Summary
In January 2026, Dr. Hugh Ross made a Facebook post that repeated his local Flood view, which is expounded upon in his recent book, Noah’s Flood Revisited: New Depths of Insight from Science and Scripture. His post said this:
All global flood models for Noah’s flood require vastly accelerated plate tectonic movement, from 2 centimeters per year to 24,000 kilometers per year. Such acceleration requires vastly accelerated radioisotope decay rates. The problem is that all plants, woods, and animals contain potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238. The decay of these radioisotopes at such extremely accelerated rates would instantly vaporize all Earth’s life, both terrestrial and marine, the ark, and all Earth’s water. While God can and has superseded the laws of physics on occasion at tiny locales (e.g. the floating axehead; Jesus walking on water), Jeremiah 33, Romans 8, and Ecclesiastes assert that on a global scale the laws of physics are immutable.
Biblically, appeals to a global flood are not necessary. The Bible teaches that Noah’s Flood was universal, wiping out all humans and their animals except for those on the ark. Since humanity was not yet globally distributed at the time of Noah’s Flood, there was no need for Noah’s Flood to cover all Earth’s surface.1
But as detailed in Part 1, God’s Word clearly presents Noah’s Flood as a global cataclysm. In this Part 2 response, we’ll discuss how Dr. Ross repeats the secular skeptics’ claim that accelerated tectonic plate movements and accelerated radioactive decay during the Flood would have generated so much heat to vaporize the earth. Like the skeptics, Dr. Ross ignores the published responses to this claim, specifically the survival of copious polonium radiohalos alongside uranium radiohalos and fission tracks in minerals in rocks all around the globe that such claimed heat would have wiped out.
Additionally, Dr. Ross wrongly assumes that because, today, the tissues of plants, animals, and man contain trace radioactive elements whose decay is detrimental, such detrimental radioactive elements were always in the tissues of plants, animals, and man.
And finally, Dr. Ross wrongly insists that God has never suspended the laws of physics globally. But God did so when He stopped the sun going down during Joshua’s long day (Joshua 10:12–13) and moved the sun backward as a sign to King Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:7–8).
Dr. Ross’ Underlying Assumption
In my Part 1 response, we firmly established Dr. Ross’ incorrect handling of God’s Word. Now, it is also crucial to expose Dr. Ross’ scientific assumptions about the earth’s supposed past history that cause him to impose man’s word as his authority instead of God’s Word.
We need to understand that conventional geologists and Dr. Ross, who accept and promote the billions of years timescale, cannot see any evidence for the biblical, global cataclysmic Flood because they are looking in the wrong place, that is, at the wrong level in the geologic record. They are looking only at the very top of the earth’s rock sequences. They are essentially looking only at the residual deposits on the earth’s surface that were supposedly produced after 4.57 billion years of prior earth history. That is because, according to the biblical chronology, Noah’s Flood occurred only about 4,500 years ago.
It’s actually an anti-biblical belief called uniformitarianism, which the Apostle Peter warned us that scoffers would promulgate.
Thus, Dr. Ross and conventional (evolutionary) geologists do not recognize the billions of marine fossils in the sedimentary rock layers that were deposited right across continents as the result of the Genesis floodwaters, which totally covered the earth.2 Their dating methods that provide the millions of years are based on assumptions, such as “only present geologic processes at their present rates of change can be extrapolated back into the past to explain the earth’s history and the formation of its rock layers.” It’s actually an anti-biblical belief called uniformitarianism, which the Apostle Peter warned us that scoffers would promulgate in the last days:
Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. (2 Peter 3:3–6)
Peter warned us that in these last days, scoffers will deliberately overlook, or be willingly ignorant of, the evidence that “the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” And they will justify their rejection of the global Genesis Flood cataclysm by insisting that “all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” In other words, they will insist that past earth processes and rates of change were always the same as today’s earth processes. Thus, they say, since geological processes and their rates and frequency (for example, erosion, sedimentation, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.) have been uniform throughout earth history and we have never experienced a global flood today, then there never has been a global flood cataclysm in the earth’s past history. But it is purely a belief because past geological processes can never be observed. This belief is known as uniformitarianism. Observed present geological processes and rates of change are used to interpret the unobserved past history of the earth and the formation of its rock layers.
