Scripture and Science: Perfectly Compatible
About Scripture and Science: Perfectly Compatible is a multi-part video series from Science Shepherd author Dr. Scott Hardin. Through the series, Dr. Hardin equips believers to kno w that there is no factual reason to disbelieve God's Word. Interested in learning more about Scripture and science? Check out these free resources! Key Features Multi-part video series exploring Scriptural authority, science and creation. Watch the first lesson. Average lesson time of ~45 minutes. Age/Grade Recommendations 5th grade and up, ages 10+. Details Online streaming video access provided via scienceshepherd.com/a/members Internet/data connection required for digital content, charges may apply. Science Shepherd courses are intended for family/household use only; please see our co-op information for using our resources in a co-op or classroom. About Science Shepherd Homeschool Curriculum Science Shepherd Homeschool Curriculum was developed by Dr. Scott Hardin, a homeschool dad and physician, to provide a curriculum for the homeschool community with a biblical perspective of science and creation. Since starting with Life Science and Biology to aid parents in homeschooling through the higher grade levels, Science Shepherd has grown to included courses at all age levels. Visit our Recommended Course Progression blog post to find the right material for your family. Award-Winning Homeschool Curriculum Science Shepherd has been awarded multiple Practical Homeschooling Reader Awards, Homeschool.com Educational Website Awards, and receives rave reviews from homeschool families. You can be confident that our curriculum will provide an excellent educational experience to your student, deepening their understanding of scripture and science. Frequently Asked Questions How does Science Shepherd address creation and evolution/naturalism? Since these are science courses that were written by a Christian, probably the most common question I am asked is, “What about evolution and creation?” The answer really starts and ends with the Bible. It is the unerring Word of God and, as such, provides the framework upon which everything is understandable, including science. As such, we believe and teach that God created the universe by simply speaking "Let there be . . .," just as God told us in the book of Genesis. Now, why evolution/naturalism in Christian-based courses? It is important to cover evolution/naturalism and some basic principles because our children will be constantly bombarded with it throughout their lives. Does Science Shepherd teach/believe young earth or old earth creation? All Science Shepherd material is presented through the straightforward interpretation of Genesis, so a "young earth" point of view. Depending on the class, old earth creation may be addressed within the context of affirming the sufficiency of Scripture-- the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Since He used historical Hebrew language structure to write Genesis, it should be understood as written, leading to the conclusion that God created the universe and everything in it in 6 literal, 24-hour days, about 6,000 years ago. Additional FAQs . . . Preview Watch the entirety of part 1 of Scripture and Science: Perfectly Compatible without needing to enroll! In this lesson, Dr. Hardin introduces the basics of science, interpretation, wordlviews and discernment. wistia-player[media-id='mrkc6hys5v']:not(:defined) { background: center / contain no-repeat url('https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/mrkc6hys5v/swatch'); display: block; filter: blur(5px); padding-top:56.25%; } So, but in medical school, we in genetics, there are some things that, are basically you can't explain from, and and it's very clear. You can't explain evolution on a genetic basis. And that was that was a problem for me. I asked one of my professors what, how how do I understand this? How how did, you know, how how did, how did we get here if we started from this just this pool of chemicals two and a half billion years ago? How did we actually get here? How did how did the information arise in the genetics, in our genes, in our DNA, that makes us who we are? How did that happen? And there was no scientific answer for that. The the answer was, are you are you a creationist? That was bizarre question to me because if you're a creationist, that's a that's a philosophical position. And I immediately understood based on that his inability to answer me that, I'm we're dealing in the world of philosophy, not in the world of science. And that was very that's a very different that's a very different animal. So without any, without any, explanation for that, I started looking and looking and looking. And my wife at the time was, kinda moving over to, thanks. Thanks, Mike. Was, you know, expanding out, fortunately, became saved, and that involved me in a very slow way, like, I am very slow. And, but I just I I always wanna emphasize though that I I am a Christian because of science. I'm not a scientist who happens to be Christian. I am I am a Christian because of science, because there is no other explanation. It took me many years to work through this in my my late twenties and early thirties, to work through this. A the biggest problem for me was reconciling what, what I knew about how old the universe was and what God's clear description meant. It's you you you can although you can interpret, Genesis differently and you can understand it differently, you can't get away from the fact that Genesis is written as an actual historical record of