Answering Skeptics on the Great Flood: St. Augustine

From the "CASB VOL. IV: The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-11 by Robert Sungenis

Answering Skeptics on the Great Flood : St. Augustine

Due to the burgeoning of evolutionary science since the time of Charles Darwin’s famous book written in 1859, Origin of Species, many Catholic scholars have succumbed to modern views on the age and formation of the earth. Many have rejected the traditional view that the earth is about 6000 years old, preferring to explain the geologic column as the result of sediment being deposted, layer upon layer, over the course of millions of years. Even the more conservative Catholic authors of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia had already given way to the claims of modern science. One such instance is in the encyclopedia’s treatment of the great flood recorded in Genesis 6-9. The author, A. J. Maas, tries his best to convince the reader that the flood was merely a local phenomenon, not universal. As he denies the traditional view, Maas employs the hermeneutic of the liberal Protestant scholar Julius Wellhausen, namely, the Documentary Hypothesis or JEDP, an unproven and now almost totally discredited methodology for understanding the Pentateuch. This indicates that already late in the reign of Pius X the very modernists he was railing against were making their mark in Catholic biblical studies. These scholars simply refuse to trust the Bible or their own tradition to give historical truth.

Maas claims:

Neither Sacred Scripture nor universal ecclesiastical tradition, nor again scientific considerations render it advisable to adhere to the opinion that the Flood covered the whole surface of the earth.

This is quite an assertion but none of it is provable, or even likely.

Regarding Sacred Scripture, the account in Genesis 7-9 reads like a newspaper, telling us painstaking details of the Flood, which Maas himself admits was “written by an eye-witness.” In fact, except for genealogical records, there is nothing in Scripture that is more detailed than the Flood account. Accordingly, nothing in the Genesis account says it was a local flood, and we have distinct indications that it had to be universal, since the text specifies that the highest mountain was covered by 23 feet of water (Genesis 7:19). No anti-universal scholars have been able to explain how all the mountains of a given region can be covered by water, except to posit that the mountains were only hills, a transposition not engendered by Hebrew etymology. Water always seeks the lowest point, and thus in a local region the water could never reach higher than mountains. The only way a mountain-covering deluge could be accomplished is if enough water was present to cover the whole spherical surface of the Earth.

The argument that the clouds would not be able to hold enough water to cover the Earth is lame. The Genesis record speaks of both water under the surface of the earth that burst forth as well as clouds that continually rained on the earth for 40 days and night. Outer space also contains huge water clouds billions of miles long, with enough water to fill the Earth’s oceans a billion times over.

Regarding the ecclesiastical tradition, there is no Father, except perhaps Hippolytus, who even suggested that the Flood of Noah’s day was local. Hence, Maas has no “ecclesiastical tradition” to support his claims. It is not surprising, then, that Maas does not cite one patristic writer who held to the local flood theory. All the Fathers who spoke about the Flood said it was global. Here is a partial list:

Augustine: The Apostle Peter saith this openly: “By the word of God the heavens were of old,” etc. He hath said then that the heavens have already perished by the flood: and we know that the heavens perished as far as the extent of this atmosphere of ours. For the water increased, and filled the whole of that space in which birds fly; thus perished the heavens that are near the earth; those heavens which are meant when we speak of the birds of heaven.(Homilies on the Psalms, Psalm 77, 30). “then shall the figure of this world pass away in a conflagration of universal fire, as once before the world was flooded with a deluge of universal water.(City of God, 20, 16.)“Let us now see what the Apostle Peter predicted concerning this judgment. “There shall come,” he says, “in the last days scoffers....

Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.” There is nothing said here about the resurrection of the dead, but enough certainly regarding the destruction of this world. And by his reference to the deluge he seems as it were to suggest to us how far we should believe the ruin of the world will extend in the end of the world. For he says that the world which then was perished, and not only the earth itself, but also the heavens, by which we understand the air, the place and room of which was occupied by the water. Therefore the whole, or almost the whole, of the gusty atmosphere (which he calls heaven, or rather the heavens, meaning the earth’s atmosphere, and not the upper air in which sun, moon, and stars are set) was turned into moisture, and in this way perished together with the earth, whose former appearance had been destroyed by the deluge.(City of God, 20, 18.)

“For our opponents will not condescend to defend the Hebrew piety, which has won the approbation of their gods, by the words of the Apostle Peter, whom they vehemently detest; nor will they argue that, as the apostle in his epistle understands a part when he speaks of the whole world perishing in the flood, though only the lowest part of it, and the corresponding heavens were destroyed, so in the psalm the whole is used for a part, and it is said “They shall perish,” though only the lowest heavens are to perish. But since, as I said, they will not condescend to reason thus, lest they should seem to approve of Peter’s meaning, or ascribe as much importance to the final conflagration as we ascribe to the deluge, whereas they contend that no waters or flames could destroy the whole human race, it only remains to them to maintain that their gods lauded the wisdom of the Hebrews because they had not read this psalm.”(City of God 20, 24.).

“For with respect also to the fact that He destroyed all men in the flood, with the exception of one righteous man together with his house, whom He willed to be saved in the ark, He knew indeed that they would not amend themselves; yet, nevertheless, as the building of the ark went on for the space of a hundred years…(Catechising the Uninstructed, Ch 19, 32.)

“And thus, as the single family of Noah was preserved through the deluge of water to renew the human race, so, in the deluge of superstition that flooded the whole world, there remained but the one family of Terah in which the seed of God’s city was preserved.”(City of God, 16, 12.)

…for it is computed that he lived for fourteen years after the deluge, though Scripture relates that of all who were then upon the earth only the eight souls in the ark escaped destruction by the flood, and of these Methuselah was not one.(City of God, 5, 11.)

“And the waters decreased continually until the eleventh month: on the first day of the month were the tops of the mountains seen.” But if the months were such as we have, then so were the years. And certainly months of three days each could not have a twenty-seventh day.”(City of God, 15, 14.)

… To be continued…