Pints With Aquinas - Young Earth Creationism: Gideon Lazar VS Jimmy Akin

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Gideon Lazar and Jimmy Akin will debate the resolution "the earth was created a few thousand years ago". Format for debate below. 📖 Meditations by St Thomas Aquinas for LENT: https://pintswithaquinas.com/lenten-ebook 🚨 Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt/ 🙏 Hallow: https://hallow.com/partner-mattfradd/?utm_source=influencer&shortlink=59c565e&utm_campaign=mattfradd&utm_medium=email&referrer=mattfradd&c=Matt+Fradd+Custom+Landing+Page&pid=Influencer&af_channel=Influencer Opening Statements: 20 Min each Cross Examination: 20 Min each Audience Questions: 30 minutes Closing Statements: 5 Min each

Hey, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Thank you so much for listening. If you like Pints with Aquinas and want to support us, you can do that in one of two ways by supporting us on Locals or Patreon. If you go to pintswithaquinas.com slash give it'll let you know there what you get in return. Thanks. G'day, g'day and welcome to Pints with Aquinas for today's debate between Gideon Lazar and Jimmy Akin who will be debating the resolution

the earth was created a few thousand years ago. There's going to be 20 minute opening statements before a big time of discussion between Gideon and Jimmy. And I think that's really important so that each person can lay out their arguments. And I really want to invite you to try to put away all distractions. And regardless of where you stand on this debate, to give each debate your undivided attention because we'll

certainly all learn something today. Before I introduce the debaters though, I want to let you know that I've put together a beautiful PDF of Thomas Aquinas' Meditations for Lent. This isn't something that I've put together from his works. This is actually a book he wrote so that every day you would actually have a meditation written by him to prepare yourself for Easter. There is a link at the top of the description below and it's free.

So just click the link, download this, and this could be a helpful thing for you as you journey through Lent. All right, Jimmy and Gideon, lovely to have you. Thanks for being here. Oh, my pleasure. Yeah, thanks for doing this. Yeah, before we jump in to the opening statements,

I thought I'd let each of you maybe introduce yourself. Jimmy, you wanna begin? Oh, well, as personal brain care specialist, Gag Halfront says, well, he's just this guy, you know? So I'm a Catholic apologist, been doing it for almost 30 years now. I'm also the host of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason, which we'll be doing today. Thank you. Gideon. Yeah, I'm Gideon Lazar. I am a middle school teacher. I also like learning about and discussing

theology. I have a YouTube channel called the Byzantine Scodist where you can go and watch some of my theology videos if you're interested. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this debate and thank you Matt for doing this. You got it. Well, we're going to begin with you and thank you, Matt, for doing this. You got it. Well, we're going to begin with you, Gideon, giving a 20-minute opening statement. I have my iPad set up here, so as soon as you speak, I'll click start. And when you have a minute remaining, I'll put myself back on the screen and that'll be your cue to let you know that you've got about a minute remaining.

So whenever you want to begin, we're good. Before I begin, I first want to thank Matt for offering to host this debate and Jimmy for agreeing to debate me. Let's start with epistemology. Once we have established that the Catholic faith is true, which we are presupposing for this debate, we must take into account those supernatural truths revealed in theology.

Indeed, if the Catholic faith teaches the young earth, we ought to hold that belief as true regardless of the scientific data. The first Vatican council says that, quote, all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusion to science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith. Notice that the Council does not merely say those which have been explicitly condemned by the Church must not be believed, but all those contrary to the doctrine of faith. Hence, if there is a contradiction between an old earth and any Catholic dogma, we must reject an old earth regardless of if there is an explicit magisterial statement saying

we ought to. Even if the magisterium allows for Jimmy's position, and hence in the words of the manualists, could be considered probable, I will argue my position is still more in line with Catholic teaching and hence more probable. We must also consider the Catholic understanding of the relationship between theology and all other bodies and knowledge. Theology was traditionally considered the queen of the sciences. Theology does not destroy reason,

but it can guide us in avoiding errors when it comes to reason. For example, in many cultures, suicide because of dishonor is considered a moral imperative. Of course, we can argue through natural reason that all murder, including suicide, is morally wrong.

Since this is very difficult, even if not impossible, to discern through natural reason though, theology can aid us in ruling out that suicide could be morally good a priori. So, my case here is not that a young earth contradicts reason. Indeed, it would be unjust of God to create a world in which false evidence was planted to intentionally lead us to the conclusion the earth is old when it is actually young. Rather, my case is that theology should be our guiding light. Reason then can confirm what we know by faith and can even help enhance our understanding of what we know by faith. To give an example, scripture tells us that Christ was crucified under the emperor Tiberius.

This we know by faith. However, a study of Judea during the time of Tiberius could enhance our understanding of the gospels. It can also confirm details in the gospels to strengthen us in our faith. Now that we have established the importance of theology in this area, let's look at why theology compels us to hold a young earth. The primary reason we ought to is because

scripture teaches a young earth. If we add up the various chronological data in scripture, we find that Abraham lived around 2000 years before Christ. There are a number of disputes within this chronology, but things could only be shifted around a few decades at this point, not millennia. This date for Abraham is relatively uncontroversial. From here, Genesis 5 and 11 gives genealogies going back to the time of Adam. We know Adam was made on the sixth day of creation, and so we count back five more days to get a date for the world's creation. If one follows the chronology found within Hebrew

manuscripts, this date comes to around 6,000 years ago, whereas if one follows the chronology found within Greek manuscripts, this date comes to around 7,500 years ago. Both of these are a young earth, so I won't attempt to settle disputes between the two here. Some will dispute this by saying there are gaps within the genealogies. For example, Matthew 1 is well known to contain numerous gaps in generations. However, this is actually not a problem when it comes to constructing a chronology from the genealogies. For example, we read, when Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. And there could have been any number of generations between Jared and Enoch, but regardless, when

Jared was 162, Enoch was born. This is a chronological lock, according to scripture. This chronological lock exists between Adam and Abraham. Perhaps these numbers are not meant to be taken literally, though. Perhaps they are just symbolic. However, it does not follow that because the number is symbolic, it is not literal. The same divine author of scripture is also the author of actual history. God imbues actual history with symbolic meanings, and scripture reveals this meaning within

history. Catechism paragraph 116, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, points out that, quote, all other senses of sacred scripture are based on the literal. This means that these symbolic spiritual meanings of scripture come forth from the literal, what actually happened. Indeed, these spiritual meanings are far more important than the literal, but they can only exist because of the literal. In fact, there is much

biblical evidence that suggests it is real history. For example, the genealogy ends with Abraham, who is clearly intended to be a historical figure. It is only because of later chapter divisions that there even seems to be a separation between Genesis 11 and 12. The early life of Abraham, including his marriage to Sarah, is contained within the genealogy of Genesis 11. We do not reach the end of the genealogy marked by Terah's death until Abraham has already moved from Ur to Haran at the age of 75. Remember, this is a genealogy that started with Shem, the son of Noah. So where does the genealogy move from pure symbolism to history, and where

does the text of scripture indicate that? There is also external biblical evidence for the historicity of these chapters as well. For example, 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 both draw on the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 as though they were historically accurate. In addition, our Lord explicitly refers to Abel, Luke 1151, Noah, Matthew 2437, and Abraham, John 839, as historical figures. None of these mentions are in the context of parables. Finally, there is extensive proof from tradition for the historicity of Genesis 1-11 as well. The fourth session of the Council of Trent states that, quote, it decrees that no one relying on his own skill shall in matters of faith and of morals presume to interpret said sacred scripture contrary to the sense in which Holy Mother Church hath held

and doth hold or even contrary to the unanimous agreement of the fathers. Notice it does not say that the unanimous agreement of the Fathers. Notice it does not say that the Church must necessarily have decreed it. The unanimous agreement of the Fathers is enough. This is because if all the Fathers teach something, we have good reason to believe it is apostolic tradition. It is not generally contested that all the Fathers held the chronology of Scripture to be literal.

To give an example, in City of God 1210, St. Augustine says, quote, let us then omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say when they speak on the nature and origin of the human race. They too are deceived by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousands of years, though reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not yet six thousand years have passed." He then goes on from here to list many pagan historical sources which seem to contradict the literal reading of Genesis. While he does seek to poke holes in these documents, his

primary reason for dismissing them is, in his own words, the sacred writings. One could object that Trent only binds on matters of faith and this is a matter of history and science. However, the interpretation of Scripture is a matter of faith. Notice that Saint Augustine and many other fathers invoke this on the basis of Scripture itself. On the other hand, contemporary scientific theories such as the four elements are invoked on the authority of reason and then subsequently used to interpret scripture. What about the six days? Could these not have simply been long ages? The Hebrew

word Yom is sometimes claimed to mean a period of time and this is true. However, in those cases that length of time is specified in context. The only specification we get here is a normal evening and morning. What about the sun being made on the fourth day? Light was already created on the first day, though, and Moses explicitly tells us this was used to mark evenings and mornings before the sun was made. Aren't the days just symbolic to them?

Indeed, they are symbolic. However, as I pointed out earlier, it is a category error to say they are not therefore literal. In terms of the fathers, with the exception of Origen and Augustine, every single father held to a literal reading. Origen was condemned for his views on creation, and so he could be set aside on matters of creation. Saint Augustine did hold the days to be non-literal, but this is because he was an even younger Earth creationist than me. He held the days were instantaneous. Indeed, this was

partly based on an overly literal reading of Siroc. So there is a unanimous agreement of the fathers that the Earth is young. Even if one wished to say the seven days were long ages, they would still end up with humanity being around 7500 years ago. At this point, one would have to concede that contemporary scientific paradigms are entirely wrong anyways. There would also be the problem of global flood 5500 years ago. There are many reasons to take the flood as global. The internal evidence of Genesis suggests it was global. If the flood was just local, why couldn't Noah move somewhere else?

Only a few chapters later, Abraham is called to move. And why does Noah need to save two of each animal if the other animals can move in afterwards? We are told again and again that the flood waters went above the highest mountains. If this isn't a global flood, what more could Moses have possibly added to clarify it was global? Every single father, without exception, including Origen and Augustine, held it was literal. Indeed, these two fathers, frequently appealed to by theistic evolutionists, both even defended a literal reading of the Ark against pagan critics of the story by

trying to calculate how all the animals could fit on the Ark and how the waters could rise that high. The clearest evidence comes from 2 Peter 3. St. Peter says that in the end times, there will be some who deny that Christ will return because, quote, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation. Peter responds that, quote, they deliberately ignore this fact that the world that then existed was deluged with water and perish, unquote. If the entire world was not deluged with water, then the scoffers would not be refuted by

St. Peter's argument. If it was just a metaphor, then will Christ's judgment just be metaphorical? If the flood was just local, then is Christ's judgment just local? Indeed, in his first epistle, St. Peter even clarifies that only eight were saved. Notice the objection that St. Peter prophesies. They object that all things continue as they always do. Peter responds that they deliberately ignore the fact of a global flood. This gives us two paradigms for understanding the world. A uniform understanding and natural processes in which we can understand the past by knowing the present, and a catastrophic understanding in which

we need to know the catastrophe, the global flood, to understand the past. Of course, no uniformitarian would deny that catastrophes exist, and no catastrophists would deny that we can learn some things about the past through natural processes, but both would say that their model is the primary lens we must use. Since the flood would primarily affect sediment layers, eroding, moving, and laying down layers, the geological record is the primary place to look. Uniformitarianism is the primary paradigm by which the geologic record is currently understood, but is it the best one? There is some evidence to suggest a global flood better fits with the evidence. It would be too time-consuming to go

through all the evidence, so let's look at the overall picture. There are two primary sets of rocks within the geologic record, the lower-down Proterozoic and the higher-up Phanerozoic. The Proterozoic contains no plants or animals, only small organisms of a few cells. It was likely formed during or shortly after creation. Between the Proterozoic and the Phanerozoic rocks is a great discontinuity known officially as the Great Unconformity. Within the Phanerozoic there are three major layers, from bottom to top the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic.

