Know the Bible

E -Letter

The reason why many geologists believe the earth to be of great age is because of their commitment to the principle of uniformitarianism, the philosophy that “the present is the key to the past.” According to this idea, which has been dominant in geological thinking for 150 years, present processes operating essentially at present rates are believed to explain all the geological phenomena now seen in the earth’s crust. If the present rates of sedimentation, erosion, evaporation of salt lakes, and growth of coral reefs have been those which produced the great formations with which they have been identified in the earth’s crust, then an immense amount of time must have been required.

However, the uniformity principle is being seriously questioned today, not only by creationists but also by many evolutionary geologists. There seem to be no processes taking place in the present that are competent to explain the corresponding formations of the past. For example, the evaporative processes which are producing salt deposits today are leaving salt beds which are both qualitatively different and quantitatively trivial in comparison to the great thicknesses of pure salt and gypsum found in the geological strata. The same is true of coral and limestone formations. Great continent-wide formations of sandstone and shale are quite incommensurate with any beds of sand and silt being deposited by modern rivers. Modern volcanoes are in no way competent to produce the great thicknesses and region-wide areas of volcanic rocks found in the earth’s crust. Modern rivers could never produce the deep canyons or the thick beds of alluvium through which they flow. Modern glaciers could never produce the continental glacial deposits of the past. The present is not the key to the past. Catastrophism, not uniformitarianism, is the only sufficient explanation for the geologic column. [End of quote]

1. Creation. If you travel back in time to just six days after creation began, and just six minutes after the creation of Adam, you might assume the earth to be of great age and Adam to have had history. You’d be wrong on both accounts. Uniformitarianism rejects the reality of creation.2. The worldwide flood in Noah’s day. Nothing in the present can compare to the horrendously catastrophic results of a worldwide flood when the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened. Rain poured out on the earth for forty days and forty nights. Genesis 7:11-12:

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Uniformitarianism rejects this reality. Uniformitarianism is built on a foundation of unbelief. But be assured the record says yes to both supernatural accounts listed above.

Billions of large fossilized orthocone (cone-shaped) nautiloids are entombed in a six foot thick layer near the base of the massive Redwall Limestone formation. This extraordinary layer persists throughout the Grand Canyon region, northern Arizona and southern Nevada. The fossil bed occupies an area of at least 5,700 square miles and contains an average of one fossilized nautiloid per square yard.

The nautiloids are ancient cephalopods, relatives of the modern-day squid and octopus. Nautiloids were large creatures, with an average shell length of over eighteen inches, with some approaching five feet in length. Nautiloid fossils are observed almost everywhere in the Grand Canyon where good layering surfaces are exposed to this relatively thin bed within the Redwall Limestone.

The existence of the nautiloid fossils in such enormous quantities in such a relatively thin layer that spreads throughout the Canyon area is further evidence that the layers of the Grand Canyon are in fact flood deposits – deposits from a flood of truly catastrophic proportions. Such a flood is described in the Bible, the Flood of Noah’s day. [End of quote]

A new study of Idaho’s Box Canyon suggests that the canyon was formed rapidly by “a megaflood,” not slowly as previously thought. A box canyon is generally a narrow, flat-bottomed canyon with step walls, closed off at one end. The standard story is that seeping groundwater slowly erodes the canyon away over a long time.

A research team studying the canyon, however, determined that slow-moving water could not have transported the large boulders found downstream, so they have concluded that a “megaflood” (from nearby lakes) carved the canyon in a relatively short period.

Secular scientists are crediting more and more geological marvels to the work of catastrophes, such as megafloods. [End of quote]

It should also be pointed out that uniformitarian geologists have long allowed for the occasional (localized) catastrophic event. However, modern historical geology grew out of this general “slow and gradual” principle, which is still the predominantly preferred framework of explanation for any geological formation. Nevertheless, the evidence for catastrophic formation is so pervasive that there is a growing body of neocatastrophists. But because of their naturalistic bias, they prefer, of course, to reject the explanation of the Genesis (global) flood.

However, a cataclysmic globe-covering (and fossil-forming) flood would have eroded huge quantities of sediment, and deposited them elsewhere. Many organisms would have been buried very quickly and fossilized. Also, recent catastrophes show that violent events like the flood described in Genesis could form many rock layers very quickly. The Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington state produced 25 feet (7.6 meters) of finely layered sediment in a single afternoon! [End of quote]

There are many examples where the dating methods give “dates” that are wrong for rocks of known historical age. One example is rock from a dacite lava dome at Mount St. Helens volcano. Although we know the rock was formed in 1986, the rock was “dated” by the potassium-argon (K-Ar) method as .35 ± .05 million years old. Another is the K-Ar “dating” of five andesite lava flows from Mt. Nguaruhoe in New Zealand. The “dates” ranged from <0.27 to 3.5 million years — but one lava flow occurred in 1949, three in 1954, and one in 1975! [End of quote]

1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 

3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.