Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201619A
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00:00 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water
00:04 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:10 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:14 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:20 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:25 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:31 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:35 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:43 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 00:48 IIW-2016-19 --- Designed with Purpose - Water 01:31 It has stood the test of time. 01:35 God's book, The Bible 01:38 Still relevant in today's complex world 01:45 It Is Written 01:46 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 02:01 CHRIS: Have you ever wondered why our earth is not covered by oceans of oxygen? Now, if you 02:08 were paying attention in chemistry class - and I know it may have been hard for some of 02:12 us to pay attention - but it probably crossed your mind at some point, in our atmosphere, 02:19 the oxygen molecule, composed of two oxygen atoms. now, I know I'm getting a little technical, 02:26 but stay with me - when those two oxygen atoms are joined together, it's a gas. But if you 02:33 put two hydrogen atoms together with an oxygen atom, of course you get liquid water, H2O. The 02:43 water molecule is much lighter than the oxygen molecule. Now, why is the heavier molecule a 02:51 gas, and the lighter molecule, water? How would our world be different if there were no 02:58 liquid water? To help me answer those questions and their implication on faith, I'm joined 03:08 today by Dr. Tim Standish. Dr. Standish, thank you for being with us. DR. STANDISH: Well, 03:13 thank you for letting me come. CHRIS: You know, Dr. Standish, I was talking about things that 03:18 were getting me a little bit outside the realm of my expertise. You are an expert in 03:23 this area of water, because of course, you are a biologist. You hold a Ph.D. in environmental 03:30 biology and public policy. You have a Master's in biology, an undergraduate degree, a 03:37 Bachelor's of Science in Zoology, and you're the senior scientist at the Geoscience 03:43 Research Institute. Now, Dr. Standish, just to help our audience get a little more 03:48 familiar with you, what do you do on a daily basis for the Geoscience Research Institute? 03:54 DR. STANDISH: The great thing about working where I work is that every day is different. 03:59 Some days, I come in, and I write for much of the day. There are always constant 04:05 interruptions and things like that. But I work with graduate students who are working on 04:11 graduate degrees in the sciences. I obviously correspond with people. I have a 04:17 laboratory. On a good day, I get to do some work in there. And then of course, there's a lot of 04:23 work outside of the office where we travel, teach classes, give presentations at various kinds 04:31 of meetings. Every day is different. CHRIS: And you work in a place where every day is 04:39 different. The Geoscience Research Institute, just to help folks, what is it dedicated to? 04:44 What's kind of the mission of the Geoscience Research Institute? DR. STANDISH: The 04:47 reason for the Institute to exist is to explore the relationship between science and 04:52 faith. What is a good, productive, reasonable understanding of the Biblical 05:01 record of history and the current claims of science? Most of the time, there are no 05:11 tensions there. You know, the Bible talks about a place called Jerusalem; hey, we can go and 05:17 see Jerusalem and there it is. You know, lots of things like that. But there are these 05:23 occasional areas where there's some kind of tension. I'm really interested in those. You know, 05:29 how might those tensions be resolved? How can they legitimately be resolved? Where 05:33 might there be something new that we need to find out? Those are questions that we ask, and 05:39 sometimes, when we can come up with something that we might be able to address, we may actually 05:44 go out and work on doing science to see whether a given way of resolving things might in fact 05:55 be a possibility. CHRIS: Now, that sounds all very interesting. And if someone 06:02 wanted to maybe read more about your work or some of the work of the Geoscience Research 06:06 Institute, where would they find information? DR. STANDISH: Probably the best 06:10 place to start is our website, which is www.GRISDA.org. And so GRISDA.org. I encourage people 06:22 also to get onto our Facebook page. You can just do that by looking for Geoscience Research 06:29 Institute. And there's constantly changing information there. On the website itself, we 06:36 have a constant news feed where we put up links to articles, not necessarily articles that we all 06:42 agree with, but articles that are coming out in the literature that address these issues that 06:50 we're interested in, in some way. CHRIS: Very good. Now, we've talked about water. And 06:57 I'm sure someone might be wondering, what does water have to do with faith? But let's just 07:03 talk about water, because we're going to get there. So if you're watching, just hang on. We're 07:07 going to tie this into the Biblical faith. What makes water so different than other 07:15 molecules? DR. STANDISH: Water is almost like a miracle. It's a very unique kind of molecule. 