The Paleozoic includes early life, the Mesozoic is where we find dinosaurs, and the Cenozoic is where we find most mammals and finally humans at the top. The contemporary explanation is that the different fossils in these layers represent the animals alive at the time these rocks were laid down. However, these could also be explained by different ecosystems. As the flood waters rose, they buried each ecosystem successively. This rapid water would create turbidity currents, burying animals and plants in seconds. One wave of water after another hitting different ecosystems

would cause these ecosystems to end up in layers on top of one another. And there is good geologic evidence for this. Within Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks, there are large layers that span continents. These layers have common paleocurrents, showing they were laid down in the same way. In these two sets of layers, there are almost no supposed transitionary fossils. Life comes out of nowhere, exists for a few layers, and then disappears. This also explains why

dinosaur fossils were discovered to have soft tissue, something a young Earth account would predict, but an old Earth one did not. One supposed transitionary fossil in the Paleozoic is the Acanthostega. It is essentially a fish with legs. Is this not evidence of creatures beginning to walk? Dr. Kurt Wise has proposed a better explanation. He has pointed out that a large number of fossils from these layers seem to be semi-aquatic. Plants in this period include lightweight plants such as hollow trees. He has therefore suggested that this was a continent-sized floating forest. Similar smaller versions

still exist today known as quaking bogs. This forest would have been ripped up and buried during the flood. The hollow trees would have folded over and compressed, creating layers of coal. Similar things to these have been observed to rapidly form. For example, the eruption of Mount St. Helens created a canyon in the course of only a few hours. Trees destroyed by the disaster were observed by Dr. Steve Austin to fold over into exactly the sorts of layers that would become coal according to his doctoral work. What about Cenozoic layers? Where we do find humans and the animals they interact with most. The patterns observed in the lower two sets do not continue. There are no widespread paleocurrent trends. Layers are scattered and irregular. There are lots of transitionary fossils.

Fossils also match the creatures that are there now. As life left the ark and spread across the world, it diversified to fit into its new areas. These rapid changes were based on already inbuilt powers of adaptation in the animals, which is shown to be possible with epigenetics. Humans appear last on the scene as humans stayed at Babel initially. During the Flood, the continents would have moved. We see this in the text of Genesis where we hear the great fountains of the deep bursting forth. This explains why the effects of plate tectonics are observed in the Proterozoic, Paleozoic, and Mesozoic layers, but we do not find them as widely spread in the post-Flood Cenozoic layers. Dr. John Baumgartner has created a computer program known as TERA to model this.

This program is now actually widely used by mainstream scientists to model plate tectonics. According to Baumgartner's program, the extra heat and humidity from the flood, even after it ended, would have created great storms initially, followed by an ice age when heat levels dropped. This matches the geologic record of the Cenozoic rocks. Has every scientific problem been solved yet? Of course not. But the overall framework has been and from here smaller problems can be examined and solved. For example, the Coconino sandstone was long thought to have been definitively proven to be created by desert winds. So how could it have been formed by a flood? However, work done by the Institute for Creation Research

examined the rocks with a microscope and discovered they were a lot less uniform than previously thought. When they tested forming similar sandstone patterns using a fan versus using shaking a jar with water, they discovered the latter far better matched the Coconino on a microscopic level. This is a discovery that was only made thanks to a young earth hypothesis, so we can even see that a young earth science has predictive power. There was also anthropological evidence for Genesis 1 through 11. As people traveled out of Babel, they brought stories of the most catastrophic events of their past.

The ubiquity of flood myths is well known. However, what is not well known is just how similar the stories are. For example, in many Inuit, as well as one Lakota retellings, the raven that leaves the ark is replaced with a beaver. If this was just a missionary effect, why do we find consistent shifts of details and regions that are not recorded in others? The missionary effect is also well documented and does not work in this manner. These stories of floods also exist in cultures that are far away from water sources. For example, they are widespread

in the American Southwest, a desert. What is also not as well known is how widespread Babel stories are. For example, in Burma, there is a story of how the people built a pagoda that would reach into heaven, at which point a god came down and scattered their languages. According to one African tribe, the Baal-Lui wanted to reach the Sun God, but their tower was too high and fell over. There are many such stories I could recount. They are widespread across the world and are found on every continent. As humans spread out across the world, they also left marks of an apparent proto-language on every continent. Cave drawing supposedly across nearly 100,000 years. Their remarkable similarity is according to the research of Genevieve von Petzinger, a

paleoanthropologist from the University of Victoria in Canada, who is not a creationist of any sort. These patterns are also found on every single continent within the world. So to summarize, theology is the queen of the sciences and therefore should direct the study of natural experimental science. There is extensive natural reason to believe the earth is young from the dual witness of scripture and tradition, and when we do look at science, major features of geology and anthropology are better explained by a global flood in a recent departure from Babel than by an old earth. Thank you. All right, Gideon, thank you very much. Jimmy,

whenever you begin, I can click this timer here. Okay, so Gideon and I have been asked to debate the issue of young earth creationism and that can be defined a number of ways but I take young earth creationism to involve two claims that are relevant for us today. First there's the claim that the earth and the cosmos as a whole is only a few thousand years old, hence the name young earth. And second there is the claim that the life forms on earth did not evolve but were directly created by God, hence the name creationism. Gideon and I agree that these aren't matters of dogma and that they can be rationally discussed by Catholics, and this discussion should

be carried out with charity. Nobody should look down on someone else as a bad Catholic because of their belief or disbelief in young earth creationism since the church permits both views. Personally, I consistently defend young earth Catholics and their liberty to hold their position. On the issue itself, we need to look at it from the perspectives of faith and reason. As medievals like Saint Thomas Aquinas recognized, all truth is God's truth, and so faith and reason need to work together. Approaching the question from the faith perspective, as Catholics we have two authoritative sources about the faith, Scripture and tradition. We also have the Magisterium,

which authoritatively interprets Scripture and tradition. And that gives us a good starting point, because the Magisterium has already given us an answer about the sources of faith on this question. In documents spanning more than a century, the Magisterium has indicated that the sources of faith, Scripture and tradition, do not require a Young Earth creationist interpretation. In other words, the magisterium has ruled that scripture and tradition are consistent both with an old universe and with some versions of

evolutionary theory. But sometimes younger supporters try to minimize the significance of this ruling. Often they'll focus almost exclusively on blessed pius XII's 1950 encyclical Humanae generis. They note that in Humanae generis, Pius XII took a cautious stance on human evolution and authorized a tentative discussion of it by experts. Younger supporters want to see evolution rejected and so they'll often portray Humanae generis' tentativeness as something that Catholics are still bound by today, as if it's still the approach of the Magisterium. But it isn't, and younger supporters do a disservice to their audience

if they focus on this document as if it was the only relevant thing the Magisterium has said. In the first place, Humanae generis dealt with evolution. It did not deal with the age of the universe, and Pius XII was a strong supporter of an old universe, as well as an enthusiastic supporter of the Big Bang cosmology produced by the Belgian priest Father George Lemaitre. The year after humani generis in 1951, Pius XII gave an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which he cited scientific evidence such as the recession of galaxies, the age of the Earth's crust as determined by radioactive decay, the age of meteorites, and the gravitational interaction of stars. And based on these, blessed Pius XII asserted that the Earth is approximately five billion years old. So there's an old Earth, and he asserted that the universe was older than that.

So Pius XII, the man who authored Humano-Generes, was an enthusiastic proponent of the idea of an old earth and an old universe. The caution he expressed in Humano-Generis was regarding the theory of evolution, and even then it wasn't in regard to the theory of evolution in general. If you read the text, you'll see that the caution he expressed was regarding, in his words, the doctrine of evolution in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter. The tentativeness he expressed was in regard to human evolution, not evolution in general. As a pope who believed the universe is billions of years old, he didn't express a problem with non-human evolution. It was only in regard to human

evolution that he was tentative. And, in the years since Humanae Generis, the Magisterium has not been silent. The document was issued over 70 years ago, and multiple popes and church bodies have addressed both the age of the universe and evolution. Young Earth creationists aren't being honest with the public if they portray Humi generis is the only important thing the magisterium has said or If they pretend that the magisterium today displays the same tentative Ness regarding human evolution famously in 1996 st. John Paul II gave an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which he stated

Today almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical humani generis in which he stated, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory. This statement doesn't display the tentativeness that young Earth Catholics wish to see taken towards evolution. It's a positive statement on scientific grounds in favor of the theory of evolution. It's a positive statement on scientific grounds in favor of the theory of evolution. St. John Paul II went on to say, in his

encyclical Humanae generis, my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points. And in paragraph 283 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read, the question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms, and the appearance of man.

And in referring to scientific studies, the catechism isn't thinking of ones done at the Institute of Creation Research. They're thinking of studies done by mainstream science. So we see the Catechism saying that modern science has splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age of the universe and how the life forms on earth developed, including man. The Catechism thus speaks approvingly of both an old earth and of biological evolution, including human evolution. Then in paragraph 337, the Catechism states that scripture presents the work of the creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine work. So here we have the

magisterium endorsing the view that the days of creation are symbolic, and magisterial statements also identify other elements in early Genesis as symbolic. In its documents we don't see the Magisterium taking the attitude that many young earth supporters would wish. The Magisterium is not saying, well maybe we can kind of tentatively discuss the hypothetical possibility of evolution or an old earth. From Pius XII forward we see an endorsement of the old earth view. We see Pius XII and the Magisterium not having a problem with evolution in general and even supporting it. And in recent documents, we see the Magisterium not having a problem with human evolution and praising

mainstream scientific studies contributing to our knowledge of the origins of humanity. studies contributing to our knowledge of the origins of humanity. This has implications for our discussions today. What we see is that the Magisterium has issued a ruling and a firm ruling given its repetition over the last century that the sources of faith do not require us to take a young-earth view or to reject either biological evolution in general or human evolution in particular. If you want to disagree with the magisterium and say that scripture and tradition really do require these things, fine, but the burden of proof is on you to show that the magisterium is wrong. In light of this ruling, the question becomes one that needs

to be answered from the reason perspective, which leads us to science. Scientifically, numerous lines of evidence support both an old earth and biological evolution. These findings come from fields including astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology, biology, and genetics. Of course, there's no way to survey the evidences from each of these fields today, but I will look at two pieces of evidence, one of which deals with the age of the universe and one of which deals with evolution. Regarding the age of the universe, we have strong evidence from astronomy that the universe is older than a few thousand years. For example, in 2008, astronomers observed a supernova known as SN 2008 D. Footage of this supernova was captured in real time

and you can watch the video of the star exploding. The supernova was in a galaxy that is 88 million light years away from us and that means that in 2008 astronomers were witnessing an event that took place 88 million years ago. You can go to my webpage, JimmyAkin.com, and look at the Supernova going off for yourself. You can watch images of an event happening 88 million years ago with your own eyes. And if events were happening in the universe millions of years ago, that means we're living in an old universe, not just one a few thousand years old. When it comes to evolution and the evidence for that, let's start with the basic fact that everyone's known throughout history. Children resemble their parents. They tend to have the same hair color, eye color, facial features, and so forth. In the past, people didn't know why

children resembled their parents, but they knew they did. In the 1800s, the Augustinian abbot Gregor Mendel used pea plants to work out the basic laws of inheritance, and today, Father Mendel is known as the father of genetics. After Mendel's time, we learned that parents pass on their characteristics to their children using small chemical structures we now call genes. And in the mid-20th century, we learned that genes are made of DNA. So if you look at an organism of any species and say, why does it have this inborn characteristic?

The answer will be, because it inherited certain genes from a parrot. But not all of our genes produce visible traits in us. In humans, the gene for having brown eyes is dominant while the gene for having blue eyes is recessive. So you can look at the DNA of a child with brown eyes and discover that he's carrying genes for blue eyes. Those blue-eyed genes aren't manifesting in him, but because of their presence, you know that the child had some blue-eyed ancestors.

