A Brief History of Flood Geology

What is flood geology? When did it originate and who were its first proponents? Flood geology demands Noah’s Flood be global, but is that the only valid interpretation? Though Scripture implies a global flood, does exegesis allow for a local flood? Is it possible Scripture actually negates flood geology? These are some of the questions this article hopes to answer. One of the primary tenets held by many young-earth creationists is flood geology–a fairly recent concept that began only about 150 years ago. Also known as catastrophic geology or neo-catastrophism, flood geology purports that nearly all geologic formations on earth resulted from Noah’s flood, which is characterized as a world-wide deluge about 4,500 years ago. All sedimentary strata, measuring several thous-and feet in thickness, are said to be evidence for the Flood. Wayne Grudem describes flood geology way: [Flood geology] is the view that the tremendous natural forces unleashed by the flood at the time of Noah significantly altered the face of the earth, causing the creation of coal and diamonds, for example, within the space of a year, rather than hundreds of millions of years, because of the extremely high pressure exerted by the water on earth. This view also claims that the flood deposited fossils in layers of incredibly thick sediment all over the earth.1 Flood geology was popularized in the 1960s by the publication of The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris. It was a bombshell of a book and was selected by Christianity Today magazine as one of its “Choice Evangelical Books of 1961.”2 The book has a wide following even to this day