Zion Lutheran Church - LCMS

  Zion Apologia:

 The global flood as described in the Bible has been attacked by Christians as well as non-Christians. Those Christians who do not hold to a literal reading of Genesis are willing to believe in the old age of the earth as proposed by evolution. This belief states that the universe came into existence approximately 12 billion years ago through the Big Bang. There are several theories of creation based on this evolutionary timeline, such as Progressive Creation, Gap Theory, Framework Hypothesis, and Theistic Evolution. None of these theories allow for the literal six-day creation as plainly contained in the Bible. In the case of Progressive Creation, it is believed that each day represents eons of time. The Framework Hypothesis mixes literal creation days with long periods of time. The Gap Theory argues that there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 which allows for a long period of time. Finally, Theistic Evolution proposes that God used evolution in the creation process. All of these theories have in common a belief that the creation account given in Genesis 1 and 2 contain allegory and should not be taken literally.   All of these theories would be considered compromises[1] to a plain reading of the Genesis creation account.   

               Those who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis are categorized as Young Earth Creationists. The Young Earth Creationist, or YEC, believes that God created the universe, earth, and all life in six literal 24-hour days.   As Bert Thompson writes in his book titled Creation Compromises:

A simple, straightforward reading of the biblical record indicates that the Cosmos was created in six days only a few thousand years ago. Standing in stern opposition to that view is the suggestion of atheistic evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and so-called “old-Earth creationists” that the current age of the Universe can be set at roughly 8-12 billion years, and that the Earth itself is almost 5 billion years old. . . . Even to a casual observer, it is apparent that the time difference involved in the two models of origins is significant. Much of the controversy today . . . centers on the age of the Earth. . . . atheistic evolution itself is apodictically impossible to defend if the Earth is young. . . . there is no possible compromise that will permit the old-Earth/young-Earth scenarios to coexist; the gulf separating the biblical and evolutionary views in this particular area simply is too large (emphasis added).[2] 

The position that God made the earth, universe, and all life in six literal days is the view of this paper. 

               The purpose of this paper is to examine Christian belief about the biblical account of the global flood against the backdrop of evolutionary theory. Because many who deny the occurrence of the biblical flood do so as the result of their belief in evolution, one who wishes to examine the evidence for the flood must first consider arguments about the age of the earth. 

Terry Mortenson published a book based upon his Ph.D. research titled, The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology – Before Darwin.[3] He argues that during the first half of the 19^th century in Britain, there was a debate going on which was labeled the “Genesis-geology debate.”[4] One of the reasons for this debate was due to the era of Enlightenment, or the “age of reason,” a time when men were attempting to discover truth using their own intellectual reason apart from the influence of the Bible. One such man was Rene Descartes (1596-1650) who attempted to use reason to defend the existence of God. However, there were others who would attempt to use reason to disprove God’s existence. As Mortenson states, “Descartes used the tools of examination, free inquiry, and criticism to attempt to establish with certitude issues such as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. Skeptics used those same tools to overthrow those beliefs.”[5] The skeptics, however, were not free from their own presuppositions. This fact lies at the heart of all philosophical and scientific inquiry. Every line of thought in this area can be traced to a point where the inquirer’s assumptions about unknown facts frame his or her approach to the issue. For example, if someone were to believe in the Big Bang to account for the universe, then the next question would examine where the Big Bang originated. If the person were to state that it was the product of a universe-generating machine, the question would still ultimately go unanswered, as it would be necessary to then ask what created the universe-generating machine. At some point, the enquirer would have to resolve that there is a point at which he can no longer give an explanation. Therefore, his starting point would be to believe, a priori, that there is a universe-generating machine, the origin of which he cannot explain. 