07:22 We've already talked about how it's a relatively small, light molecule, but it exists as a 07:31 liquid at room temperature. Now, the interesting thing is, there are not many things that 07:37 actually do exist as liquids at room temperature. Water is obviously the big one. There are 07:47 certain oils, but oils are big molecules. Water is tiny. Some alcohols - ethanol and methanol 08:00 and these - they are liquids at room temperature, but they're significantly heavier also than 08:06 water itself. But things that are liquids at room temperature are kind of unusual. So that's 08:14 one special thing about water. And the big question is, why? CHRIS: Yes. DR. STANDISH: Why is 08:19 that? It's because water is a polar molecule. What that means is, it's got an area that is a 08:31 little bit more negative on it with a little bit of a negative charge, and it has slightly 08:37 positive charges out where the hydrogen atoms are on the molecule. And because of that, 08:46 the positive and negative charges attract one another, and so the water molecules stick 08:54 together and they remain a liquid at room temperature as opposed to pretty much anything 09:01 else that is, you know, that kind of molecular weight. But the fact that it's polar then 09:09 means that water has some other really interesting characteristics to it. Have you 09:16 ever tried dissolving salt in cooking oil? CHRIS: It doesn't work very well. DR. STANDISH: 09:21 No, it just doesn't happen at all. Water will dissolve all kinds of different things. 09:27 Sometimes people call it a universal solvent. It isn't truly universal, because there 09:33 are things, obviously, that you can't dissolve in water, but it is amazing the way that it can 09:39 dissolve all kinds of different ions like salt. It can dissolve alcohols, it can dissolve 09:51 sugars, just tons of stuff, which is really useful for living things, because those are 10:00 the sorts of things that we need to move around in our bodies. Well, we can use water to move 10:05 things like salt and sugar around inside our bodies, because our bodies are made 10:12 primarily of water. When we talk about living things, frequently we get obsessed with carbon and 10:21 carbon-containing molecules. Water, when we weigh yourself, it's mostly water. Now, 10:31 obviously, there are other things that weigh something into you. But if we were to dry 10:37 ourselves out, we would lose a huge amount of weight. Losing water is the quickest way to 10:43 lose weight for a human being. Don't do it, because you need that water. But. so that's one 10:50 other thing about water. Another amazing thing about water. in fact, some people have contended 10:57 that life might not be possible on earth because of this one property, and that is that 11:05 water, when it freezes, expands. CHRIS: Yes. DR. STANDISH: Now, most things, the colder they 11:13 get, the more they shrink. But water gets cold and then it gets a little bit bigger. And as a 11:21 consequence of that, ice, which is frozen water, floats in water. The cool thing about that 11:31 is that it means that life can survive underneath a layer of ice. Imagine if ice froze at the 11:42 surface and fell down to the bottom of a lake. Well, then, the bottom of the lake would be 11:49 frozen, and it would unthaw very, very, very slowly. The next time a winter came around, 11:56 more ice would freeze and fall down to the bottom of the lake, and of course, if you had fish 12:04 trying to live in this lake, there'd be ice falling down all the time, and the water would be 12:09 getting shallower and shallower and shallower as the bottom of the lake froze. And in addition 12:15 to that, here in Canada, you would have no ice skating possible. You might be able to 12:22 ski on the water if you have a boat, but there'd be no ice skating. By the way, because of 12:31 this property that water has, ice skating wouldn't be possible either, even if you had the ice 12:37 out on dry land. And the reason for that is that when the skate goes, you know, over the surface 12:46 of the ice, it exerts a lot of pressure, and it squeezes it down, and the water, it actually 12:51 melts underneath the skate. That's why it slides so nicely. So there are lots of these 12:56 amazing properties that water has. CHRIS: And you are, of course, in Canada. I think of 13:03 Newfoundland and the amazing icebergs. And these icebergs, often, the size and sometimes 13:13 even larger. not necessarily in height, but in mass, so some of these skyscrapers in Toronto and 13:21 Vancouver, you see these amazing icebergs, but they are floating on the water. And I think of my 13:30 own experience with water; it's an amazing thing. Water is required for us to live. We have 13:34 to drink water. We have to be hydrated. But water is actually also very powerful, and you talk 13:39 about this, you can't really separate, you know, you can't squeeze water and separate water 13:44 from water. One time, I did what you're not supposed to do: I drove my car on a road that was 13:51 covered in water. And it was deeper than I thought it was. DR. STANDISH: It always is, 13:56 isn't it, yes? CHRIS: And the water was sucked into the intake and it actually bent the piston 14:03 in my vehicle. And it's an amazing thing; this piston is not, you know, the size of my 14:08 pen here. This piston is a huge metal object. And when it went to hit the water, the water was 14:16 so powerful that it wouldn't give; it's so powerful that the metal gave way. So let's just 14:24 ask the question, what would our earth look like - what would life on earth be like - if there 14:29 were no water? DR. STANDISH: I'm a biologist. I can't imagine life without water. It's just 14:40 one of those perfect things about life, and, well, that life sort of seems to require to 14:51 exist. I mean, we know what things are like when water isn't present because there's nothing 15:00 living there. