The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris was a challenging read, particularly in its technical discussions. I definitely admit that I am not qualified to evaluate every hydraulic or geological claim they make. Still, despite its difficulty, the book presents its arguments in a way that allows even non-sciency types like me to grasp significant portions of the case being made.
It is an exhaustive treatment of the Flood question and, rather than claiming to have answered every objection, it points toward areas where further research could strengthen and refine the argument.
While I did not understand everything perfectly, I came away with a clearer grasp of the central ideas and a deeper appreciation for the scope of the discussion. Ultimately, the book reinforced my long held young earth convictions. I believe a real catastrophe occurred in earth’s past, and given the limits of direct observation, the Biblical record provides the most coherent and compelling explanation of that event.
Important to point out that God is offensive to sinful man. There are presumptions and presuppositions baked into Evolution and Millions of years. All the prominient founders of the modern theories of evolution were opponents of the entire Biblical view of the world and of man (Page 442).
The doctrine of geological uniformitarianism, is a case study of the slippery slope. Christian scientists gave away ground of the sufficiency and authority of Scripture and Lyell and Darwin ran with it. They were, “emancipated from the shackles of Biblical chronology” (Page 97). Within the span of a single generation, geologists had led the Church to change its views on the flood three times (Page 109).
“When one decides to reject the concept of real Creation, there is no scientific stopping-point short of what amounts to atheism” (Page 237).
Particularly, I appreciated the discussion on appearance of age and what accounts as mature creation. Whitcomb and Morris argue that a degree of maturity at creation was necessary for the world to function as God intended. Some believe this would make God one who has deceived or has created ‘lies’ about creation, but they are careful to distinguish this from the idea that God created a false history.
Functional maturity implies usefulness and completeness, not deception. At the same time, they do not rely on mature creation to explain most geological features. They attribute the bulk of earth’s apparent age to the historical catastrophe of the Flood. The Flood as a global/total catastrophe is SO IMPORTANT in the current state of the globe.
Overall a great book. One that I can’t believe I didn’t pick up sooner as we were a homeschool family. May have to make another trip to the Ark and Creation Museum soon. That would make a great family trip with several from our church. It’d be fun to see it through the eyes of our kids.
Now for the bad news… I read the 50th anniversary edition which was published in 2011 ~490 pages with the two appendices. I have sense realized there is a new book published by Answers in Genesis titled The Genesis Flood Revisited. Amazon has it’s print length at 670 pages. Whew. Not sure my brain will allow for the “Revisit” in 2026. I am working on a list of books that I want to read. We’ll see.
