A Flood of Reason

Being a born again Christian is not an intellectual pursuit. It is not the result of examining evidence and analyzing data. It comes through faith. It is faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that saves a person. But Christian faith is not blind faith. It is based on understanding and believing God’s Word. And the Bible confirms that nature itself proves God’s existence.  --Source http://beginningandend.com/scientists-confirm-biblical-account-of-the-fountains-of-the-deep/

 I have often wondered about the description of Noah's flood found in Genesis 7.  Skeptics have long contended that this story is a myth, that there was never any 40 days of rain that resulted in water covering the highest mountaintops.  It is physically impossible, they say, for this to occur.  Scientifically unprovable, because there is no way to replicate the results.  Morally wrongheaded, they feel, because they can't imagine a loving God pouring out His wrath on the entire population of the earth, save eight souls who happened to be on the only sea-going vessel in the world at that time.  Oh, and the animals, too, that these eight people were able to herd into one place and pen up inside what must have looked like a three-story warehouse, or big box store.

I will admit that I have trouble envisioning this happening.  Not that my God is not big enough.  He most certainly is.  The part that I had trouble wrapping my mind around was the last half of Genesis 7:11, "...On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened."  Some translations read, "the fountains of the deep."  So it was not just 40 days of torrential worldwide rain, but some additional flooding from underground reservoirs.

In my mind, this is hard to imagine.  All of the sources of all of the rivers on earth have not produced enough water to raise the levels of the ocean more than the one-tenth of a centimeter that has the global warming enthusiasts in a tizzy.  So what does it mean?

The problem is that Noah was not a scientist.  He was probably not even a very good historian.  Look, if there were a world-wide apocolypse today, and you and I were the only survivors, how would we be able to document it for future generations?  Would you have the scientific knowledge to explain the cause and effect of what happened?  Would I be able to accurately describe the events in a historical word picture that people 3000 years later would understand?  I doubt it.  And if you are honest, you would agree with me.

This week I read of a scientific discovery.  According to Andy Coghlan, Environmental reporter for "New Scientist" magazine (dated June 12, 2014),

A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans has been discovered deep beneath the Earth's surface. The finding could help explain where Earth's seas came from.

The water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 700 kilometres underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth's surface and its core.

The huge size of the reservoir throws new light on the origin of Earth's water. Some geologists think water arrived in comets as they struck the planet, but the new discovery supports an alternative idea that the oceans gradually oozed out of the interior of the early Earth.

"It's good evidence the Earth's water came from within," says Steven Jacobsen of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The hidden water could also act as a buffer for the oceans on the surface, explaining why they have stayed the same size for millions of years.

The underground water reserves, according to the article, contain a volume of water up to three times the volume of all of the oceans combined.

This explanation sheds new light, in my mind, about the problem of Genesis 7:11.  Apparently, I am not alone.  A website run by Beginning and End Ministries has an article entitled, "Scientists confirm Biblical account of "Fountains of the Deep.""

In yet another confirmation of the Bible’s accuracy, scientists have now confirmed what Scripture refers to as “the fountains of the deep.” In the days of Noah and the Ark, these large pools of water beneath the Earth’s crust burst forth onto the surface providing the massive amounts of water needed for the global flood judgment. What has once been a source of skepticism and mockery for those who doubt the Bible, has now been confirmed by secular scientists, again showing that although written over 3,000 years ago, the Bible’s description of the Earth and its natural properties are indeed accurate. 

All this tells me that placing faith in the God of the Bible does not mean that I have to check my brain at the churchhouse door.  It may not be enough to change the minds of the skeptics, but it is good to know that an honest, unbiased scientific view is not at odds with Scripture.  Nor is faith at odds with those who honestly seek the truth, using observation, logic, and history.

A couple of weeks ago I was at a used bookstore.  I bought copies of Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ: A Journalist's personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus, and The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Toward God.  In these books, a successful, trained investigative journalist with a legal background asks tough questions to experts in their fields, and comes to the conclusion that faith is not mindless.  In fact, Strobel himself was a skeptic, leaning toward atheism, before he began investigating the evidence.  What he found was convincing enough for him to give his life to Christ.

You could investigate these facts for yourself.  Or you could stick your fingers in your ears, and scream at the top of your lungs the half-truths and outright lies that the World uses to "disprove" Scripture.  Like so many in the world today, you find it easier to toe the ideological line rather than look at the evidence objectively.  That may be okay for now, but when you die and face the Creator, what will you say then?  "God, you can't exist.  There is no good explanation for the miraculous, so You are just a figment of someone else's imagination; a social construct, a crutch used by weak-minded people to explain the unexplainable.  Never mind that I can't explain what I'm seeing now."  But by then, dear friend, it will be too late.