Responding to BioLogos’ Opponents and Their Tactics

In June 2016, an article was posted on the BioLogos website (which promotes old-earth evolutionary “creation”) titled, “Flood Geology and the Grand Canyon: What Does the Evidence Really Say?”1 Written by four professing Christian scientists, including three geologists, the article purports to dissect and respond succinctly against biblical and geological evidence for the global flood cataclysm as recorded in Genesis 6–8 and assembled and published by creationist geologists.

In the opening paragraph of their article, these scientists, who champion the conventional (secular) scientific narrative in their article and their book, ironically state that “AiG, led by popular creationist Ken Ham, has provided well-financed momentum to the YEC movement.” Who is well funded? The scientific majority for 200 years has enjoyed millions of dollars of government and university funding for their research. On the other hand, it is truly astounding that young-earth creationists have accomplished so much research with almost no funding by comparison and with evolutionists making every effort to prevent students from hearing creationist geologists’ evidence in favor of their evolutionary interpretation of the rocks and to prevent creationist research.2

Much of the claimed geological evidence against the flood is found in the Grand Canyon, which is widely publicized as exhibit “A” proof of evolutionary geology and millions of years. Consequently, flood geologists have focused their research in the Grand Canyon to reclaim and promote the Grand Canyon as exhibit “A” for biblical creation and the global flood cataclysm.

Unfortunately, in the ensuing years, this BioLogos article has been influential in confusing and/or convincing unsuspecting theologians, biblical and other scholars, and inquiring informed lay people. Without the needed background and training in geology, they have not had the ability to “see through” the article’s claims. Thus, a detailed response was needed to dissect the opponents’ article and correct its erroneous claims to “open the eyes” of those who have unwittingly been wrongly convinced.

My detailed response requires two approaches. The first, sadly, is to expose who the authors of this BioLogos article are and the tactics they use. This is necessary so that readers will be equipped to understand and receive the spirited response when, in the second and third articles in this series, these opponents’ claimed geological evidence against the global flood cataclysm is soundly refuted.

The second objective of the BioLogos web article was to promote the more expansive treatment of the same topic in a book to which these four authors had contributed. Also published in 2016, that book, The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth, Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon?, was promoted heavily with great fanfare to both Christians and the general public. The book comes from Kregel, a well-known and respected Christian publisher, and it was coauthored by an impressive list of 11 geologists and scientists, eight of whom are self-professing Christians. Added to that were endorsements (inside the book and on the back cover) from highly respected and well-known theologians (including Wayne Grudem, C. John Collins, and Ken Keathley).

With such respected authors, endorsements, and publisher, it would be hard for many Christians not to be readily drawn into receiving this book and its contents as scientifically and biblically above reproach.3 But careful readers should have had at least some “red flags” arise in their minds! We begin here by exposing these opponents and their tactics. In the next two articles in this series, we will consider their geological “evidence.”

“Red Flags”4

How is it that Christians would welcome the support of non-Christians to attack the Bible-based views of fellow Christians?

The first “red flag” that should have arisen in the mind of a Bible-believing Christian is that this book is unashamedly coauthored by a group of eight Christians and three non-Christian professional earth scientists. In both the preamble to their web article and in the book, they make a point of emphasizing that the coauthors are not all Christians! How is it that Christians would welcome the support of non-Christians to attack the Bible-based views of fellow Christians (some of whom, including myself, have a PhD in geology with years of research experience in the Grand Canyon)?

The Apostle Paul sternly warned Christians in 2 Corinthians 6:14–16, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God.”

Paul is not prohibiting collaborations among scientists to make discoveries about God’s world, but his warning is relevant to this case of Christians in science linking arms with unbelievers in their attacks on God’s Word! And yet, that’s exactly what this book and their web article are doing, namely, attacking God’s eyewitness testimony of the literal details of earth history, such as the global flood cataclysm that are attested to be true by Jesus himself. In Matthew 24:36–39, Jesus compares his second coming to judge the whole earth to the judgment of the global flood of Noah’s day.

It couldn’t be any clearer that these geologists, who claim in print to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior, deny his unmistakable testimony about Noah’s flood as a literal global cataclysm. This revelation alone calls into question every claim in their book and their web article.

A second “red flag” is that the foreword to this book is written by a geologist who is known as an atheist. And why is this book sponsored and promoted by secular professional societies such as the Geological Society of America and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists?