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest spots on earth, if not the driest spot on 15:08 earth. When you go there, there are no plants, and because there are no plants, there are no 15:15 animals. It is just barren. So without water. you know, the earth does the experiment for 15:24 us. We don't really have to think about it too hard. No water, no life. It's fascinating 15:30 to me that in the Biblical creation account, the very first thing that the Bible says about 15:42 the earth is water. CHRIS: Yes. DR. STANDISH: The spirit of God moved on the face of the water 15:51 at the beginning. And then God creates life, right? But yeah, water is the first thing that's 15:58 mentioned there. And then if you look at the first few days there, you can see that God is 16:06 doing things with water to prepare the earth for life. It's so fundamental. It's one of the 16:20 things, actually, that impresses me about the Biblical creation account. It makes so much sense. 16:27 You know, imagine if God had decided to, I don't know, create the giraffes first. The giraffes 16:37 would have just drowned. The earth had to be prepared. There needed to be an atmosphere. 16:45 There needed to be water in the right place. Not everywhere. And yet enough in the places that it 16:53 needed to be. God separates the waters below from the waters above them and creates the 17:00 atmosphere. That's sort of, you know, another step in the right direction. God separates the 17:08 land from the water. And if you didn't have that situation, you would run into all kinds of 17:15 interesting things that have to do with the properties of water. If you don't have both land and 17:25 water, you probably would have huge trouble with any kind of significant life, let's put it 17:32 that way, any kind of, you know, organisms like the kind that we observe around us - dogs, cats, 17:40 humans, possibly even big fish. CHRIS: Yes. And so maybe that. and it's an amazing thing, 17:48 because we've talked many times about this issue of design, plan, a Designer, a Planner. So 17:57 God clearly had a plan, by putting. DR. STANDISH: Yeah. CHRIS: So why or how does water 18:04 make abundant life possible? And abundant life, by the way, that, from my understanding as a 18:13 person not involved in science, but you read, like, for example, after some of these tsunamis, 18:20 we're reading about scientists discovering life that we never knew existed out of the depths 18:27 of the water. So how does water make abundant life so possible? DR. STANDISH: You know, if I 18:32 was wearing a watch, I'd be looking at it and asking how long this program is. This is 18:37 something that we could literally spend days talking about. So let's talk about just 18:42 one or two things that people might not be familiar with, because yes, it's just huge. 18:52 We've already mentioned that water is fantastic for moving nutrients around and for 18:59 dissolving things. So you have to have water to move nutrients around within bodies and also 19:07 within the oceans and so on as well. But it does a lot more than just move things. It also 19:17 is necessary for the proteins that our bodies are made out of to have the correct shape so 19:24 that they can do the jobs that they do. They have to be dissolved in water or they 19:31 simply don't function. CHRIS: Okay. DR. STANDISH: Now, a lot of people are familiar with 19:38 discussions about something called global warming. And they know that this has something to 19:45 do with carbon dioxide and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is actually a 19:50 very tiny proportion of the atmosphere. Why is that? Because carbon dioxide, while we need it 19:58 in the atmosphere, if there's too much, that's going to be a problem for us. Carbon dioxide 20:02 dissolves in water. And it gets sequestered there in the oceans. Now, we're still struggling to 20:10 understand all the dynamics of this. It's a very interesting thing. But there's actually a 20:17 three-way relationship, it turns out, between land, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and 20:26 water in the oceans. And you have to have all those three working together to maintain the 20:35 right amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. CHRIS: Wow. DR. STANDISH: And obviously, 20:38 carbon dioxide is what plants use to make organic molecules that animals eat. So we wouldn't 20:44 exist if the big oceans weren't out there holding onto that carbon dioxide, releasing it 20:51 back into the atmosphere, but also soaking up carbon dioxide. And there are other mechanisms 20:56 that are involved in this too. It's a big, complicated, cool thing. CHRIS: Fascinating 21:02 thing, Dr. Standish, so what you're saying is that God had a plan. DR. STANDISH: Yes. CHRIS: 21:08 The vastness of the oceans is required to keep. and maybe I'm not using the right term here. 21:16 the equilibrium of actually life on this earth. DR. STANDISH Yes. These big global cycles 21:22 that keep. that make life possible depend on the fact that our earth has not just a little 21:30 bit of water; it requires huge amounts of water, which is what we have in the oceans 21:36 themselves. On the subject of the oceans, we talked about heating and cooling