Dealing with Doubts - Why I Believe in Creation, Part 2

Creation versus evolution, the never-ending debate, right? So many want us to believe that science and faith are incompatible.

Well, what if they're not? What if science actually supports faith? And what if faith actually informs science? Today, we're going to take a fascinating look at some of the latest findings. Stay with me. We are an international teaching and discipleship ministry that motivates Christians to live like Christians. In just a minute, we'll hear the second half of Chip's message, Why I Believe in Creation.

And if you want to go back and listen to part one or catch up on our entire Dealing Without Series, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or check out the Chip Ingram app. Well, as we get started, Chip continues unpacking the complex question, why did life begin? It explains how that answer forms our thoughts about morality and eternity.

Let's dive in. It was C.S. Lewis who talked about this ought or should that every human being has in your heart.

It's the sense that this is right and this is wrong that makes us different than all the other animals. And in fact, his book, Mere Christianity, is what Francis Collins was reading. He was making his rounds and he had all this intellect. He had a PhD over here. He's now a medical doctor.

He's making his rounds. And as he was making all of his rounds, he met people that were dying. And he kept meeting people of faith that had this peace and this certainty and the way they responded. And he said there was one particular patient who was dying and he kept pressing me, what do you believe?

What do you believe? He said basically I had rejected religion and I thought it was people just asking God and it was a crutch. But I just couldn't get away from this man's life and he gave me a copy of Mere Christianity. As I read Mere Christianity, despite all of his intellect, he said it made sense.

I realized there was something more than just random chance. And then he talks about the power of creation and he says I remember one morning wrestling with all of this and I was out in a meadow and it was breathtakingly beautiful, right? This is Romans chapter one. The creation screams of the character of God. His invisible attributes are screaming about his power, his eternality, his love, his purpose. And Francis Collins says I knelt down in the grass in that dew and I received Jesus as my savior.

He would go on after that to discover the gene that caused cystic fibrosis and then become a leading scientist and then of course write that classic book, The Language of God. What I want you to see is that this is so much more than just facts and figures. It's about what do you believe? What is your faith proposition? Why do you believe what you believe? Or have you unconsciously, as many of us have, I think in Christian circles, basically had a sort of a compartment over here of science and compartment of religion and pretended that they don't connect. The fact of the matter is your morals, your values, your purpose, what you teach your kids, how you live your life is fundamentally goes back to do you believe in a creator that has a purpose where there's meaning or do you believe that you're a product of random chance? And those two world views and the multiple world views that flow out of each, I mean they're at war.

They're at war in the world. Question number three is how did the various plants and animals develop? According to classic evolution, one simple cell slowly evolved into more complex plants and animals through a process of time, chance, natural selection, mutation and survival of the fittest. That was what Darwin would write in Origin of the Species and he believed in spontaneous generation. What I mean by that is at that time, Darwin believed that just life could happen, chemical soup.

Well, a year later, 1860, Louis Pasteur proved that spontaneous regeneration was absolutely impossible. The scripture by contrast says where did they come from? For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power, his divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from that which he made so that people are without excuse. God made plants and animals and species and stars and he made them all to reflect his glory and his character. Long before there were these amazing telescopes and before we put that Hubble out there and we could see into galaxies, the scripture declares the heavens declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words, no sound is heard from them, yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the earth. You have to ask yourself what is the best explanation for all the things that we see? You know, one of the things I like to do, actually I do it nearly every morning. I'm actually very disappointed when they're not there. I guess they're really there.

I get up early, I get a cup of coffee, I feed the dog, that's my assignment from my wife, and then I walk outside and every morning I look up at the stars. And there's just something about remembering how small and how finite we are and how big God is. And you know, I've done enough research that I know that I'm just with my eye looking at a tiny part of the Milky Way and the Milky Way has somewhere between 100 to 200 billion stars.

And what I know is outside the Milky Way there's another 100 to 200 billion galaxies. And what God's word says, he says that I spoke that and I hold it by the word of my power and that God also says, Chip, and to every human being, I've placed my affection on you. You matter. I love you.