This concerted effort by secular geologists to “counter” the work of creationist geologists clearly indicates that they are worried about the influence on Christians by creationist geologists who are demonstrating that the evidence in the Grand Canyon supports what God’s Word teaches about the global flood cataclysm, rather than the millions of years of supposedly slow geological processes.

And a third “red flag” is the endorsement of this book by theologians and biblical scholars who are supposed to be upholding the truths of God’s Word rather than pulling them down. Do they not also claim to trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior who always spoke the truth? After all, if Jesus was wrong about Noah’s flood engulfing the whole earth globally, then how can he be trusted to be “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6)? Indeed, Jesus rebuked the Jewish leaders who boasted of their knowledge of God’s Word when he said, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46–47).

The usual default defense by many of these theologians, biblical scholars, and other Christians who accept the millions of years is “how can the majority of scientists be wrong?” However, we need to remember that truth is not (or at least in Christians’ minds should not be) determined by popular vote. Jesus declared in Matthew 7:13–14, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” And in fact, the majority of scientists have been wrong in their dogmatic pronouncements many times in the history of science.

Additionally, as quoted above from 2 Corinthians 6:14–16, Paul insists that fellowship with unbelievers on biblical and spiritual matters should be avoided and not tolerated because they are hostile to God’s Word. Indeed, Jesus himself declared “whoever is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23). And James reminded us that “friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4). It is thus biblical to say that geologists and scientists are not neutral, especially when it comes to the truth of God’s Word. These theologians and biblical scholars who endorsed this book and its promotion of the conventional secular view of earth’s history have not heeded the warning in light of the fact that the default position of secular scientists is rejection of God’s Word.

Sadly, these Bible scholars do not recognize the starting assumption of secular geologists when they look at the rocks and seek to explain how they formed in the unobservable, unrepeatable past. They assume that only today’s slow-and-gradual geological processes of erosion and sedimentation can be used in any explanation for what they observe. Hence, they have ruled out Noah’s flood before they ever look at the geological evidence.

Furthermore, these theologians are ignoring the warning of the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 3:3–6, “Kowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’ For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” This description exactly matches the “all things continue as they have” mantra of secular geologists as they deliberately overlook the global flood cataclysm.

Just because these Christian geologists agree with their secular colleagues does not make their assertions about the earth’s past and the geological history of the Grand Canyon true.

Just because these Christian geologists agree with their secular colleagues does not make their assertions about the earth’s past and the geological history of the Grand Canyon true. Christians are instructed to “test everything” (1Thessalonians 5:21). These theologians and biblical scholars should have first asked themselves whether the claims of these professing Christian and non-Christian geologists stand up to scrutiny in the light of the whole counsel of God and especially his eyewitness account of the earth’s past.

Egregious Errors

As if these “red flags” are not enough, just a brief survey of only the book’s foreword and first two chapters reveals repeated egregious factual errors in the claims being made. Repeatedly the authors erect straw man arguments that they can then easily demolish.

For example, it is stated on page 10 of the book that “it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that religious opposition began to be voiced against the antiquity of the Earth.” This is a demonstrable factual error because this claim ignores the opposition of the scriptural geologists in the early 1800s (nineteenth century), as documented by Terry Mortenson in his book The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology—Before Darwin.5

Techniques?

Then on page 11, it is stated that “geologists use many of the same scientific methods and techniques that have given us our televisions, microwave ovens, and cell phones.” This is a half-truth. Sure, geologists use microscopes to examine the details in rocks, but through those same microscopes, geologists are not observing how the rocks formed in the past. The rocks are the results of past geological processes, but we only observe these rocks in the present. Geologists never witnessed the rocks forming, no matter how many of today’s scientific methods and techniques they use. Rather, the geologists make assumptions about what happened in the past based on what’s happening in the present. But those assumptions are not provable because geologists cannot experimentally test the past. Most geologists and their theologian followers fail to recognize or admit the significant difference between the observable, repeatable science (in physics, chemistry, and biology) that gives us the above-mentioned technologies or cures for disease and the sciences (such as geology and paleontology) that are trying to reconstruct the unobservable, unrepeatable events of the past that shaped our planet.6

In the very next sentence, it is claimed, “The petroleum that powers our automobiles has historically been discovered using methods arrived at wholly from an old earth viewpoint.” This is a serious distortion of history. Oil was first found leaking out of the ground! After that fortuitous discovery, the pockets of petroleum (oil fields) exploited to fuel our cars have been discovered by geophysical surveys to find potential sites where oil may have pooled. This is followed by drilling into those potential oil pools. But none of these events and activities, even remotely, has anything to do with the belief that the earth is billions of years old. This claim is deceitful hand-waving, designed to convince the undiscerning who do not have the knowledge to critically evaluate and reject the claim.

