Where Did You Come From?

Introduction

So I want to begin with some introductory remarks tonight. This is a three-lesson series tonight, tomorrow night, and Wednesday night. Normally it’s a five-lesson series, sometimes six, seven, or eight. There’s a lot of material to be talked about. We will obviously just touch the hem of the garment in a number of these areas. It is the hope of any speaker on this topic that he can challenge your thinking to the point that you’ll discuss it, you’ll investigate it further yourself. So, several comments by way of introduction. First of all, this lesson tonight is an introductory lesson designed to give an overview of the general subject and to establish certain key principles. Frankly, in my mind, it’s the most important lecture of the whole group. I hope you will be carefully attentive and that you will challenge the thinking involved in this lesson.

If you’re here tonight and you’re a believer in God, I hope I can challenge your thinking. If you’re here tonight, or even if you’re listening to this DVD, amazingly enough, now we have DVDs, or this tape, and you’re not a believer in God, I hope I can challenge your thinking. And I’m thankful that you’re at least open enough to be listening to this series of lectures. Understand that this is just a beginning lecture. We’ll obviously not have the time to get into a host of evidences. Tomorrow night and Wednesday night, we’ll look at some specific lines of evidence to expand on this theme. There are many others. I just hope that you’ll open your mind and investigate. That’s one point I want to make at the beginning.

A second is this. If you’re a believer in God and that this book, the Bible, is the Word of God, some elements about what I will be doing in this series may not be very meaningful to you because you already have become convicted, you believe already firmly that God exists and that the Bible is his word. If that’s the case, I’m thankful to God for you. And for a number of people who have said to me in the past, the Bible said it, I believe it, and that’s the end of it. And if that’s sufficient for you, and that’s where you are in your development, then wonderful. But I must tell you, there are an awful lot of folks who are not there. And just as Josh mentioned tonight, if you try to start with a person who doesn’t even believe there’s a God or is not sure there is one, to quote Genesis 1 to such a person is not very useful.

So the purpose of this series of lessons is to be directed to folks who are not believers in God, or that the Bible is the Word of God, to give us a place to begin. And it’s critically important. That was never brought more vividly home to me than when we lived in Romania, a formerly communist country, where the great majority of the populace had never been taught anything about the existence of God from a rational scientific standpoint. It is a critically important subject, even in our country. So I’m thankful that the elders had the wisdom to have the provision for such a thing. In no way do I wish to offend anyone who are already believers in God. I’m going to start this evening with Romans chapter 1.

And when I say I don’t wish to offend believers in God, I’m saying that because I will use the Bible for just a few minutes here at the beginning. And that’s it as far as this lecture is concerned. The rest of our time will be using God’s other testimony. But I want you to read with me Romans 1, verse 20. It says, For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. What that passage teaches in the Bible, for those of you who are Bible believers already, the Bible itself says, God has another testimony of himself.

It is to be found in the things that are made. And what this passage says is that anybody, any human being, can observe things that are made and come to understand there is God, and that he’s powerful. But he’s divinity, so that they are without excuse, the latter part of that verse says. So, what that argues, ladies and gentlemen, is that one can come to understand that there is a God independent of this book. Or any other religious book. And it is to that I wish to turn your attention tonight. I will not be arguing from this book. I will be looking at the things that are made. I believe the Bible itself teaches that God says you can look at his other testimony. And that’s what we will do.

Alright, the second thing I want to say by way of introduction is that there’s a bibliography that I’m leaving with Brother Harkwriter for you to use that has the books that I use in this series of lessons. There are some books that aren’t on here, though. I’ve got two brand new ones that I want to show you. Because a speaker on this subject wants to introduce you to material which can allow you to go deeper. So the two newest books that I have obtained lately is What Darwin Didn’t Know by Jeffrey Simons M.D. Fantastic book. It’s a discussion of the human body and what Darwin didn’t know about it. I would highly recommend it to you. I intend to develop an entire lecture built around this.

But you read it. Fascinating. The second book that just came out, very recently, by Richard Milton, who is not a believer in the sense that you and I are. He claims he’s not a religious person. But he calls his book Shattering the Myths of Darwinism. And his approach, I haven’t finished reading this one yet, I just got it. But it’s his approach is to attack some of the major arguments used in favor of Darwinism and show their weaknesses. And as far as I’ve read so far, it’s a powerfully good treatise. So, Shattering the myths of Darwinism. It’s not on the bibliography, Bob. We’ll have to get it on there next time around. Then there are two other books I want to mention to you that are on there.

