This is a rush transcript from the “Creation Today Show,” released November 10, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
Overview
Join hosts Paul Taylor and Eric Hovind on this episode of Creation Today, 11.10.11., where questions such as “Who Made God?” are tackled in an intellectual and Scriptural manner. If you’re hungry for information about God’s existence or want to learn how to answer tough questions to defend the Eternal God, you won’t want to miss this episode!
Transcript
ERIC HOVIND: Who made God? From the CTN studio in Pensacola Florida, this is the Creation Today show with Eric Hovind and Paul Taylor.
PAUL TAYLOR: And in this show, we’re going to be talking about why the presuppositional approach that we keep recommending is not a circular argument. We’ll also be talking to high school students about how to cope with exam questions and assignments on evolution. And we’ll also be answering that age old question: Who made God?
ERIC HOVIND: Who did make God? If you have questions, send them into [email protected]. Of course you can follow us on Twitter. Remember, we believe the Bible is absolutely true and scientifically accurate.
[BREAK]
ERIC HOVIND: Welcome back to the Creation Today show. We are excited because I wanna talk about this issue of who made God. It’s a common question, objection to Christianity, the idea of hey if everything has a designer then God needed a designer, too. If everything has a Creator, God needed a creator, too. So I’m looking forward to this show.
PAUL TAYLOR: It is and we’re gonna answer that question, but not yet. Just watch this face. A little teaser there, we’re almost like professionals now
ERIC HOVIND: We are almost, almost. Almost.
PAUL TAYLOR: Almost.
ERIC HOVIND: We do have a couple of announcements. My good Mark Spence from Way of the Master is gonna be joining us for the Proof of God conference in Orlando, Florida. It’s gonna be on 10.12.12. So make sure and put that on your calendar. You’re not gonna want to miss that. If you wanna get information, you can go to proofconference.com, and check that out.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right, you’ll also find that Sye Ten Brueggencate will be there, and Carl Kirby. And lots of interesting speakers.
ERIC HOVIND: It’s gonna be a lot of fun, it really is. So join us in Orlando, Florida on 10.12.12. for the Proof of God conference.
PAUL TAYLOR: You know, we’ve been talking quite a bit about a 3D animation film which we are extremely excited about
ERIC HOVIND: It’s in progress right now
PAUL TAYLOR: It is, we know that the chap doing it is working away at this very moment making sure that it’s all looking good, and you can find out something about that at genesisseries.com.
ERIC HOVIND: Yeah
PAUL TAYLOR: So go to that. That’s gonna be very exciting indeed.
ERIC HOVIND: Hey, if you’d like to see us in person, we would love the chance to meet you. You can check out creationtoday.org and look at the events tab to find out if we’re gonna be in an area near you anytime soon. If we’re not, get it on the schedule, make it happen man, what are you waiting on?
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right, you know, we said in the last show that people sometimes say why aren’t you coming to our area? So, you know, I’ll just repeat again, it’s because you haven’t invited us yet. Get that information to us.
ERIC HOVIND: We like to go where we’re invited, don’t we?
PAUL TAYLOR: We do. It’d be a bit silly if we just turned up to a church and started speaking
ERIC HOVIND: That would, I’ve thought about that many times after I’ve heard what’s being said. I’ve thought about getting up and just anyway, I haven’t done that yet, don’t have that boldness yet.
PAUL TAYLOR: Well, we’ve got a question now from Braden, and I don’t think he’s a fan of ours.
ERIC HOVIND: Evidently not, based on his question. Let’s get into this, and start answering some biblical and scientific questions here.
PAUL TAYLOR: Yeah, he says when I see a bible I say it’s a book, so somebody must have written it rather than it’s a book so somebody must have written it and it must be the infallible word of God. Now, think about it really hard, he says, and yourself this, why has God seen fit not to convince me, even to deceive me? My rationality is you believe part of His creation, he says, so why didn’t He make evidence which could have satisfied it? Evidence that does not presuppose God, but still proves his existence. If you believe in God then God is tricking me, God is hiding himself for some reason, and He hasn’t given me a better way to understand and operate in the World. Why would He do that? Why can’t a rational person be convinced of God? Don’t recourse to the Bible, that’s asking me to accept an irrational conclusion.