Ignoring the Literature (Including Scripture)?

And then we have the foreword’s atheist geologist telling us on page 11 that “an old earth view is actually more in line with biblical teaching.” How would he know (as an unbeliever who is by nature against God’s Word) when the Bible never mentions or even hints at millions of years? His Christian coauthors nowhere in this book quote chapter and verse where God’s Word refers to millions of years. To the contrary, we are told very clearly in Exodus 20:11 that God’s creation days in Genesis 1 are the same as our workdays, and this declaration was written by God’s finger in the Ten Commandments on the stone tablets (Exodus 31:18). Our workdays are certainly not millions of years long! Adam was made on the sixth literal day of history. Furthermore, there is no way to fit millions of years into the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11.7

In their chapter purporting to present “What Is Flood Geology?,” the two Christian geologist authors claim on page 22: “Catastrophists, or diluvialists (the original flood geologists), did not necessarily believe the Earth is young, but held to the view that the Earth’s history was shaped by one or more violent episodes, with Noah’s flood being perhaps the most recent.” This misleading statement is true of early nineteenth century old-earth geologists but ignores the staunch stand taken at that time by the “scriptural geologists” defending a young earth and global flood, as thoroughly documented by Terry Mortenson’s book mentioned above.

Creationist geologists are often accused by their opponents of being ignorant of the scientific literature, which is a demonstrably false accusation. Rather, as demonstrated by this example, it is their old-earth opponents, such as these two Christian geologists, who repeatedly fail to read and cite the creationist geological literature.

Indeed, it is somewhat significant that on page 23, where these two Christian geologists are presenting the modern history of the flood geology movement, they only refer to John Whitcomb and Henry Morris’ The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications (1961), then PhD geologist Steve Austin’s Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (1994), followed by Tom Vail’s “coffee-table book” Grand Canyon: A Different View (2003), as if the latter is also a flood geology textbook. While they occasionally refer in their endnotes (which hardly anyone consults) to PhD geologist Andrew Snelling’s Earth Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation and the Flood (2009),8 they fail to interact with it in the book. But it is the most recent “textbook” on creationist and flood geology and discusses many aspects of Grand Canyon geology.

Misrepresentations

Coupled with these factual errors and straw man arguments are misrepresentations. Whether these misrepresentations are deliberate to bolster their fallacious arguments or the result of culpable ignorance, only God knows. But such misrepresentations are demonstrably false. If these old-earth geologists actually read the creationist literature, they wouldn’t make them. But then their claims would fall apart.

Define Create

For example, in the separate text box on page 23, the two Christian geologist authors endeavor to bolster their Christian credentials by stating that “there are many who believe that God created the universe (technically making them “creationists”) over a long period of time.” But are these old-earth geologists technically “creationists”? It depends on what is meant by “God created.” These authors never define these terms.

In fact, they blithely state that the view that “God created the universe . . . over a long period of time . . . is consistent with conventional geologic understanding.” Where in the conventional (that is, secular) geological literature is it ever mentioned that “God created”? This false claim only serves to deceive the unwary.

God’s creation work in Genesis 1 was supernatural, that is, beyond finite man’s capabilities to describe and explain scientifically.

Furthermore, what they really mean by “God created” is that God used cosmic, geological, and biological evolution to “create.” At best, this is theistic evolution. But really it is deism in which God starts the process initially and then leaves it to itself! The reality is that several of the authors of this book are featured on the BioLogos website that unashamedly promotes theistic evolution as if it were much the same as biblical creation. It is not. In biblical creation, God declares that he spoke, and it was created (Genesis 1 and Psalm 33:6–9), just as by his spoken word, Jesus created wine instantly and supernaturally from water (John 2:1–11). God’s creation work in Genesis 1 was supernatural, that is, beyond finite man’s capabilities to describe and explain scientifically.

Ignoring History

However, not only do these authors deceitfully misrepresent themselves, but they also misrepresent others in order to bolster their false narrative. On page 24, they state, “The perceived disconnect between modern geology and the Bible emerged essentially from a small group of textual literalists in the early twentieth century. When viewed in relation to the beliefs of many earlier Church theologians and the first Renaissance scientists . . . the common claim that all biblically minded people believe in a young Earth has little historical precedence.”