Now let's look at a problem that all species have when reproducing. How to get nutrients to their unborn children. We humans solve this problem using placentas. A placenta is an organ that we develop as unborn children, but we don't keep our placentas, they fall off at birth. Placentas are temporary organs, like the tail of a tadpole. A tadpole's tail falls off when it becomes a frog and a human's placenta falls off when it's born. What placentas do is allow us to get nutrients from our mothers. The placenta attaches to the mother's womb and it

gets nutrients from her body that allow the baby to grow. But not all species have placetas. Birds and reptiles lay eggs, so there's no way their babies can get nutrients from the mother's body after the eggs are laid. As a result, all of the nutrients the baby bird or baby reptile will need have to be stored in the egg itself, and that's the function of the egg's yolk. The yolk is a ball of nutrients that the baby will need to develop until it's born and can start eating with its mouth. So how do birds and reptiles make egg yolks for their babies? As you'd expect, this is determined by their genes. Birds and reptiles have genes that allow them to make a kind of protein known as vitellogenin, which is the main source of nutrients in an egg yolk. And the genes that control

the production of vitellogenin are known as vit genes. Now here's the thing, it isn't just birds and reptiles that have vit genes. Even though we humans use placentas rather than egg yolks to feed our unborn babies, humans also have vit genes. In us, they don't work because placentas, but we still have the genes. So what explains why humans have the genes to produce egg yolks like a bird or a reptile even though we don't use eggs to house our unborn babies? It's the same reason that a brown-eyed child can have blue-eyed genes even though we don't use eggs to house our unborn babies. It's the same reason that a brown-eyed child can have blue-eyed genes,

even though they're not manifesting. A child with blue-eyed genes got them from blue-eyed ancestors, even though he's not blue-eyed. And since humans have genes for making egg yolks, some of our ancestors must have laid eggs, even though we don't do today. Geneticists have identified numerous places in the human genome that are copies or modified copies of genes that point to us having ancestors of different species that did things like lay eggs or grow scales

or live underwater. So we have numerous lines of biological evidence that point to humans having non-human ancestors, just like we have multiple lines of astronomical and geological evidence that point to the earth and the universe being old. Now how can young earth creationists respond? One strategy is proposing that God has done miracles, which could explain away the scientific data and still leave the universe young. And you can propose miracles because God can do them. But if you do that, you need to be honest about what you're doing. You're no longer doing science. Instead, you're allowing your religious

convictions to determine how you read the scientific data. And there's a problem because the magisterium has ruled you don't need to do that. So you also need to be honest about the fact you're disagreeing with the Magisterium when you say the sources of faith require young earth creationism. A second strategy is to find anomalous pieces of evidence that point away from an old earth. And that's fine because every theory has anomalous data,

no scientific theory accounts for all the data. The problem is that's also true of Young Earth creationism. It also doesn't account for all the data. And if we're going to judge a theory by how many pieces of data support it, then the mainstream account is supported by way more pieces of data than Young Earth creationism is. A third strategy is to

propose speculative models that could account for the scientific data in another way, like maybe the speed of light doesn't work at all like we think it does. The problem here is that you can propose any kind of speculative model you desire to explain any data you want. If you wanted, you could speculate that all of the phenomena we see in the universe are actually produced by a race of invisible gnomes. But speculation is not proof, and thus far the Young Earth community has not provided proof.

For their theories to compete with the mainstream ones, Young Earth creationists would need to produce models that make testable predictions that then go on to be verified better than the predictions of mainstream models. But they haven't done that. Instead, they use armchair speculation to try to explain away the data from mainstream science. In view of this, the scientific case for Young earth creationism fails from the reason perspective. And Catholics are better advised to follow the Magisterium in its judgment that the sources

of faith do not require this view, and to follow the Catechism when it concludes that mainstream scientific studies have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms, and the appearance of man. Thank you. Okay, well, thank you very much. We are going to go in a moment into a period of cross-examination in which Gideon will first cross-examine Jimmy for 20 minutes, and after that time is up, Jimmy will then cross-examination in which Gideon will first cross-examine Jimmy for 20 minutes and after that time is up, Jimmy will then cross-examine Gideon for 20 minutes. The point of this for the cross-examiner is to kind of guide the conversation along as

he sees fit. So we have two very gentlemanly people here today and obviously I don't think neither of them will be rude, but it's not to be thought of as rude if the one doing the cross-examining interrupts the person the cross-examining to move the conversation along. That's part of the point. Why do you say that, Matt? How dare you? All right, but before we do go into that, I want to say thank you to Exodus 90 for sponsoring this show. Lent is next week, next week. And if you still aren't terribly sure what you're going to do, here's something you could do. Go to ExodusLent.com slash Matt. There is

a link in the description below and you could do Exodus Lent, not Exodus 90, Exodus Lent. It's a different thing. You don't have to have cold showers. It's a varied version of Exodus 90. It's actually simpler, but it's still challenging. So if you're still not sure what you wanna do, go to exoduslent.com slash Matt, exoduslent.com slash Matt. You and a small community of men can grow in your faith over the course of this Lent, grow closer to Christ. So check it out.

As I say, it allows you to take warm showers, drink alcohol, and only when you're with others, watch TV and sports. But don't be fooled. This will still be a challenging 40 days of preparation for living the Christian life. ExodusLent.com slash Matt. ExodusLent.com slash Matt. Again, click the link in the description below so that they know that we sent you.

All right. How are you feeling? You both are doing very well. So Gideon, you can begin whenever you want and I'll click. Have at me. So Jimmy, before I go into this first thing, I just want to ask how familiar

are you with the De Axili East controversy? Oh, somewhat. It's been a while since I've looked into it. Okay. Yeah. You mentioned here that the Magisterium has said that evolution is not contrary to the doctrine of faith. And so you said as a result, since it's not contradictory, we have to turn to the reason to settle it. But in the example of the De Auxilies controversy, wasn't it the case that the Bonyasians and the Molanists still continued to appeal to sources of faith in their discussions? The Magisterium simply said it wasn't going to formally settle

it, because I'm not sure how you could appeal to science to resolve the debate between the Molanists and the Bonyasians. So I would say that it is legitimate to still appeal to data from sources of faith in looking at scientific questions, but it has to be done with a lot of caution. And in particular these texts, because the Magisterium has addressed the question of the scientific value of early Genesis. This is something, for example, that was done by John Paul II in an audience he gave in 1986. Specifically, he gave it on January 29th of 1986, if people want to look it up, and he said, above all, this text, and he's talking about Genesis 1, so the days of creation, has a religious

and theological importance. It does not contain significant elements from the point of view of the natural sciences. So right there you have John Paul II issuing a judgment that this text is not teaching us science. It doesn't have, in his words, significant elements from the point of view of the natural sciences. He goes on to say, Research on the origin and development of individual species in nature So here he's talking about evolution, does not find in this description any definitive norm or positive contributions of substantial interest. So you have John Paul's John

Paul II ruling that Genesis 1 does not contain any definitive norms, so you can't use it to force evolutionary evidence down a different path, or even in his words any positive contributions of substantial interest. So you shouldn't be looking at Genesis 1 to tell you information that should be shaping your understanding of evolution. Would you agree that if the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11 had to definitively be taken literally, that that would then lock us into Adam and Eve existing somewhere at most probably about

7,500 or 8,000 years ago? Well, there's a question about what do we mean by literally. That term has more than one meaning. And the way the church uses it, it doesn't exclude symbols. The literal interpretation is whatever the sacred author intended to communicate. So like when Jesus tells a parable, the literal meaning of the parable is the spiritual point that Jesus is making. So we'd have to first settle what genre is the author of Genesis writing. But if we took those genealogies literalistically, then yeah, sure, it would point to Adam and Eve living a few thousand years ago. And so would you agree then that if we did have to take, let's say historically maybe,

our way of phrasing it, if we had to take it then that Genesis 1 being long ages wouldn't all of a sudden solve all the scientific problems given that now all humans would have descended from a single couple about 7500 years ago and this now completely contradicts all our genetic evidence, all our geologic evidence of the time of humans, some of our records of the history of civilization. So it would seem that this is actually the more important passages to be focusing on is things like Genesis 5 and 11 rather than Genesis 1. No, you had quite a kind of a lot there and it went by kind of fast so I'm not sure I fully understand the point you're making or the question you're asking but perhaps you should restate it before I interact with it. Yeah, so if there are, if we take those literally,

so we now agree in theory, at least in this line of questioning that Adam and Eve would have existed. Genesis 5 and 10 you mean? Yeah, Genesis 5 and 11. So Adam and Eve lived 7,500 years ago. I'm following this Septuagint chronology here, just to pick one or another. That would all still create a huge problem that, right, all humans coming from a single couple, 7500 years ago, means we can no longer trust the way we're dating our fossils of humans. We can no longer trust entirely these start dates for some very ancient civilizations like Egyptian civilization. It would create so many problems that at that point reason could no longer be

appealed to on its own and to support this case. Well, so I guess there are a few things to say there. One of them is if you use 7500 years ago as a as a start date for Adam and Eve, that actually doesn't cause us problems for Egypt or Mesopotamia because they're, they don't go back that far. The, it certainly would have a scientific problem if you wanted to claim that there was a two-person genetic bottleneck within the last few thousand years. But John Paul II pointed out in his 1996 address that the advent of the modern human soul is something that is not susceptible to empirical discovery. You can't look at the paleontological record and say, OK, when did the human soul arrive? And so if you wanted now, since John Paul II and Pius XII both said that you could accept human evolution. What that would mean is there was a broader population of people that didn't have fully modern human souls. I mean, on Thomistic and I would assume Scodian

philosophy, they would have had souls, just not the modern human ones. And then at some point God introduced on this view into that broader population two individuals that had modern human souls and that we all descend from them. And that's consistent with both what Pius XII says in Humano-Generis and it's consistent with what John Paul II said and it's consistent with the paleontological record. So we don't have to and it's consistent with the paleontological record. So we don't have to find an absence of an early human population. We would just be identifying Adam and Eve as two special blessed individuals within that population

that God gave modern souls. All right, if we could just go from there, would you agree with my claim that every single church father, without exception, takes the genealogies of Genesis five and 11 to be literal? Uh, yeah. Well, I haven't looked at every single church father to verify that, but I do know that the church fathers broadly,

including St. Augustine were young Earthers and, and they're basing that in part on their understanding of the text in Genesis, but they also believed in other things like Ptolemaic astronomy, where they thought the earth was at the center of the universe, and they based that on interpretation of scripture passages as well. That's something you may recall in the 1600s was part of the problem in the Galileo controversy was people down through history, including the Patristic Age,

had been appealing to scripture passages as evidence that the earth is at the center of the universe and that it's surrounded by a series of transparent spheres that carry the planets. of transparent spheres that carry the planets. Right. But it does seem that they're bringing together, I think, their faith and reason at that point. And if that is the case, that the Church Fathers, and everyone did hold a geocentric account, I would consider that authoritative as well. But would you agree then that the interpretation... Do you think then that the Earth is at the center of the universe physically and that

everything orbits around us on crystal spheres? I don't think things orbit on crystal spheres around us. I don't hold an opinion one way or the other on heliocentrum versus geocentrism in general. But it is interesting that when the account first came up in the Galileo affair that Bellarmine did immediately point out that he didn't think that this was entirely a matter of faith. So appealed to some church fathers in the matter but even as soon as it came up there seemed to be some openness to it. If it is the case that all the Church fathers held it, I would consider that authoritative as well. But I don't see any passages in Scripture that could be appealed to talk about the crystal spheres. I think there are sections that could be appealed to talk about different degrees.