One of those Cartesian skeptics was the Dutch apostate Jew, Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77), who in 1670 wrote a most damaging book called Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. . . . Spinoza rejected the Scriptures as the prophetic revelation of God, believing them to be crusted over with errors and ancient culture. Not surprisingly, Spinoza strongly rejected the miracles in the Bible as being contrary to the universal laws of nature. . . . Spinoza attempted unsuccessfully to interpret the Bible impartially without any presuppositions (emphasis added).[6]

              In order to place the matter in context, it is helpful to understand that this debate over the age of the earth can be traced to the period of time known as the Enlightenment. During this time, geology was also being formed as a scientific branch of study. A result of the Enlightenment would be the uniformitarian view that the earth had existed for untold ages. This view would ultimately form the foundation for the science of geology. As stated by Mortenson, Spinoza’s attempts to interpret the Bible without using presuppositions would be unsuccessful. With the uniformitarian view came the baggage of presuppositions which disallowed any global flood catastrophe as an explanation for geology. Instead, the unverifiable belief that everything has to be accounted for in a uniform way, excluding major catastrophes and miracles, became a prevalent presupposition.

               It is beneficial to examine what the church leaders prior to Darwin believed about the age of the earth and the flood.   One such leader was Augustine of Hippo (354-430). While he struggled to understand whether the first three days were literal 24-hour periods or not, he certainly understood days four through six to be literal days. His uncertainty about days one through three stemmed from the fact that the sun was not created until day four. For that reason, he regarded the possibility that the first three days occurred instantaneously.  According to Mortenson, Augustine argued that 6,000 years had not yet passed with regard to the creation.[7] Likewise, Augustine believed in a global Noachian flood that destroyed all men and animals except for Noah and his family.

               Martin Luther (1483-1546), in his commentary on Genesis, wrote that the first 11 chapters were to be taken literally. He likewise understood the earth to be approximately 6,000 years old. Luther believed that the animals were created initially as vegetarian, and only become carnivorous after the Fall. He also understood the flood to be a global catastrophe. Mortenson writes of Luther, “This curse was made more severe at the Flood, which destroyed the whole surface of the earth, obliterating among other things the Garden of Eden, which, according to Luther, is the reason we cannot find it today.”[8]

               John Calvin (1509-65) was another Reformer who understood Genesis to be taken literally. Calvin argued for the literal order of events, with light being created on day one. He believed in a 6,000 year earth, as well as a global Flood that destroyed mankind, the animals, and altered the surface of the earth.

               Finally, John Wesley (1701-91) believed that the various rock strata were formed by the general Deluge which occurred about 4,000 years before Christ. Wesley published sermons stating that the original creation was perfect, and the imperfections, weeds, and animal death were a result of Adam’s sin.

Early 19^th Century Commentaries

               The next area to examine is what the commentaries from the early 19^th century stated regarding the age of the earth and the flood. Thomas Hartwell Horne (1780-1862), an Anglican clergyman, produced a three-volume work titled Introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures. Horne defended the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Horne also defended the global Noachian flood and the world-wide flood traditions. However, in his 1856 edition, he did accept the gap theory of creation and a local flood. It is believed that old-earth proponents William Buckland and John Pye Smith were the two primary influences in changing Horne’s view on these subjects.[9] Most of the early 19^th century commentaries defend a literal understanding of the book of Genesis and a global flood.   Mortenson lists these scholars who were popular in the early 19^th century:

Most of the works were recommended by Horne and all were in use in the early decades of the 19^th century, although the most popular were those by the respected scholars Thomas Scott (1747-1821, evangelical Anglican), Matthew Henry (1662-1714, non-conformist), Adam Clarke (1762?-1832, Methodist), George D’Oyly (1778-1846, high church Anglican), Richard Mant (1776-1848, high church Anglican), Andrew Fuller (1754-1815, Baptist), and John Gill (1697-1771, Baptist).[10]

All of these scholars wrote of a literal creation week and a global Noachian flood. However, this began to change by the mid 19th century with the release of Darwin’s Origin of the Species in 1859. As noted by Horne, the influence of those who did not hold to a literal Genesis began to be seen in the mid 19^th century. Prior to the mid 1800’s, Christian theologians understood the book of Genesis as literal history, the earth being created in six literal days and Noah’s flood being a global catastrophe. This time period would mark the turning point away from a young earth of approximately 6,000 years old, to an old earth view. This would cause Christian scholars to reinterpret Genesis to include allegory where necessary to conform to this new uniformitarian understanding of the world. The new foundation of uniformitarianism would influence the study of geology, which would, in turn, influence the way future theologians interpreted the Scripture. The scriptural geologists fought this trend, but in the end uniformitarianism and Darwin’s belief in evolution took hold of science as the new paradigm.