The audacity of that sweeping false claim is breathtaking. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that theologians like Calvin and Luther were young-earth creationists who regarded Genesis 1–11 as literal history in which God created in six literal days just 6,000 or so years ago and subsequently destroyed the entire earth with the global flood cataclysm.9 Furthermore, many Renaissance and later scientists openly believed exactly the same: Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), Robert Boyle (1627–1691), Nicholas Steno (1638–1686), Thomas Burnet (1635?–1715), Isaac Newton (1643–1727), John Woodward (1665–1722), William Whiston (1667–1752), Richard Kirwan (1733–1812), Michael Faraday—to name a few.10

Next, these two Christian geologist authors misrepresent the biblical positions and scientific models of creationist geologists when they claim on page 24, as if proposed by flood geology: “No rain fell on the earth . . . before Noah’s flood (Genesis 2:5).” They cite no creationist source to substantiate that claim. That is because the reality is that no mainstream creationist organization or biblically informed creationist geologist believes or states that.11

In the next breath, these two Christian geologist authors add to this misrepresentation by commenting on the vapor canopy model. At least they recognize that “flood geologists have grown increasingly skeptical of this idea,” which is another half-truth because no flood geologist now holds to that model. So why mention the vapor canopy model? It is surely to hold up flood geologists to ridicule, which is nothing but an unseemly tactic.

Mountains of Ararat

Yet another misrepresentation of creationist geologists is when these two Christian geologist authors maintain on pages 24–25 that flood geologists teach that Noah’s ark landed on “Mount Ararat” and then these old-earth geologists point out “more precisely” that Genesis 8:4 states that the ark landed on “the mountains of Ararat.” How could these two old-earth Christian geologists, who promote themselves vigorously in this chapter as orthodox Bible-believers, so blatantly misrepresent what flood geologists say? Flood geologists (and other young-earth creationists) have repeatedly pointed out for decades that the Bible does not say that the ark landed on Mount Ararat but rather in the mountains of the region of Ararat (or Urartu, as was called in ancient times).12

These two Christian old-earth geologists are either inexcusably ignorant of young-earth literature, or they intentionally set up for their unsuspecting readers a straw man argument that they could easily knock down to lampoon flood geologists. Once again, these two Christian geologist authors assiduously avoid documenting their straw man claim lest their duplicity be self-exposed.

Yes, ICR’s Dr. John Morris in his early days after graduation (1970s) climbed Mount Ararat to search for Noah’s ark, but he never claimed that it landed “on Mount Ararat.” Of course, Mount Ararat is in the mountains of Ararat, and it is the highest mountain today in that area. So it is very understandable that people would assume that the ark might be somewhere on that mountain, especially since there have been many claims of people seeing it there long before John Morris’ expeditions. However, then and since, other PhD-trained flood geologists have strongly argued against all claims of Noah’s ark being found on Mount Ararat.13 After all, how could the ark have landed on day 150 (less than halfway through the flood) on an active volcano and survived there for the rest of the flood year? There are good geological reasons to conclude that Mount Ararat is a dormant volcano that formed after the flood and last erupted in 1840.14

We haven’t even gotten to the supposed “meat” of this book, but in this brief exposé of the introductory two chapters, three more straw man arguments will further demonstrate the dishonest tactics of this cadre of 11 authors.

Ignoring the Answers

As representative of the supposed “multiple scientific arguments . . . against a global interpretation of Noah’s flood” that they claim “have been made for centuries,” the two Christian geologist authors of chapter 2 on page 25 offer two questions. They are—“How could the ark carry all the animal species on Earth?” and “How did llamas from South America or penguins from Antarctica migrate to and from the ark?”

Yes, these objections have been made for centuries, but they have been repeatedly answered for centuries!15 Indeed, since such objections have been repeatedly answered, if these two Christian geologist authors were being honest with their readers, they should never have added them to this book. Instead, they raise these questions and then comment no further, allowing their questions to appear as unanswerable. To keep raising such questions as scientific objections deceives uninformed readers.