Oh, that's the firmament. Yeah, that there could be different degrees of... The firmament is the lowest of the spheres. Yeah. Because they do cite the firmament as the lowest of the spheres. I'd be curious to see where they cite the firmament as the lowest of the spheres. And I do think there is internal biblical evidence that the firmament has depth. So for example, if you map out the relationship

of the tabernacle to the cosmos, you actually see that the holy place symbolizes the firmament. I'm going off this on memory right now, but you do see that they then place the, what was it, the menorah within the holy place symbolizing the seven planets. And so it does seem clearly that there is scriptural

evidence for the firmament having depth. Likewise, the birds are said to fly within the firmament, implying that it has depth as well. But what I want to go to here is to focus on, would you agree that the interpretation of scripture is a matter of faith? So it depends on what you mean. Partly scripture, the meaning of Scripture is accessible to reason, which is why you want to preach the Scriptures to non-believers to help win them over because there are truths that are accessible to them in Scripture. But then in order to have a definitively reliable interpretation of Scripture, that's something the magisterium provides and that does involve a

position of faith. So sure Yeah So if the position of faith then in the Council of Trent says that when we have a unanimous agreement to the fathers on a matter of faith But if the fathers say that Genesis 5 and 11 mean a historical chronology and Noah's flood It means a global flood then shouldn't we consider that binding? a global flood, then shouldn't we consider that binding? So there's a couple of problems here. The first one is that people consistently miss-sight or misunderstand this passage in Trent. Trent was a council that was

called to produce both doctrinal statements and reform statements that would regulate the life of the church. And the problem is this statement about the unanimous consent of the fathers is not in a doctrinal document. It's in one of the regulatory documents. So what it says is that in public debates and writings and things like that, nobody has the liberty to advocate a position that is rejected by the unanimous consent of the fathers. So this is a disciplinary decree. It is not a doctrinal statement that the fathers are infallible. And it has widely been misunderstood. But if you, I'm totally serious, you go back and look at the trend, at Trent and the nature of the document. This is a disciplinary document, it is flagged as such, and it is regulating public discourse. So this is a disciplinary statement about the liberty you have to advocate particular positions in public under canon law at the time. However,

that's, so that's one problem. That's changed, yeah. However, that's one problem. That's changed, yeah. Yeah. Another problem is that we have more recent rulings from the Magisterium on the relevant texts and on the overall question indicating that the sources of faith do not preclude us from taking an old earth position like Blessed Pius XII did, or supporting human evolution as more than a theory like St. John Paul II did. Yeah, so on both those points, I'll briefly respond, then I want to move on to some other questions.

We're running low on time here. But I will double-check and go later about the disciplinary things. It is an interesting point, but it seems to be more widely a belief that was traditionally held that you should never depart from the unanimous agreement of the fathers. And if you look in the scholastics, they're very, very careful when they disagree with even a single father. So if you look, for example, in St. Bonaventure's Hexameron, he talks about how St. Augustine held the six days as instantaneous and he argues against Augustine there, but he's very careful to be as pious as possible as he can towards Augustine, and part of his argument is that most of the Fathers agree with him, agree with Bonaventure against Augustine.

But going into some other points then, I wanted to go- Oh, by the way, in case it's helpful, I've written about the unanimous consent of the Fathers before. I believe I published on my blog that information. Okay, I'll take a look at that. Thank you. Yeah. All right. And then I wanted to go into the section I brought up earlier about St. Peter and the second epistle of St. Peter. So in 2 Peter 3, St. Peter says that the scoffers deny that there will be a final judgment based on two arguments. He says that there will not be one because they deny that the, they say that everything is continued as it always was

and he said that they deny two things, that the world was created and that there was a global flood and he appeals to these as proof that Christ will come again and judge the entire world. So I'd be curious, doesn't Saint Peter's argument here, visciciligism, wouldn't his syllogism fail if that premise is false? Well, the Magisterium hasn't yet ruled on the question of was there a global flood. However, it may have ruled on that it may have been local. I'd have to do some checking on that. It's been a while since I looked at that one. But Peter doesn't actually use the word global

in that passage. You glossed it with that. Peter does talk about how there was a world, meaning an order of affairs, that was destroyed by a flood. And certainly that's true. There have been numerous large scale floods in the history of the world, whether you want to believe in a global one or not is a

different question, but even if there was not a global flood, Peter's statement would still be true that there was a world, meaning a state of affairs, just like we talk about the Roman world as, you know, or Paul talks about the Roman world as the world, even though it doesn't include Antarctica and Madagascar and North and South America. The world in which Noah was living was indeed destroyed by a flood. And that can serve as a parallel for the future. Yeah, but there's two problems with it. First of all, the coming of Christ again is going to be a transfiguration of the entire cosmos to an entirely new order, to the point that sun and moon will no longer even continue, it seems like, according to the book of Revelation. And if you take that literalistically, sure.

Yeah, but I think you would agree that there's a transfiguration of the whole cosmos at Christ's return. That his glory will shine throughout the entire... Certainly averse. I don't know about Alpha Centauri or the Andromeda Galaxy. Oh, that's interesting. Do you think Christ will... his glory will not shine all the way to the Andromeda Galaxy in his second coming? Well, that's a tendentious way of putting it. I would say it entirely... how far Christ's glory shines depends entirely on God's decision, just like there is a sense in which His glory illuminated the entire cosmos upon the incarnation, but not in a way that radically transformed it. So where and when God chooses to radically transform either the entire cosmos or parts of it is God's decision and I don't claim to have his private number So I haven't asked him. All right That does seem to me to create very very serious problems about eschatology to move on quickly here

But I only have a few minutes left. I wanted to address some of your claims about the reason part of it as well So you mentioned with astronomy? I would respond to your arguments regarding astronomy with saying I think this actually is an area that creationist science needs to improve significantly. I think the work of Russell Humphreys and the work of the Catholic scholar Wolfgang Smith has raised some serious issues with our current understanding of cosmology, but I don't think we have yet solved all the issues. So I will set that aside for now and concede there are still

issues that need to be solved. Regarding evolution, I would point out that first of all, we've only recently sequenced the human genome and we're constantly discovering new uses for the human genome. For example, within the use of organs, the appendix was long thought to be completely unnecessary and vestigial, but it turns out it actually does have uses. And so junk DNA could have vestigial uses. I would also point out that we also see things that are not neatly within a nested hierarchy.

For example, we find trees, two different types of trees, angiosperm trees and gymnosperm trees that have very, very similar traits but don't have a common evolutionary background. And this could easily be the case with other things. So what we would expect to find on a creationist model is some things being in common and probably in certain categories things being in common. This is the traditional Aristotelian view of we have a nested hierarchy but we should also expect to find some traits not within the nested hierarchy. Another example would be the wings of birds and bats being very, very similar despite

not having a common ancestor. I want to also go to your claim that the speculative models, because I would actually agree with you that the model building is the best basis that creationists work so far, but I would deny that it's not predictive. For example, dinosaur bones having soft tissue is something that wouldn't be predicted under an older earth model, but would be predicted under a young earth model. And one prediction that was only made because of this young earth science was the Institute for Creation Research researching the Coconino sandstone and discovering contrary to decades of

popular wisdom and geology it was not entirely uniform in its grains. It actually was very ununiform. And when they tested by seeing how those sand grains would lay on top of each other and form in different settings, they found the water-based setting would fit better. Similar work has also been done by Leonard Brand, showing that certain footprints that were assumed to be made in on the land actually look closer to what would be formed on the water when he put lizards in tanks and had them walk along. And this research was actually published in Nature magazine, which is of course not a creationist journal at all. All right. Yeah. So that's all I have for there.

There's a million things I could go into. Unfortunately, we would really need many years to finish this debate in full, so I'll yield from there. All right, Jimmy, feel free to start whenever. Okay. So we kind of got a lot on the table. I mean, in your opening statement, you went through numerous different individual pieces of evidence and there's no way to really respond to them all. This is sort of the spilled milk problem. Once you spill the milk, it takes a lot longer to clean it up than it does to spill it. So I can't really go through all the things you said and provide responses. I agree. That's totally fair. I don't think you should have to respond to everything I said. I think, I mean, of course we both have to present evidential arguments and we're both not going to know off the top of our head, all the evidence is the other person is going to present. Neither of us are scientists with PhDs in the subject. So.

Well and apropos of that. So science is one of the kind of one of the two things I wanted to explore in, in, in this period. So, you know, I have a longstanding interest in science. I read science books constantly. I do it for fun. And I think about how can I communicate scientific concepts to other people in ways that are comprehensible. But there's a problem in that ordinary members of the public don't even have one PhD in a scientific field, much less do they have PhDs in astronomy and astrophysics and paleontology and geology and biology and genetics. So you'd need kind of like six PhDs to be a qualified expert to evaluate all the different arguments that are being proposed in the scientific community.

And that presents us with an epistemological problem for ordinary members of the public in making up their own minds about this, because I'm not and you're not, and they're not the typical member able to follow all the scientific arguments. And so how are we to proceed when we are in a situation where we can't go through the details of the

material ourselves? Well, the standard answer throughout human history has been experts. You listen to those who have expertise in these fields, and sometimes experts disagree. And sometimes experts disagree. And when they disagree, that creates an additional layer of complexity for the ordinary layperson. But historically, it's been viewed safer to go with majority opinion among experts. And we Catholics have an even greater resource

in the Magisterium, which has already looked at these texts and said that these theories being proposed by mainstream science have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the appearance of man in the age of the cosmos. So for a, so my question is, would you agree that for an ordinary layperson who doesn't have the scientific background to be able to process the arguments in depth, that the most

reasonable thing to do is for him to agree with the magisterium, that the texts of Scripture and tradition do not prevent us from accepting these, and that science has genuinely given us knowledge of these questions, and thus that we're living in an old universe and that human evolution occurred? Is that the most reasonable position for an ordinary layperson to take who isn't able to go into all the details of this issue? I'd say to some extent. I do think that there seems to be a little bit of a prima facie issue here of the ordinary layperson could also look at the scripture and read some of the traditional commentaries on scripture by church fathers, and they would then be led to the conclusion by these sources that have been consistently upheld by church fathers, and they would then be led to the conclusion by these sources that have been consistently upheld by the church, by people who have been promoted as doctors of the church, and follow that, and from that reasonably conclude that they think the earth is young, and maybe there are scientific problems and they don't know

the scientific problems. I also think that this isn't necessarily a discussion of what's most reasonable for someone who doesn't know a lot on the subject to hold. It's a discussion about what is true. And that's the only thing I'm really interested in here is what is actually true. Well, okay. So if that's the only question you're interested in, then, and I have another point I want to come back to, but if that's the only question you're interested in, then you're never going to settle it unless you acquire six PhDs.

And really you need seven because you also need a PhD in biblical studies if you really want to be an expert in all of the different relevant fields. And so it seems to me that to some extent, your own exploration of this, like my exploration of this, must incorporate an element of trust in what the Magisterium and experts of various kinds have said.

Because, I mean, you mentioned, for example, Humphreys and his, his postulation about how light works and so forth. Well, you're not an expert in his field. I mean, if you read his articles, he's got bunches of equations in them. I don't know if you're, if you follow those equations, but I don't. To the extent you don't, you're trusting an expert. So it seems to me that in our search for the truth, people who aren't multi-disciplinary experts must themselves rely on experts. And that's why I raised the question, whether the experts are scientists or biblical scholars or the magisterium, which is the most relevant one here.