               Christians who hold to the belief that this universe and world are billions of years old do so, in part, as a result of setting aside a belief in miracles. The Bible recounts miraculous events as a result of God intervening in his creation and performing acts that suspend the natural laws. The resurrection of Jesus from the tomb, which is the focal point of Christianity, would be considered to be a miracle if he truly did rise from the dead after three days. The orthodox view of Christianity holds to this event taking place in history and allows for the fact that miracles are the work of God. In like fashion, it is biblically consistent to believe that miraculous processes occurred during the global flood.  As to where miracles began and ended during this catastrophic event is difficult to know with certainty. The naturalist, who denies the existence of miracles, uses such uncertainty to criticize the reality of the flood. In defending the global flood, however, one must allow for the belief that God did intervene in his creation, just as he did elsewhere in the Bible. Such a belief is not inconsistent. Instead, belief in supernatural events is completely consistent with the foundational belief in a supernatural being (God) who has revealed himself in the Scriptures, and who himself, after taking human form, supernaturally bodily rose after being dead for three days. On the contrary, it would be completely inconsistent to assume that the events surrounding the biblical flood could not have involved miracles.

               John Whitcomb describes the belief in miracles surrounding the global flood by stating:

If the basic supernaturalism of the Flood, as set forth in these various passages of Scripture, is to be taken seriously by the evangelical Christian, he must to that extent part company with the standard approach of historical geologists to the past history of our planet. Such an approach completely ignores the Genesis account of this worldwide catastrophe, and seeks to explain the earth’s geologic and paleontologic features in terms of purely naturalistic principles.[11]

Whitcomb lists six areas where God might have supernaturally intervened. 

1.      The design of the ark
2.      The gathering and care of the animals
3.      The uplift of oceanic waters
4.      The release of waters from above
5.      The formation of present ocean basins
6.      The formation of present mountain ranges

While Whitcomb presents these areas involving God’s use of supernatural methods, he is in no way implying that miracles were used throughout the entire process. Instead, he states:

. . . I am not aware of the necessity of appealing to “an endless supplying of miracles to make a universal Flood feasible.” . . . some very important aspects of the Flood involved an outworking of natural laws and processes through the providence (as contrasted with the supernatural intervention) of God.[12]

Therefore, a Christian can believe that God’s hand guided the process and protected the occupants of the Ark, and yet still believe that the majority of the flood events were the result of natural processes. Just like the miracles described elsewhere in the Bible, God’s overriding of natural laws in the process of the flood was not continual, but rather specific acts that were performed for a limited time of duration.

               One of the reasons for the belief in an old earth is the use of various dating methods. The primary dating methods that are used by secular scientists to show that the earth is old are the various radioisotope dating methods. According to Answers in Genesis, radioisotope dating is:

. . . the process of estimating the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements. There are certain kinds of atoms in nature that are unstable and spontaneously change (decay) into other kinds of atoms. For example, uranium will radioactively decay through a series of steps until it becomes the stable element lead. Likewise, potassium decays into the element argon. The original element is referred to as the parent element (in these cases uranium and potassium), and the end result is called the daughter element (lead and argon).[13]