Animals on the Ark

However, the Bible answers the first supposedly unanswerable question. The ark was never built to carry all the animal species on earth, but rather only two representatives of each “kind” of land-dwelling animal and bird. We are repeatedly told this by God in Genesis 6:19–20, 7:2–3, 8, 14–16. Thus, this unanswerable question has been repeatedly answered by pointing out the Hebrew word min is not equivalent to the “species” of modern scientific taxonomic classification. Research on animals in the wild and in captivity indicates that the biblical “kind” is generally equivalent to the family level in conventional taxonomy, and so, nearly all species can interbreed within their “kind.”16 Thus, when the numbers of “kinds” of land animals and birds are determined, then the numbers of land animals and birds needing to be taken aboard the ark is only about 16,000 at most, and those could easily fit onto the ark with the dimensions given in Genesis 6.17

As for llamas and penguins migrating to the ark from South America and Antarctica respectively, two biblical considerations provide the answer. First, prior to the flood, all the animals were on the one supercontinent. On creation day three, God said, “‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so” (Genesis 1:9). Since the waters were in one place, by implication, the land was in the one place.18 So South America and Antarctica didn’t yet exist as today’s separate continents before the flood because they were the end result of the catastrophic plate tectonics during the flood, as “the fountains of the great deep broke open” (Genesis 7:11). Thus, it was easy for these animals to migrate to the ark because they all lived on the one supercontinent where the ark was also built.

Second, Noah didn’t have to “round up” the animals to bring them to the ark. The biblical text specifically says it was God who brought the animals to Noah to go aboard the ark. Genesis 6:20 says, “Two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive,” and Genesis 7:9 says they did. Furthermore, most of the needed animals may have been living close to where the ark was built, especially since the climate in the pre-flood world was likely different (generally moderate) to what we now experience in the post-flood world with its very different climate zones.

So how then did llamas and penguins migrate from the ark to South America and Antarctica respectively? Llamas walked there and penguins swam! During the post-flood ice age, due to the rapidly changing climate after the flood, sea levels dropped because of evaporation of ocean water, which was then dumped as snow inland at high latitudes to build the ice sheets and glaciers.19 As a consequence, there were land bridges between today’s continents, for example, across the Bering Strait. Animals such as llamas (and other animals and people) used them to migrate from Asia across to the Americas in just a few decades. As swimming birds, penguins migrated south by walking and swimming. Even conventional scientists accept that these land bridges existed in the past and that floating vegetation mats also aided animal and bird migrations.20 So these questions are simply nonissues because all scientists need to answer them. But, again, these old-earth Christian geologist authors misled their readers by these questions.

Oil and Pitch

These two Christian geologist authors on page 26 next raise the so-called “problem of oil.” After all, in Genesis 6:14, we are told the ark was coated in “pitch,” which they claim must be bitumen derived from oil. And that supposedly takes millions of years to form when microscopic organisms get buried deeply under thousands of feet of sedimentary layers.

Noah did not need bitumen or tar derived from oil seeps.

However, this supposed canard has been repeatedly answered, which they would know if only they had read the flood geology literature. For centuries before oil and bitumen were discovered, there was a well-known “recipe” to make pitch.21 Take the sap from pine trees and boil it, then add in the charcoal made from burnt pinewood. Those who made pitch like this were called “pitchers,” which became their surnames. So Noah did not need bitumen or tar derived from oil seeps. In addition, experimentally, we know oil does not take millions of years to form.22

Garden of Eden Location

Then finally in this brief survey of just the foreword and first two chapters, the issue of the location of the garden of Eden is discussed on pages 27–28. Again, their objection has been answered multiple times already.23 But at least here, the authors get one thing right, namely, the location of the garden of Eden according to flood geology, depicted in their Figure 2.5 on page 28 as buried under thousands of feet of Phanerozoic, fossil-bearing, sedimentary layers. After all, God made it very clear in Genesis 6:13 that “I will destroy them with the earth.” The global flood cataclysm was sent to destroy the earth’s surface to rid it of its corruption. So the garden of Eden was literally washed away and buried beneath flood-deposited sedimentary layers. Indeed, because the earth’s surface was totally destroyed by the global flood cataclysm, we have no idea where the garden was located in the pre-flood world relative to the post-flood world we live in today.

However, these two Christian geologists declare that location buried under thousands of feet of Phanerozoic layers is contradicted by the description of the four rivers in Genesis 2. They then endeavor to demonstrate that they have identified the four rivers described in Genesis 2 in the geography of modern Mesopotamia, namely, the Tigris and Euphrates are the same, the Pishon is the abandoned dry channel of Wadi Batin, and the Gihon is probably the modern river Karun. They state that these “rivers” merge at or near the Persian Gulf where the garden of Eden thus must have been located.

Yet these two Christian geologists have again failed to read the Genesis account carefully, essentially “playing fast and loose” with the text. Genesis 2:10 specifically states: “A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” These modern rivers they have denoted as the biblical counterparts do not start as one river and divide into these four rivers! That biblical fact alone destroys their whole argument. Instead, they erect a straw man to deliberately mischaracterize the flood geologists’ view on Eden so they can then hold it up to ridicule.

