we know the earth is round. It's suspended in space and it's spinning around. It's rotating on its axis, spinning around the sun. And so we know that the earth is not stationary on some foundation. So there's this example of literary language and so it has to be understood in that sense. The Bible uses a lot of figures of speech. The nations are like a drop in a bucket. That's a figure of speech. He God measures the heavens with a span. They're just telling us that God is so big he can do that. It doesn't mean he's putting out his hand and measuring the heavens with a span. They're just telling us. It's just a language, a literary language that is telling us about God. So like there are many examples. The Bible has to be understood from that perspective as a literary book. It's understood using the knowledge we have. So yes, in that sense, we apply our knowledge, our scientific knowledge and understanding the text. But we have to be careful. Second point, we have to be careful in trying to change what the Bible is saying to accommodate what science may be claiming. So science is going to be scientific knowledge. The body of scientific knowledge is constantly evolving. They are coming up with their discoveries, new theories, new ideas and so on. That's evolving constantly. So for example, in times past, scientists believed that the universe was in a steady state. That means the universe was brought into existence, just came into being the way it was from the beginning. But then they laid to change saying the universe actually had a beginning. So it didn't begin in an expanded steady state. It started as with the beginning and then it's constantly expanding. So that's the current idea of science. That means the universe had a beginning and then it's expanding. So the point is scientific understanding is evolving, it's changing. Ideas that were once held as true are later modified or sometimes even fully discarded and replaced with new ideas and new understanding. As our knowledge increases. So if we are going to interpret the Bible to align itself to scientific knowledge, then our interpretation of the Bible will keep on changing. And that is unacceptable. So what are we saying? We are saying that we cannot superimpose scientific knowledge on the Bible and then change the explanations to match that. We cannot do that. The Bible is final authority and we stay with what the Bible says. So one of the things that we will talk about is creation. The Bible says God created everything. So we don't change that. The Bible says there were six days of creation in what God did as described in Genesis chapter one. We don't change that. There are things that we don't know before and after before that. So we leave that as a blank space. We don't know. We will get into that later. But what we do know, we do not change. That means what the Bible has described for us in Genesis one. We stay with that. We don't change what Genesis one says in order to accommodate some idea proposed by scientific community at this time because we know that could change over time. And lastly, our goal is not to fight but to present truth in love. That means we are not here to fight against the scientific community. There is not a fight between the theological community and the scientific community. It's not a battle against each other. No, we are here to present truth and love and we're here to walk together. That means our science doesn't threaten our faith, doesn't threaten our theological understanding. But we are growing in both. We are growing in our theological understanding. We are growing in science. But there are some non-negotiables as far as theology is concerned because the Bible doesn't change. The Bible is final. It's final authority. And we present this truth in love. Well, the body of scientific knowledge is changing. It's evolving and it's growing. The Bible stays with the truth that it presents to us and that truth does not change. So we present truth and love in order to fight with each other. Could somebody read for us 1st Timothy chapter 6 verses 20 and 21? After this I'll pause to take any questions. 1st Timothy chapter 6 verse 20 and 21. Somebody read that for us please. O Timothy, God, what has been interested to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. So Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy, guard or protect this truth. The truth that we have been given. Protect the truth, guard it. Don't get into these useless empty discussions. And into these arguments of what people pretend or call as knowledge. Don't get into all of that. Don't get into these fighting with them. It's not that we're afraid of these arguments but we have the truth and we don't want to just get into those kinds of arguments with them because people have engaged in that, they've just departed from the faith. So our goal is there is theological truth, the biblical truth. We are welcome and open to scientific knowledge but we're not here to fight and argue. We're here to present truth and love and we're here to walk. As a person of faith, I look at science as something that strengthens my faith not as something that I fight against and not as something opposing my faith. Our approach is like we mentioned in the earlier section. Science helps us to see the grandeur of God. So our goal is not to fight but to present truth and love but we don't let science contradict or overwrite the truth that the Bible presents to us. God's truth is non-negotiable. So we stand firm on that and we guard that. Okay, let me pause you and see that any question so far is everybody with me. Everything is okay so far. All okay? Yes. Okay, great. Any questions so far? Okay. All right. Okay, good, good. Oh, okay. Yeah, I see all your responses in chat. Thank you. All right, so if you feel you're missing me somewhere, just let me know. Just want you to understand and think about it. And if you need to go back and listen to the lecture again a second time, I'd encourage you to do that in case you missed something. All right, let's take up a few more points before we wrap up for today. Now, next question. So we're just looking at faith and science, right? Can science explain everything? You don't know scientists generally, especially the group of scientists who are strong atheists. They say, hey, look, we have answers. We can answer things. You know, science is giving us answers to all kinds of things. But actually, if you pause and think about it, there are genuine questions that all of us have as people. And science doesn't give us satisfactory answers to these, what we would refer to as the big questions of life. I mean, some of these questions don't matter, but they do matter. What are some of these big questions? Where did we come from? So questions about our origin. And the Christian faith says, you know, hey, God created us for a purpose. Whereas the atheistic naturalism