Some historical background identifies who these scoffers are. As I wrote before,
Among the “founding fathers” of modern geology were James Hutton and Charles Lyell.3 James Hutton’s paper “Theory of the Earth” presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785 laid the foundation for the doctrine of uniformitarianism. He wrote about the history of the earth and the formation of its rock layers: “The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.”4 According to historian William Berry, Hutton’s talk “encompassed in conclusive form the principle that natural laws may be derived from studying present processes; that understanding of nature’s past operations may be obtained from observations of present natural relationships.”5, 6
And geologist Arthur Holmes said:
The rocks are also pages of the book of earth history, and the chief object of historical geology is to learn to decipher those pages, and to place them in their proper historical order. The fundamental principle involved in reading their meanings was first enunciated by Hutton in 1785, when he declared that “the present is the key to the past,” meaning that “the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen happening now.”7
Berry continues:
Hutton’s conclusions began to be used by a number of naturalists, but none had so broad an influence on the thought of his time as Charles Lyell. Lyell’s Principles of Geology, published initially in three volumes that appeared in 1830, 1832, and 1833, covered the whole scope of geology, and not only supported but also amplified the principle of the uniformity of natural processes through time by extensive coverage of erosional and depositional processes. . . . All phenomena that are related to the past history of the earth are dependent upon the principle of the uniformity in nature’s processes through time for their interpretation. . . . Hutton’s conclusions and Lyell’s amplification of them are the heart and soul of geology. As may be noted from this short history of the development of Hutton’s conclusions, they have been considered, tested, and used for centuries. Their roots are as old as, if not older than, those of nearly any principle applicable to natural phenomena; they form one of the most broadly based and reliable set of guidelines in scientific investigation.8
And I summarize the uniformitarianism belief:
It is thus evident that the principle of the uniformity of natural processes through time (uniformitarianism) is “the heart and soul” of modern geology. At its core is the belief that only [presently observable] natural processes “must be” used to explain the earth’s past history. God is not involved, only nature operates according to the processes and their rates that we observe today, only “the present is the key to the past.” Since we have never observed a global Flood cataclysm, then one never happened.9
Indeed, Charles Lyell’s stated objective was to rid Moses from the science of geology.10 He deliberately aimed to remove the biblical global Flood cataclysm from any explanation of the earth’s geology. Thus, uniformitarianism is an anti-biblical belief (that is, worldview). And Lyell succeeded in brainwashing subsequent geologists with this belief so that the principle of the uniformity of natural processes through time (uniformitarianism) is “the heart and soul” of modern geology. Prominent geology professor Derek Ager wrote this about the tactics of his fellow brainwashed uniformitarian geologists:
Just as politicians rewrite human history, so geologists rewrite earth history. For a century and a half, the geological world has been dominated, one might even say brainwashed, by the gradualistic uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell. Any suggestion of “catastrophic” events has been rejected as old-fashioned, unscientific, and even laughable.11
Stephen Gould, the noted evolutionary paleontologist from Harvard, wrote:
Charles Lyell was a lawyer by profession, and his book [Principles of Geology, 1830–1833] is one of the most brilliant briefs ever published by an advocate . . . Lyell relied upon true bits of cunning to establish his uniformitarian views as the only true geology. First, he set up a straw man to demolish. . . . In fact, the catastrophists were much more empirically minded than Lyell. The geologic record does seem to require catastrophes: rocks are fractured and contorted; whole faunas are wiped out. To circumvent this literal appearance, Lyell imposed his imagination upon the evidence.12
Gradualism was never “proved from the rocks” by Lyell and Darwin, but was rather imposed as a bias upon nature. . . . [It] has had a profoundly negative impact by stifling hypotheses and by closing the minds of a profession toward reasonable empirical alternatives to the dogma of gradualism. . . . Lyell won with rhetoric what he could not carry with data.13
It should be noted also that this same uniformitarian belief is held to by modern astronomers who extrapolate what is observed today back into the universe’s past. The most obvious example is extrapolating backward the currently observed expansion of the universe back to the supposed “big bang.” Thus, Dr. Ross has bowed to the anti-biblical brainwashing of modern geology and astronomy by totally accepting the claimed billions of years (and he did so, according to his own testimony in his own books, many years before he first read Genesis and before he professed faith in Christ). After all, how could the majority of scientists be wrong? But truth has never been determined by majority vote, as Jesus warned when he said:
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13–14)
And the majority were wrong when the Flood came because only eight people survived!
