The Genesis Flood, Tidal Wave of Change

morris_whitcombThe Genesis Flood is 50 years old today! The following article is reprinted with permission from the Baptist Bulletin July, 2010.

Birth of the modern creationist movement

The book that powered the modern creation movement was skipped over by several Christian publishers. When Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb sent their manuscript to one prominent publisher, they were told it was much too long. Perhaps the authors would consider cutting it down by half?

Only then did the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. of Phillipsburg, N.J., take up the project, releasing the book on Feb. 11, 1961. Now nearly 50 years later, it continues to impact Bible students around the world and across the generations.

Against the backdrop of the mid-20th century infatuation with naturalism and scientific truth, the authors articulated a dissenting position. At the time, a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of Creation and the Flood was scarcely being taught, other than by a few conservative Lutherans and Seventh-day Adventist theologians. Even within fundamentalism the prevailing views were the gap theory (the view that there can be a gap containing millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2) and the day-age theory (the view that each day of the creation week may represent vast ages of time).

“Sept. 3, 1953, was my first personal encounter with Henry Morris,” says John Whitcomb, who was in his third year teaching at Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Ind., when he heard Morris present a paper on “The Deluge Theory of Geology” to the American Scientific Affiliation.

By that time, Morris was already a hero to Whitcomb, who had read Morris’s first book, That You Might Believe (Good News Publishing Co., 1946), after receiving a copy from Morris’s former pastor, Dick Seume. Though Whitcomb was raised an evolutionist and was teaching the standard gap theory, he was quite taken with Morris’s presentation on Flood geology.

“I feel that your conclusions are Scripturally valid, and therefore must be sustained by a fair examination of geologic evidence in time to come,” Whitcomb said in a letter to Morris, revealing a significant change of heart.

“I have adopted your views,” he told Morris, “and am presenting them to my class as preferable alternatives to the gap theory and the day-age theory.”

“He replied on Sept. 22,” Whitcomb says, looking back, “and that began a correspondence of over 200 letters as I prepared a doctoral dissertation on the Biblical doctrine of the Flood and we worked out the details of a coauthored volume.”

Indeed, a discussion of historic proportions was beginning to take shape when Morris wrote to Whitcomb on Dec. 5, 1953: “I am surely glad to learn you are planning to write your doctor’s dissertation on this subject. If I can be of any help in this, please let me know. I believe I mentioned to you that I am trying to write a book on the subject. Perhaps we can be of mutual help to each other from time to time.”

Whitcomb decided to survey professors in evangelical schools, asking them to describe their beliefs on Creation and the Flood. He reported the results in a letter to Morris, expressing disappointment in a lack of consensus from scholars who were “confused, very confused on these basic matters.”

Image of The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications
by Henry M. Morris, John C. Whitcomb
P & R Publishing 1960
Paperback, 518 pp.

Whitcomb also discovered some theologians had no time to waste on the issue. Bernard Ramm, whom conservatives respected for his Protestant Biblical Interpretation, had released The Christian View of Science and Scripture in 1954, in which he rejected a literal six-day interpretation of Genesis as being inconsistent with scientific evidence. In another letter to Morris, Whitcomb privately called it “a rallying point for the New Deism.” But there was no turning back for those who became known as the New Evangelicals. In 1956, Christian Life Magazine published “Is Evangelical Theology Changing?” and called for a new movement with “a friendly attitude toward science.”

By 1957, Whitcomb had completed his doctoral thesis, and Morris agreed to make The Genesis Flood a joint project between them. Interestingly, the pair met personally on only two more occasions as they laboriously prepared their manuscripts and compared notes from a distance.

Whitcomb and Morris never expected their position to be warmly embraced by the uniformitarian geologists of the day. “We realize, of course, that modern scholarship will be impatient with [our] approach,” the authors said in their introduction. “Our conclusions must unavoidably be colored by our Biblical presuppositions, and this we plainly acknowledge.” And the presuppositions? “We accept as basic the doctrine of the verbal inerrancy of Scripture,” the authors said.

This starting point immediately alienated secular scientists who read the book—but it soon won over a generation of pastors and theologians who were tired of trying to accommodate their theology to the changing whims of science. This consistent implementation of Scripture was at the philosophical heart of the new book. As the authors put it, “We believe that a system founded squarely on full confidence in the Scriptures will be found ultimately to be much more satisfying than any other, in its power to correlate scientific data and to resolve problems and other apparent conflicts.”

Despite the initial warnings by publishers who refused the manuscript, the book was an immediate sales success. Since 1961, The Genesis Flood has gone through 48 printings and has been translated into German, Korean, Serbian, and Spanish. More than 300,000 copies are in print. (“For this, we offer profound praise to our God,” Whitcomb says.)

The book’s theological—and cultural—significance may even outweigh its status as a publishing success. Within two years after publication, like-minded scientists began meeting informally in a group that would become known as the Creation Research Society, organized around a doctrinal statement that embraced Morris and Whitcomb’s presuppositions about Scripture.

“The Lord used that book to start the modern creation movement; there is no doubt about it,” says Ken Ham, president and cofounder of Answers in Genesis, in AiG’s DVD The History and Impact of “The Genesis Flood.”

