Does Adventist Flood Geology Make Sense? Part 1: The Too-Small Ark
by Rich Hannon | 18 July 2024 |
Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 states categorically that the earth is young, ~6-10K years old. In 2015, the words “recent,” literal,” and “historical” were added to this statement. Although the Bible doesn’t mandate such descriptors, this position has historically been accepted by Christians. For Adventists, it is explicitly affirmed by Ellen White. So there would be no reason to doubt creation being recent, unless and until conflicting evidence might somehow justify reconsideration.
The church’s viewpoint essentially accepts the broader concept of Young Earth Creationism (YEC), which includes the belief that the entire planet was devastated by the Noachian Flood. This catastrophe produced most of the geologic and paleontological results seen today.
But the physical evidence uncovered by geology slowly began to put that narrative in doubt, with the current scientific understanding affirming an old earth (~ 4.54 billion years) and—for different reasons—evolution.
YEC has tried to refute this with articles that have a scientific veneer. They confidently tell the reader they have a viable case. But if anyone truly wants to get the full story, they should research the issues more thoroughly to see if YEC conclusions can stand up under examination.
And they can’t. The evidence that underpins conventional geology and paleontology is massive.
When I write such a strong categorical statement, I challenge readers to test it for themselves. And a YEC-leaning Christian—which includes the great majority of Adventists—should not think they’ve been fairly investigating if they only read from young-earth sources.
Tradition
It’s important to note just why YEC seems crucial to so many Christians. It is rooted in both theological positions and a human tendency to favor currently held belief. The theological component is the stronger driver and involves two parts, at minimum:
- A literal approach to reading the Bible
It would seem to be a “plain reading” that the days of creation are literally 24 hours long. And, for Adventists, there is also a fear that the Sabbath doctrine would fall if we do not hold fast to this position. Then, in describing the flood’s scope, the English word used is “earth.” For moderns, this would seem to reference the entire planet. It takes further deliberation (e.g., reading a book like God, Sky, and Land) to reconsider this. But such time-consuming investigation and revisionism risk can be both daunting and disturbing.
- No creaturely death before sin
This proposition necessitates that fossils, which obviously record death, must have been deposited after the fall in Eden. So, if the earth is ~6000 years old, and a possible flood date, per Ussher, is ~2350 BCE, then all fossils were deposited very recently, mostly during this year-long deluge.
In the YEC book Scientific Creationism (pp. 117-118) we read:
“… great hydraulic cataclysm bursting upon the present world, with currents of waters pouring perpetually from the skies and erupting continuously from the earth’s crust, all over the world, for weeks on end, until the entire globe was submerged, accompanied by outpourings of magma from the mantle, gigantic earth movements, landslides, tsunamis, and explosions.”
This kind of scope/intensity is practically essential to create most of the geologic column in just one year. But, in reading the actual Genesis account you are not compelled to envision anything this catastrophic. Such a description is motivated by presumed religious necessity.
Necessities for YEC
There is nothing wrong in making the literal Genesis account your hypothesis—but the constraints on the hypothesis impose a heavy lift. Can such a model hold up under scrutiny? I will consider three examples—one today, and two in the second part of the essay—of difficulties that YEC has to overcome to ground its hypothesis.
The first constraint: A too-small ark
To repopulate the whole world, nearly from scratch, everything must be contained and maintained in one vessel.
A reasonable estimate of the Ark’s size is: 450x75x45 feet. If that seems large, remember it must hold everything needed to repopulate the entire planet. The longest modern wooden ship is ~300 ft. long, before physical constraints make any design unstable. So, the issue of seaworthiness arises, especially when considering the postulated turbulence of the flood.
But Noah could have had a luxury liner and the task would still be overwhelming. It’s all life on the whole planet! And you can’t use full capacity for the animals: you need pens, corridors, bracing, human living quarters and, most importantly, space for food and water. This could cut the room available for creature cargo in half. Many animals have specialized diets—think pandas. So there is also a problem of, not just storage, but how all this food would get collected, and some of it preserved for up to a year.
Consider the number of specimens to be accommodated. YEC uses the word “kind” to try to shrink the total by claiming just one representative of a species would be needed—for example, just one “dog kind” would then, post-flood, branch out dramatically to produce the disparate types of dogs we see today. But the rate of evolution needed for such a diversity explosion would greatly exceed any observed evidence—indeed any postulated rate of evolution per conventional science. Quite ironic.
Even if such a premise were admitted, the quantity of ark animals is still daunting. The story mandates “two of all living creatures” (Gen. 6:19), “every kind of creature that moves along the ground” (v. 20), “every kind of food that is to be eaten” (v. 21). Genesis 7:3 specifies “seven pairs of every kind … throughout the earth.” So, if you make “earth” equate to “planet” (per YEC necessity), then consider today’s creature diversity, it overwhelms the available space.
But wait. You haven’t yet added in extinct creatures. Collapsing time into ~6-10K years disallows the conventionally understood dispersion of almost all life into deep time. It then becomes necessary to add far more candidates into that ark than are considered by YEC. Per paleontological evidence, the vast majority of fauna that has ever lived is now extinct. But in a short chronology, they would be alive and must be accounted for. So dinosaurs, for example, would have to be aboard or their absence explained away.
As with the entire insect class. A complete collection of insect candidates (even ignoring extinction) is huge, and they are crucial for the food chain. YEC tries to evade this by saying they do not “breathe,” and thus wouldn’t be aboard. But insects have to get through the flood somehow—they could hardly survive it otherwise, even on the YEC-proposed vegetation mats. Remember the degree of violence postulated as necessary to generate the bulk of the geologic column—something I’ll consider later.
Then there is the manpower problem. One YEC estimate of representative “kinds” has reduced the creature total to ~15,700—and much argumentative gymnastics is needed to get the figure down this low. But, even if this were the number, and they all could fit, you only have a crew of eight. And you have to get the entire menagerie loaded in a week. That’s 7x24x60x60 = 604,800 seconds.
Noah and family can’t work continuously. There are interruptions for food and sleep, plus any other physical, social, and spiritual diversions from the task. That might remove 1/3 of the available time, leaving 604,800/3×2 = 403,200 seconds left. This is less than 26 seconds/animal for boarding, which also would include each one being properly placed in its enclosure.
Of course, this limited manpower also has to care for all the creatures for an entire year. Getting them the right food and water from storage, keeping every specimen alive, removing waste, etc. So, there are: 365x24x60 = 525,600 minutes in a year. Again, remove 1/3 of the total for non-work activity. You do the math to see how much remaining time—per animal, for the year—would be available. It’s not reasonable.
Finally, post-flood, you cannot just let this tiny collection of unique types disperse. How would the pairs all stay together to guarantee adequate reproduction for repopulating an entire planet? And where would the post-flood food be, given the presumed massive destruction? Carnivores would immediately want to eat some animals that have to survive, else their species dies. Success would kill the prey. Failure would kill the predator.
In part 2, we’ll ask this question: how much of what we observe in the earth’s geologic column could be accounted for by the flood?
Rich Hannon is a retired software engineer. His long-standing avocations include philosophy, geology, and medieval history.