If only they had first read what flood geologists actually have written about this issue.24 They would have readily recognized that Noah and his sons named rivers in the new post-flood world according to those that reminded them of rivers in the pre-flood world. After all, explorers from the old world of Europe did exactly that in the new world. For example, there is the Thames River in Connecticut, USA, and there are the Severn and Avon Rivers in New South Wales, Australia, all named after rivers in England.25

Instead, these two Christian geologists assert (and illustrate with a half-page diagram) on page 28 that Genesis 2 indicates that the garden of Eden is sitting on top of over six miles of sedimentary rock. But then, holding flood geologists up to ridicule, they assert that “according to the Flood geology model,” Eden was flooded and buried under six miles of sediment and then “rivers re-formed to ‘mimic’ the old landscape, whereupon re-settlers gave rivers and places the same names—all to accommodate a scenario that the Bible never claims”!

However, inconveniently for this deliberate ridicule, flood geologists have never claimed that the rivers in modern Mesopotamia were named after all the rivers that flowed out of Eden, nor that the garden is under six miles of sediment under the Persian Gulf. And in any case, the Bible states the four named rivers of Eden flowed and divided out from one river, whereas today’s Tigris and Euphrates Rivers start separately and flow to join in the Persian Gulf, the exact opposite of what the Bible clearly says in Genesis 2:10. So if these two Christian geologists cannot be trusted to accurately report what the Bible clearly claims and what the flood geology model is (but instead misrepresent it), how can any of their other old-earth arguments against flood geology be trusted?

Conclusion

Before responding to the geological claims in their BioLogos web article “Flood Geology and the Grand Canyon: What Does the Evidence Really Say?” purporting to critique the evidence for the biblical global flood cataclysm, it was crucial to first expose the tactics of these opponents. After all, their claims are framed according to those tactics. Knowing their tactics helps readers to not be alarmed or persuaded by their claims.

Whatever they claim about being Christian geologists is clearly subservient to their unwavering commitment to the old-earth position of their secular (non-Christian) colleagues.

Whatever they claim about being Christian geologists is clearly subservient to their unwavering commitment to the old-earth position of their secular (non-Christian) colleagues. They even claim on page 29 that in the geology of the earth “there is no surviving record of a global flood.” This is actually only an assumption by “modern geology” based on the rejection of the surviving, inerrant, written record in Genesis. They admit that only natural explanations are allowed, as they ask questions and seek answers by testing, “not tests of whether nature is superintended by a divine Creator, but tests of whether nature has behaved in one particular way or another.”

They do not admit their assumptions, claiming instead that their conclusions “grew out of observations and testable hypotheses derived from studying the Earth and its surrounding solar system with questions unfettered by preconceived notions of what the answers should be”! In other words, God’s eyewitness account in his infallible Word is not admissible. Is that not an anti-biblical, anti-Christian posture, as it almost denies that Jesus is the truth when he quoted from Genesis as real history about the flood being global?

Instead, these Christian geologists have adopted as their starting assumption that only present-day geological processes (for example, erosion, sedimentation, volcanism) at present-day rates can be used to explain the formation of the earth and its rock layers. But this is the very philosophy of “all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” that the Apostle Peter sternly warned us about (2 Peter 3:3–6).

Moreover, they accuse flood geologists of starting with answers to work out questions to be asked and designed only to support their predetermined conclusions. Actually, flood geologists believe and trust God’s inerrant Word and his eyewitness testimony of the earth’s history as their starting point. Based on God’s testimony, they ask themselves, “Since the details in God’s Word are true, what evidence would we expect to find?” They then explore the world’s geology and are not surprised when the evidence in God’s world confirms what we read in his Word.

Indeed, flood geologists have published the answers they have found, but as this brief survey of the opening sections of this book has found, these old-earth opponents have not read and acknowledged those answers that confirm the truth of God’s Word. Instead, they reject the plain teaching of Scripture and misrepresent flood geologists to supposedly embarrass them and raise straw men so they can blow them down and make flood geologists look like ignorant fools.

So be warned and don’t be fooled by these obfuscations into believing their claims. Instead, “examine all things.” And that’s exactly what we’ll do as we look closely into their geological “evidence” that supposedly refutes what flood geologists have presented as evidence in the Grand Canyon that is consistent with what God’s eyewitness testimony in Genesis 6–8 teaches about the global flood cataclysm.