how the earth was made and how god did what he did, where we came from. You just you can't extricate yourself from that being actual factual information. Like, it's it's like a history book. And so that mean there's a lot of things then that get packed into that. One of them is that we can calculate how old the earth is, based on the chronogenealogies and genesis, and that comes out about six thousand years. You know, we're not gonna we're not gonna put a a firm day and date in the ground, although some have. But about six thousand, seven thousand years ago is when that's where things kinda come out when you read the the genealogies in Genesis. You just you can't get away from that, being clearly what god is telling us, in that in that section of of Genesis. So, eventually, I came to the understanding that, okay. Well, this is if if god is right, if this is to be believed, if you believe it from cover to cover, then the earth is six thousand years old, and there's gotta be other answers. So that other scientific explanations and interpretations. And so that's really, where I spent a lot of time, and that's why I'm here. Because as I I learned more, we got, I I got to the point where, I wanted to teach us stuff. We homeschooled our kids for a long time, and this is, you know, a long time ago. We home schooled our kids for a long time. The science things were not, they weren't bad, but I thought they could be better. And so since then, I've been writing, homeschool science courses, and that's kinda where I I got to that's how I got here today. It's just been really twenty, wow, twenty five years, twenty or so of just trying to figure out figure things out, and how does science reconcile with the bible and understanding that there is no, there is no fact that contradicts the bible. There are interpretations or scientific interpretations of those facts, but there are no facts that contradict understanding the bible exactly as it's written. And that's really what what we're kind of about today is and for the next eight weeks is equipping you because, as we'll see, science has been a major barrier for people understanding the bible exactly as it is written. It's been, a major reason that people will walk away, from the faith is because science and the bible are not reconcilable in their mind. But there there's no reason that, that we should, see a conflict there. There is no need for any conflict at all. Every single every single conflict that exists, I will tell you, are there are there things that we can't explain, scientifically? Yes. And it's interesting from a creation standpoint, but it's interesting those same things that we can't explain from a creation standpoint, these scientific observations, we can't explain them from an evolutionary standpoint either. And that that's a that's a really that's a big thing to take away is that we all have the same conundrum when you when you back away from it. There are just things we don't understand, and it's so to me, it's a lot more, foundational to, in the end, say, well, we don't understand this, but god does. Do you want a god that you can understand everything he does, everything he thinks, every way he's act acted? I I don't I don't want a god like that, and we don't have a god like that. There's stuff that we'll never understand. And I'm gonna talk about some of that stuff coming up. So part of this class or the whole class is to equip you with that knowledge. And and the the the beginning of of that, of that understanding that there is science offers you no reason to disbelieve the bible. They are they the two are perfectly compatible with each other. And I I thought it was interesting as I was looking through this, looking at Ephesians. There's kind of an interesting thing that we think about because a lot of times, we look at peep we look at the people, people like, you know, Richard Dawkins, one of the biggest anti Christians and atheists in the world today has been a a an instructor on atheism, and evolution for a long time. And we look at them and and we look at the people, but it's not the people we're fighting. Right? It's it's the it's it's the philosophies. It's the principalities that the people are are have been taken over by. But I just thought it was really interesting because we wanna make sure that we can, speak to people who don't believe what we believe with kindness and with understanding rather than, you know, kinda jumping down their throats. And and, John MacArthur had written a really interesting thing that I just wanna read about, particularly about Ephesians six twelve, and what are we as Christians? What are we equipping ourselves to fight? And MacArthur says, sometimes in the heat of battle, we might lose perspective on who the real enemy is. Ephesians six twelve reminds us that our struggle isn't against sinful people, but against the evil system and the supernatural forces that influence their attitudes and actions. In his assault on the kingdom of god, Satan has assembled a highly organized army of fallen angels. Paul categorized them as rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. That isn't a detailed description of Satan's hierarchy, but simply a general indication of its power and sophistication. Apparently, rulers and powers are high ranking demons. World forces of this darkness are possibly demons who infiltrate various political systems of the world attempting to direct human leaders to oppose God's plans. An example is a demon called the prince of the kingdom of Persia in Daniel ten thirteen. He withstood god's angelic messenger