Based on this definition, radioisotope dating occurs when a parent element decays into a daughter element through radioactivity. In other words, the time that it takes for the parent element to decay into the daughter element within a rock determines the date of the rock. There are many types of radioisotope dating methods, such as Argon-Argon, Lead-Lead, Potassium-Argon, and Carbon 14. Each of these measures how much of the daughter element is present in the rock in order to determine its age. However, there are three assumptions that need to be made in order to determine the age. The RATE group, which stands for Radioisotopes And The age of the Earth, lists the three assumptions as follows:

1.       That the rate of decay has been constant throughout time.
2.       That the isotope abundances in the specimen dated have not been altered during its history    by addition or removal of either parent or daughter.
3.       That when the rock first formed it contained a known amount of daughter material.[14]

It is precisely because of these three assumptions that radioisotope dating cannot be necessarily taken as true. Yet the secular scientific community uses these methods to definitively date the various rocks in the fields of geology. Because these dating methods rest on assumptions, however, the dates actually become dependent upon the assumptions of the scientist doing the dating. To better understand these assumptions, one could use the example of an hourglass. In an hourglass, there is a certain amount of sand at the top (assumption one), which then travels downward through small opening (assumption two), and ends up in the bottom (assumption three). In other words, the scientist has to assume how much sand was at the top at the beginning of the process. He would then have to assume the speed at which the sand traveled through the small opening in the middle. Finally, he would have to assume how much sand, if any, was originally in the bottom of the hourglass. A scientist could get many different ages for a rock, depending upon his initial assumptions. This is the reason why creationist organizations such as Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, and the Creation Research Society do not accept the results of these dating methods used by evolutionary scientists.

One geologist, John Woodmorappe, argues that discrepancies in these dating methods are numerous and that they are frequently discarded when they don’t match the expectations of the scientist. He states in his book, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods,

Myth:  Discrepant isotopic dating results are very rare.

Fact: This is the keystone of the myth, propounded by apologists for isotopic dating, which seeks to lead us to believe that discrepant results are “just a tiny number of malfunctioning watches” (e.g., Dalrymple 1984, p. 76). . . . For at least some commonly-used dating methods, there is no question about the fact that ostensibly-accurate age-determining results are clearly in the minority . . . Further proof that discrepant dates cannot be wished away as “just a few bad apples” is provided by the fact that at least some uniformitarian geologists think that the contents of the apple cart are largely bad, and that this judgment applies to “apples” gathered from large areas of the earth’s crust.[15]

               One group of creationist scientists, the RATE group, set out to prove conclusively that radioisotope dating methods do not provide a sure way of dating rocks. As a result of their research, they were able to discover conclusive problems with radiometric dating. One example is helium retention in zircon crystals. Helium is a very slippery element that should quickly be released from zircon crystals. Helium is released at a much faster rate than the nuclear decay rate that occurs in the crystals. According to the research, the helium should be completely released from the crystal in approximately 6,000 – 8,000 years. In analyzing the zircon crystals, there were still small amounts of helium remaining in the crystal. According to RATE, “based on the measured helium retention, statistical analysis gives an estimated age for the zircons of 6,000 + 2,000 years.”[16] The RATE group also discovered that there was still carbon-14 in coal, which should be eliminated from coal according to uniformitarian beliefs. Carbon-14 can only show an age of approximately 50,000 years or less. As coal is believed to be approximately 300 million years old, no carbon-14 should be present.[17]

The RATE group has added valuable research to the growing body of evidence showing that evolutionary dating methods cannot be taken as a fact, but rather are subject to the assumptions that are input into the methods. As a result, radiometric dating methods cannot be used to disprove a young earth. This realization allows for scientists to properly understand geology in light of the catastrophic global flood.

In defending the global flood as described in the Bible, there must be a discussion of the feasibility of Noah’s ark. The skeptic will attack the ark with arguments like the following: The ark could not have been seaworthy based on the biblical description and its dimensions; the ark could not have been made according to the biblical specifications; the animals could not have all fit on the ark, nor could they have known to come to the ark at the right time in pairs; and Noah and his family could not have cared for the needs of the animals. A brief analysis will be made for each of the above claims.