I'm for you. And when I look up at those stars, that passage from Psalm 19 comes to mind. You know what I think? I think that's a big God and he can handle all my problems. That's a big God that is sovereign over all the issues that we're facing politically and racially and things that are happening around the world. That's a God that I can put my trust in.

And as I've claimed his promises, a faith statement, I've watched him deliver and you have too. But what I want to ask you is, are you communicating that kind of faith and what those stars mean to your kids? Is that making it into the worldview of education of how you're teaching your kids or your grandkids or your nephews? See, this message is not so much about are we going to understand everything about evolution and creation?

It's much more about what are you going to do with the fact that if you do believe that God created you, what are the implications for your life, for your worldview, for how you live, for where your kids are educated, for what you teach them? I hope you're getting that when you compare and contrast these basic questions, it's pretty amazing. Now I want to jump into those aspects that are a bit technical and very enlightening. When Darwin looked into a microscope, because he only had one that would multiply what he saw by maybe 200 or 300x. Today we have microscopes that multiply them, electron microscopes way, way more. So when he looked into the center of a cell, he saw just a membrane and he thought it was very simple. In fact, that's what he called it.

And there wasn't much in there. And his whole philosophy was that, you know, it's very simple and it goes to complex. And what has been the core behind especially non-Christian scientists challenging Darwin is they now can look inside that cell.

It's anything but simple. We now have microscopes that are super complex. Some cells, are you ready, are so small that you can fit 150,000 cells just on the tip of a strand of hair.

I mean it's unbelievable. Molecular scientists describe a single cell, are you ready, as a high-tech factory. They're complex with artificial languages and decoding systems. They have a central memory bank that store and retrieve impressive amounts of information.

They have a precise control systems that regulate automatically and assembling and components and parts. I mean what's happening inside of a cell is what led the Michael Behe's of the world and the Michael Denton's of the world to say, this simply can't happen by random chance. Cells also have a system that replicate. You understand it's not just the size of the cell and the complexity of the cell, it's the actual DNA in the cell.

If I had a spoon up here, I could take a spoon and if I could fill just a tablespoon with DNA, there's enough information there for all the information and all the species for all the planet that has ever lived with room left over. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and Chip will be right back to finish today's message. But first, throughout this series, we are identifying the notable issues that can rattle our faith and cause doubt to seep in. So let me quickly encourage you to join Chip after this message. He'll highlight two valuable resources we've bundled to help you process doubt and uncertainty when they come. Keep listening for more details.

But for now, here again is Chip. If I could take when you were little dot in your mother's womb one single cell, if we could take that cell and pull your DNA and uncoil it, it would be six feet long. In fact, expert in DNA, world class Dr. Robert Shapiro was asked what he thought the chances were that DNA could have been formed by a random process. His answer, none.

It's absolute nonsense. The genius and the complexity of a single cell in DNA challenge the very core and the presuppositions of classic evolutionary thought. In fact, so much so, we heard earlier about, remember Anthony Flew? He was the most famous atheist. At 84 years old, near the time of his death, he did something that you almost never hear. He renounced his atheism. Now, to be fair, because I think sometimes we Christians want to read into things and make it sound a little bit better to support our position, he did not become a Christian. But what he said was after 50 years of looking at the science, especially DNA, he could not believe any longer that life occurred without an intelligent designer.

Now, he didn't come to believe that Jesus was that intelligent designer, but think of what the facts are doing even among agnostics and atheists. Now, let's turn our attention from what's amazingly small to what's amazingly big. Albert Einstein published his equation on general relativity in 1915, and a Dutch astronomer, Wilhelm de Sitter, discovered a solution that predicted an expanding universe. The importance of these discoveries showed that the world and the universe was expanding.

