Many who
hold to a Global Flood and Young Earth (LDS and non-LDS) seem to misinterpret “Uniformitarianism.”
In response to this, with respect to the Grand Canyon, two Evangelical
Protestants wrote:
Misrepresenting
Uniformitarianism
Flood geologists commonly demonize uniformitarianism
by misrepresenting it as being synonymous with materialism or evolutionism.
Ye when they seek to find scientific evidence in support of a young Earth, they
actually apply uniformitarian principles! For example, some prominent flood
geologists believe that the 1980 catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens
provides clues to a rapid formation of the Grand Canyon. Specifically, the
volcanic eruption delivered dozens of feet of sediment and ash in the valley
below the mountain in the span of just hours. Later, an impressive gorge was
carved in the very-soft ash sediment. The deposits contain layers and beddings,
which flood geologists say look like rocks and cliff faces in the Grand Canyon.
This comparison of modern deposits to ancient
deposits is a fully uniformitarian exercise – the present (Mount St. Helens) is
the key to the past (Grand Canyon). In this case, however, as in many other examples,
flood geologists are not consistent in comparing applies with apples and
oranges with oranges. The formation and behavior of volcanic ash layers cannot
be directly compared with the formation and behavior or sandstone or limestone.
The rocks in the Grand Canyon are made of entirely different materials from
ash, and the immense size of the canyon’s vertical cliffs (much larger than those found at Mount St. Helens) clearly testifies
to the fact that the cliffs were already hardened to rock before they were cut
by the Colorado River.
Flood geologists further depart from
uniformitarian principles (and from Christian doctrines of God’s consistency
and providence) when they assume that natural laws describing physical and
chemical processes must have been different during the creation week, before
the fall in the Garden of Eden, or at various points during Noah’s flood. Some
Young Earth advocates write that the natural laws in the whole universe are a
consequence of God’s “curse” or punishment for the fall. These arguments fail
to be supported by either science or Scripture. In science, all observations
points to a consistency in the laws of nature, back to the first microseconds
of the universe. The Bible likewise sayings nothing about the fundamental laws
of nature being altered after man’s sin. (Stephen Moshier and Gregg Davidson, “Using
the Present to Understand the Past” in The
Grand Canyon Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand
Canyon [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 2016], 73-79, here, pp.
73-74)