This one is called Of Pandas and People. I recommend it because it is written at the level of junior high high school, which is a good place for most of us to start. And it’s an excellent beginning book if you want to look at this subject at the roots level and start understanding the concepts of pandas and people. Excellent. It’s a little bit dated, excellent book. And then a book by Philip Johnson, Harvard-trained lawyer, Darwin on Trial. He looks at the evidence from the standpoint of a lawyer’s approach and tries to show the weaknesses and the strengths of the arguments. Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson. Excellent books, everyone. And then the last one I want to introduce to you, I hope is not new to you.

It’s a very old book, Darwin on the Origin of Species. My experience with this discussion is that when you talk with people about the subject of evolution, creation, most people have not read the seminal work on that doctrine by Charles Darwin himself. And I might say to you, it is an excellent book to read. I’m convinced that of all the books written by mankind, this one, of course, this one was written by God. But of all the books written by mankind, I’m convinced this book has had as much effect on the way we think about our world as any other book that’s been written. It has influenced every field of thought. And I’m convinced in a negative fashion. You should be familiar with this book if you’re going to be at reasonably informed about this subject.

So, Darwin’s on the origin of species. Should be read.

1. Where Did We Come From?

All right. I’ve read to you the passage in the book of Romans, chapter one, that is the biblical support for what I’m doing for the rest of the time. I lay the Bible aside, and now we’re going to look at the evidence of the natural world. And we’re going to ask this question. Where did we come from? I don’t mean New York or Beaumont, Texas or Indiana. I mean, what is your ultimate origin, you human beings out there? All of you are human beings sitting there listening to me. We don’t have any evidence, ladies and gentlemen, that any other living creature has any care about where he came from. Only humans. But we do care where we came from. It matters to us. We think about it.

It’s a subject of great concern. It has great ramifications philosophically. So where did we come from? As I said, my purpose in this series is to challenge our thinking. All of us. I want to make all of you in this audience who are believers in God and in creation, I want to make you think like one who does not. I’m going to do my best to do that. And for anyone in this audience who is a believer in evolution, who does not believe that there was a necessity of God or creation, I want to challenge your thinking. I want to try to make you think another way. By looking at the evidence of the natural world. So my hope is by the time we finish this series of lessons, everybody has had to think.

I teach math. And I’ve taught chemistry for many years. And one of the things I’ve learned in math and science is most people don’t like to think too much. It’s too much trouble. It’s too hard. So I’m telling you up front, that’s one of my goals. So this is going to be hard. So get ready. But I hope it’ll be useful as well. So where did you come from? Does this thing have a pointer on it? I forgot to bring my pointer. Let me see. I think I do have it too. Is there? Well, if you can’t find it, I brought my own.

2. The Possible Answers to Where You Came From

I’ll use this one. That will work too if you ever need it. Okay, thank you. Alright, where did we come from? I don’t know of any more answers than the ones I’m going to put up here. If you think of one, I’d sure wish you’d tell me. I’ve been doing this series of lectures for about 20 years. I haven’t had anybody come up with another answer yet. So if you come up with one, please tell me. Where do we come from? Alright, think about this. Here you are in the present, and we’re going backwards in time. So here you are. You came from human ancestors. I think everybody here would admit your parents were human. Sometimes teenagers don’t admit that. But it is true, nevertheless. And as far back as you can go in your lineage, in your family tree, I think you would admit that everybody you know of was human.

One possibility is that there have always been humans forever and ever. There never was a time when there weren’t humans. That’s a possibility. Humans have always existed. My problem with that view is nobody believes that. I have yet to find anybody that believes that humans have always existed. Does anybody in this group believe humans have always existed? Well, that’s the normal response. Therefore, I don’t discuss this because nobody believes it. But it’s a logical possibility. Alright, a second possibility. Here you are in the present. Trace your ancestry back through humans, humans, humans, humans, humans, and somewhere back in time, the first human or humans were created. Distinctively created. Everybody knows, I think, that that’s the biblical view. That’s the creationist view. Humans were created. Distinct created beings.

I believe you can arrive at that conclusion, independent of the Bible. But it is certainly a possible view, isn’t it? Alright, here’s a third. Here you are in the present. You trace your ancestry back far enough. Somewhere back in your family tree are non-humans. Something other than humans.

Most people in the evolutionary world say that your nearest ancestors are common ancestors with the apes. Common ancestors with the monkeys. You trace your tree back, the nearest common ancestors are with that group. But if you trace farther back, according to the evolutionary view, you have common ancestry with birds, with reptiles, with arachnids, spiders, roaches, worms. Everything else, you trace back far enough, you have a common ancestry with them. Well, this view says somewhere in your ancestry, there are non-humans back here. And then somewhere back there in time, the first non-human thing, whatever it was, was created. And there are different views about what that was. Most people take the view that the first non-human things that were created were very simple organisms like single-celled organisms.