Here's the deal. If galaxies were moving farther and farther apart, the implication was they were once closer together. From this realization, Hubble went one step farther, and he laid the foundation for the Big Bang Theory, providing evidence that the universe exploded into existence with a furious burst of energy and has been expanding ever since. It was a shattering blow to centuries-old notion of a static universe. The theory of an expanding universe was consistent with Einstein's theory, but it wasn't accepted early by scientists.

And they were very honest about it. They just said, we understand if we actually believe there was a beginning, we could be in trouble in terms of our faith assumptions about random chance and there is no God. Robert Jastrow, an American astronomer and a planetary physicist, argued that the reason that scientists were slow to accept the Big Bang, because if it was true, it would imply a moment of creation. In an interview with Christianity Today, this scientist said, astronomers now find themselves painted into a corner because they've proven by their own methods that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which they can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in the cosmos and on Earth. And they have found that this all happened as a product of forces they can't hope to discover. That there are, what I and anyone would have to say, is a supernatural force at work and I think a scientifically proven fact. And then in his book, God and the Astronomer, Jastrow says, For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.

He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak, and as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who've been sitting there for centuries. To be fair, the Big Bang does not disprove classic evolution, but it strongly argues for a specific moment in time. What I want you to know is that we could go on and on with more and more scientific discoveries. We could look at Darwinian evolution and ask ourselves some basic questions like, what were the social implications?

I alluded to Nazi Germany. Huxley would say that, Actually, I'm so thankful for Darwin because whether I believe it or not, it gave me moral license to live any way I want apart from God. Another great scientist said, Darwinian evolution is the engine of atheism. Here's what you need to understand. Your worldview really matters. You have two great options with a few that are developing on either side.

But your options are this. Do you believe that life is a result of a single cell, random chance, no plan, that you, in fact, and all the world is the product of billions of years of chemical reactions, and all the logical implications? Or do you believe that there's a personal God that made you and made everyone? That every single person, those that you disagree with, those that are different, those who believe different, they're made in the image of God. God created them, and He loves them, and He calls you, and He calls me to treat them with dignity. That there's no room for prejudice.

There's no room for all the kind of things that mankind has done for one another because the infinite personal God has made all of us, and He's created us for Himself. And here's my question. Do you honestly believe with your life, not just in your head, that God created all that there is? Are you teaching your children and your grandchildren the worldview that by faith flows out of that? Are you willing to spend some time and say, you know, science is great.

There's no dichotomy. God created it all. Would you introduce them to some great Christian scientist? Would you be willing to have a dialogue and talk about evolution?

Not like you're afraid or intimidated. What I can tell you is brilliant people, Christian and non-Christian, are not buying evolution. So you're not a minority and you're not anti-intellectual. What I want you to know is that I have confidence and I believe that God has spoken. And I believe when I look at all the questions that my intellect is intact.

I've not thrown my brains in the trash. If you want to get more specific information and dig in a little bit deeper, I have all this in my book, Why I Believe. Father, I pray now that we would grasp the implications of what it means that You made us. That You are the creator. That there is purpose and meaning. That there is life eternal. That every single person matters. That the sunsets that we see, that when we hold a new baby in our arms, when we look into the eyes of someone that we love, that it's not some chemical reaction. It is the reality of being made in the image of God and having the capacity to love and to be loved. Lord, I pray that for my brothers and sisters. I pray that we'd be bold and we would enter the public square winsomely, kindly, and completely not afraid. In Jesus' name, amen.

You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And the message you just heard, Why I Believe in Creation, is from our series Dealing with Doubts. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute. Did you know there's a lot of solid, verifiable evidence that supports the truth of Scripture and the existence of Jesus? The real challenge lies in communicating that proof and the hope of the gospel to those sincerely seeking answers. So how do we do that? Well, in this series, Chip and guest teacher John Dickerson share ways to effectively and winsomely address honest questions about our faith that will attract people to the Bible, not repel them from it.

