Phantom Deluge - The Rocks Don't Lie - page 183

then try to see how all the pertinent data can be understood in this context… . It is not a
scientific decision at all, but a spiritual one.” 1
In their view, Christians faced a stark choice: “Either the Biblical record of the Flood is
false and must be rejected or else the system of historical geology which has seemed to
discredit it is wrong and must be changed.” 2
Confident God's Word could not lead them astray, Whitcomb and Morris were clear
about how to reconcile science and the Bible. Rejecting the idea of reinterpreting scripture
to accommodate science, they advocated “letting the Bible speak for itself and then trying
to understand the geological data in the light of its teachings.” 3 In other words, they tried
to figure out geologic history by reading the Bible and then looked for data supporting the
proper conclusion—and dismissed or ignored contrary evidence.
In setting up their argument, Whitcomb and Morris first asserted biblical inerrancy and
rejected both a tranquil and a local flood as inconsistent with the plain meaning of the bib-
lical story. Any fool could see the Flood was violent and global.
Whitcomb and Morris offered a number of geological inferences from the biblical ac-
count. They were certain that a tremendous quantity of water poured down on the earth in
a torrential downpour that continued for forty days and nights all around the world. Yet
they also accepted that the clouds held nowhere near enough water to trigger a global flood.
The floodwaters had to come from somewhere else. Pockets of water trapped underground
since the Creation must have erupted to the surface. Still, this wasn't enough. They looked
to the heavens for more.
They found enough water for Noah's Flood in the cryptic biblical reference to the waters
above the firmament (Genesis 1:7), arguing that God enclosed the primordial world in a
gigantic canopy of water vapor (the same argument astronomer Edmund Halley used in the
seventeenth century). At a loss to explain rationally how to bring their vapor canopy down
to earth, they invoked another miracle to collapse this curtain of water. God hung it above
the sky, so He could drop it when he pleased.
Shielding the planet from the harmful effects of radiation, this vaporous cocoon allowed
Adam and the antediluvian patriarchs to live incredibly long lives. The greenhouse effect