ERIC HOVIND: Wow. I don’t know if he’s being sincere. Braden, I certainly hope that you’re being sincere and really wondering hey, how come I can’t be convinced? What is my problem? Why can’t I be convinced? I’ll just tell you, our history of dealing with people, typically, they don’t want to be convinced. They don’t want anything because the Bible says they desire their own sin, they walk after their own lusts. That’s the reason people scoff at the Bible, and make fun of the Bible. So, I hope you’re sincere, if you’re sincere I think we’ve got some great information for you. But if you’re not, then no answer will never ever satisfy you. It just isn’t gonna happen.
PAUL TAYLOR: And that’s the problem with the question that’s posed, because it’s self refuting. He says don’t recourse to the Bible, that’s asking me to accept an irrational conclusion.
ERIC HOVIND: Yeah.
PAUL TAYLOR: Well if we accept that particular statement that he’s saying and not recourse to the Bible then we’re accepting his conclusion that the Bible is irrational. And we do not accept that conclusion. Nor in fact do the majority of discoverers of the modern scientific era, who are mostly people who believe the Bible to be true.
ERIC HOVIND: My question would be this, if you don’t want this to be the foundation, then what would you purport to be the foundation? Where do you gain knowledge? The Bible says it’s the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge so where do you suppose we can get knowledge from? Now, we already know what they would say to this. They would say well, we have the ability to think, we have the ability to reason, we’ve got our senses, we can sense things. So, through our senses, we can perceive what is real and what is truth. But, where did you sense that? Where did you perceive that? Which one of your senses told you that you can only perceive truth through your senses?
PAUL TAYLOR: I mean we know that that isn’t true, we know that you cannot rely on what you perceive to be truth. I mean I knew that just this weekend trying to hang curtain rails in my house. And you know you look at it and you think yeah that’s going to be about four feet, you know, that’s required there, and then you get your tape measure out, and you measure it, and it’s not, it’s not what you think it is. And then you look at it and you think that’s gonna be horizontal, and then you actually get your level there, and you find it’s not, this is what’s horizontal. We are actually very very poor as human beings in judging these things. And if we’re poor at judging actual physical quantities like that then we’re gonna be very poor indeed in judging the moral claims and actually measuring ourselves against that. We need an independent measure.
ERIC HOVIND: A standard, yeah, an independent measure.
PAUL TAYLOR: A standard to be able to measure them. And if you’re saying that you know truth, if you’re saying that you know what is truth then you’ve gotta have something to actually measure that against. And what people say is they believe truth to be something that’s good and falsehood to be something that’s not good. Well, where do we get that from?
ERIC HOVIND: Right.
PAUL TAYLOR: The answer is, we get that from the Bible. That’s our only standard, it says so. If we don’t actually accept the Bible then why not say that different people can have different standards? You know, Hitler thought it was a good idea to go around killing Jewish people. I think most of us, and I hope this writer as well, would agree that it not a good thing, that’s an intensely evil thing to do. One of the most evil things that’s been done on this planet. But if you’re not gonna start from the Bible, you’re not gonna start from the knowledge of God, what right have we actually to say whether that’s correct or not?
ERIC HOVIND: We don’t, it’s just every man’s opinion for himself. It’s what do you believe? Ok, well I believe differently, and we just have to accept that. It would take away any kind of cultural revolution, it would take away any kind of attempt to go to another country and tell them they’re doing things wrong because they’re allowed to do whatever they wanna do, that’s what they’ve decided.
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes.
ERIC HOVIND: [Indiscernible] You know I was reading a blog today from Ray Comfort, and he said, it was entitled “the Faith of the Skeptic.” Skeptics love to say well we don’t have faith, we depend on science. And he goes and shows them they have faith in lots of stuff. I mean, they have faith what the scientist is telling them is true. This one guy was talking about how I don’t have faith, I believe in science, and radiometric dating. And he’s like have you ever done radiometric dating? You have faith in what they’re telling you about radiometric dating is what it comes down to.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right.