The other question or the other issue I wanted to go back to briefly. I do have a thing on that. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to mention, I do agree that we should not be speaking, if you're not a scientist, on trying to come up with scientific solutions to these problems. When you asked me about light, I suggested here is a creationist who has suggested some solutions, but I don't think that I am, as you agreed, I'm not qualified to evaluate those. On other areas where there's quite a number of creationist scientists, and that's why I focused on geology, there's quite a number of creationist geologists. That's the area of the most work has been done on. And so I think that's the area a lay person looking at this can be most

certain about because they can see many creationist scientists in multiple different creationist journals peer reviewing each other and even publishing some stuff in magazines like Nature that are then peer reviewed by secular scientists. So I don't think that we have to entirely disregard it, but I agree that beyond just personally speculating and be talking with some friends, we should not be putting forward conclusions of what the science probably suggests without at least a significant number of experts putting that forward. The other issue I wanted to go back to, and this is a perennial

temptation that everyone has, which is to inflate the degree, the reputation of the people you're quoting, and inflate the degree of consensus that exists, and inflate the degree of endorsement that exists. And in one of your recent comments, you mentioned that, or you said that the various church fathers have like always been supported as teachers of the faith and so forth. Well, okay, fine. They have been, and some of them, as you said, are doctors of the church like St. Augustine and so on. But they haven't been supported on this issue by the Magisterium, and that's a relevant distinction because there's a question, and it's the root question of this issue for a Christian,

does the faith require us to take a position that is young earth and anti-evolution. And so even though you have a lot of church fathers who based on the knowledge they had available in their day both believed in crystal spheres around the earth and in the young age of the earth, well the modern magisterium has supported them on teachings of the faith, but it said that isn't one of them. Neither the age of the earth nor the existence of crystal spheres is a teaching of the faith. These were matters of natural philosophy as it was then called or science as we call it today, and their opinions, while they may be informed by

various elements of knowledge that were in the culture of their day, are not binding on us. And so the Magisterium has really indicated that although, yeah, we listen to Augustine in his exposition of the Eucharist, or we listen to St. Jerome on baptism, we don't listen to Augustine and Jerome for definitive answers on the age of the earth. They were doing the best they could with their own knowledge, but that's it. How would you respond? Yeah, I would say that first of all, as I brought up at the beginning of my statement, we don't have to conclude that the magisterium has definitively settled it one way or the other. There's a distinction within theological manuals of what's called probable and more probable. So an opinion is probable simply if it's allowed by the Church. But it's more probable and therefore should be held against the one that's only probable if there is significant support

for it from the sources of faith. And so it does seem that there's significant support from the church fathers. And if you were citing things like baptism, the church does teach its teachings on baptism partly because of how widespread baptismal regeneration is among the church fathers. And same with infant baptism.

It supports infant baptism, partly because of how widespread infant baptism is taught among the fathers. But interestingly, infant baptism. It supports infant baptism partly because of how widespread infant baptism is taught among the fathers. But interestingly, infant baptism is not universally taught by the fathers. There does seem to be some hints that a few church fathers flirted with the idea that maybe we should baptize people as adults because otherwise they would fall into sin and they were thinking well you can't get rid of sin after baptism, which is of course false. fall into sin and they were thinking well you can't get rid of sin after baptism, which is of course false. But the problem here then is there was actually a unanimous,

absolutely unanimous consensus that the chronology of Genesis is literal and that the earth is young among the Church fathers and there is an absolutely unanimous consensus. Okay, okay. Again, okay, okay. This is drawing from the faith. Yeah. The, again, okay, you're appealing to a, you kind of shifted to a different track. My question was, do you recognize that the magisterium does not support and hold up for us the views of these Fathers when it comes to the age of the world. That is not the same question as how widespread was the belief in a young earth among them. That can be totally unanimous. That's not the question. Is the magisterium proposing their views on this subject as normative for us, or is the magisterium not doing that and proposing something else?

or is the Magisterium not doing that and proposing something else? Well, it's not made de fide in the list of theological notes, but something doesn't have to be de fide for it to be the correct view. This is very common. If you look at theological manuals, they spend a lot more time focused on what the Church Fathers and the doctors of the Church and the scholastics, even many scholastics who weren't canonized, said on a matter rather than what the Magisterium said, because they recognize that the Magisterium doesn't settle the details of every matter, it gives us the guidelines. And I agree, the Magisterium has left liberty on this question,

but it hasn't left a lot because it, I mean, technically, yes, you can still support Young Earth, you can still reject evolution, because, properly speaking, those are scientific matters. The Church has ruled those are scientific matters rather than matters that the sources of faith tell us about. But the Magisterium, in the last 70 years has been going out of its way to acknowledge an old Earth and human evolution. It has been sending a clear message that is supportive of those, not a tentative or, yeah, maybe hypothetically we could discuss this, but no, they've been clear in their writings and speeches that They are supportive of an old earth and of human evolution

of some form Based on the scientific evidence. Do you acknowledge that the magisterium has done that? Yeah, I would say to some degree. I don't think I would take it as far as you have, but I would agree mostly with that point. That's fair. Okay. So do you then acknowledge that you disagree

with the position the Magisterium has been taking on this? Sure, but I also would say, for example, there's been a generally consistent position from about Leo XIII up until the Second Vatican Council that Thomism was normal, and specifically a specific form of Thomism. And then since the Second Vatican Council, there seems to have been a shift towards more of a personalist or phenomenological norm as the norm in theological discussion within the church. But I don't think anyone would say that that means other forms of Thomism aren't allowed,

that Suarism isn't allowed, that Scodism isn't allowed. It seems that the church has never intended in taking a general stance towards an issue to rule out other things. And when they do want to rule out other things, they tend to be clear that those opinions are indeed ruled out. So, for example, the spiritual Franciscans are actually clear that I was condemned. Yeah, we have enough on that point. I mean, I'm not disputing what you're saying, but I would point out that the focus on Thomism, which, and I know it hates, I know Thomists hate to hear that, yeah, the church has pulled back on that. That was always disciplinary. That was not, there is not a doctrinal teaching that these propositions of Thomism are true. It was a regulatory one,

and they pulled back from that. But when it comes to the question of a young Earth and the absence of human evolution, I think that creationists such as yourself owe it to their audience to be upfront about the fact that the magisterium is taking a different tack than I am. They haven't forbidden my position, but they're taking a different tack and they're promoting in the Catechism and in other documents an old universe and some form of human evolution. Now, I think if you go back and do a closer look at the sources,

you would come to a different conclusion, but I want you to know this is what the Magisterium is doing. Do you feel that as a Catholic who is an advocate of Young Earth Creationism, that you have an obligation to let your audience know up front that the Magisterium is taking a different tact than you are and then framing your own view in light of that respectfully towards the Magisterium? Yes, I would say that that's fair. But I also think on the other hand, there needs to be a set forward by old earth Catholics that there are, that the church fathers, for example, all held to a young earth and things such as that.

I acknowledge that freely. Yeah. Yeah. I acknowledge that freely. Um, so one thing that I wanted to get to a little bit more is the scientific evidence. Now, we only have a couple of minutes left. But what is your explanation for I mean, you can go to jimmyakins.com. I made sure it's right up at the top of the stack. I've got an image of it's a motion GIF of a star exploding 188 million light years away. So if the universe isn't more than 188 million years old, how do you personally explain that? And all the similar data because we've got, I mean that's one example, but we've got bazillions of stars that we can watch with planets zooming around them and

blowing up and stuff like that, that are way farther than 8,000 light-years away. Yeah, so, right, there was nobody standing there 188 million years ago who told us, okay, this is going off now. Be prepared to look in 188 million years and you'll see this in the sky. What they did is they used certain assumptions to calculate that this was 188 million years ago. Now there are, I will grant, yeah, 188, there are good reasons I would grant for them to come to that conclusion. So I'm not saying they're coming to it arbitrarily or they're just guessing, there are good reasons. But I would say that first of all, we don't know for certain that it is, and that there does seem to be some creationist alternatives proposed to that. Now I'm not saying they're correct. What I will point out though is what we have like three or

four creationist astronomers there. You guys have millions of old earth astronomers with billions of dollars of funding. Almost every government in the world pulling pouring money into their research projects we get donors of random evangelical moms pouring in some money usually as our main source of funding and so as a result we simply don't have the resources to do the same amount of research and the mere fact that there is already some reasons to believe otherwise suggests that this could be the case well i would dispute that there is already some reasons to believe otherwise suggest that this could be the case. Well, I would dispute that there are reasons to believe otherwise. I'm aware of Humphrey's model and people have pointed out problems with it. And he even abandoned his 1996 or 1994 model and proposed a new one. And that one has problems with it too. So I don't regard armchair conjecture

as without experimental evidence, as significant reasons to believe otherwise. But- What would you propose that Humphreys do? In this situation, and I'm not gonna get off onto the details of a theory because I don't think it as a weed. But in this situation, what I see is an appeal to ignorance.

That, that you would say that, well, I don't know how to explain the fact that this looks like an event that happened 88 million years ago that I'm watching. It can't be that, but I don't know what it is. And I'll just gesture to various people who are on my side of that's a very small community that is not considered scientifically respectable to hope that someday they come up with an explanation for that, but I don't know what it is. It seems to me you're making a frank admission that you don't have an explanation for that.

Yeah, so I will respond very quickly that first of all, I don't think respectable in the scientific community matters all that much. I mean, that's just a question of whether or not their theory is correct or not. But also the issue is Humphrey simply partly doesn't have the ability to test it fully. He doesn't have all the resources he would need. There would also have to be specific predictions that would be made that are different. But even I think more importantly... Yeah, but even more importantly than all of that, I think is...

I totally lost my train of thought there. Oh, yeah. I think even more importantly than that he would have to thought there. Oh yeah, I think even more importantly than that, he would have to present reasons why his model is in fact false, and that his model is contradicting the evidence, and that there are testable theories done by creationist scientists. For example, the Coconino Sandstone was a major success. The rate project was somewhat of a success, but not entirely, as you pointed out in your podcast. Okay you just brought up the RATE project, and what the RATE project was was a commission that was done by a group of creationists. They went to secular labs and did a whole bunch of rock dating. And the conclusion that the RATE project came to was that the rocks on earth have at least half a billion years of radioactive decay,

500 million years. So their own project concluded that those rocks have been subject to half a billion years of radioactive decay at the current rate. And to get around that, they have to propose that, well, the rate of radiation release in a radioactive decay in the year of the flood was a billion times higher than it is now. The problem with that, if you go that way, and I can see Matt is sitting up on a-

Well, I was going to ask you, do you all want another five minutes to continue this discussion or do you want to wrap it up? I think that would be good, yeah. I think five more minutes would be good if we can finish up. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm going to go back over here. Yeah Yeah, I want to say I'm the rate project the problem with the rate project because I want readers to understand listeners to understand this And then I'll let you respond. Yeah, but the problem with the rate project is they ended they have no scientific explanation

for why the Rate of radioactive decay would jump a billion fold in the year of the Flood. But even if it had, if you give them that as a miracle that's not mentioned in the Bible, God just jacked up radioactive decay a billion fold for one year, that's going to cause all kinds of problems. It's going to vaporize the earth because all of the radioactive deposits in the Earth crust are going to turn into nuclear bombs and the surface of the planet will melt killing Noah and all the animals and all

the fish in the sea. Yeah, so on that point, I do first of all, I just want to quickly address the rate project because it also pointed out that there are issues with the contemporary account, that the numbers weren't matching up with the contemporary account expected either, which shows that both models have issues. And when we're looking at radioactive decay, we're looking at something on the subatomic level. We're really looking at here something that gets very close in between sort of classical general relativity on one hand and quantum mechanics on the other and something that I would argue is right about right below the level probably of what these scholastics would call substantial form and I think until we reconcile

hylomorphism with the Relationship of general relativity and quantum mechanics that that would need to be done in order to fully solve that question of what exactly could Have happened. And especially as the traditional view. I'm sorry. I think that's a dodge because we understand how radioactive decay works extremely well. We have to. Because if you're putting together a nuclear bomb like the Manhattan Project was in the 1940s, like the Manhattan Project was in the 1940s, you have to know to a high degree of precision

what the half-life of the isotopes you're working with are. Otherwise, your bomb will not ignite, or worse, it will go off when you don't want it to. It's even more necessary to understand radioactive decay if you want to build a nuclear power plant, because what a nuclear power plant because what a nuclear power plant is is a nuclear bomb that you stop from going off and keep it just at the edge of critical mass where it's producing heat for you so you can

extract energy but not so much that the reaction goes out of control and you get a bomb. So we have had a very good understanding of how radioactive decay works. And if the rate of radioactive decay in the year of the flood had been jacked up by a factor of a billion, Earth would have vaporized and Noah would have died. Now, as you, I assume, know, in the RAID project, they then propose, they recognize this, and they then propose, they recognize this and they then propose, well okay we've got this heat problem that would be produced by all the radioactive deposits in Earth's crust going off and we've got a radiation problem. They don't really have an answer for the radiation problem of why Noah

and his family didn't die from radiation, but they do have what they think of as a partial solution to the heat problem, which is that God somehow created an unknown cooling force that kept the world from vaporizing. But that creates other problems. If you've got something cool enough to stop rock from liquefying, it's going to freeze the oceans and it's going to freeze Noah and his family and the animals and the fish in the sea and turn them into frozen denners. Yeah, but I mean, secular scientists accept such random conjectures that can't be tested. So for example, if there wasn't for dark matter, the universe wouldn't operate as we know it.