until messenger to Daniel until Michael, the archangel, came to the rescue. Spiritual forces of the wickedness in the heavenly places perhaps refers to demons involved in the most vile and perverted kinds of sins, gross immorality, occultic practices, Satan worship, and the like. Those who reject Christ and God are unwitting prisoners of war captured and mobilized by the enemy to accomplish his purposes. Tragically, when he's finished with them, he'll abandon them to an eternal hell. So that should kinda drive our understanding of what are we really fighting. We're not fighting people. We're we're we are equipping ourselves to fight Satan, and that is, I think, very sobering for most of us to, to think about. So, so I just kinda wanna walk through this here, what what MacArthur was talking about. So Ephesians six twelve talks about Satan and the demonic powers in his control, because I wanna reinforce what we're really equipping ourselves for. This I I don't want this to be kind of like, oh, an interesting science science talk for the next eight weeks. I want to understand that this has really deep this is deeply intertwined with with scripture and the fundamental understanding of who god is and what he's done and how he's done things. So Ephesians six twelve talks to us about Satan and his and and the demons under his control. But, you know, who is Satan? We know that he's the father of lies. He's a ruler of demons, and, he's described as the evil one. So this obviously is a pretty bad this is a pretty bad guy that we're fighting. This is not, this is not anybody to mess with. So when we think about then what is, a lie, it's it's, you know, really anything anything that's not true. And, okay, obviously. But where do we find absolute truth? What do we absolutely know is true? Well, we know that god's word is absolutely true. So what does Satan want us to believe? If he is constantly fighting god and his world, Satan wants us to believe that god's word is not true. None of it is true. And one of the most effective one of the most effective means that he has for that is has been science, has been trying to, provide this vast network of undermining of his word, his truth by, by science. And we're gonna get into what science is and what really, has happened here as a result of of the, work that Satan has done really effectively for the last hundred and fifty years. Hundred and sixty maybe. So if Satan is the father of lies, then, and he wants us to believe that God's word isn't true, what is he gonna do? This is a, a very, easy quiz, I think. But he's gonna do whatever he can to make sure that we believe the bible, or is he gonna do the opposite? He's gonna do the opposite of that. So you can then understand that everything that is not driven by sound theology, every philosophy, every principality, however you wanna look at it, every idea that's not driven by sound by sound theology is gonna be counterminding is gonna be contrary to the word of god. And is that what we're seeing today? Whether we look at, you know, the the the havoc that evolution has has wreaked, not only in our I mean, you it that goes so deep, that is even hard to describe. I could probably do ten or twelve hours of the horrible things that evolution has directly led to over the last hundred and seventy years. We've, you know, we've got this problem with abortion, the problem with, the LGBTQ. We've got the problem, with with the removal of the importance of the individual and generalizing that out to the village. And these are these are non these are all not biblical concepts. These are all contrary to what god teaches us, and that's so we are seeing exactly what we what we think we should see here as as time goes on. Sorry. Okay. There we go. Alright. Sorry. So, now a lot of times when you talk to folks about science and the bible, one of the probably the biggest, the the biggest objection to this is, well, the Bible's not a science book. Well, not like one that we have in school, but it is really it's the only historically accurate account of what happened in the beginning. Everything else, when you think about it, is not is not that. Everything else is interpretation. And then the fallible mind of humans come up with an idea of, well, what does this mean? How do I fit it into the framework, not God's framework, but into my own framework that the earth is five billion years old or the universe is, twelve and a half billion or fifteen or whatever. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and older and older. So that's a a really important thing to remember is that it may not be a science book, but it does have a lot to say about science. There are a lot of foundational truths in the bible that when you think about what what does a simple statement like, god made them man and woman, man and woman, he made what does that mean? That means very specific things. When god says he made the kinds to reproduce after themselves, what does that mean? That is a statement that specifically excludes any idea of evolution. Whether you believe in, what they is referred to as theistic evolution, where God drove the the evolution, that's not how it works according to God. God said that he created the kinds to reproduce after themselves. That specifically, scientifically means that evolution is a false philosophy, a false origins model for how bio biological organisms got here. And that is, again, that is written, within the context of Genesis being clearly an historically accurate document in god's in the way god wrote it, the language that he used, that's