point of view as well, we just came over primitive forms of life. So that means we're saying this is just a happening of matter that just evolves. Things happened and we just came. So we are here and there is no greater bigger purpose other than the purpose you would want to find for yourself. Another question, who are we? The Bible tells us we're people who've been made in God's image. So we are bearers of something that's greater and grander. We are bearers of the image of our creator, an atheist. We have to conclude from that body of knowledge that we're just mud. It's been organized like this. We're just a higher life form, better than a chimpanzee or something. That's all meaning. Why am I here? You know, the Bible tells us you're here to glorify God. You're here to serve us purposes. There's meaning to your existence that's found in God. But if you look at it from an atheistic, it's like, hey, whatever you define life to be, find your own purpose. And if you can't find it, it's going to be a purposeless existence. You're just going to live and die and that's the end of it. The moment you stop breathing, everything is over. Morality. What is right and wrong? How should we live? Well, there are clearly defined biblical standards. The Bible is unambiguous about what's right and wrong. Whereas if you look at it from an atheistic point of view, there's no God. Well, you define what you want. Whatever you feel is right, that's right. That's such a dangerous thing because everybody can then say, hey, I feel this is right. I'll do it or I have a reason. And that's why there's so much of fighting and confusion in the world today because we're trying to accommodate this. We're trying to accommodate everybody's definition of morality and that's going to be an endless struggle because everybody wants to be accepted for what they say is right and wrong and that's going to be endless. Then last question. Where are we headed? Where are we going? Is this all there is to life? I live and then I die. The Bible is saying there's more to life. There's eternity and the atheistic view says there's nothing. Sorry, the spelling mistake here. There's nothing beyond this life. It's all over. So in some of the most important questions of life, these questions don't amount to anything and I'm just concerned with today. Of course, we are all concerned with matters of day-to-day matters but these are important questions because they define how we are going to spend whatever time we have here on earth and the Bible gives us answers whereas an atheistic worldview just leaves everything unresolved. There's no satisfactory answer to these questions of life. So if you think about this a little bit more, through science, through our experimentation, through our work and effort, we understand what is there but it doesn't tell us why and how. The bigger questions. So for example, science tells us there is gravity. We can tell it is there. We can tell how to use it. We can tell how to calculate it and we can tell how we can leverage that but we can't explain why and how did this come into existence. That means if we go back in time in the beginning and you say everything happened by accident, it happened without the presence of a designer, then how did something that had no knowledge of the importance of gravity, how did that initial point in time decide or determine the existence of the need for gravity and put it in place and make it so precise. Science tells us gravity is there but it doesn't tell us why and how it came into existence. So it's on answering those questions. So like this, many things in nature. Science will help us discover the science of nature. It cannot tell us how it came into existence. They tell us that this law is so important. It is there. We can capture it in an equation or in some sort of a process that is very clearly defined if it's a biochemical process. So this is what is happening. This is how the chemicals interact. This is what happens. This is how it comes out. All of that we can describe what we observe but we can't say how did this actually come into place and why? Who brought it in there? You can't answer that. You can tell you what is there. What are we saying? Science does, in response to this question, can science explain everything? What we are saying is this that there are the big questions of life, which all of us, if we are willing to pause and think, we would like to have answers to these questions. The Bible is providing answers. And science or an atheistic perspective is giving us ambiguous statements. So in a sense, they don't have a clear answer. And secondly, when we look at what we can learn through science, science discovers what is there, which is very wonderful, fascinating. But it doesn't tell us why and how or who put that there. It tells us it's there. This is what is happening. This is what is going on. This is what is the outcome. But why, how and who? We don't know. So those questions remain unanswered, even though the discoveries are wonderful, amazing, and we make use of it. So can science explain everything? From these two broad sets of questions, they don't. Science doesn't. They remain unanswered in these two broad things. So we will pause here. I know there are three more minutes, but we'll pause here. We will pick up on some other questions on faith and science. And then next week, we will get into talking about Darwin's theory. We'll talk about a little bit of evolutionary. First, we will talk about our scientific response to the question on creation, existence of God. We will do that. Then we'll spend some time a little bit on Darwin's theory and evolutionary biology. And then we spend some time on the Big Bang cosmology. So we look at those things. So it'll be a little more from a science perspective, but I'll just try to make it as simple as possible for us. So you know that there are these answers that we can give. And then we will move forward into other topics. Okay. So we'll start from here next Sunday. Next week as science done away with God. Okay. Let's see. All right. Any questions before we close and dismiss? Okay. May I request somebody to just pray with a class and then we will dismiss? Please. Let's pray. Thank you for this time of learning. We pray that we will be able to remember and also to have a good grip, good understanding of what we are learning and we'll be ready to give an answer, a defense to all the questions that could come, could arise. We pray for God that we would be also able to minister to people from the intensity of the knowledge. We pray for God that it would be a blessing for everyone in the class and also to the people whom we minister to Lord. We thank you. We thank you for pastor. We thank you for sharing your word through him or God. We thank you Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Have a quick break and enjoy your next class. God bless by now.