Well, there's no evidence for dark matter. It's never been tested. It's an assumption just made based on the fact that our numbers, that we have good reason for these other models, that we have good reason for believing to be true. The mathematics wouldn't work out except for the fact that I think something like 75% of the universe is made of this untestable substance. Well, that's just complete conjecture as much of a conjecture as the rate project. You're using unscientific hyperbole. You're mischaracterizing the state of the scientific data. You just said there's no evidence, and that's clearly not true. There is evidence and more than one line of evidence that suggests the existence of dark matter. There are other

alternatives and there is a discussion about which model do we need to modify gravity or do we need to acknowledge dark matter or is it a combination of both, but there is evidence here and you're portraying this as purely speculative when it's not. You're mischaracterizing the science. Yeah, well I'm saying that there are good reasons to believe it. It's that there's good reasons within the models that in order for the models to work, this would have to exist. A reasonable conclusion from that to draw is that it exists therefore. I don't think that that's unreasonable. I'm not saying it's random conjecture, but I'm saying it's no more random conjecture than the creation of scientists proposing this. I could respond to that, but I hear Matt wanting to jump in.

Well, what we're going to do now is we're going to take 30 minutes of Q&A from our supporters and then each of you will have five minutes closing. But before we do that, I want to say thank you to Hello, which is a fantastic prayer and meditation app that will help you grow in your spiritual life. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Click the link in the description below. H a L L O W dot com slash Matt Fradd. And one thing they've got coming up for Lent is they've got Jim Caviezel and Jonathan Rumi,

those characters who've most known perhaps for their portrayal of Jesus in the passion of the Christ and the chosen to read these beautiful meditations for every day of Lent. So you might want to check it out. Hello.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com. for a Catholic app or it's good for a Catholic website. This is one of the most functional and excellent apps I've ever come across. And in fact, I use the sleep stories that they have there for my kids as they go to bed at night. There's lots of great stuff on there.

So if you wanna learn how to pray and meditate and just get better at that kind of thing, go to hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Okay, we are gonna take 30 minutes of Q&AA right now and I'd like each of you if you can try to keep your answers to say no more than two minutes, which might be impossible. If at some point you're like, you know what, we just need to spend more time on this question, feel free to feel free to tell me and we can change things. But let's begin here.

This question is for Gideon. How do you explain the dinosaur fossils we have and the ways we date them? Yeah. So I would ask, first of all, anyone asking that question, how many people are aware that there is soft tissue inside those dinosaur bones? Well, the secular scientists who had been studying them for around a century had no clue there were until someone made a mistake in a lab, accidentally broke one open, and discovered soft tissue.

Now, the reason no one ever thought to do this is, of course, it's ridiculous how could soft tissue possibly survive for 100 million years. But we now know that it does exist in there. And so there are reasons to think that those dinosaur bones are a lot younger than we would expect. I would also say, as basically what we discussed earlier with the rate project, that there are some issues open to discussion about radiometric dating, which is that's how they really test them. They check the rock layers they're in and measure atoms within

there to try and detect the age of those atoms. I would also then point out that basically my whole thing in my opening statement arguing that there does seem to be evidence that the Mesozoic layers of the fossil record were laid down in a singular global flood, and that would also suggest then the biblical account of how the dinosaurs were laid down is correct. Okay. Okay, so to respond, I would say that while it is surprising, and it's an interesting and welcome discovery that there can be soft tissue in petrified bones that date to, you know, 70 or more million years ago that is unexpected but

it doesn't actually give us reason to believe that they're young because soft tissue will remain soft tissue indefinitely if you I mean four millions of years if you isolate it from its environment so it doesn't have anything to interact with I mean if you put it in a freezer and in a vacuum and cut it off from it from any other elements to interact with it's gonna stay soft tissue forever and So the inference that you can draw is that in this hunk of rock That formed from a bone that formed from a bone, there was a pocket that was sufficiently cut off from its environment that we have a form of soft tissue left. Now that's

unexpected, but it doesn't give us reason to believe that this rock that formed from a hunk of bone is recent, because we don't have good evidence for rocks being formed from bones by underground water leaching through them in just a few thousand years. You need longer than that to have petrification take place. All right and just so each of you know I'm going to try to direct my questions to each of you in turn so that each of you get to have the chance of responding last. This next question comes from supporter Sam Mascaro. He says, Jimmy, what is the most credible argument that you have heard for young Earth creationism?

Well, it's not any of the scientific ones. It would have to be Gideon central argument that there was a that there was a that there were a lot of people in the early church who thought the earth was young and that there are passages of scripture that can be read in that way and that it's easy to read in that way. But I would say there are also passages in scripture that can easily be read in other ways that we need to be careful about. And not just ones about the position of the earth and the universe, but other things. Like there are the passages that talk about the windows of heaven that God opens up and rain comes out of them? Well, there aren't

literally windows in heaven, but there are passages that you could read, and some scholars think they should. Not conservative scholars, but I know liberal scholars who are perfectly happy to say, yeah, those windows in heaven passages, that's what they thought in ancient Israel, that there were these windows and God would open them up and pour water out. Well, there are passages that you just need to recognize are not about science. No matter how easy it is to read them in terms of a particular model, that's not what Scripture is trying to teach us. And John Paul II, among others from the Magisterium, has ruled that we shouldn't be trying to extract scientific data from them.

And so I think that ultimately the best argument for young earth creationism ends up failing. Gideon. Yeah, perhaps I should respond to this by in turn saying what I think is the best argument for an old earth and evolution in fairness. So I will say I think the best argument for evolution by far is junk DNA, one of the arguments that Jimmy brought up in the debate. Because junk DNA seems that this is evidence of common ancestry and from what I can tell in researching this, unfortunately it is hard as a layperson to fully research this, a layperson in science that is. There does seem to be within a nested hierarchy of junk DNA, but I would say

on response to that, maybe if in a hundred years this still seems to be junk DNA, that would be a very, very strong case for evolution. But right now, while almost every single year we're discovering new uses of parts of the genome that we had no clue about, that that continues to leave open new discoveries about it, and perhaps this isn't actually junk DNA and it has a good purpose, I also wanted to quickly respond to the Windows of Heaven part by just saying I think that scripture presents stuff in the language of how people would have seen it from their perspective. Right, so it would agree that it looks like above us,

there's an ocean there, and it looks like at time that ocean sort of opens up and waterfalls through to the earth, and these are the windows of heaven. But, so I would say that that's the language that scripture presents it in, that poetic language, and I actually fully agree that that language is very poetic. But I would also say that if you were there then on the global flood, well you would see a global flood. If you were there on the six days of creation, what would you see? Six, the create, the world being created in six 24-hour days.

You would see in all these cases what scripture describes. So I agree that scripture is not trying to give a scientific account. It's very frequently poetic. But I think that the historical aspect of it can't be reduced in that same way. Okay. I'd actually like a chance to respond to the days of creation that Gideon just brought up. So I'm glad we agree that there are poetic symbolic elements in the text. When it comes to the days of creation, I would agree with the catechism in saying that they're symbolic.

And I think that the author of Genesis telegraphs that to us in Genesis 1 by having the first days, the first three days, have a day-night cycle before the sun is created on day four, because the Anctions were just as well aware as we are that it's light from the sun that causes it to be day. And you do find multiple Christian and non-Christian authors in the patristic period wrestling with this issue. Some of them, like Augustine, conclude, well, therefore these days aren't literal sequential days. He thinks they happen all at once. Others, even if they want to defend the idea that,

okay, somehow the sun was created on the fourth day, even though the day-night cycle proceeded that by three days, they've got to come up with some kind of explanation, but they do wrestle with the issue because people were asking about this. And to my mind the simplest explanation is the catechisms, which is these are a symbol of what the divine work was using the framework of a week, but the fact the Sun is created way after the day-night cycle telegraphs the fact that this is symbolic because they knew that it's the Sun that makes it day. Gideon, do you offer a short response?

Yeah, I think first of all, I actually do agree with Jimmy that Genesis 1 is sort of maybe the weakest point of the creationist argument, as I would say. I think that Genesis 2 through 11, and that's why I really focused on this in the debate, is really the crux of it. I don't see how you can reconcile Genesis 2 through 11 with the standard scientific account. At that point, you're going to have to adopt these other paradigms. If you're already considered a kook by mainstream scientists for that, why are we going to try and force it and say these have to be long ages? Now, if someone wants to bring forward, hey, I actually think these were long ages, maybe

the world is 10 or 20,000 years old. If they want to say it's instantaneous like Augustine, I would say, okay, but their position is probably much closer to mine than it is to Jimmy's at that point. Okay, well here's a question for you, Gideon. This comes from supporter Anony Moose. He says, or she says, carbon dating is a well-established method and discrediting it would involve discounting most scientific theories and observations in physics, chemistry, and biology.

Are you willing to be such a radical skeptic towards empirical knowledge? I'm not willing to be such a radical skeptic towards empirical knowledge, but I am willing to be such a radical skeptic towards the paradigms in which those are interpreted. Now I fully agree that reinterpreting the Young Earth account requires a reinterpretation of a lot lot more stuff than I think even most critics of creationism realize. For example, something Jimmy and I didn't even get into is the fact that we have to fit in the Tower of Babel and Ice Age, humans spreading out all before Egyptian civilization begins to exist pushes Egyptian civilization quite a lot forward.

So now we have to revise Egyptian chronology. And I think that the work, for example, of Donovan Corville has been suggestive of one way this could be done. Now, I don't want to get into Egyptian chronology. That would be a whole separate rabbit hole to go into that discussion. But I will simply say that I fully agree that lots of our paradigms have to be reinterpreted. But I think that, I mean, a lot of these scientific fields are very young. A lot of these are 200, 300 years old. That sounds old to us, but that's very short within the span of human investigation of truth. And I think within 500, 600 years from now, we're going to look back at a good chunk of what we knew in

science and say, oh, well, we actually didn't, we got a lot of this wrong. We maybe had some stuff, right? But a lot of this had to be reinterpreted. So I would agree that in 500, 600 years, we're going to look back and say, wow, they got a bunch of that wrong, but radioactive decay is not one of those things. We've got that one down cold because we use it to make nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants. And both of those require a detailed, technical, reliable understanding of how radioactive decay works.

So I don't think we can just throw water on radiometric dating and dismiss it. My concern is that Gideon's position seems to be scientifically unfalsifiable. It seems that the controlling factor for Gideon is his interpretation of the Church Fathers and his estimation of their level of relevance to this question, and that no matter, unless the Magisterium comes out and just infallibly defines that the sources of faith don't require this, that Gideon is just, and people of similar thought this is not personal to him but that people of his persuasion are so convinced of their reading of the

fathers and their estimation of the fathers on this matter that they're not listening to either the magisterium or science and they're coming up with a scientifically unfalsifiable position so it's not really worth even debating the scientific data with them because no matter what you propose they're gonna say well there's some unknown explanation for that data I'm going with the fathers and that position is contrary to the position the magisterium is taking at present which I find problematic I think we need to listen to both the magisterium and the position the magisterium is taking at present, which I find problematic. I think we need to listen to both the magisterium and the science the magisterium has recommended.