And then from there, everything evolved. That view is generally referred to as theistic evolution, and the reason is we put God in here, but not in any of the rest of it. So God was required to start the process, but from that beginning, all else evolved by natural means. Now, I don’t discuss that particular view because it is a mixture of both theism and atheism. And so I prefer to contrast the theistic view with this view, which is totally non-theistic. It’s totally materialistic. It says, here you are, you trace your ancestry back through non-humans, back to non-living matter, which has always existed. There’s no necessity for a God at all in that view. That’s the totally materialistic view. And frankly, in my experience of discussing with evolutionists about this subject, pure evolutionists don’t want God anywhere.

3. Only Two Answers: Natural Causes or Intelligent Design

So it is this view I wish to contrast with the view that God was required in creation. In the process, we will deal with theistic evolution because wherever a theistic evolution puts in God, he uses the same kind of arguments I do. And where he puts in evolution, he uses the same kind of arguments the evolutionists do. So we’ll deal with it only indirectly. Now, I don’t know any other answers to this question where you came from. Again, I’ll be happy to get any others that you have, add them to my chart, but I don’t know any other way to answer that question. And frankly, in my view, they all resolve to only two answers. You either came about by natural causes, nature did it, and nature’s always existed, or you came about by intelligent design.

Intelligence created you by some means. I don’t believe there are any other answers to that question. And both of these answers have an ancient pedigree because folks have held these positions since the beginning of writing, since the beginning of man’s thinking. And there are some core ideas that go with them. The core idea of the evolutionary view, natural causes, is that life in all its forms emerged from simple substances by natural means. That’s the key idea. All of life forms came about by natural means from simple substances, and it developed into more complicated. That’s the idea.

Now get that concept. A creationist says this. Matter by itself would never have formed life in any of its forms. It required intelligence acting on matter to produce life. And it is there that I wish to make the distinction tonight. And throughout this series of lectures. And it seems to me that’s the way to approach the subject if you’re going to use science. Was it natural causes or was it intelligent design? I’ve said to you, I think this is the most important lecture of all because it lays the foundation for everything else. When I teach calculus, I tell my students, chapter one is absolutely the most important chapter in the entire course, which lasts for three semesters. Because chapter one discusses the foundational concept on which all the rest is built.

It’s like Jesus saying you build your house on a rock. If you build your house on a rock, when the storms come, your house doesn’t fall. And in my class, the storms are the tests. So you found your mathematics on the rock. In the case of calculus, it’s the concept of the limit, which we’re not going to talk about here. Here’s my point. You don’t get that, you don’t get any of it. You don’t get this lecture, we’re lost the rest of the time. This core concept, ladies and gentlemen, is the place where you need to begin with somebody who’s not a believer. Where did you come from? How’d you get here? You either got here by natural causes or there had to be an intelligent designer in there somewhere.

4. We All Have Presuppositions

Those are your only two choices. Now, this is also introductory. This is a subject that is very sensitive. It’s almost as bad as politics. When you talk to people, people will say things that aren’t so to support their view. Listen to me carefully. Christians will say things that exaggerate, that do not properly represent, to support their view. You listening to me. They believe so strongly that creation is correct, they will even misrepresent, maybe not purposely, the evidence of the world to support their view. Please be careful about that. We need to be honest in dealing with this subject. I might also add, on the other side, folks who strongly believe there is no God, no necessity for God, the evolutionary view explains it all, will also overstate the case, go way beyond what we know in order to support their view.

So one of the things I like to come out of this kind of a series is to challenge everybody, no matter what your view, to be careful when you look at what somebody says about this subject. And don’t you just take something because I said it either. You challenge what I’m thinking, and you challenge what anybody else says, too. Isn’t that in the best tradition of science? I think. We all have presuppositions. We enter the subject with a background. Let me tell you mine. I like to be honest up front. And when I’m giving this series of lectures on a college campus with a room full of evolutionists, I do the same thing. I say to them, I came from a background of being raised in a home with parents who were firm believers in God and that the Bible’s the word of God.

That’s my background. That’s how I was raised. I recognize that. I recognize that, puts upon me a presupposition. I go at the evidence already with that in my background. I know I do. But if you’re here tonight and you’re a believer that there is no God, and that evolution answers the questions of how you arose, you also have a background. I don’t know who raised you, but I’ve talked to people who were raised by both parents who were total atheists. They believed the idea of God was not only ridiculous, but dangerous. Well, that’s a background you come from. What that’s going to do to you is you’re going to automatically have reservations about accepting anything that might chance to point toward God. So recognize that. Be honest with yourself.

