Early Argumentation
Byron C. Nelson · 2021
The theory that the Biblical Flood had changed the old earth and brought about its stratified condition was widely known and discussed by the close of the seventeenth century. John Ray believed the Bible. He also believed that the Flood changed the world considerably. But his erroneous opinion about fossils led him to disbelieve in the Flood as the producer of the stratified rocks. Following are his main arguments against the Deluge, which consider for the light thus cast on the nature of that event. A modern geologist recently cited it as a fundamental argument against the Flood theory, saying that the condition Ray describes makes absolutely necessary the acceptance of the uniformitarian view of geology. Strange to say, a modern writer against the Flood theory has reversed the objection, saying that “fossils are too much sorted when they should be mixed.” Harris explained how fossils in some cases would be mixed.