So Dr. Ross cannot see the evidence that Noah’s Flood was global because he is looking only at the earth’s surficial layers and rivers in the Middle East. He believes that all the fossil-bearing, water-deposited sedimentary layers underneath those surficial deposits and around the world were deposited slowly and gradually only by present geological processes over hundreds of millions of years well before the biblical date for Noah’s Flood about 4,500 years ago. Thus, having unquestioningly accepted the evolutionist interpretation of the rock record, he has to find a way to add millions of years to God’s Word. So he twists the biblical text, imposing fallible, finite man’s word (the anti-biblical belief in uniformitarianism) on the Word of the infinite, all-knowing Creator God who never lies.
Dr. Ross twists the biblical text, imposing fallible, finite man’s word on the Word of the infinite, all-knowing Creator God who never lies.
It must also be noted that Dr. Ross insists he does not accept evolution. However, he accepts the fossil record in those fossil-bearing, water-deposited sedimentary rock layers that are “dated” back the supposed hundreds of millions of years. Yet the conventional (uniformitarian) geologists claim those fossils provide unequivocal evidence of the evolution of life from microbes to man during those supposed hundreds of millions of years.
Furthermore, the fossil record is a record of disease, violence, carnivory, and death, the evidence for which Dr. Ross conveniently sidesteps. And this disease, violence, carnivory, and death occurred in the struggle for life over hundreds of millions of years before man appeared on the scene, according to evolutionists.
So in Dr. Ross’ view, in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve must have been walking on grass on top of rock layers containing fossils of many creatures that had suffered and died before God created Adam and Eve. Yet God’s Word specifically declares after God had created Adam and Eve, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31, emphasis added). And how does God define “good”? Jesus said that God alone is good (Matthew 19:17). That means, when God declared that everything He created was “very good,” He was comparing it all to His own perfection and holy character.
Thus, God’s Word clearly teaches that prior to the curse, which God placed on all of creation because of Adam and Eve’s subsequent disobedience and rebellion, there was no disease, violence, carnivory, death, or extinction in all of God’s creation. God even declared that man and the animals eating plants was “very good,” as He had specifically commanded them to do so (Genesis 1:29–30). Only when God cursed the ground did thorns and thistles grow, and suffering, pain, and death became man’s lot (Genesis 3:17–19).
The Apostle Paul reminds us of this truth about the curse and its effects on all of creation:
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:20–22)
Dr. Ross’ Scientific Objections
Dr. Ross is adept at never mentioning his acceptance of the anti-biblical uniformitarian belief of slow-and-gradual processes over supposed billions of years, but it is prominent nonetheless. Understanding this, we can move on to deal with his supposed scientific objections to believing in the global Flood cataclysm, mentioned in his Facebook post.
Accelerated Plate Movements, Accelerated Radioisotope Decay Rates, and Heat
Today, we measure tectonic plate movements of only centimeters per year and radioisotope decay rates in half-lives of billions of years. Thus Dr. Ross and his fellow uniformitarians insist that tectonic plate movements and radioisotope decay rates must always have been uniformly slow in the past at today’s measured rates. Indeed, the 4.57 billion year “age” for the earth was thus determined by radioisotope dating using the uranium-lead isochron method,14 assuming that uranium has always decayed to lead at the same rate we measure today.