I will tell you this also. When I was going through my teen years and early college years, I was deeply challenged in my own faith because I had a strong scientific and mathematical bent, very interested in those subjects, and I had teachers who were strongly evolutionary, who made their case look very convincing. So I think I have been honest with myself to challenge what I really believe. And do I believe it because my mom and dad taught it to me? Because somebody else thought it? Because there’s some tradition, or do I believe it because I’m convinced based on evidence? But I recognize. Even at best, we can fool ourselves. But should we recognize presuppositions when we enter this subject? Absolutely we should. All of us. And I’m telling you, for a person who’s convinced that evolution is so, he thinks all you folks out there that believe in creation are so prejudiced and biased you can’t even see the truth.

5. Sometimes You See Things You Expect to See

May I turn it the other way? Those of you out there that believe in creation think anybody that’s stupid enough to believe in evolution cannot see the truth. Isn’t that right? That’s about right. So that’s why I said to you one of my goals is to make you think like the other fellow. I think it’s a very valuable exercise. We actually see things differently based on our presuppositions. There have been experiments done on this, folks. Where people actually see things differently. Because, now put it this way, they’re determined to see it that way. It is that way, so I’m going to see it that way. You think that ever happens in the history of science? Folks, there are there are examples by the numbers. Where people see things that really aren’t that way.

But that’s the way they see it. So I got a little experiment here. And this is where we want a little audience participation. Now, there’s some rules to this game. If you’ve ever seen this, you are not allowed to play. So you’re out. So I hope I don’t know how many that eliminates, but if you’ve ever seen this, then don’t you play. You be honest. Now, for those of you left who have never seen this before, my question is, what do you see? And so I want some brave soul. I mean, this is not a test. What you see is what you see. So somebody who has never seen this before, tell me what you see. Come on, I can’t wait long, so don’t be bad.

Well, yes, ma’am. What do you see?

You see a lady looking away, like what? Back that way? Uh, would you describe her as pretty good looking?

No, I don’t want to hear about that. Stick with what you saw. Pretty good looking? Young or old? Kind of a young lady. Looking back that direction. Okay. I see an old ugly lady. Now there’s an honest man. Everybody hear what he said? I hear I see an old, ugly lady. So what we have is a young lady over here saying she saw a young, good looking lady, and you saw an old ugly lady. Well, would you say they saw the same thing? No, I wouldn’t either. I mean, you can’t have both ways, folks.

So, here’s what I want to do next. And the only ones that can vote are the ones who’ve never seen this before. So here’s my question. How many of you who’ve never seen this before see a young lady looking off in that direction, and that’s all you can see in that picture? Raise your hand. You see a young lady. Be honest with me, please. Okay. Now, how many of you that have never seen this before see an old, ugly lady, and you can’t see anything else? Raise your hand. Boy. Most of you see old and ugly. I don’t know what that says about you. All right. Now, how many of you, and there shouldn’t be any double votes here. How many of you see both the old and the young?

Okay. Quite a few of you. So you’re ambiestress. Did you get that? Ambidextrous means you can use both hands. So you’re ambiestress.

Now, I’m going to really test your honesty. Even though you know, because I’ve told you, and by the way, I could do a little test on this thing, and I could build you up, changing this picture gradually, so the only thing you could see was one of them. It’s been done experimentally. You couldn’t for the life of you see the other one. Because you’ve been programmed. It’s been done. So that eventually you look at that picture and you can only see one or the other. You can’t see them both. So those of you that can see them both, I’m glad you can. That’s pretty good because you’ve got this ability to look at it more than one way. But let me ask you now, be honest.

How many of you, even now, after you know there’s two ladies in that picture? You still can’t see but one. Raise your hand. Be honest. Thank you very much. See, that was the way I was when I first saw this. I could see the old lady. That’s all I could see. I couldn’t see the young lady to save my life. I sat there and stared at that thing. And people, I’ve had folks ask me after my lecture, give me that picture.

Because they still couldn’t see it. After I showed it to them. So I’m going to show you. If you couldn’t see the young lady, there’s her eyelash, there’s a little bitty nose, here’s her cheekbone, and here’s her chin. And she’s kind of looking out that way. And this is her ear. See her now? The young lady, those of you who couldn’t see her? Nope. Still can’t see her. Well, you’re not alone, believe me. See her? There she is. And she’s looking out that way.