ERIC HOVIND: Faith is the very foundation. Another questions is, what is your foundation, what is your faith gonna be based on? Is it gonna be based on man, and our opinion and our senses, which we know can deceive us? Or is it gonna be based on the God of the Bible. And your senses can deceive you really really well, just so you know. Do a little experiment. Ok, right here, while your watching this, I want you to say the word “silk” five times. Ready? Silk, silk, silk, silk, silk. Say it again silk, silk, silk, silk, silk. Ok, what do cows drink?
PAUL TAYLOR: Silk.
ERIC HOVIND: Not silk.
PAUL TAYLOR: Milk.
ERIC HOVIND: Milk. No, not milk. Water! Cows drink water, they give milk. You are, it’s very easy to get deceived, and there’s lots of little tricks like that you can play on people to show them that you can’t necessarily trust your senses. We’ve gotta have a standard, and our standard is the word of God. We’ll be back after this.
[BREAK]
ERIC HOVIND: Welcome back, you’re watching Creation Today, we’ve got a little something we want you to do based on that last segment. I’d like you to say the word “shop” five times right there wherever you’re at. Ready? Shop, shop, shop, shop, shop. Say it one more time, five times. Ready? Shop, Shop, Shop, shop, shop. What do you do when you come to a green light?
PAUL TAYLOR: Stop!
ERIC HOVIND: You go at a green light. It is so easy to get confused, isn’t it? Especially if your name is Paul Taylor. No, thanks for playing along.
PAUL TAYLOR: Traffic lights must be different in Britain.
ERIC HOVIND: You got them different over there, huh? Hey, we’ve got another great question here from a young lady who’s in school asking for help. She’s saying hey I’m being taught biology, obviously she doesn’t believe in evolution but I-N-A, Ina? Is that how you’d say that?
PAUL TAYLOR: I don’t know, I presume so.
ERIC HOVIND: Ina, I don’t know. Ina, she says, I’m about to take an exam probably next year or something in science and biology. I live in Norway.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s where your [Indiscernible] come from.
ERIC HOVIND: That’s exactly right [mimicking Norwegian]
PAUL TAYLOR: What was that?
ERIC HOVIND: I have no idea, but I think I said hello to them.
PAUL TAYLOR: I hope so.
ERIC HOVIND: I hope so too. She says I live in Norway, I’m almost seventeen years old. I need to take science and biology to finish high school. But I don’t go to school. I’m going to take it privately, but I don’t wanna take it because I’m gonna learn about the big bang, and evolution and all that stuff, but I gotta have that in order to pass the exam with at least an average grade, because it costs money and if I don’t, I can’t finish high school. I don’t know what to do, because I believe in creation but the want me to believe in evolution and only asking about evolution on the exam. What should I do, if I don’t believe in anything they are saying, and yet when I answer in the exam, I have to answer questions like do you still think we’re evolving? I mean, what am I supposed to answer that without getting an F. I’m so frustrated, please help. I don’t think I can study evolution for several months and not get affected, but at the same time I need a high school diploma. Help, please, what do I do?
PAUL TAYLOR: Right. What’s your faith based on? It’s very important that your faith is solid, that it’s based on what the Bible teaches. And in fact then nothing really can shake you from that. There are going to be lots of things all around us frequently that we don’t believe. And if you’re learning about something, that doesn’t mean you actually necessarily have to believe what you are being taught and what you’re learning. Now from a sort of more global point of view, I could say that it’s gonna be great if there are plenty of creationists out there who thoroughly understand evolution and can really argue about it from first principles. You know it is, I know somebody close to me who’s, who recently got a first class degree in zoology.
ERIC HOVIND: I think I know who that was. Are we allowed to say, is she getting a job over there and we can’t talk about it?