With regard to the seaworthiness of the Ark, one skeptical claim that is made is that the length of the Ark was an engineering impossibility, especially in the days of Noah. In answering this claim, the first factor to understand is that the Ark was not designed or intended to move of its own power. Noah did not need to build an ark that would travel by wind or by oar. Instead, it was only necessary for the Ark to float; it needed only the stability necessary to withstand the wind and waves. John Woodmorappe, in his book Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study[18] states:

There is evidence that ships approaching Ark length have in fact existed in ancient times. The ancient Greeks had a ship named Syracusia (or Alexandris) whose cargo is described by a writer named Moschion (Casson 1971, p. 185) as carrying around 4,000 tons of cargo. . . . The pre-modern Chinese also built giant wooden ships. . . . Other scholars (Levathes 1994, P. 80) are prepared to accept somewhat smaller figures for the size of these ships which nevertheless keep them within the general size range of the Ark.[19]

If Woodmorappe is correct, there would be no reason to assume that Noah was not able to build the Ark to the biblical dimensions, since there have been discovered ships of similar size which were also designed to be self-powered and not just float. It is true that most modern ships are not as large as the Ark, but there have been other architectural discoveries that have baffled the modern experts, such as the Egyptian pyramids.

The next skeptical claim involves how the Ark was made water-proof. According to evolutionary geologists, the Ark could not have been sealed with pitch since this is derived from petroleum, which they argue would not have existed until after the flood as a consequence of the flood itself. Genesis 6:14 says, “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch.”[20] The skeptics argue that this pitch was made of petroleum. Woodmorappe does not agree that the pitch used by Noah had to be petroleum based. Assuming that it did contain petroleum, he states, “Gold (1987) has presented an intriguing theory that oil is abiogenic, and comes from the earth’s mantle.”[21] Tas Walker, a geologist who works for Creation Ministries International, writes:

Most modern geologists know of no other source for it. But coal tar and petroleum are not the only source for pitch. Anyone who takes the time to consult a reasonable dictionary of geology will find that pitch can be extracted by distilling or heating wood. In fact, prior to the rise of the petroleum and coal industries, this was exactly how pitch was made.[22]

Therefore, it is not impossible for Noah to have utilized pitch either from extracting it from within the earth’s mantle as Woodmorappe argues or from extracting it from heating wood. The point is that there are possible solutions to the pitch problem other than extracting it from coal which did not exist until sometime after the flood.

               Another skeptical claim is that the animals themselves would not be able to find their way to the ark, and to do so in pairs. This is not much of a problem for the Christian, however, since he allows God to work supernaturally in the flood process. According to Woodmorappe, “. . . there are many times that God has subsequently performed this miracle of controlling animals’ behaviors, albeit in different contexts.”[23] He cites how God caused the locusts to devour Egypt’s crops, Balaam’s donkey to speak, and the great fish to swallow Jonah and then not digest to him but to eventually spit him back out unharmed. This author agrees that God supernaturally gathered the animals for the ark. Some also believe that God may have instilled the necessary instincts into these specific animals upon their births. In other words, the animals which would come to the Ark instinctively knew to do so at just the right time. This is not unrealistic since birds know, based on the time of year, to fly south for the winter. In addition, these birds know what direction south is in.

               One last skeptical claim to be addressed is that Noah and his family could not have cared for all the animals. There would have been too many animals with too many special diets and other particularities for eight people to care for them during the span of one year.  While there are many areas surrounding the care of the animals, this paper will limit this examination to two areas: feeding the animals and manure disposal. 