Now it is true that Flood geologists have proposed that catastrophic tectonic plate movements occurred during the global Genesis Flood cataclysm.15 But the known physics responsible for the catastrophic plate movements has been carefully explained and accounted for in global simulations of the catastrophic plate movements.16
Furthermore, creation scientists have ably exposed the problems with the unproven assumptions on which radioisotope dating is based, with documentation from the conventional literature.17 It has also been explained in nontechnical, laymen’s language.18 They have also demonstrated from six lines of evidence based on field and laboratory studies that radioisotope decay rates were accelerated by many orders of magnitude during some past cataclysmic event, namely, the global Genesis Flood.19
But would the decay of these radioisotopes at such extremely accelerated rates have instantly vaporized all Earth’s life (both terrestrial and marine), the ark, and all earth’s water? No, there is impeccable evidence that the claimed heat generated by accelerated radioisotope decay rates was never a problem. Specifically, the generation of polonium radiohalos due to accelerated radioisotope decay rates and the concurrent survival of both radiohalos and fission tracks unequivocally demonstrate that there was no heat problem.20 Both observational and experimental evidence shows that radiohalos are destroyed at only 150°C, which is very much below any vaporization temperature, while fission tracks are likewise destroyed at similar temperatures depending on the host mineral. Dr. Ross and many skeptics are either unfamiliar with this published research evidence or deliberately choose to ignore it. Because their vaporization claim is so dramatic, they do not want to forego such an instant impact on their readers. But they are simply wrong.
However, what about the supposed problem that all plants, woods, and animals contain potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238, and thus accelerated radioisotope decay rates would have been devastating to all those plants, woods, animals, and people on the ark? Here is where Dr. Ross’ uniformitarian assumption again surfaces! Dr. Ross is assuming that just because all of today’s plants, woods, and animals contain potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238, then they must have always contained those parent radioisotopes in the past. It seems a reasonable assumption to make, until the claim is examined according to the authority of God’s Word.
It is true that today plants, woods, and animals contain potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 and that the decay of these radioisotopes today damages the cells and tissues of plants and animals. So degradation occurs over time. However, based on what God tells us in His Word, would God have created the plants, animals, and Adam and Eve with radioactive potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 in their tissues and bodies? Would these isotopes even have been radioactive during the creation week? No, absolutely not. As already explained above, at the end of the sixth creation day, when God had completed creating everything, He declared that everything was “very good,” that is, perfect according to His own holy character and perfection. Since decaying radioisotopes damage and destroy cells and tissues in plants, animals, and people, these isotopes would not have been present within plants, animals, and people in the initial “very good” creation and would not have been radioactive.
So even if God triggered radioisotope decay as part of the curse after Adam and Eve sinned, then since potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 were not present in the tissues of plants, animals, and people at their creation, their tissues and bodies would not have started being damaged by those radioisotopes immediately after the curse. To be sure, damage would have occurred generally throughout creation due to radioisotopes in the earth’s environment beginning to decay when God cursed the ground (Genesis 3:17). But can we assume potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 were in the tissues and bodies of all plants, animals, and people prior to and during the Flood? No, absolutely not! If their tissues and bodies were created by God as perfect, then we can instead assume such isotopes were not present in the tissues and bodies of plants, animals, and people in the pre-Flood world. Hence Dr. Ross’ objection evaporates!
Suspending the Laws of Physics Globally
Finally, Dr. Ross claims, “While God can and has superseded the laws of physics on occasion at tiny locales (e.g. the floating axehead; Jesus walking on water), Jeremiah 33, Romans 8, and Ecclesiastes assert that on a global scale the laws of physics are immutable.”21 So, Dr. Ross, if God is capable of suspending the laws of physics on occasion at tiny locales, then why cannot God suspend the laws of physics globally?
Erosion, tectonics, sedimentation, and radioactive decay rates were drastically increased to accomplish God’s intended purpose to destroy the earth and blot out man and every air-breathing, land-dwelling creature except those on the ark.
First of all, we need to distinguish between the laws of physics and the rates at which geological processes operate, lest there is confusion or conflation. The laws of physics did not change during the Flood as erosion, tectonics, sedimentation, and radioactive decay occurred. However, the rates of those geological processes definitely did change, as erosion, tectonics, sedimentation, and radioactive decay rates were drastically increased to accomplish God’s intended purpose to destroy the earth and blot out man and every air-breathing, land-dwelling creature except those on the ark. The belief in the uniformity of the rates of geological processes throughout all time (uniformitarianism), as held to as a given by Dr. Ross, must never be conflated or confused with the laws of physics that are intrinsic to the designed order God put into all of creation. Yet God’s power is not constrained or bound by the laws of physics.