clearly written as history. Almost all old testament scholars believe that it it is actual. It was written as history. They don't believe it's actual history, but they believe that it was written to actually document how god created things. And it's six days. They don't argue with the the idea that it's six or seven thousand years old, and that's a legitimate way of calculating the age of of the of the earth. They don't argue with that. Again, they don't believe it, but they won't argue with it because it's very clear that that those, that those things are the way they are. So this last thing, that's up here, though, is really an important concept to remember because people, hear about the science. Right? And this is what we learned recently. It's very dangerous, Chuck, because a lot of what you're seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science. Okay. So there we have it. I am the science. People are not science. What what we see what science is is, simply, these are just facts. We you would make observations. That's a fact. Any observation you make is a fact. You see something, you observe it, that is the fact. What comes after that is things that are how do you understand that? That's what science is trying to do, is to to try to interpret these facts that we see, and that's it. That's it. That's all science is doing, is trying to interpret facts that are presented to the scientist. And the reason that that's important to understand is there is no standard of of science here. We make these observations. And, what we see here are various, various facts that I'm presenting to you. These are facts. So how do you understand these facts? The way that you understand them is completely dependent on your personal worldview that helps you interpret or understand these facts. This first one, there is a score of a soccer game. Personally, I could care less. I don't like professional soccer. I don't even know what inter means. So this is completely meaningless to me. Somebody who really loves soccer, maybe this is a big deal to them because they whoever enter is, they wanted them to win. Same thing with that glass of water. How do you look at that? Is that half full or half empty? That's completely dependent on what your personal philosophy is of of life. The civil war, do you look at that as, you know, the war to save the states? Or do you look at that as a slightly more complex situation where that involved, a lot of economic suppression of the south in the in the in the situation and in the setting of slavery and being involved in a compact and agreement to be in the union. And now we don't wanna be in that compact anymore. And then you're gonna say, well, you can't go, so we're gonna we're gonna kill all you people because you can't go. It's there are yes. It's very simple. If you wanna look at it as a slave thing, that's not what it was about. But if that's the way you wanna look at it, that's fine. The same thing with this score. You know, if pastor Caleb was in here, we'd probably be reviving him right now. But most of us would look at this and say, that's very good. These are all interpretations that we make, be because we have these different world views, and world view can be very big. Do you believe that God created the universe and everything in it, in the exactly the way he said he did? Or or the the world view can be very small. Do you care about Major League Soccer or do you not? But we have these world views that drive everything, and sometimes you don't have a world view on something because you never really thought of, oh, okay. That's fine. But then you've got this bigger worldview that you step back in, and that's what that's what begins to allow you, to make rational decisions about things. And these are this drives every single every single thing that we that our everything about us is driven by our in one way or another by our world view. So, are we now? Okay. So, when we think of in the big picture of things, when we think about science and the bible, there's really only two ways to think about the world. To think about how we got here. To think about why we're here. How we got here. You either you either believe God created the universe and everything in it the way he said he did, or you don't. And then that drives everything that you do beyond that. That drives all of your all of your ability to interpret. Everything that you interpret is driven through that single belief system. Do you believe that God created the universe and everything in it the way he said he did, or do you not? If you don't, then what you what do you have left? You can't you can never never rely on a god explanation, so you need a non god explanation. And that places you in the the nature does things. Everything is driven by nature, which is statistically random events have caused this, or you continually rely on the explanation that it was God. Now this next one here, I don't I don't I don't I'm not trying to cause any problems. This was produced by, the Catholic church, but I want you to see the the main this is a very clear explanation of the main problem that we are that we are facing. Protestants believe the Bible is the only source for determining Christian truth. This doctrine is called Sola Scriptura, which is Latin for scripture alone. But did you know that this fundamental doctrine of Protestantism is incoherent? Let me explain. Notice the doctrine presupposes knowledge of what scriptura is those books inspired by God that belong in the Bible. But if the Bible is the only source of Christian truth, well then, we