PAUL TAYLOR: We’ll have to be careful on subject I think but the point is that she believes that what the Bible says is true, and she has a first class degree in zoology. Now, what, where do we go from there, she knows biology, she knows evolution thoroughly. She has a great deal of information about evolution. It hasn’t shaken the belief that in what the Bible says about Genesis.
ERIC HOVIND: So, she understands it, she just doesn’t believe it. And we say this all the time, when you’re in school and being taught evolution, you can learn the information, just don’t swallow it. Just don’t believe it. Be able to tell them what they wanna say, a great way to answer test questions if it’s not just you know a multiple choice and you can actually write something in, you can say if the test questions comes up about evolution you can say most scientists believe, or most scientists say, and then write in what they say.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right.
ERIC HOVIND: You don’t believe that, but that’s what they want in order to get the grade.
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes, and remember that you’re being perfectly honest then, because we know that the theory of evolution is believed by the majority of biologists. The majority of course do not constitute scientific proof. Science has never preceded by majorities.
ERIC HOVIND: Correct.
PAUL TAYLOR: If it had then you know there’s so many scientific discoveries would never been made, because most scientific discoveries have been made in the teeth of against what the majority have said on the particular subject, and often many scientists
ERIC HOVIND: The moon is not glass, it’s not perfectly smooth, you don’t bleed people to make them better, it’s not made out of green cheese
PAUL TAYLOR: Yeah, these things are very very important, aren’t they. Yeah, that’s a good example , isn’t it, about the not bleeding people, and so was it Pasteur, or was it Lister, I get these two confused
ERIC HOVIND: Lister I believe
PAUL TAYLOR: Who developed the idea that things had to be sterile in order to
ERIC HOVIND: Joseph Lister, where we get Listerine, that idea.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right, yeah.
ERIC HOVIND: So, you can learn this information. Scientists throughout history have had to deal with things that people believed that were not true and in the face of that make progress. A good friend of mine right now is in his master’s degree program, he lives across the street from me. He’s in his master’s degree program. He is now a teacher of evolution in the University, and he doesn’t believe it, but he uses that as a strong Christian to be able to slide doubt into people’s minds, and he says we need more Christians, we need more creationists in these schools teaching this stuff. We need more people that are willing to put up with it to get the degree to then go be a light in darkness.
PAUL TAYLOR: We do indeed. Yes, we need Christians to be teachers in the public school system. You know, we’ve taught a lot about school systems and you know we’re great advocates of Christian education, independent Christian education and homeschooling and so on, because, you know we’ve no evidence of anytime when the Israelites sent their children to the Philistines to be educated. You know there’s the argument that children should be salt and light, and you know that’s not an argument that we tend to like to use, because
ERIC HOVIND: Don’t send your kids off to the battlefield, you be the teacher.
PAUL TAYLOR: But the teachers are in the battlefield, and it’s great when Christians, Christian teachers say we need to go into those public schools and we need to teach in those particular situations. So what’s the sort of sum of advice that we’re gonna give to Ina then, Eric, what we’re gonna say. You said answering questions perfectly honestly by saying well some scientists say or even most scientists say, prefacing (?) that last perfectly honest, I think you can do that even if you’re asked the question do you think we are still evolving? You can twist that and say well many scientists would say that these things are happening. Actually there’s always debate on that. I very much doubt that an exam, a high school exam would ask that. Because even evolutionists aren’t sure on that. I know that professor Steve Jones, one of the leading evolutionist professors in England says well human beings are not evolving, we’ve come to the end.
ERIC HOVIND: And this is it.
PAUL TAYLOR: Yeah.
ERIC HOVIND: This is as far as how would you know that? That’s wow. Some of the claims they make just absolutely surprise me. I love to use, and you gotta be careful, this is probably more on a college level, but when the teacher or the professor teaches that there are no absolutes, there is no right and wrong. And then he gives you an exam, you can answer whatever you want. You can say anything, you can cheat if you want and then when you get called in and questioned you can say but you said there’s no right and wrong. Everything is relative.
