Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Questioning traditional biblical ideas about the natural world became less dangerous in
the decades after Galileo's ordeal. Despite substantial friction between religious denomina-
tions (not to mention a few wars), natural philosophers investigating Earth and the cosmos
developed experimental approaches to scientific inquiry and proposed imaginative theories
to rationally explain Noah's Flood through secondary, natural causes rather than miracles.
Although science as we know it was yet to emerge, scholars increasingly believed that in-
vestigating the natural world held the key to deciphering the mysteries of God's creation.
Observation paved the way to insight. Those investigating nature were confident that they
would not only confirm the truth of a global flood but discover how cleverly God pulled it
off—and reveal just what the Bible meant in describing how “all the fountains of the great
abyss were released, and the floodgates of heaven were opened” (Genesis 7:11).
The history of attempts to understand the Bible shows that what one reads into it can be
as influential as what it says. As people learned more about the world, certainty in the real-
ity of Noah's Flood led to imaginative ideas for reconciling geological evidence with bib-
lical stories. But instead of resolving the issue, these efforts created new divisions, because
the harder people looked for evidence of a global deluge, the less convincing the case for
one became.