Okay, this talk comes from Jonathan Torques, thank you. He says, Jimmy, provi dentissimus Deus, in that Pope Leo XIII says we must hold to the consensus of the Fathers on Scripture. What is your response? Have you read Father Rippege's response to your claims about tradition? I've looked at Father Rippege's response, but it's been a while and I recognize that there is a role for the consensus of the Fathers, but the idea that it's a fourth organ of infallibility is mistaken. I mean, we have the Pope, we have the bishops meeting in council, we have the bishops meeting outside of the council, and the idea that the Church Fathers, some of whom weren't even bishops, could have a fourth exercise

of the charism of infallibility is not the teaching of the Church, and it's making way too much out of an unambiguously disciplinary decree that was just regulating the boundaries of public debate and writing. Gideon? Yeah, I would say that I don't think this is a fourth organ of infallibility. I think this is one of the many modes in which tradition itself can be authoritative. I think if Jimmy's position were correct, tradition in itself could never be authoritative unless the magisterium explicitly said

that this particular aspect of the tradition is infallible, or this particular set of fathers saying this makes this more probable. I think it's simply the case that when we look at the Church Fathers, not every little detail of where they discuss tradition has been defined by the magisterium. And so as a result, I simply don't think that this works. Just like Jimmy was pointing out, right, we can have the infallibility of the magisterium through the pope talking, through the bishops meeting in council, the bishops meeting outside of council. Likewise, the tradition can be authoritative through something being taught over the centuries,

through all the fathers teaching something, through all the scholastics teaching us something. And I would say that there's many different ways in which tradition is authoritative. And if you just go read these scholastics, go open up the Summa or the Ordinazio or St. Bonaventure Sentences commentary, you will not primarily see them citing the magisterium. You're gonna primarily see them citing the church fathers and making arguments from the church fathers. And it seems that, and same with the manualists as well,

they primarily argue from the church fathers. And so it seems this, and also the scripture as well, this seems to be the normative way in which theology was done up until about a century ago. And so it seems to be this is the normative way in which theology was done up until about a century ago. And so it seems to me this is the normative way theology should be done. Well, I do want to ask a question about this. However, the magisterium then gets to weigh in on the correct theological opinions and the correct interpretation of scripture and tradition. And on this question, they've done that.

So just real quick, this is my question, because it seems like we keep coming back to this. Where are we kind of putting our emphasis? On the Fathers or the Magisterium? In other words, are we essentially like Protestants, but we're like sola scriptura plus the Fathers? And then the Magisterium, what? Who has the final say, I guess, is what I'm asking. I'll let Jimmy answer first, and then G Gideon just to sort of expand this thought.

Well, scripture speaks, scripture and tradition speak first because they come to us from God, and then theologians and fathers and ordinary laypeople read scripture and tradition, both of which are authoritative, but there's a question of which scriptures are authoritative, because the Gnostics wrote a bunch of them, and there are questions of which traditions are authoritative and which aren't. And the one that ultimately rules on the question of which scriptures are authoritative and which traditions are authoritative is the Magisterium. That's its function to teach us from these two sources. And so when the Magisterium weighs in on a question, even non-infallibly, we need to take it very seriously.

And the Magisterium has weighed in on this question, do the sources of scripture require a young earth and a rejection of evolution? And the Magisterium has said, no, they don't. And they've said that repeatedly in multiple formats and they've spoken endorsingly and appreciatively of mainstream science. So I think that ordinary laypeople need to take both of those facts very heavily in weight and be very cautious about rejecting the rulings of the Magisterium over the last hundred years on this question.

Yeah, I would say the Magisterium has seemed to primarily leave this question open, because they have not condemned a Young Earth position as contrary to the Church Fathers. Now, the Magisterium has explicitly ruled that an Old Earth position is an acceptable theological opinion among Catholics, and according to the personal opinion of many in the Magisterium, they seem to think it is the more probable one. So I will fully hold that no Catholic should be saying someone is a heretic for saying they hold to an old earth. No one should be saying that they cannot be Catholic and do that. What I am saying is that we have to take, once the Magisterium has left this question open, we then have to look at what the Church Fathers do actually say in this matter. And it seems that this was somewhat what came up in the Jansenist controversy, where the Jansenists

were appealing to lots of Church Fathers, and the Magisterium, and the main argument against the Jansenists was the Magisterium says otherwise. And it does seem to me that some of the details of the exact relationship between the Magisterium and tradition were never fully worked out in the Jansenist controversy. A lot of them were raised and important questions, but they haven't fully been settled. And I think absolutely a future ecumenical council should probably take up and discuss and more precisely define the relationship of the two. But until that's done, I will simply follow the scholastics and the manualists of how they did theology and how they weighed the different sources. And it seemed to me that the weight on which they put on the consensus of the fathers on issues

where there's a lot less consensus, because this is a higher consensus than things like infant baptism, than things like the Trinity. This is probably the highest consensus I've ever encountered among the Church Fathers on a matter. And we take those as authoritative. And so it seems to me that this should be at least, at the very least, I think people should acknowledge the very serious weight that the absolute, complete unanimous consent of the Fathers on theous consent of the fathers on the

literal interpretation of the chronology of Scripture is very very important. Okay next question comes from supporter Vincent he asks Gideon and I'll see if I can reinterpret this because I think it's a very good question if old earth was true would you have to change your view on whether or not God exists and I suppose the way I'd phrase it is you you know, atheists often point to evolution as a strike against theism, whereas many or most Catholic apologists would point to evolution and accept it and think it not a strike, you know, against theism. So do you think if evolution were true, that would be an argument against God's existence?

And if you came to believe that were the case, would you perhaps struggle to believe in God in some way? No, first of all, I want to address, I think the first, the question literally, and then the question I think is what the questioner actually means. The literal question behind it is, would I then doubt that God exists? And absolutely not. There's very good independent metaphysical reasons to believe that God exists. I would say most strongly of those is the ontological, the form of the ontological argument

articulated by John Scodus at the beginning of the Ordo Nazio, but there are many other good arguments as well for the existence of God. So no, we absolutely should not doubt the existence of God. Now, the bigger, I think more important question here is, would that cause me to doubt the Catholic faith? Now, I think it would cause me to have a little bit of internal doubts about the reliability of the Magisterium in interpreting the Church Fathers and also the reliability of the Church Fathers. But that being said, I think there would still be enough good reasons to believe

in Catholicism, independent of that, that I would not cause me to leave the faith. It would just cause me to have some questions about how I'm interpreting things within the faith. But I think there's other strong reasons, like the resurrection of Jesus, even just Jesus himself teaching papal authority, and things of that nature that seem to suggest that Catholicism is in fact true. I think when you had Swanson on your channel, he brought up a good point by William Lane Craig that even if there's something that we wouldn't think is first the conclusion of the case, which would be the case of evolution being true and Christianity being true, if

we have good independent reasons to believe both Christianity and evolution, and it can be shown that they're not necessarily incompatible, even if we wouldn't first assume that, that there might still be good reason to believe both. As I pointed out, Jimmy's position is still what I would call probable, that it doesn't need to be rejected to be Catholic, and it is compatible. But the question is, is it the best position that a Catholic should hold? All right, thanks. Jimmy?

Well, if it turned out evolution were true, that wouldn't cause me to doubt God's existence now. Can you see those? Because I already think evolution is true and I believe in God, so. Well, let me rephrase it then. Suppose you came to believe that evolution was false Would that in some way strengthen? How would that give oh well, okay?

There's a fair question because it certainly if it turned out evolution were false and we could prove that That would be even that would be an even greater Argument for the existence of God because it would involve additional elements of design in the universe that can't be explained naturally. Okay, fair enough. Let's see here. This comes from supporter Jani Shields. Jimmy, one of the primary empirical data points that grand biological theories attempt to explain is the diversity of life. Both young Earth creationists and evolutionists via natural selection have explanations for

this, but does evolution have any evidence in its favor besides one, similarity in the genetics of different species, which both can explain, and two, the testimony of biologists, most of whom are not theologically and biblically trained. Well, there's a problem that we have today in fields of research in general. I was tempted to use the German word and I had to think of how can I say this in English. In fields of research, there's a problem that they're so massive these days that it's very rare to have a person with true expertise in more than one discipline. So yeah, biologists tend not to be theologians and vice versa, and we just have to

kind of muddle through that situation as best we can. That's part of the answer I wanted to give. Could you repeat the question, Matt? Oh dear. Let's see if I can find it one second here. I think to summarize it, is there other good reasons to believe in evolution? Other than those two. Right. Okay, well one of the primary empirical data points that grand biological theories attempt to explain is the diversity of life both YEC and evolution via natural selection have explanations for this but does evolution have any evidence in its favor besides one similarity in the genetic does,

she may have misspelled something here, of different species, which both can explain, and two, the testimony of biologists, most of whom are not theologically and biblically trained. Well, it's gonna depend on, Oh, here's what she meant. Sorry, she corrected herself. So one, similarity in the genetic code of different species. That was the first point.

And then the second was the... Yeah. Yeah. So there are both similarities and differences in the genetic codes of different species. And both of those, and I was using a deliberately simplified argument today because I don't want to go over the heads of people. But there are other things in our genetic code that reflect the history of our species and you can show, and other species, and you can show how they're interrelated on a genetic level by both similarities and differences. And you find not only things like the vit genes for producing egg yolks that humans carry, you also find only things like the vit genes for producing egg yolks that humans carry, you also find other things like records of past infections. There are ancient viruses

that got incorporated into our genetic code, and you can establish a map of how these different elements in the genomes of different organisms have interacted with each other over time. And then you can figure out how long ago it happened. Because today, we can measure the rate of genetic mutation in different species. Because of our ability to sequence individual genomes, you can look at the genome of a parent organism and its immediate offspring and measure

the exact number of mutations that have occurred. And this applies whether it's a human or a mouse or whatever it may be. It turns out that bigger longer lived organisms like us have a slower rate of mutation because we have longer generations. It's longer before we reproduce. But little bitty things like mice that have really fast metabolisms and live fast and die young and reproduce young have a much higher rate of mutation because they're cycling through their generations faster. And so

you can then look at the information of genetic similarity and difference and calculate based on the rate of mutation that that species had, how long ago it must have diverged from a related species and when you do that you get numbers in the millions of years frequently not just they don't all converge at 6,000 or 7 or 8,000. Okay, Gideon? Yeah, so maybe on this point I can bring up what I think to be a very significant problem with evolution, which I would argue from a philosophical perspective, evolution is impossible

because of the distinction between substance and accident. And this is something that's not taken into account by scientists anymore because they're no longer philosophically trained, right? That what we're seeing, evolution basically advocates that there's only small changes of a few traits a few genes From a parent to a child this change is only accidental. That means we're saying it's only changing things about the thing It's not changing what it is But it's proposing that if we add up those small changes in accidents from one to another That eventually this will we will end up with a totally different

species. Something that has a different nature than what came before, a different essence. And I would say that this creates a significant problem for our understanding of substance and accidents. If the addition of lots of accidents can change what something substance is, because it's fundamentally denying that a substance exists, and if substance and accidents doesn't exist, then our teaching on the Eucharist makes no sense. Final question here has to do with, you know, is it possible, or are you open to, or is it easy to believe, that we live on an old earth, that animals evolved but maybe God specially created Adam and Eve and that humans did not evolve?

