Sermon Tone Analysis

Uniformity and Catastrophe

(the effect of geological uniformitarianism on Christian theology)

(Week 6 of SBTS 28960)

 

A.

Biblically, the Flood was a global event (it could not have been a regional or local flood):

1.

The Bible describes the Flood with universal terms, which argue for the universality of the Flood (Phillips 1993)

a.       universal terms in the Flood account:

A)    the earth ‘filled’ (Gen.

6:11, 13)

B)     all

1)      ‘all flesh’ (Gen.

6:12, 13; 7:15, 16)

2)      ‘all that was on the dry land’ (Gen.

7:22)

3)      ‘all flesh under heaven’ (Gen.

6:17)

4)      ‘all flesh that moved’ (Gen.

7:21)

5)      ‘all in whose nostrils was the breath of life’ (Gen.

7:22)

6)      ‘all the cattle’ (Gen.

8:1)

7)      ‘all the fountains of the great deep’ (Gen.

7:11)

C)    every

1)      ‘every sort’ (Gen.

6:19, 20)

2)      ‘every thing in the earth’ (Gen.

6:17)

3)      ‘every thing that creepeth upon the earth’ (Gen.

7: 8)

4)      ‘every living thing’ (Gen.

8:1)

5)      ‘every living substance’ (Gen.

7:4)

6)      ‘every living thing of all flesh’ (Gen.

6:18)

7)      ‘every living substance which was upon the face of the ground’ (Gen.

7:23)

8)      ‘of every clean beast… and of beasts that are not clean…and of fowls also’ (Gen.

7:2-3)

9)      ‘every beast’… ‘all the cattle’… ‘every creeping thing’… ‘every fowl’… ‘every bird of every sort’ (Gen.

7:14)

10)  ‘every creeping thing’ (Gen.

7:21)

11)  ‘every man’ (Gen.

7:21)

D)    only: ‘Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him’ (Gen.

7:23)

b.

Although some universal terms in Scripture may not be universal (/e.g./ ‘all have sinned’ in Rom.

3:23 does not include Christ; ‘all countries’ of Gen. 41:57 and ‘every nation under heaven’ in Acts 2:5 probably did not include, for example, people from the New World),

A)    most often in Scripture the universal terms do have universal application.

As a result, the burden of proof rests on any non-universal interpretation

B)     the /repeated/ use of universal terms in this text (rather than just one universal term) would suggest a non-universal interpretation is not possible.

c.       Double universals are used (/e.g./ ‘all’ the high hills under ‘all’ the heaven), which suggests a superlative.

d.

The larger context of the Flood account (Genesis 1-11) deals with the entire human race (in contrast to Gen. 12-50, which deals with a people chosen from among all mankind)

A)    It would seem strange to have three chapters in the midst of this universal narrative having only particular application.

B)     The 'earth' of Noah would have been the same (global) earth which Adam and Eve were told to fill, subdue and rule in Gen. 1:28.

e.

The unqualified phrase 'under the whole' heaven (Gen.

7:19) appears five other times in the Hebrew OT (Deut.

4:19; Job 28:24; 37:3; 41:11; Dan.

9:12), and each time it seems to be universal (in its only other occurrence – Deut.

2:25 – the phrase is qualified, and thus non-universal).

2.      The Flood was a unique event, so it cannot have been a local or regional flood (which have repeatedly occurred )

a.       The Hebrew word translated ‘flood’ in Genesis 6-11 is /mabbul/.

It comes from an older semitic root which means ‘to destroy’.

Outside Genesis 6-11, the only other usage of the word is Psa.

29:10 which refers back to Noah’s Flood.

Its exclusive usage suggests no other event in human history equaled it (Fouts, 1996).

Other Hebrew words are available to designate local floods and they are not used to describe Noah’s Flood.

b.

The Flood involved unique processes

A)    The ‘windows of heaven’ (Gen.

7:11; 8:2) are not the same as rain (compare rain and ‘windows of heaven’ in Gen. 8:2), suggesting they were a unique water source.

B)     Apparently the Flood messed up the daily and seasonal earth cycles (Gen.

8:22)

C)    The Flood involved processes not currently observable on the earth (2 Pet.

3:3-7)

c.       God promised to never again send a Flood of the magnitude of Noah's, and sealed this promise with a rainbow (Gen.

9:9-17).

In contrast, many local Floods (and rainbows) have occurred since then.

3.      The Flood covered mountains.

Water covered the earth, including ‘all the high hills under the whole heaven’ to a depth of at least 15 cubits (Gen.

7:19-20).

a.

Even if it covered only one mountain, it would require supernatural intervention to prevent such a flood from being worldwide.

But the Flood also covered the /highest/ mountains.

b.      Geological evidence suggests there were mountains at this time across all the continents, meaning the Flood had to be global to even reach the bases of all the mountains, let alone cover them.

4.      The Flood involved universal judgment.

a.

The Flood was to destroy all flesh (/i.e./ all humans and all animals) on the earth (Gen.

6:7) and it’s reasonable to assume that both humans (1656 years after the creation) and animals had a worldwide distribution by the time of the Flood.

A)    God repented that he had created humans in the first place (Gen.

6:6), indicating /all/ humans are included.

B)     All flesh across the whole planet deserved to be destroyed

1)      The earth was described as corrupt (Gen.

6:11-12)

2)      /All flesh/ was corrupt (Gen.

6:12)

3)      The earth was /filled/ with violence (Gen.

6:11, 13)

C)    God vowed to destroy

1)      all humans from the earth (Gen.

6:7)

2)      all animals from the earth, listing every category of land animal created in Genesis 1 (Gen.

6:7)

3)      ‘all flesh’ on the earth (Gen.

6:13, 17)

4)      ‘every living substance’ from off the earth’s surface (Gen.

7:4)

5)      all flesh in a tri-fold repetition: ‘all flesh with the breath of life’, ‘under heaven’ ‘everything in the earth’ (Gen.

6:17)

D)    All flesh died in the Flood:

1)      ‘every man’ (Gen.

7:21)

2)      ‘man’, so that ‘Noah only remained alive’ (Gen.

7:23)

3)       ‘all flesh’ (Gen.

9:11)

4)      ‘all flesh that moved on the earth’, including ‘every creeping thing’ (Gen.

7:21)

5)      ‘all with the breath of life on the dry land’ (Gen.

7:22)

6)      ‘every living thing’ (Gen.

8:21)

7)      ‘every living substance on the face of the ground’, so that only the animals with Noah on the ark remained alive (Gen.

7:23)

8)      every category of land animal created in Genesis 1 (Gen.

7:21, 23)

E)     Noah and his family are the /only/ survivors (1 Pe. 3:20; 2 Pe.

2:5; Luke 17:26-27; only ones mentioned in Gen. 6:8-9, 17-18; 7:1) (Phillips, 1993)

b.

The Flood seems to be something of a reversal of the creation account (/e.g./ recovering the continents revealed on Day 3; restoring a ‘great deep’ over the whole surface of the earth described in Gen. 1:2) – the latter an account of the creation of the entire cosmos.

c.

The (global) return of Christ is likened to the Flood (Luke 17:26-27; 2 Pet.

3:20).

d.

Just as the curse was a universal response to man’s sin and was cosmic in scope (because man’s dominion was cosmic in scope), and just as the future destruction by fire will be a universal response to man’s sin and will be cosmic in scope, it’s reasonable to assume that the Flood was cosmic in scope as well.