Posted on 04/06/2009 6:10:09 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The Vital Doctrine of a Global Flood by John D. Morris, Ph.D.*
Few biblical teachings are as controversial among evangelicals as that of the global nature of Noah's Flood. If Scripture is our guide, however, it could not have been just a local flood covering the Mesopotamian River Valley, as taught by most leading evangelicals today, but must have been worldwide in extent and effect.
For instance, Scripture lists the primary mechanisms for the Flood...
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
Ping!
Bttt. Both Dr. Morrises are such nice men.
dittoes from a Global Deluge adherent!
Nice and correct! Has a nice and correct ring to it, doesn’t it :o)
That makes at least two!
True, it’s better to be both!
God said it. I believe it. Thats it.
“it could not have been just a local flood covering the Mesopotamian River Valley, as taught by most leading evangelicals today”
What?
Lots of folks in the church, in an effort to appease the world, have capitulated to the theories and “evidence” that the bible is not factually correct.
They think this makes the message more “palatable” when in reality all it does is water down the truth of the bible in ALL areas. The target areas, of course, are the biblical rules of morality, but if you can “disprove” the historical aspects, you undermine the absoluteness of God’s laws as stated in His Word.
Since there is no globe in the Bible, how can a global flood be Biblical ?
I’d be interested in seeing a thread, or even several, perhaps Caucus to keep distractions and argumentation to a minimum, with the many believers in the literal nature of the Bible here on FR, to discuss the various implications of current scientific thought, and just where the error(s) lie versus Biblical truth, as far as the global deluge, the age of creation, cosmological advances that would seem to indicate geocentrism, etcetera. We have an apparent wealth of in-depth knowledge here among those who are not hostile. Why not brainstorm? I’ve tossed out a few things myself, over the past six months or so, that seem to have shifted the center of gravity a bit, at least in this little corner of the web. So have many others.
Just to kick it off, I’ve been wondering just when the age of this Earth became such an all-encompassing issue for science. When did this concern first arise in a major way, and what was the putative age believed to be at that time? And, how has that belief changed over time, to the present? Dating methods in current use must have a very basic, erroneous assumption, in order for science and truth to be so far afield from one another.
Is this notion appealing? We’ve got threads here that have been active for years, so it could be quite the accumulation of thought, links to pertinent articles, that sort of thing.
I’ve been wondering just when the age of this Earth became such an all-encompassing issue for science.
I don't really know, but it is an interesting question. Early to mid-19th century, maybe?
Thanks for pointing out the potential for pedantry due to using the word “global.” Worldwide will suffice, having the same meaning as it does.
Sounds about right, off the top of my head. I’d imagine that age has been extended greatly, and numerous times, due to the mindboggling amount of time assumed to be necessary for the macroevolutionary “tree of life” to work it’s putative magic. I’m also possibly of a mind that built in age assumptions have skewed methods of measurement as well.
I’m thinking that fossils - mostly marine invertebrates - became a matter of major interest in Europe around the time period I mentioned. However, I don’t know why the existence of different kinds of seashells and stuff implies either billions of years of time OR the evolution of lower life forms to higher.
I do remember starting a book about a British man who mapped geologic strata around the 1850’s (canal-building period), and the statement that various kinds of ammonite fossils “proved” all live evolved from pond scum. One suspects a pre-existing agenda behind this kind of reasoning!
The cosmological stage on which the Noachic flood takes place, and the cosmic nature of the event itself, are quite easily discerned from the language of Genesis.
These are entirely consistent with widely held beliefs of the age, as explained in many elementary expositions. They are also of course entirely inconsistent with our modern knowledge of the place of the earth in universe.
It requires a gargantuan effort of mutative exegesis to transform this account into the “global flood” of Creationist doctrine.
Preconceived notions and a priori assumptions do seem to have driven the process, so it strikes me that there could be some value to backtracking and plugging a different set of assumptions, just to see what shakes out.
Thank you for your response. You write well. However, yet another negation of a literal reading is not what I was hoping to see, here.
17th century royal society types like Robert Hooke wrote on geology and the age of the earth. The infamous Ussher age of 4004 bc came about in the late 1690s.
Decartes came up with his own estimate around the same time.
Lord Kelvin was the first to calculate the age based not on geology or the bible but on the ambient tempurature of the earth and an estimate of it’s cooling from formation in the 19th century.
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