couldn't have such knowledge. Why? Because the Bible never tells us which books are inspired. If Sola Scriptura were true, well then we couldn't know what scripture is. Do you see how it's self refuting? Even if the Bible did give us a list of inspired books and we believed the Bible was inspired, well, we couldn't accept that list, lest we'd be guilty of circular reasoning. Okay. So this goes on for about another minute and a half, but I don't wanna make you stupider. This is very difficult to listen to, which I'll get to in a second. But it goes on to say that, what what we need to understand the bible are people that are more educated and more learned than us to tell us what's true in the bible, what we can understand to be accurate, and what we can't. We are incapable of doing that as human beings, as as the uneducated human beings, but the experts, hopefully, that whenever you see experts telling you what to do, you should run away and do the other thing. But when experts are telling us what to do and what to believe within the bible, that's the only way that we can know what part of the bible is inspired and what part is not. So what did he specifically say? He specifically said because the Bible never tells us which books are inspired. So this is gonna bring us to a, a this idea of a contradicting fact. Whenever somebody makes a statement, whether it's scientific or not, that you can absolutely refute, that is a foundation of everything that they believe, when when you can come up with a fact that refutes that, then whatever else is built on that argument crumbles. It's and we'll see a lot of these, in the upcoming eight weeks, in just in terms of why we do not need to be swayed by, by evolutionary thought, why we do not need we do not need to, let science run us or our children away from God. So he said that the Bible never tells us which books are inspired. Right? So are there any contradicting facts to that? I would say there is. All scripture is inspired by oh, all scripture is in all. So like the pastors like to say, what does all mean? All means all. From the from the in, the beginning to I think revelation ends with amen, everything in between there is inspired by God. So this is a foundational fact. This is a fact that disputes his foundation of the bible never tells us which books are inspired. That is false. The bible clearly tells us that all of it is inspired. And if you you can choose to disbelieve that, that's fine. But that you simply choose to disbelieve something that is stated as fact, and then the whole circular reasoning thing is the bible is basically full of proof as to why god is god and why you can trust the bible. It it it's like unending proof prophecy. I there's so many levels that you can get into, but there is no there is no circular reasoning by relying on the bible telling you that it is, scripture. Sorry, I forgot to do this. So that is that is what we see is two Timothy, tells us that the entire bible is inspired. So, this is one thing that we should remember as we walk through certain things. So for example, one of the things I don't know if I'm gonna talk about this or not, but, I might mention it. But one of the things that I talked about a few years ago when I did the Genesis worldview is that if you believe, in evolution, you believe that the dinosaurs died out sixty five million years ago. And so and humans didn't start until about two million ish years. So there's obviously sixty plus million years that separates us and dinosaurs. So a reasonable conclusion, a reasonable logical fact there would be that there is no way that any human being could ever have made anything that represents a dinosaur prior to the time when we started digging up dinosaur bones and reconstructing them, which was the mid eighteen hundreds. There that's impossible. Right? Because if you never saw a dinosaur, how would you ever draw or carve or form anything that looked like a dinosaur? So there are lots of examples of this, but I think the best one is the carving of in Angkor Wat, which is a temple in, Cambodia or somewhere in Southeast Asia. Clearly, there's a stegosaurus carved on this temple, and that's like eight hundred years ago. So and that's all you need is one fact that contradicts something. That's all you need to make the whole to make that whole house of cards crumble. So that's that's all that's need that's all that's needed. And we're gonna see this again. So whenever you see a fact that contradicts something, that absolutely contradicts something that somebody says, Nothing else that they say is is is to be trusted. So science really then is a way to collect and interpret facts. That's what the scientific process is all about, is to create, ways to collect information, to collect facts, and then come to logical reasonable reasonable conclusions about those facts. Why are they like they are? How do we explain them? And then can we do more ex, can we do more experiments to continue to test what we believe might or might not be true about these things? And, again, we've we do this in science. All scientists either have they have one of two particular belief systems. They are either creationists. They either believe god did what he did what he said he did, or they don't. And then they have to interpret the facts within those particular, within their particular belief system. I would never interpret a fact with the understanding that the that the earth is billions of years old. I would never interpret a scientific fact with the understanding that organisms evolved from a single cell organism