 Woodmorappe argues that Noah and his family would have employed labor-saving techniques in tending the animals. One of these techniques could have been the creation of self-feeding devices. While there would have been some animals that required daily feeding, not all the animals would need such attention. As Woodmorappe writes:

Self-feeders are hardly new. For instance, in the 19^th century, self-feeders for pigs resembled the hoppers of mills (Baxter 1984a, p. 17), where dried food went down pipes into the small feeding troughs of individual pigsties. . . . Studies . . . clearly demonstrate the small amounts of time required to feed animals when self-feeders are put to use.[24]

 The second area to address is that of disposing of the manure that would have been accumulated. Woodmorappe argues that some of the manure waste could have been allowed to accumulate with thick animal bedding or in deep pits. This would allow time for Noah’s family to work on removal. Once again, Woodmorappe also argues for labor-saving technologies to address this problem. He writes:

For instance, the use of manure wagons mounted on trolleys . . . is much more efficient than the use of push-carts or wheelbarrows. Many animal houses use large augurs for the expulsion of manure from pits or gutters (Jones 1969). In the absence of electricity, animal labor could have been used to turn the augers.[25]

               Other factors need to be considered when examining Noah and his family’s ability to care for the needs of the animals. For one, Woodmorappe believes that there would only have been approximately 16,000 animals need on the Ark to account for all the species that are in existence today.[26]   This is because the Bible mentions animal kinds, which is not the same as specific species. As an example, there would have been a dog kind, but not every specie of dog that currently exists would have been necessary. In addition, it would have made more sense to only bring young animals on board the Ark. By bringing young animals, they would have been smaller, required less food, and would have produced less waste.  Lastly, certain animals hibernate in the winter. As part of the miracle of God, he could have made the larger animals aboard the Ark go into hibernation, which would once again reduce feeding and waste disposal needs. By allowing for time-saving techniques, the gathering of younger animals, and miracles of instinct and hibernation, the skeptics’ challenges become less of a problem.

               One last area to examine includes a few skeptical claims from an article by Mark Isaac on TalkOrigins, an evolutionary website that promotes the theory of evolution and is critical of creation science. The article, Problems with a Global Flood,[27] was written in an attempt to point out the impossibility of the biblical Noachian flood. While there are refutations for all of Isaac’s claims, only two will be examined as examples. The value in refuting these claims is to show how skeptics can make their best efforts to deny the flood, but in the end they either don’t understand the evidence or intentionally misrepresent it.

               The first attack is the claim that all of the animals would not fit on the ark. In Isaac’s article, he critiques Woodmorappe’s book on Noah’s Ark. According to Woodmorappe’s calculations, after accounting for the animals, food, water, and structural space, there would be approximately five percent of space remaining. Isaac then states:

It is important to take the size of animals into account when considering how much space they would occupy because the greatest number of species occurs in the smallest animals. Woodmorappe performed such an analysis and came to the conclusion that the animals would take up 47% of the ark. In addition, he determines that about 10% of the ark was needed for food (compacted to take as little space as possible) and 9.4% for water (assuming no evaporation or wastage). At least 25% of the space would have been needed for corridors and bracing. Thus, increasing the quantity of animals by more than about 5% would overload the ark.[28]

               Isaac’s claim is that as the animals would grow over the course of the year that they were aboard the ark, there would not have been enough room to accommodate them. However, Isaac’s claim does not take into account two factors. The first factor is that Woodmorappe believes that many of the larger animals would have been very young. Isaac states the following: “The Bible (Gen. 7:2) speaks of ‘the male and his mate,’ indicating that the animals were at sexual maturity.” He believes that because of the word mate, then the animals must have been older. However, this is Isaac’s interpretation, which is not necessarily true. The Bible speaking of mate could just as easily refer to the fact that there were two of each kind, both male and female. The animals would bare offspring in the future, if they were very young. Therefore, they were each other’s mate, although not necessarily at the time of entering into the ark.

               In addition, Isaac does not point out that Woodmorappe discusses that many of the larger animals may have been dwarfs. As Woodmorappe states: “It follows from the fact that most medium to large animals have dwarf counterparts. . . . The taking of dwarf races of large animals on the Ark would have been practical if the full-sized animals could be bred back from the dwarf varieties.”[29] As a result, much less space could have been preserved for the future growth of the animals due to the bringing of dwarfs and very young animals. Isaac fails to address these arguments.