All right. Now, for those of you that saw the young lady and can’t see the old lady, the old lady has an eye right here. Here’s a big old fat, ugly nose. Here’s her mouth and her big ugly chin, and she’s kind of looking down this way. You see the old lady now?

Now, can you flip back and forth and see one and then see the other and then see one and then the other? See what happens is you see one, you can’t see the other now. Look, people, here’s my point about this little silly exercise. We see things differently. What are we looking at? We’re looking at a bunch of black dots on a white background. That’s data. But we see the data differently. I don’t want to make any more of that than I already have, but it illustrates the point. Do you think it ever happens in science that you have a set of data that you interpret in light of what theory you’ve already accepted? Absolutely it does. And you’ll bend and twist that data to make it fit because it’s gotta fit.

That happens a lot. Now, I want to pause right here. I have the deepest respect for science and scientists. In no way am I trying to belittle those folks. I am one of them. But we must be honest with ourselves. Here’s another little experiment that’s been done. Take the deck of cards and you put some people in front of your desk and you’d flash the cards. Ask them to name the cards. What do you think they named that one right there? Say it. Ace of spades. I mean, if I’m asking you to do this in a hurry, you’d say ace of spades, right? And this one, Queen of Hearts, King of Clubs, Ten of Diamonds. And, okay, so you’ve got a deck of cards, and you’ve got all these cards and you’re flipping them and they’re naming them off, and right in the middle of it, you put one that’s an anomaly.

Is there an anomaly up there? You know what an anomaly is? That’s something that doesn’t fit. Is that right? Well, look, when they did this experiment with these cards, they’d have the ace of spades red. They’d be flipping through those things, and people never even notice it. They just say ace of spades and go right on. Then if the guy would slow it down a little bit, they’d look at that ace of spades a little longer, and they’d say, uh, wait a minute, can I see that again? He’d say, nope, and we keep going. But they did see there was something out of line there. Other folks never did see it. They just called it the Age of spades and went right on.

The point I’m trying to make to you is sometimes you see things that you expect to see. You listening? I want to say that again. That’s very important. Sometimes you see things you expect to see. Whether they’re there or not. And we all do it. See, this is supposed to be this way. And until you slow the cards down enough, you didn’t catch it. So part of my job in this series of lectures is to slow the cards down enough so we see it. All right. We have certain presupposition. We actually see things differently sometimes, even though it’s the same data, we see it differently. And it’s a very emotional topic. It is critically emotional. You know why? Look, I taught chemistry for a number of years.

I taught the atomic theory. I’ve never had a single parent come in and argue with me about whether there was an atomic theory or not. Because who cares whether you’re made out of atoms or not? But do you think parents go in and argue with teachers about whether you evolved from monkeys? Absolutely they do. Why is that? Folks, it has to do with who we are. Where we came from, why we’re here. It has to do with the whole purpose of our existence. No wonder it’s so emotional. You can’t just sit back and rationally, pure, cold-bloodedly discuss this subject. And don’t you think there’s a scientist on earth that can either. It’s not possible. It gets at the roots of who we are. And for that reason, it’s dangerous business because we overstate our case.

Because we get to where we believe it so firmly we don’t even see things that don’t fit. On both sides, ladies and gentlemen. Let me make it come even closer to home for this group of people. You ever gotten in an argument with somebody about what a Bible passage means? And they can’t see it the way you know it’s right. And you can’t see it the way they know it’s right, and you discuss it back and forth, and you get all finished, and guess what? He still believes it that way, and you still believe it’s that way. That ever happened to you?

6. Naturalism Versus Supernaturalism

Now we could approach the subject philosophically. If we did, we would be talking about naturalism versus supernaturalism. And naturalism says nature’s all there is. You should never make an appeal to anything except to nature because that’s all there is. Supernaturalism says, no, there could be something beyond nature that interacts with nature that brings about things in nature. If you’re a believer in God, which are you? You’re a supernaturalist. Because you believe God is beyond nature. And he, in fact, produced nature. Now we could discuss that subject philosophically, and it’d be a rather interesting discussion, but I’m not a philosopher. So I’m not going to discuss it that way. But here’s what I do want to warn you about. People who claim they’re discussing this subject scientifically get their philosophy all mixed up in it.

Let me show you a classic illustration. The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. Our obligation to survive is not just to ourselves, but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast from which we spring. You recognize that quote? The Carl Sagan Cosmos series, the most popular science series ever on television. This was one of his beginning statements. Folks, you think that’s science? You think science can tell you that the cosmos is all there is, all there was, or all there ever will be? Science can never tell you any such thing. That, ladies and