PAUL TAYLOR: Yeah.
ERIC HOVIND: So, really putting it back on the teacher and using that. You gotta be careful there, I’ll tell you this: For the students out there that are Christians and don’t believe in evolution and want to learn how to do this, if you are not good in school if you do not pay attention, if you don’t do your homework, if you not a good student, if you don’t do your best, do not say hey I’m a Christian and I don’t believe that. You’re not helping anybody. You or other Christians, you’re actually hurting the name of Christ. You make sure you’re doing good, your best, you’re getting your homework done on time, you’re doing your projects, and you’re being obedient, you’re not one of the goof off kids, then you can say hey I’ve got a question, some serious questions about that. We actually have a couple books “Help I’m being taught evolution”, available through the Creation Store. And those are some really good resources to teach you how you can talk to your teacher or your professor about what they’re teaching.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right. So, make sure that you got all those in line and..
ERIC HOVIND: Yeah, keep those going and each the truth, be a light in the darkness, if you can. And if not, well, then don’t swallow that information. Hey, we’ve got more to talk about the, who made God is our question right after this.
[BREAK]
PAUL TAYLOR: Welcome back, you’re watching the Creation Today show with Paul Taylor and Eric Hovind. Well we’ve been having some really great questions to answer, but you know sometimes we get lots of questions thrown at us and there are questions that are thrown at us by people who really don’t want to hear an answer they want to avoid things. And there are some standard questions there for the quite often, because they can sound a little bit [indiscernible] to begin with that we tend to miss over them. But we’re gonna have a actually tackle one of those questions now. What would you say is the number one avoidance question that people will bring up if they really don’t wanna talk about Christianity?
ERIC HOVIND: No question, number one avoidance question is well then who made God? Cause we keep going back to God, well then who made Him?
PAUL TAYLOR: And it’s usually said in this sort of way, you know, you’re sat across the table to someone and you say can I share something with you about the Lord Jesus Christ? And they say no! You cannot share that. After all, who made God? Aha, aha, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.
ERIC HOVIND: That’s what they do, yeah. The question itself is a terrible question. It shows that anybody that asks this has a wrong understanding of who God is.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right.
ERIC HOVIND: The idea of God being made means He’s not God. So you don’t call Him God. So the very question itself is, well to be honest it’s kind of a silly question. But yet it’s one that people think is so intelligent. Well, if the man’s a designer, then who designed the designer? That’s a Richard Dawkins saying. He’s got to be much more complex than this designer.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right, that’s right. And I wanted us to be able to answer this question because a young man wrote to us with I sensed quite a bit of confusion about this and you know [indiscernible] to this comes from Danny and he says I was talking with friends about he Bible, and this is absolutely marvelous, I’m pleased that young people are talking to their friends about the Bible and sharing their faith. Because that is very important, you do not need to know the answer to everything to start sharing your faith.
ERIC HOVIND: That’s exactly right, just get busy and trust me, it’ll make you dig into God’s word more. I wrote a blog about that once.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s right, so he goes on to say, one of his friends made a question that made him confused. I didn’t know what to say, the question was who created God? And I said well that’s our belief, was I right? And yeah, actually, you were right. PAUL TAYLOR: There’s a few more things that we could say about that, and you’re absolutely right Eric, Richard Dawkins actually said the same question, in far more [indiscernible] language, using lots and lots of complicated words. When you actually boiled it down, his statement was, well who made God then, ahahaha. It’s the same sort of attitude.
ERIC HOVIND: It’s is, and it blows my mind how people can ask this question and not see the problem with it. Well it doesn’t when I realize that they’re willingly ignorant and they’re deceived. But the problem with the very question is it assumes God had a maker.
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes.
ERIC HOVIND: So the question is a terrible question.
PAUL TAYLOR: Linguistically it doesn’t make sense, you know, the very sound that we make with our throats when we say the word GOD is in English the word that has been developed to describe The Creator.
ERIC HOVIND: Yes.