with water a 21:45 little bit. One of the great things about water is, it soaks up huge amounts of heat and it 21:50 can release huge amounts of heat. So what happens is there are these huge ocean currents 21:56 that soak up heat in the equatorial regions, and then take that heat south or north 22:04 from the equator and they release that heat, making these really big habitable zones on 22:12 the face of the earth. All kinds of stuff. Water is a miracle. CHRIS: And you know, it's a 22:18 very interesting thing now. And we could spend, as you've said, volumes of shows talking about 22:26 this miracle of water. But as I'm thinking about some of the things you're talking about, the 22:31 carrying of nutrients, the carrying of heat and cooling, the, just really, how much water 22:39 is. and maybe I'm using too strong of a word. is required for life to even exist, it's 22:49 very interesting to me. Jesus is called in the Bible "the Water of life." DR. STANDISH: Yeah. 22:58 CHRIS: Now, we could have a theological discussion on that. But why do you think Jesus is 23:05 referred to as the Water of life? DR. STANDISH: Because life is not really possible 23:10 without Him. Certainly not a full life, at least in my experience. Jesus is the 23:19 Life-giver. Jesus Christ is our Creator and our Redeemer. So He's the Source of life. And so 23:27 water serves as a fabulous metaphor for the life-giving characteristic that Jesus 23:37 exhibited. CHRIS: And you know, it's interesting, Jesus says in several places that He came to 23:44 give life, but He came to give life more abundantly. And so tying it into this illustration 23:52 or metaphor of water, I think of a garden. You know, you can grow a garden, or let's make it very 24:02 applicable to our folks here in Canada. I think of the Okanagan valley in British Columbia, a 24:10 beautiful place. Soil that has a lot of nutrients. But they have a very distinct problem there. 24:22 It's an arid place; it's dry. And so, if you can bring water in, they tell me that you can 24:33 grow anything there. And I can tell you by experience, they grow some of the best cherries 24:38 that I've ever tasted before. DR. STANDISH: Ooh, I'll have to visit it. CHRIS: Yes, you need 24:42 to go and visit some of our friends there in Kelowna and other places there. So when 24:48 Jesus talks about Himself being the water, the Water of life, the Life-giver, giving life more 24:56 abundantly, it is in the same way that water. land that is nutrient-rich, without water, 25:03 nothing will grow. Dr. Standish, maybe comment a little bit about this issue of water and the 25:12 spiritual life and Jesus as that Water. DR. STANDISH: You know, when you were talking, I was 25:17 thinking about Jesus meeting the woman at the well. CHRIS: Yes. DR. STANDISH: And the offer 25:23 that He made to her. He would give her water that would be a fountain of life, springing up 25:31 inside her. This offer of water, the Water of life that Jesus is giving, is the offer of eternal 25:41 life. I'm thinking about the ways in which we ourselves interact with water. You know, 25:52 water cleans us. Without water, we die. Without Jesus, we will die. With Him, we live. Water 26:04 cleans us. Jesus cleans us. He changes us into something different than we were. I have a 26:12 dog - actually, I have two dogs - they're different creatures after you've given them a bath. 26:17 CHRIS: Yes. DR. STANDISH: We are different creatures when we're cleansed in the blood of 26:23 Jesus Christ. But remember, blood is mostly water. CHRIS Yes. And I'll tell you, Dr. 26:30 Standish, it's hard to believe that we're out of time, and we could just continue this 26:33 discussion onward. But a powerful thought. The water molecule, one of the lighter 26:40 molecules, yet one of the most powerful molecules that exists on this earth. And in the same 26:49 way, Jesus, Jesus, Who lightens our burdens, yet one of the most powerful things, in that He 26:58 cleanses us and makes us a new creation. Dr. Standish, let's pray together. Heavenly Father, 27:06 we thank You so much for water, and not just the water on this earth. We thank You for the 27:12 Water of life, Your son Jesus, Who makes us a new creation. We thank You, in Jesus' name, amen. 27:22 DR. STANDISH: Amen. 27:30 CHRIS: Dr. Standish, what an exciting conversation about water. Now, you've been part of 27:35 a project, producing a film, Living Waters. Tell us about it. DR. STANDISH: That's right. I 27:39 was very privileged to be an associate producer on this documentary film about dolphins, 27:46 whales, salmon, and turtles, looking at the design in these creatures. It's beautiful, it's 27:55 compelling, it's just amazing. And I encourage anybody who can to see it. CHRIS: Dear friend, 28:03 if you would like to get a copy of the film Living Waters, for any size donation, you will 28:10 receive your own copy. In addition to that, I'd like to offer for free a DVD of this 28:17 program that Dr. Standish and I have done together. Here is the information that you need to 28:23 receive today's offers. 29:26 CHRIS: Dr. Standish, thank you so much for joining us today. DR. STANDISH: Well, thank you 29:30 so much for having me. I look forward to being with the Living Water. CHRIS: Absolutely. And 29:37 friend, I want to thank you for watching. I want to encourage you to join us again next week 29:41 where we'll discuss more about Jesus, the Master Designer. Until then, remember, it is 29:49 written: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of 29:56 God." |
Revised 2017-03-08