into human beings over a couple billion years. That would never be something. No way would I ever interpret a scientific fact based on that, just like an evolutionist would never ever interpret a scientific fact based on what I believe. So, of course, the the decks are stacked in a certain way based on what your worldview is. And that's the the the really, the foundation of today is that, we are dealing with a process that is all based on interpretation. So these are all based on the best human beings can do when they observe a fact to come up with a conclusion. And what human beings, we're perfect. Right? We never make a mistake. No. Of course. We're very we make mistakes all the time. That's very important to remember. And the consensus science is not consensus, by the way. We heard that a lot, during the COVID times. It's not that is not science is not consensus. Science is is the interpretation of fact. Sure. A lot of people can agree with you, but a lot of people can be wrong at the same time. So that's just because a lot of experts believe something doesn't make it, doesn't make it correct. So why are we doing this? And this is really where this comes in. Because multiple polls show us that about seventy percent of the kids who are regular attendees to church leave. They don't make it through into their they don't make it into their twenties, and I think that's what we would all like to avoid for sure. Maybe even for ourselves to not walk away, but for sure for our kids to understand this. And it starts early. Forty percent of the kids have doubts by the time they're in middle school. By the time they get out of high school, it's eighty five percent of the kids. Eighty five percent of church kids have doubts, by the end of high school. And, you know, why is that? Well, because because of science. They spend most kids spend, if they're in the public schools, and most private schools, even Christian private schools, do not teach creation based understandings. They do not create they do not teach, God based social, social learning, social studies. They are it's all evolutionary based stuff. So they've been spent they've spent a long time in their lives, years, a decade and a half, of being told essentially that that god stuff, you can't trust that. Everything, the science tells us this, the science tells us that. So science is almost always the top reason that people give for why they walked away for their faith. Now, of course, there's it's a very complex subject, but for a lot of people, this ends up being the bottom line. I can't reconcile what I what the Bible says with what science tells me. And what I'm saying is you don't need to do that, because science doesn't tell you anything. The infallible or the the fallible interpretations of people tell you what science is, and and that does not provide any any strong reason for you, to doubt and disbelieve the bible. And I say that again from the understanding that I didn't believe any of the bible was accurate when I first started this whole process. Now I see clearly it is, and there are very reasonable explanations for why things like people will say, well, radiometric dating says the Earth is billions of years old. We can get into that. There are a lot of problems with radiometric dating. The number one problem is that it's already assumed that the sample is as old as it is before they date it. That's a problem when you are already assuming the outcome of your test. You're already assuming the outcome. That's a problem. So we can there's lots of things. I'll probably get into that, in this course. But these are things that we there is no matter what it is, I promise you, no matter what it is, there is no reason, no scientific reason, no factual reason for you to disbelieve the bible. If god is the orderly creator of the universe and everything in it, then we should see a creation that reflects that and that we and that we can clearly understand, make interpretations that are consistent with not only the scientific evidence, but also with the bible. If we can't do that, then there is there can be a problem. But in the end, we don't stop looking, but in the end, we understand that God is God and he's way smarter than us. He can do anything he wants. And so sometimes that may be the answer, but we still always look as a group of Christians who are also scientists. So I'm gonna be going over a lot of of common struggles that Christians have with what I would say, managing scientific material. And the way to manage that is to not run away from it, not to ignore it, not to be conformed, to this world and try to make god's truth fit into the science. That does not work. I tried that. It doesn't work. But to understand again that there are there is nothing that should make you not believe the not believe that the science, that the factual information contradicts the Bible, and there are lots of resources that you can go to, including me, if I if I can ever help you with that. Because sometimes these questions are very scientifically complex, and most of us are not PhD or, you know, postgraduate level trained scientists. So I I get it. It gets very confusing, but I've never I will tell you, I have never had a conversation with somebody who does not believe evolution or somebody who believes evolution, who does not understand my position or why I believe what I believe from a scientific basis, why I believe what they believe is wrong, and there is no scientific understanding for that. They understand what I'm saying. They they legitimately will understand. They don't agree