CATASTROPHIC PLATE TECTONICS AND THE WORLDWIDE FLOOD OF NOAH’S DAY

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Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (CPT) proposes that the single pre-Flood continent broke up quickly and explosively (i.e., catastrophically). Originally, the plates moved apart at a speed of metres per second—billions of times faster than today. Many (not all) creationist geologists think CPT is an excellent model to explain the Flood. Note: ‘model’ here means an assumed explanation of how the Flood occurred. It is consistent with the Bible but not a direct teaching of the Bible. But what could cause such fast plate movement?

image of plate tectonics

TOP ROCK BREAKS THROUGH

God created one single continent. At the edges, there was likely some cold rock, denser than the asthenosphere below it. This instability would be ready to sink through any weakness.

But why would God create such an unstable situation? God knows the future. Man would become so wicked about 1,600 years after creation that God would need to start over. So maybe God created a world that would Flood at that time. But what would cause the top part to break through? A clue comes from blacksmiths working with iron and steel. They heat the material red-hot to make it much softer and easier to bend.

Many minerals are the same. They become much weaker when hot and also under pressure—sometimes as much as billions of times weaker.

Eventually, the pressure and heat would weaken the bottom part enough for the top to break through. As rock sank, it would make more heat by friction and cause more stress. The underlying rocks would soften even more. This softening allows even quicker sinking and even more heating and stress, thus even more softening. The rocks would eventually reach speeds of several km/hour, called runaway subduction.

CONVEYOR BELT

As the rock layer sank, it would pull the rest of the plate along, like a giant conveyor belt. The continent would tear apart at the other end, forming the Mid-Ocean Ridges (the world’s longest mountain ranges). Magma would pour up through the tears, evaporating vast amounts of water. This would produce a long chain of powerful steam jets. Remember Genesis teaching of huge ocean fountains erupting? (See Bible verse).

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” Genesis 7:11

The steam would eventually cool enough to condense in the air. It would then fall back as a huge global downpour, just as the Bible vividly describes. No ordinary rainstorm lasts 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12)! Also, the plate movements would push water onto the land. Eventually, all the land would be flooded.

EVIDENCE

aerial impage of earth

CPT explains many things that don’t make sense under the usual ‘slow-and-gradual’ theory. The most important is the subducted plates themselves—plates underneath another plate. If plates had always moved slowly, they couldn’t have forced their way through. Rather, they would have stopped or blended in. But some have pushed down over 700 km.

Also, consider what happens if a hot object is in contact with a cold object. Heat moves from the hot thing to the cold thing until both have the same temperature. Now consider the cool subducted plate inside a much hotter asthenosphere. If the plate had pushed in slowly, over 100 million years, it should have warmed to the asthenosphere’s temperature. Instead, the plate is often thousands of degrees cooler. This coolness makes sense if it was pushed in quickly, only about 4,500 years ago.

BIBLE VERSE

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” Genesis 7:11

A CATACLYSMIC EVENT IN HISTORY

The above verse provides the timing of the Flood in real history. It is so important that God tells us the very day in Noah’s life the Flood began. It also tells us how. First, huge fountains in the “great deep” (the oceans) erupted. Next, torrential rainfall. The “windows of heaven opened” is the Hebrew way of saying, “It rained cats and dogs.” CPT is a possible model consistent with the Bible’s true history. The Flood began in the oceans, then came the downpour.

This story was extracted from the latest issue of Creation magazine http://www.creation.com.

ARE YOU ONE OF THE LAST DAYS SCOFFERS? HOW DO YOU TEST FOR TRUTH?

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Christians serve the One who claimed He was “the truth” and follow a book that asserts its own divine inspiration (John 14:6, II Timothy 3:16). It’s important to remember that our faith in these claims is grounded not in wishful thinking but credible facts and arguments.

First, the Bible is full of historical information that can be verified. For example, as documented by Old Testament scholar John D. Currid, “In 1868, a missionary in Jerusalem found a stone tablet for sale that appeared to be from ancient times. … On the tablet is a text written in Moabite dating to the ninth century BC.” Currid reports that the first line of the table reads, “I am Mesha son of Chemosh, king of Moab.” What’s especially noteworthy is that the tablet records Mesha’s account of a war he fought with Israel. In 850 B.C., Moab rebelled against Israel’s northern kingdom, an event recounted in II Kings 3.

Probably the most controversial Biblical truths are the worldwide flood of Noah’s day and the age of the Earth. However, finally, geologists are realising that the topography of Earth must have been formed by catastrophic flood conditions Evidence 1: 70% of Earth’s land surface is covered by sedimentary rock, Evidence 2: Underfit rivers, Evidence 3: Water gaps, Evidence 4: 40% of Earth’s land surface is covered by plateaus, Evidence #5: Absence of bioturbation in rock layers (fluvial geomorphologist Dr. Ron Neller: Flood Expert Finds Evidence for Noah’s Flood · Creation.com). Moreover, billions of dead things all over the world, fossils including fossil fuels (buried vegetation) should be evidence enough. Actual red blood cells in fossil bones from a Tyrannosaurus rex? With traces of the blood protein hemoglobin (which makes blood red and carries oxygen)? It sounds preposterous—to those who believe that these dinosaur remains are at least 65 million years old. It is of course much less of a surprise to those who believe Genesis, in which case dinosaur remains are at most only a few thousand years old.

The New Testament is also filled with reliable historical references and events. Purdue University professor Lawrence Mykytiuk has confirmed 30 New Testament figures “who can be identified in the archaeological record and extra-biblical writings.” As Tim McGrew of Western Michigan University documents, the Book of Acts alone contains literally scores of references to people, places, and events that are found in extra-biblical sources or that can still be found in the ruins of the eastern Mediterranean region.

In sum, no one can point to Scripture and dismiss its texts as founded in hearsay or third-hand reports. Similarly, the internal consistency of the Bible is astonishing, not only in what it claims about time-and-space matters but in the view of God, the universe, humanity, and redemption it presents from Genesis to Revelation. David Dockery, former president of Union University and now at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, argues that “there is a definite Christian view of things, which has a character, coherence, and unity of its own, and stands in sharp contrast with counter theories and speculations.” Dockery writes that the “Christian worldview has the stamp of reason and reality and can stand the test of history and experience. A Christian view of the world cannot be infringed upon, accepted or rejected piecemeal, but stands or falls on its integrity.”

This does not mean there are not things in the Bible that are hard to grasp. But mystery and contradiction are two different things, and an extraordinary claim is not the same thing as an illogical claim. God does not disclose everything about Himself or His plan for the world, but these things make the claims of Scripture no less true.

The Christian “lens” through which we see reality enables us to make the most sense of what we observe and experience of any philosophy or faith. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.”

Finally, the pattern of life envisioned and encouraged in Scripture leads to human flourishing. Unlike other religions or philosophical systems, Christianity does not demand exotic forms of worship, soul-deadening stoicism, or adventures into the occult. It deals with life as it is, in the practical Tuesday afternoon realities of life. It offers joy instead of happiness, peace instead of placation, and hope instead of longing.

This article is based on an article by Rob Schwarzwalder January 6, 2024, How Do We Test for Truth, in The Washington Stand and info from http://www.creation.com

For me fulfilled prophecies are what convinced me the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Over 300 prophecies of Jesus first coming to Earth were fulfilled to the letter and many of the 2000 prophecies of Jesus second coming to Earth have already been fulfilled including a major one, Israel being miraculously established as a nation again in 1948 even with its original language.

Are you one of the last days scoffers?

“You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by these means, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” 2 Peter 3:2-7