Also, we want you to have all the necessary tools for those conversations. So whenever you hear a book, podcast, or article mentioned in this series, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org and check out our resources page. We want to point you to relevant, biblically grounded experts who will equip you to engage with the doubters and skeptics in your life. Find that resources page at LivingOnTheEdge.org or through the Chip Ingram app. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now, and Chip, I don't know if I've ever asked you this before, but take a minute or so and talk about your heart for writing, specifically your book, Why I Believe.

Now, why develop resources like this? Well, Dave, I think it's the impact books had on me. I would say before I became a Christian, unless it was required reading for high school or college, I didn't read books. You know, I played a lot of basketball. And then early in my Christian life, I got exposed to some books that really, I mean, they helped me.

They so challenged me, and I had lots of questions, and I didn't grow up as a follower of Christ. And I mean, I've always been a skeptic. And so it was all those different books that at a certain time in life, I thought I would love to be able to maybe put something in writing. But I want to share it in a way that I've done the research, but is for just us regular people that maybe don't have a Ph.D. in this or that. And this book, Why I Believe, was my journey of searching out the truth for myself. And part of what I wanted to do was do all that research. And if a Ph.D. read it, he would say, wow, yeah, I see all your references here. I see where you got that.

Yes, those are the big issues. But then I would want a high school student or a young adult or even a junior higher to read through this book, Why I Believe, and say to themselves, oh, this makes sense. Yeah, wow, I never thought about it that way. Or I didn't know that. You mean Jesus actually said that? Or people outside of Christianity in the first century wrote these things about Jesus?

You mean he was a real person? Etc., etc. If we can't answer the hard questions, we're going to see the whole next generation literally be washed away right before our eyes. You've got to sit down with your family and get the answers first for yourself and then pass them on.

And not only to your kids, but I would say it's super important right now. We think people are closed. People are desperate in the world they're living in. They want answers. I mean, my granddaughter invited five kids at school from all ethnic backgrounds, none were Christians, and many you would think would never be open to hear about Jesus. She read my book, Why I Believe, and she got a little study and said, hey, would you all like to do this? They all said yes. People are more open than you think, but they need to hear good, solid answers shared in humility.

That's right, Chip. So let me encourage you to check out two insightful tools we've bundled together just for this series. The first is Chip's book, Why I Believe, and the second is a book called Jesus Skeptic by our good friend John Dickerson. As you read these resources, we hope you'll realize the evidence for Jesus's existence, the accuracy of the Bible, and how Christianity has positively shaped our world. Learn more about this bundle by calling 888-333-6003 or by visiting LivingOnTheEdge.org.

App listeners, tap special offers. With that, Chip, let's get to that application we promised. Thanks, Dave.

You know, as we wrap this up, here's what we have to remember. No one was there at the beginning of creation. So Christianity and evolution are both faith-based ideologies. I mean, it takes faith to believe that, like, something came out of nothing. It takes faith to believe that a personal creator, God, spoke and the world came into existence.

The question then is, where's the evidence? What do you base things on? And there's certain presuppositions with the evolutionary mindset that takes all the facts and says this is what's true.

And there's certain presuppositions from Scripture that if God created things and you look at the evidence, this is very clearly true. What we need to make sure is that we never budge from what the Bible says, but we do it in a way that's kind and loving and listening. And we care about the person.

So often the evolutionary theory is a smokescreen for a lot of personal hurts, for a lot of damage, for some bad experiences with other Christians. Let's make sure they have a good experience with us, that we really listen, we do our homework. And then in a calm, kind, loving way, we share, this is what I believe and why. And by the way, we can agree to disagree. And I want to care for you as a person, whether we end up agreeing or not. That's a powerful reminder, Chip, especially in the divisive culture we live in.

Good word. As we wrap up, I want to thank those of you who make this program possible through your generous financial support. Your gifts help us create programs, purchase airtime, and develop additional resources to help Christians live like Christians. If you've been blessed by the Ministry of Living on the Edge, would you consider sending a gift today? You can do that by visiting LivingOnTheEdge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. App listeners, tap donate. We want you to know how much we appreciate your support. Well, thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Druey, and I hope you'll join us again next time.