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Rebuttal by Rev. Rankin

BILL HOLDRIDGE: Now each participant has five minutes to respond to the other's opening comments. John? JOHN RANKIN: Well I have about thirteen points of response. We'll see if we can fit that in in five minutes. First of all, when we talk about Jeremiah and the word of God being written on our hearts, that's absolutely true. And that's the goal. And the Word is much larger than the written word. But the very text we have in Jeremiah is that which is written. And everything Jeremiah has is assuming the historicity of the nature of God's word from Genesis and Adam and Eve on forward. Therefore, it argues in reverse to say that it's on our hearts, that is, it's experience by which we judge. I think this is really where much of the debate comes down to. Do we judge by experience? Or do we judge by the word of God which precedes and defines experience? Carl, I need to dispute you at one point. When I called you on the telephone, I didn't say or I didn't assume that you believe the word of God wasn't inspired. I believed and said that you didn't believe it was inspired the way I did. So that's what I tried to say in my earlier comments when I said you're going to argue for an inspiration but different than my view. And the question that is most important is, if there are all these errors that you say -- non-historical and non-scientific elements -- by what criteria do we judge what is true? And what is true if there is falsehood in the mix of it? For example, a mathematician knows that if you have a sequence of constructions, and you have in mathematical language an "and" statement, and nine of those statements are true and one is false, the entire sum is false. And therefore, if we have demonstrable falseness -- historically, morally, scientifically in the Bible -- we have a total sum that is false. And this is the nature of scientific inquiry to begin with. Another point is, and I don't have time to answer a lot of these, but perhaps in our interaction and Q&A I can give the full details, and my book goes into depth in a lot of this, is, Genesis 1 and 2 are not two different creation stories. Genesis chapter 1 is the revelation of Elohim, the word for the creator God. And the grand purpose in Genesis chapter 2, it was the word of Yahweh, the covenant-making God. And the first specific command given to Adam and Eve within the grand design. And my book goes into detail to show that they are complementary and not contradictory. Fourthly, I think a very interesting point here, you say that if we believe the word of God is literal on its own terms, we are arrogant. I think it could be arrogant to say that if we believe it's literal we are arrogant. I think one thing I have sought to demonstrate in the Mars Hill Forums over and over again, is I look for the toughest questions. I will tell people who disagree with me, if you can show me to be wrong at any point, I will change on the facts of the case. That's the opposite of arrogance. Now in truth, Carl, there are many people who may be arrogant on that view. But to say we are automatically arrogant I think is false and I challenge that with my entire being. Number five, when we look at the issue of fallibility and how the council of Nicea determined what was the canon in the word God. And the observation's made that how can we have an infallible word with fallible people, and you trace that all the way back through. I've not been arguing that language though I can certainly argue that language. I've been arguing something that is far deeper. And that is, as it says in 2 Corinthians 4:7, we have this treasure -- that is, the gift of the Holy Spirit -- in jars of clay, leaky vessels, cracked pots. See, we're called to be cracked pots but not crack pots. There is a great difference between the two, OK. We have this treasure in jars of clay to prove that glory belongs to God and not to us. That's the greatest clarion call against idolatry. And Carl has pointed out well, we can make the written word into an idol. And we must not do it. We must take it on its own terms. What is so powerful is the utter rigor of God's presence with his covenant people in historical and scientific witness all the way through Scripture. In terms of Genesis arguing for flat earth, no such thing whatsoever. It has an anthropomorphic perspective, where when we look up we see the heavens above, and we see the ground below. Not only that, when it talks about the firmaments and the water above and below, that's scientific reality. We have clouds above. We have seas below. But also at that point in Genesis chapter 1, we're talking about the process of creation, not the existing ecosphere as it stands. In fact it says in Isaiah that Yahweh sits above the circle of the earth, OK. It doesn't talk about a flat earth. But it's not making a scientific argument. It's making ethics that precede good science. In terms of it not being historical I could go with every case that Carl has brought up and demonstrate the historicity. The evidence for a world-wide flood is tremendous. And it's all over the place. In fact, if you look historically, I don't believe there's one culture on the entire planet that does not have a story of a universal, catastrophic flood. And one of the most crucial elements of truth is historical witness. And you've got scientific evidences in very many places as well. I could go on many of the other issues in terms of historical errors that I will take any questions in detail and answer why I think it's historically true what the Bible says. Couple of other points here. I'm trying to find out where I wrote down number seven. Can't find it so I'll go to number eight. In terms of the Gospels and the dating of Jesus's birth, there is marvelous stuff out there that shows the uncertainty by which people judge when Quirinius was the governor, when Herod the Great died, what reference was being made to his death in terms of the birth of Jesus. In fact, I've seen some marvelous stuff tracing down what the star of Bethlehem was all about that says that Jesus was born in zero A.D., exactly how our calendar is dated. And the point is that there is tremendous scholarly debate on that. And so for Carl, you to say that it's non-historical is to say your view is right (it's non-historical) and those who say it's historical are wrong. And I think we run into the problem of arrogance there again. [end of tape 1 side 1] ... know the answer. And there are many unanswered questions for me about historical conclusions. But what's powerful is Luke was raised a Greek historian. And he wrote the book to Theophilus, his patron, who paid him the money to do the historical research and he interviewed every eyewitness he could find and constructed it based on history. And the fact he gave an exact time and date was consistent with the exact location given to us in the Garden of Eden of Adam and Eve. In other words, the commitment was there from the word go. And I think to say it's not historical is to obscure that. In terms of the morality issue, and I can go into that in depth, and my time for rebuttal is over right now. But I can answer every question and show the supreme morality that is involved. For example, the reason the genocide is allowed is because Amalek was seeking to wipe out the messianic seed. And his army came up against Israel without weapons, without food, without water, just released across the Reed Sea or the Red Sea from Egypt. And he attacked the handicapped, the newborn and the aged in the back. And God said that they will die for that, because they were seeking to kill the messianic lineage. And God says he has authority to deliver people to heaven or hell according to their choices of our response to him. If your intimation, Carl, is true, that God will not send people to hell, and you measure the Gospel by Jesus Christ, Jesus spoke more about hell than the rest of the Bible combined. About those who would choose hell because they would not believe in God. Finally, what I find interesting here is as a minister of the Gospel, Carl, you're attacking the Bible at many points, and saying it's not trustworthy, it's not scientific, and so forth. And you are free to believe that. But if you believe that, what better testimony do you have on the face of the planet for science and history? And if you don't, what else are you going to adopt if science and history are important? In other words, the very concern for things being scientific and historical has no other source than Genesis, and the historical reality of Adam and Eve. And finally, in terms of my rebuttal, I think the most important question I started with is the question, Carl, I want to ask you in the process, is, do we take the Bible on its own terms? On its own terms it views Adam and Eve as historical, and it traces their genealogy all the way to the present. And on its own terms it assumes scientific investigation and it submits itself to the scrutiny of historical cross-examination. We may not know all the answers to those questions, but that is the Bible on its own terms. And if we don't accept it on its own terms, then why accept it at all? [applause] Next