               The second argument against Noah’s ark is that of the dietary requirements of all the animals. Isaac states:

Many animals, especially insects, require special diets. Koalas, for example, require eucalyptus leaves, and silkworms eat nothing but mulberry leaves. For thousands of plant species (perhaps even most plants), there is at least one animal that eats only that one kind of plant. How did Noah gather all those plants aboard, and where did he put them?[30]

Once again, Isaac does not take into account the facts, nor does he allow for other possibilities. According to Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International, koalas do not require the special diet Isaac claims. In his rebuttal to Isaac’s article, he states:

Actually, the koala does not require eucalyptus leaves, but can feed on other things as well, including the Monterey pine, not a native of Australia.  Woodmorappe’s book has a whole chapter on this and other specialised diets! For example, the carnivores on the ark could have been fed reconstituted dried meat and fodder tortoises.[31]

               As a result, Sarfati points out that the koala was not limited in his diet as Isaac believes. In addition, Isaac does not address the creationist position that many of the species that exist today migrated to various parts of the world after the flood. Before the flood, however, these kinds would have lived in a much smaller region of earth, as it existed before the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages. Therefore, animals before the flood would not necessarily have the same dietary needs as the species that exist today. This second attack on the biblical flood also fails to measure up to its claims.

               Modern theories denying the flood have resulted, in large part, from the dissemination and acceptance of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. The majority of church fathers and theologians did not believe in an old earth as is espoused by modern evolutionary belief. This belief became the dominant perspective after the time of Darwin, when the scriptural geologists began to lose the battle to those who would compromise of the plain teaching of Genesis. Therefore, the defense of the biblical flood depends to a great degree on the defense of literal creation and young earth theory. The RATE group has determined that radiometric dating methods cannot be relied upon to give an accurate date since these dates are produced only with the addition of assumptions. Likewise, specific attacks on the feasibility of Noah’s Ark fade away when one considers a number of possibilities that skeptics tend to overlook.  

               The Christian belief in miracles lies at the heart of the evidence for the biblical account of the flood. If the Bible is truly God’s authoritative Word, then ignoring the fact that God works in his creation in supernatural ways will cause one to fall into skepticism and to live a life of inconsistency. While he espouses a belief in the absence of supernatural activity, thus denying the global flood, he must also live with the realization that many dating methods affirm a young earth and universe.[32] On the other hand, if one allows for God to work in his creation, using miracles at various times, there is complete consistency with the visible evidence and the plain teaching found in the Scriptures.

DeYoung, Don. Thousands . . . Not Billions. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2005.

Mortenson, Terry. The Great Turning Point. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2004.

New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition (NASB). Anaheim, CA: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1995.

Thompson, Bert. Creation Compromises. Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, Inc., 2000.

Vardiman, Larry, Andrew Snelling, and Eugene Chaffin. Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative. El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 2000.

Whitcomb, John. The World That Perished. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1988.

Woodmorappe, John. Noah's Ark: a Feasibility Study. El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1996.

________The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods. El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1999.ref_end

 Answers in Genesis, Hodge, Bodie. "How old is the earth?" available from http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/05/30/how-old-is-earth#fnMark_1_21_1; accessed 18 January 2008.

 Answers in Genesis, Does Radiometric Dating Prove The Earth Is Old? available from http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-radiometric-dating-prove; accessed 15 January 2008.

 Answers in Genesis, Get Answers: Creation Compromises. available from http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/compromise.asp; accessed 15 January 2008.

 Creation Ministries International, The Pitch for Noah's Ark. available from http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1265/; accessed 17 January 2008.

Talk.Origins Archive, Isaac, Mark. "Problems with a Global Flood." available from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html; accessed 17 January 2008.

The True.Origin Archive, Sarfati, Jonathan. "Problems with a Global Flood? (a rebuttal of Mark Isaac's "Problems with a Global Flood)." available from http://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp; accessed 18 January 2008.

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