with me, but they understand why I would believe what I believe. So the foundation, again, is we need to always have good discernment. The bible is a hundred percent true and accurate. I have still not found anywhere where that is not true. And we, will always continue to do what we do in this in our church, which is understanding the bible, interpreting it through what's called the literal literal, historic, grammatical, and sin synthesis framework. And I'm just gonna go over those so so because maybe we don't know those. That that that's what we do. But when we talk about the bible being absolutely true, and and, the the understanding is that you're interpreting what the Bible is saying within the literal framework that normally we would expect the Bible to tell us exactly what it seems to be telling us. That's within the historical understanding of what what how was that what does that verse, what does that material refer to, what's the historical context of that, and very importantly, what is the grammatical what is the grammar of that? What is the how is the text written? What is the Hebrew language that's given to us? I'm talking mainly about, the Old Testament, but also about the new when we're talking about Greek. What does it really mean? That that that's an important thing. For example, when, when poetic language is used in the Old Testament, it looks it's written very different than historical language. That's why I I and I'm not an Old Testament scholar, but there are lots and lots of Old Testament scholars like I mentioned who said that the way that the Hebrew is written, the old Hebrew in, Genesis is written, it's clearly written as history. We do not dispute that. We don't believe that it's history, but we don't dispute that because it has different forms. It uses, different grammar to communicate. This is what I'm talking about here. This is history versus poetic language, and and allegory and things like it's it's different. So you interpret that within that. Now, it doesn't mean that concepts that are written within, allegory or within poetic language are not true. Of course, the Bible is presenting true language, but it is written in different ways. So you understand that you understand the message that's being given, but there's still foundational truths in there, and many of them are scientific, truths. And then the synthesis idea is that the Bible does not contradict itself. So if we have made a conclusion, an interpretation that clearly contradicts something that the Bible says, we're wrong, and we need to rethink our interpretation. And what I'm talking about there could be something like, when we think about theistic evolution, and god using evolution to to create biological diversity. That's wrong. That is a wrong conclusion, about the bible because it directly contradicts what god says in Genesis, how he created all of the organisms to reproduce after their kind. So if that was a conclusion that we made theologically, we would be wrong because we're contradicting a clear statement, in the bible. So, I know I've reviewed I know I've talked about this. So this is gonna be kind of kind of our our foundations as we go through here that, that, again, Genesis is history. That's why we believe that, the earth is about six to seven thousand years old. God is the author of all physical and biological laws, processes, origins, etcetera, in the universe. God is an orderly god. An orderly god would build in orderly understanding into his universe. God is all knowing and all power powerfully do whatever he wants at any point in time. And the so then when we look at the creation, the creation will absolutely reflect the the input of the creator. There will be nothing that contradicts that particular fact. So what we'll be seeing is that there are many scientific facts that are used to disprove the Bible, but they actually do the exact opposite. You can interpret the facts in different ways. There are some fallacies that seem scientific that I'd encourage us all not to seek, and I will go over some examples of those for that many well meaning Christians will, try to use to prove god is the creator. God doesn't need that. And we'll go over some of those because I think in the in the end, it just it it doesn't reflect positively on us, as as a group of as a group of believers. And then we will, we will understand clearly that since Satan constantly opposes God, any argument that undermines God ultimately comes from is authored by Satan, certainly is repeated by people, but the people are not the enemy. The people that speak these things, write about these things, interpret science, interpret facts, scientifically interpret facts within a framework that does not honor god. They are not our enemies. We should treat them with kindness. We should pray for them, engage them when we can, but always remember, it's they are not our enemies. It's it's the philosophy that Satan has authored that that they unfortunately believe that's the enemy. It's not the person. So that's where we'll end for today. And, next week, we'll we'll pick up we'll pick up there. So oh, one thing I wanna say. I will get some contact information for me because I know I don't have anything in realm if you've been looking there. I my my, email address is very easy if you wanna email me. It's, s h o c d o c shock doc at g mail. If you have any questions or anything you anything you wanna talk about want me to talk about, please send it to me. I'm happy to incorporate it here, and answer any questions that you have. So, so we'll see you next week.