PAUL TAYLOR: That’s what the word is for, it means the One who created everything, who was therefore before all things. That is the whole point of the word. So actually on an even on a linguistic level, it doesn’t make sense to ask who made God.
ERIC HOVIND: Yeah, you’re exactly right. Now
PAUL TAYLOR: It’s almost equivalent to saying why are ducks green?
ERIC HOVIND: Yeah, that’s true.
PAUL TAYLOR: It’s a question that doesn’t really make any sense.
ERIC HOVIND: Why is the moon made out of green cheese? Yeah, why is the Earth a ball full of gas?
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes.
ERIC HOVIND: The question doesn’t itself make sense. It’s a terrible question to ask, yet people have promoted this as some great you know intellectual way to get rid of the idea of God. Well, let me ask you something. What’s your other choice? I mean, if you take God out of the picture, you’re left with nothing. You’re left with matter created itself. You’re left with giving god-like properties to either time, space or matter. Something has to act like God out there, and you do all this just to avoid the truth that Bible says you already know in your heart? The Bible says you know that God is God, and you suppress that truth in unrighteousness. Stop suppressing the truth, recognize and realize, God did not have a maker. God did not have a creator, God did not have a designer. God is eternal. Matter of fact the Bible talks about that, doesn’t it, how God is eternal. Psalm 90, what was that Psalm 90 verse two says Before the mountains were brought forth or ever You had formed the Earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God. He goes from everlasting to everlasting. You don’t put time on God, He’s not locked inside of time like we are today. He was not created. You’ve got another one?
PAUL TAYLOR: We’ve got one here in Genesis chapter 21 in verse 33, Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Betsheba, and there called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.
ERIC HOVIND: First Timothy 1:17, Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever. And you’ve gotta realize God claims Himself. He tells us himself, He is eternal. He had no beginning, He has no ending.
PAUL TAYLOR: Yeah. Since the Bible contains so much information, you know, and we have to assume that if an atheist wants to ridicule the Bible that they have therefore read it through in order to criticize it, which, it’s probably not the case actually in many cases. But since the Bible contains so much information, you would perhaps think that if this was a necessary argument that the Bible would contain what amounts to a high school essay on the existence of God. You know, that stuff, all the arguments for the existence of God, against the existence of God, let’s weight them out. But actually the Bible doesn’t start that way. The Bible starts by saying In the beginning God In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Why does the Bible start that way? Because God is the most important focus for our thinking and for our understanding.
ERIC HOVIND: Speaking of thinking, we address this issue itself showing that without God you can’t know anything at all. It would be impossible to even have knowledge without God. We address that in a new CD entitled “ Think”, where we just go through with Sye Ten Brueggencate and myself on a radio program, and it just cover the topic of arguing for the existence of God, and the idea that everybody knows God. It covered it so well that we just put it on CD and wanted to make that available for people, cause it really did a good job with that. So I encourage you to get that. Another resource is the Ultimate Proof of Creation by Jason Lyle showing and going through the truth that God doesn’t have a maker. You know, you have to have God from the very beginning to get anywhere. It’s not that you add up all these proofs and all these proofs equal God, it’s that without God, you don’t get all these proofs. Nothing happens without God.
PAUL TAYLOR: You see, if you say who made God, then, whoever made God is the God of that God. So then you have to ask who made that God, in which case, there must have been another God who made that God, so there must be you ask who made that God, and you get into an infinite progression. It is much more logical to say everything was made by an infinite God.
ERIC HOVIND: That’s exactly right. Well, I appreciate you guys writing in, and we love answering your questions, please continue to send them into [email protected]. That is our show, if you wanna join us on facebook, you can do that. Facebook.com/creationtoday. Or Twitter, twitter.com/creationtoday. Actually no, yeah, twitter.com/creationtoday
PAUL TAYLOR: @creationtoday. Absolutely. Well, this has been a production of God Quest Ministries. Thank you for joining us in this program, and we’ll see you next time.
ERIC HOVIND: God bless.