What are your thoughts on that, Jimmy? Well, so is it easier to believe that than what alternative? The alternative being both young earth creationism and no evolution. Oh, well, I would say yeah it's because it would account for more of the data. We have very good data that the earth and the universe are old and we have very good data that life forms on earth evolved and also the Christian faith teaches God did do something exceptional in the case of man because he created our souls so if you want to you just may, and also the Christian faith teaches, God did do something exceptional

in the case of man, because he created our souls. So if you want to make one little addition for he also specially created our bodies, well yeah, that still leaves most of the data being explained in a way that Young Earth creationism doesn't explain it. So it would be easier from that perspective. I would say it still doesn't solve the primary two arguments which is from a global flood in a literal reading of the chronologies in Genesis 5 and 11. I don't want to go here and restate all my arguments for that, as I made that in my opening, but I think that those issues still remain. I also think from a scientific perspective, it does seem humans had children with homo neanderthalus and homo denisovin.

And so this creates an issue of are we going to push back now? The last common ancestor on a secular account of those was homo erectus. So what are we going to push back then and say that Adam and Eve were Homo erectus and lived about two million years ago? Or do we want to go back even further that Homo naledi, which is very similar to Homo erectus, buried its dead. There's very good evidence of this because we discovered the bodies of Homo naledi in what's very clearly a burial chamber. Dr. Todd Wood has done a lot of good work to show Homo naledi was definitely formed by burial. I would also then point to Dr. Todd Wood's work showing that there's a significant

gap between the Homo genus and the astrolipithicus genus. Statistically, and when he's found new fossils, he actually created this before Homo naledi, for example, and goes and adds them in, he finds that they significantly nest with one group or the other. And when he's doing this on lots of other mammals, similar gaps of where we would expect come about. So it simply seems to me that after the flood, either right before the dispersion from Babel or shortly afterwards, there was a higher genetic diversity among humans at the time. And that's why we see these other human species.

They were really just other types of humans as well. Differed more genetically than people would now. So I would say that that's an issue that any old Earth creationist is going to have to significantly solve, is why are there species from millions of years ago that seem to clearly be genetically related to humans. Okay. All right. So we are going to move into our five minute closing statements. I want to let you know, viewer, to ask you to please subscribe to the channel and click that bell button. That way YouTube is forced to let you know whenever we put out a new video. And if you've enjoyed the discussion, please help us by sharing this, especially on Facebook, but elsewhere as well.

Leave a comment for the algorithm. Give us a thumbs up, we'd really appreciate it. Also want to remind you that I have a free PDF that I'm giving away for Lent. This is Meditations written by Thomas Aquinas for Every Day of Lent. I couldn't find it published anywhere so I've put it together in a beautiful PDF book that you can get for free right now just by clicking the link in the description below and that might be a great sort of supplement to your prayer life and growing in holiness throughout the course of Lent. Okay so we're gonna move into our five minute closing statements we're going to begin with Gideon and then we're gonna conclude with Jimmy and if you have any strong thoughts about this, I mean do people have strong

thoughts about this topic? I don't know but if they do any strong thoughts about this, I mean, do people have strong thoughts about this topic? I don't know. But if they do, I'm sure you do, let us know in the comments below what you think of this debate. Sorry, yeah, Gideon, go for it and I'll click the time. All right. Well, I just want to again thank Jimmy for agreeing to do this debate and Matt for agreeing to host.

I think we had a really good discussion here. I want to go back to the primary reason to hold a young earth, which is simply that scripture teaches it and the fathers support it. Jimmy conceded during the debate that all of the fathers held to young earth creationism. This should be a significant weight. And furthermore, as I pointed out, for example, in investigating that Augustine quote, they don't hold it on the basis of the evidence of the secular evidence. Augustine points out secular writings, for example, from the Egyptians that seem to contradict the account in Genesis. And while he does poke holes

in them, so we use uses reason, he primarily appeals to Scripture itself to make that argument. I also want to point out that I think there's some troubling implications of some of the readings of Scripture that Jimmy would give. For example, he admitted that his suggestion of a local flood could cause the implication from that passage I pointed out in St. Peter to say that when Christ comes and transfigures the cosmos, this isn't going to reach to other galaxies, even other systems, like Alpha Centauri, let alone other galaxies and so on. But this seems to not be…

The point of fact I said, I don't know how far God would choose to reach it. You don't know? Okay, fair enough. Yeah. But it would seem to me that if Jimmy's reading of the local flood is correct, this would then be the implication of the passage in St. Peter. St. Peter seems to be arguing that the entire cosmos will change, and this is also pointed out that his first example is not only the flood, but the creation of the world. He doesn't point out local judgments such as the killing of the Canaanites. That's not his example for the scoffers. Now that is an example Saint Jude uses

of an example of one of God's past judgments, but it's not Saint Peter's primary argument against the scoffers that there couldn't be this universal judgment. And it seems to me just to simply go against the theology of the church, that Christ will transfigure the entire cosmos. This is of course not taught by the Magisterium anywhere, but is clearly taught, I would say, by a number of church fathers who I'd also argue are just simply correct on the matter. I'd say St. Maximus is a great one to appeal here too. I also point out that Jimmy has some issues that he didn't respond to, for example, where we seem to go from literal history to,

or we go from just symbolism or legend to real strict literal history in the movement from Shem to Abraham. Because as I pointed out, details that are important to the Abraham story are contained within the Abraham story are contained within the genealogy itself that starts with Shem. And as St. Peter pointed out, only eight people survived the flood.

So you would then still have to argue that only a small group of people came from the flood and populated the entire world only 10 generations later leading to Abraham. This seems to simply put at that point our scientific paradigms in such doubt that perhaps we should ask the question are there more problems with the scientific paradigms? And I would argue that there are some flaws with the scientific paradigms. Are there many good arguments for them? Absolutely. The scientists making these arguments are not stupid. Some creationists want to think they're not just doing this because they hate the Bible. No, they are genuinely convinced, I believe, by the evidence they have set forward. But being genuinely convinced by evidence that you

set forward and having good arguments for something doesn't make it true. We have to look at the overall framework in which we are interpreting that evidence. And as I pointed out, lots of creationist scientists have shown other paradigms in which this evidence can be interpreted. Now, when creationists are able to raise significant amounts of money, they are able to make successful predictions with these paradigms, such as at the Coconino sandstones. Sometimes they're also able to make predictions that weren't as good as they wanted them to be, but still show some things like the rate project. But we should also expect that not every secular hypothesis is necessarily proved by every experiment they run. The most famous example of this is the Michelson-Morley experiment, which on the face of it apparently seemed

to show that the Earth wasn't moving, but of course this was then later shown to be interpretable in another way by Einstein. And so simply the fact that they'd have some scientific data that isn't fitting with them isn't reason enough to dismiss it. What is really fascinating is just how much they have been able to explain simply having a tiny bit of funding a few dozen scientists and the entire academic community being against them. I mean, Leonard Brand has tried to publish stuff before where his journal articles have actually been dismissed on the basis that he's a creationist even though the articles had nothing to do with creationism. And so there does seem to be some issues here with that.

You can wrap up. Yeah. What is really interesting is just how much they have been able to explain with the little bit of resources they have, which shows that the Bible is actually a useful tool for scientific investigation. And I'm sure in the future, hopefully once the world returns to Christ, we hopefully have a better situation, that the academy is renewed and theology is properly placed as the queen of the sciences, that we will then return it to the proper framework to understand this. And I think we will discover so much. I'm really excited. I think there will probably be new technological inventions

discovered from this, with just how many pounds forward will happen in science rapidly once we have the full scientific community using the Bible as their interpretive paradigm. Okay, thank you very much, Gideon. Jimmy, I'll give you a little over five minutes, feel free. Okay, so I think it would be great if the entire scientific community became Christian and took a supportive attitude towards the faith. I think that's wonderful.

However, if that happened, John Paul II would still counsel them not to use the Bible as their source of scientific evidence. As he said in his audience from January 29, 1986, the text of Genesis 1 has a religious and theological importance. It doesn't contain significant elements from the point of view of the natural sciences. Research on the origin and development of the individual species in nature does not find in this description any definitive norm or positive contributions of substantial interest. So the magisterium has already weighed in on this question. Now Gideon said that his two principal arguments were the worldwide flood and

the evidence from the early genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. I haven't yet had a chance to do a specific episode looking at those genealogies, but on Mysterious World I have done The Great Flood, and I've also done Young Earth. If you go to JimmyAkin.com you'll find links to those episodes, and there are multiple problems with the kind of flood that Gideon is proposing which I go into and it's not just the fact that in order to explain the radiometric ages of the rocks that the that the Grand Canyon that the entire surface of the earth would have vaporized but that is one

problem and there are many more. So if you want to learn more about how I take the texts regarding the, regarding the Great Flood and various objections that Gideon has or might propose, check out those two episodes. It's episode 175 and 176. In terms of a general question that he raised, which was, how do we know if we do take some of this early material in Genesis less literalistically, how do we know when we transition to to more rigorous history? Well, that's also a question the magisterium has weighed in on.

If you look in Humanae generis, Pius XII, flags the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are the ones before Abraham, as belonging to a different literary genre than the ones that follow. And he's not alone in that. Scholars of all kinds of persuasions note that there is a different way

that the first 11 chapters are written compared to later historical narratives. And actually, if you follow carefully... I just wanted to briefly point out that I pointed out that specific details of the Abraham narrative occur within Genesis 11 within the genealogy itself, such as Abraham. That's too much for me to get into in my closing statement. As I was saying, if you take a careful look at the course of biblical history, you find that it becomes progressively more detailed and precise in its presentation of history. So there's a shift even over the course of Genesis before you get to the United Monarchy when they started keeping court records rather

than oral tradition that was used for the source of these biblical books. And it's an observable shift because they start appealing to the court records for documentation of what they're saying. And then when we get to the Gospels, we have eyewitness events. So there's a spectrum of how history gets written over the course of the Bible with the most metaphorical end of that spectrum being in early Genesis, which is what Pius XII says. He says these chapters relate in a real way to history, but using simple and metaphorical language. So you have Pius XII in Humanae Generis indicating that these chapters contain a lot of metaphorical stuff, and therefore we shouldn't be pressing they have a

tunnel vision where they cut out and give no weight to other sources of evidence. They don't even look at the problems with the fact that the Church Fathers are not reliable on scientific matters in general, and then they don't look at the fact that Magisterium has ruled this is a scientific matter, and then they don't properly weight the evidence coming in from science because they have an unfalsifiable position where no matter what the scientific evidence says they're going to explain it away because of their reading of the church fathers in various scripture texts so they end up not following either

science or the magisterium and I think that's a problem. I think we should heed the magisterium's ruling that the Genesis text and other biblical texts can be read in a way consistent with an old earth and with human evolution, and then we should allow all the different sources of information from the different fields to interact and help us arrive at the truth. I don't think tunnel vision that ignores the magisterium is the way forward. Okay, well thank you both very much. I know you both put a ton of time preparing for this debate and I thought you both spoke very eloquently and articulately. And so thanks a lot.

As we wrap up, where's one place people can go to learn more about you both? Gideon? Jimmy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So if people want to learn more about me, I have a YouTube channel. It's called the Byzantine Scodist.

As well, I will also be doing a livestream wrap up and a review of this debate tomorrow at 5 p.m. Pacific time. It's 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, on Swan Sona's channel, that's Intellectual Conservatism, and I'll send a link to that stream to Matt so we can put that in the comments. Thank you. Okay, Jimmy. So folks can learn about the work I do as an apologist at Catholic.com. They also can go to my website JimmyAkin.com where I'll have some

resources that connect to the debate we had here today. And they can also go to my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Jimmy Akin, where they can watch mysterious world episodes including ones on the Great Flood and the young earth theory. And I also am going to be doing a post debate debrief with Trent Horn on his channel at I guess 6 p.m. Eastern 3 p.m. Pacific today. Terrific well thank you both very much and thank you to you in the audience for watching this please share it on Facebook and let people know about it I think it was a very substantive debate if you haven't yet subscribed to the channel please do that and click the

bell button that way YouTube has to notify you when we put out these great videos and finally let us know in the comments section below who you thought made some excellent points and why. It'll be interesting to see a great discussion taking place there. God bless you all and we'll chat with you next time. Thanks.