Since then, a vast array of creationist resources have been produced by publishers such as Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research. Just one example is the two-volume set by geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling, Earth’s Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation & the Flood (Institute for Creation Research, 2010), which is billed—with Dr. Whitcomb’s blessing—as an update to The Genesis Flood.

Whitcomb and Morris certainly built their thinking and ministries on the right foundation—that Christ is the creator of all things and His Word is the only text by which one can properly interpret His world, from history’s beginning to its end. Contemporary believers, with such a legacy behind them, have assurance that comes from building their lives on Scripture alone.

In this day of vast apostasy and turning from the Word of God, the message of The Genesis Flood is needed now more than ever. Christians have the opportunity to build higher upon this great foundation of understanding Biblical truth.

Looking to the future of the Creation movement, Whitcomb offers the following analysis: “Special revelation from God in the Bible is the solid foundation of the modern Creation movement. Christ, our Creator and Savior, emphasized the literal truth of Genesis concerning creation events (Matthew 19:4) and the worldwide flood in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37–39). Our God, of course, cannot lie or deceive us concerning the vital issue of ultimate origins. Creation took place in six days, not millions of years. Trillions of plants and animals were fossilized by the hydrodynamic forces of the Flood, not before human beings were created. This frame of reference is the dynamic of creation science, and the divinely provided key to unlock the marvels of Earth origins.”

Additional Resources


Paul J. Scharf (MDiv, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) has served as a pastor, Bible teacher, and journalist. He became John C. Whitcomb’s ministry assistant in 2003. Scharf, a freelance writer for Regular Baptist Press, has previously written biographical articles about Dr. Whitcomb for the Gospel Herald and Sunday School Times and for an anthology written in Whitcomb’s honor, Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth (Master Books, 2008).

Discussion

Paul,

Thank you for such an edifying reminder about two men who were not ashamed to put the Bible before the pontifications of “science.” With the defection of evangelical scholars to theistic evolutionism that is occurring this article is a shot in the arm.

Your brother,

Paul H.

Dr. Paul Henebury

I am Founder of Telos Ministries, and Senior Pastor at Agape Bible Church in N. Ca.

Gen. Flood, along with some other books by Morris, had a huge impact on my dad and, as a result, on me. For several years he was my Sunday School teacher as well as my dad and we all got a strong creation emphasis from him. Genesis Flood had an honored place on the bookshelf.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Thanks, Paul, for the kind words, and thanks Aaron for running the article!

Thanks to God the Creator for raising up this book — beginning 50 years ago today!

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

I remember studying the Genesis flood my Sophmore year of high school. It was pretty tough for my mid teen mind - BUT I was so thrilled to see a scholarly work re-enforcing all I had been taught regarding Creationism. (I had gone through public school through 8th grade - and my Mom would constantly point out evolutionary teaching to me as I did homework.)

It is so exciting to think how these men motivated others to stand up and develop ministries dedicated to Creationism.

Thank you for recording the excellent historical facts about a truly seminal work in the history of fundamentalism/evangelicalism. I still have my hardbound copy that I obtained while a seminary student in the 60s. Later in the 80s I had the privilege of meeting for a day with Henry Morris and a small group of leaders from the American Association of Christian Schools (of which I was Executive Director) and the Trans-National Association of Christian Schools (TRACS) in Dallas for some talks about accreditation. Dr. Morris was really the founder of, or at least the driving force behind the founding of TRACS. He was a fascinating person. Very genial and down to earth, but a single focused driving force for the Creationist Movement.

Gerry Carlson

[Aaron Blumer] Gen. Flood, along with some other books by Morris, had a huge impact on my dad and, as a result, on me. For several years he was my Sunday School teacher as well as my dad and we all got a strong creation emphasis from him. Genesis Flood had an honored place on the bookshelf.
Along with Scientific Creationism. And the arrival of ICR’s Acts and Facts in the mailbox was always highly anticipated.

I became a Christian in the Spring of 1980 in my junior year at a Catholic university. Having always been taught evolution, I never had consdiered another idea.

I immediately encountered some problems - what about Genesis 1? And Genesis 6? What about the geological record? All of these and more were abundantly answered when I got a hold of The Genesis Flood within the first month or so as a believer. It was my primer in creationism.

Thanks to all who labored for the Lord’s blessing, not man’s.

Thanks too should go to George McCready Price. In Morris’ 1984 book, History of Modern Creationism, he says when he found Price’s 1923 book The New Geology, “…it was a life-changing experience for me.”

Price was a Seventh Day Adventist, and his ideas were clearly behind The Genesis Flood. But he wasn’t credited, perhaps for fear of the book losing its wide appeal if it was connected to an Adventist. Some use the “plagiarism” word, but I don’t know about that. I just think it’s eerily similar to what David Otis Fuller did in using Benjamin Wilkinson’s earlier work in his 1970 book Which Bible, but not crediting him as the Adventist, he was.

Anyway, the fact that creation science (young earth) view basically stems from Morris and Whitcomb’s work should give us a bit of a pause before finding all who disagree with some of creation science/young earth’s tenets as being beyond the pale of orthodoxy.

Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.

[Bob Hayton] Anyway, the fact that creation science (young earth) view basically stems from Morris and Whitcomb’s work should give us a bit of a pause before finding all who disagree with some of creation science/young earth’s tenets as being beyond the pale of orthodoxy.
I don’t understand this statement. Why would we have reason to pause?

Besides, I would argue modern creation science might stem from this source, but the historic position of the church’s literal interpretation of creation predates these men - and frankly predates the church for that matter since it was accepted by the Jews in the OT.

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?

Well, the gap theory and the day-age theory were in vogue long before young earth creationism. There are creationist views which don’t denigrate literal interpretation of Gen. 1-3, but don’t necessarily line up with all of Morris and Whitcomb’s points.

Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.

[Bob Hayton] Well, the gap theory and the day-age theory were in vogue long before young earth creationism.
With all due respect, Bob, that is frankly an absurd statement.

As to the church’s historical positions on creationism, this is covered in Coming to Grips with Genesis. See also The Great Turning Point by Dr. Terry Mortenson.

Personally, having been raised a conservative Lutheran, I was in my mid-teens before I realized there were such creatures as professing conservative Christians who held to a non-literal view of Genesis — and I had never yet heard of Dr. Whitcomb or Dr. Morris!
[Bob Hayton] Some use the “plagiarism” word, but I don’t know about that.
Is this fair? You have floated a baseless, sourceless charge of plagiarism, saying you “don’t know about” it.

Hmmmm…… Then maybe it would have been better left unsaid…

You yourself included a reference to Morris crediting Price, answering your own concern.

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

Bob, you seem desirous to undercut the value of young earth creationism by associating The Genesis Flood with Seventh Day Adventism (post 9)and being a new view (post 11).

Then you leave the idea hanging that there are creationist views that are literal to the text of Genesis 1-3, but don’t line up with Whitcomb and Morris.

Care to elaborate?

[Ted Bigelow] Bob, you seem desirous to undercut the value of young earth creationism by associating The Genesis Flood with… being a new view (post 11).
From the original post here:
“The book that powered the modern creation movement….”

“At the time, a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of Creation and the Flood was scarcely being taught, other than by a few conservative Lutherans and Seventh-day Adventist theologians. Even within fundamentalism the prevailing views were the gap theory (the view that there can be a gap containing millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2) and the day-age theory (the view that each day of the creation week may represent vast ages of time).”

“ ‘The Lord used that book to start the modern creation movement; there is no doubt about it,’ says Ken Ham, president and cofounder of Answers in Genesis…”
The modern young-earth creationism is a “new view”. The movement traces its real start to The Genesis Flood. I understand that holding to a literal six-days goes back before then. But the stress on six-days and the young age of the earth, and other particulars of the cohesive modern movement called “creation science”, is by their own admission relatively new.

As for the plagiarism comment, I’m just saying that others have brought that up. Yes more than 20 years after the fact, Morris credits Price. But he didn’t at all in The Genesis Flood, and the correspondence to Price’s ideas would require at the least a citation or acknowledgment, one would think.

On a post about how pivotal The Genesis Flood was, I’m pointing out that given it’s importance, we should at least be aware that the views in that book were relatively new at the time, and were dependent on Price (no matter whether he wasn’t directly given credit in The Genesis Flood).

For me personally, this gives me pause in evaluating the claims of The Genesis Flood. Other Christian geologists one hundred years before that book, based on the evidence, modified their position on the age of the earth and other matters (I’m thinking of William Buckland).

I’m not ready to reject young earth creationism. But my preference for it is more tenuous given these points which I felt might be worth bringing up.

I plan on reading Coming to Grips with Genesis, by the way. I plan on studying out the church’s historic position on these matters further. But from what I have read and studied, it doesn’t seem as unanimous when it comes to this issue as some would have us think.

Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.

[Bob Hayton] I plan on reading Coming to Grips with Genesis, by the way. I plan on studying out the church’s historic position on these matters further. But from what I have read and studied, it doesn’t seem as unanimous when it comes to this issue as some would have us think.
I hope you do.

Regarding the primary issue you raise, I think you are confusing two related but distinct ideas.

Although “the stress on six-days and the young age of the earth” is, in fact, the historic position of the church (which does not necessarily make it correct) — although in this case, as Chip pointed out, it goes all the way back to the beginnings of Israel — this view had gone almost completely “out of vogue” by 1961 within evangelicalism and fundamentalism (which does not necessarily make it incorrect).

(As an aside, Terry Mortenson, who is probably the foremost expert in the world on the history of creationism from a YEC perspective, has noted that every article on creation in The Fundamentals was, by our standards, flawed [great idea there for a D.Min. thesis for someone…].)

Thus, in 1961 YEC was, in one sense, something brand new that would have an overwhelming impact on the Christian world in the years to come.

In another sense, it was the most un-original idea ever proposed. For goodness sake — Concordia Seminary professor Alfred Rehwinkel had written about The Flood 10 years before Drs. Whitcomb and Morris!! But he was talking to Missouri Synod Lutherans, who already had this teaching. His book, alone, would never have had the impact that TGF did.

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry