Catastrophism
is the doctrine which postulates that major changes in the earth's crust
result from catastrophes processes. Catastrophism dominated geologic thought
until early in the 1800s when [[James Hutton]] and [[Charles Lyell developed
the principles of uniformitarianism. Prior to the acceptance of
uniformitarian concepts, most geologists believed the earths fossiliferous
strata was the result of the Biblical global flood of Noah.
It is unquestionable that the earth's history has been violent, however,
life remains and flourishes. The central focus of the creation vs. evolution
debate is whether catastrophes in earth's past were the result of natural
processes over millions of years, or God's judgment as described in the
Bible.
Several sites of importance such as the
Channeled Scablands in Washington State, the Grand
Canyon and Mt. St. Helens provide
us with evidence of large scale catastrophic processes important
for understanding the mechanisms responsible for the formation
of the earth's strata. Assuming the geological
column was formed during the Noachian deluge, then the flood
was also accompanied by numerous volcanic flows and quite possibly
meteor bombardments.
However, the scientific community can not
recognize the geological column as being the result of a global
flood with supernatural connections. The animals which are fossilized
could not possibly survive a flood capable of laying these hundreds of feet of sedimentary deposits
worldwide, and yet a great many of the fossilized animals
are still alive. Their presence is a result of divine intervention,
but an atheistic scientific community
could never accept this requirement to explain their current
existence. Without belief in a miraculous preservation as described
n the Bible, the sediments in the geological column must theoretically
have accumulated at a rate the animals could naturally survive;
(i.e. many local floods, millions of years of gradual deposition).
There have unquestionably been catastrophes,
but the scientific community is simply not capable of interpreting the
physical evidence of a catastrophe that required divine intervention?
If you believe God has been effective in our history during the
creation, flood and beyond, you should accept the secular interpretation
of geological evidence with extreme hesitancy.