Do Jeremiah 33, Romans 8, and Ecclesiastes assert that on a global scale the laws of physics are immutable? Dr. Ross glibly throws at us these vague biblical references, not expecting readers to actually investigate the specifics. So let’s check on these passages.
Presumably, the Jeremiah 33 passage Dr. Ross is referring to is verses 20–21 and 25–26:
Thus says the Lord: “If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers.”
Thus says the Lord: “If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth, then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
However, these verses are not teaching that God cannot suspend the laws of physics globally and throughout the universe if He chooses to. After all, when Joshua and his army were fighting the Amorites in Joshua 10:12–13, we read:
At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.
Then there was the time when King Hezekiah was sick and dying, so he prayed to the Lord for healing, and the Lord answered his prayer. Isaiah was sent to tell Hezekiah the news of God’s answer in healing him and extending his life by 15 years. We read in Isaiah 38:7–8 that God gave a sign to Hezekiah:
“This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he has promised: Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.
Surely, these are two examples of God suspending the laws of physics globally and throughout the universe when He chose to do so. Both are examples of God supernaturally changing the motion of the sun and the moon at his command, breaking their regular motion that He had ordained when He created them. So Dr. Ross’ claim here is fallacious, proven wrong by God’s Word.
As for Romans 8, one presumes Dr. Ross is referring to verse 21 quoted above in which Paul refers to the creation being in bondage to corruption, that is, under the curse. And then, there is the book of Ecclesiastes in which Solomon says much about the created order. For example, in Ecclesiastes 1:5–7, Solomon describes the cycles of the sun, winds, and water:
The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
None of these passages referred to by Dr. Ross teaches that God is bound by the order He put into His creation. God can choose to suspend or alter the laws of physics at any scale He chooses at any time He chooses wherever He chooses. Indeed, God specifically tells us in the Flood account that He shut the door of the ark (Genesis 7:16), He broke up the fountains of the great deep at exactly the time He wanted them broken up (Genesis 7:11), and He “made a wind blow over the earth” so the waters subsided (Genesis 8:1).
Dr. Ross, if God can supersede and has superseded the laws of physics on occasion at tiny locales as you say, then why cannot He supersede the laws of physics globally and throughout the universe when He so chooses? Yes, under normal usual conditions, the laws of physics are immutable, so for example, gravity keeps us on the earth’s surface so we don’t float off into space, and the sun always rises and sets in its regular cycle according to God’s covenant with the day and night. However, God has also superseded the laws of physics globally when He chose to do so (for example, Joshua’s long day and Hezekiah’s sundial), and He can supersede the laws of physics whenever, wherever, and however He chooses to. He is not bound by man’s whims but is all-powerful and absolutely sovereign.
Conclusion
Dr. Hugh Ross’ biblical and scientific claims about Noah’s Flood have been carefully and thoroughly examined in both this article and in Part 1, and all have been found to be fallacious.
Dr. Ross has capitulated to the anti-biblical, uniformitarian belief that controls the conventional scientific majority’s “story” about the history of the universe, the earth, and its rock layers. He totally accepts the millions of years of disease, violence, carnivory, and death as occurring before God created Adam and Eve. In other words, in his view, the curse was already in operation and the creation already under the bondage to corruption before Adam and Eve were even created, contrary to God’s testimony in His Word.
Dr. Ross’ wrong assumptions have led him to make wrong and deceptive claims that have led many evangelical theologians, laypeople, and youth astray. Decaying radioisotopes would not have been present in God’s originally “very good” creation so that the tissues and bodies of plants, animals, and Adam and Eve would not be damaged. And just because the decaying radioisotopes potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 are in the tissues and bodies of plants, animals, and people today, it is erroneous to assume such decaying radioisotopes were present in plants, animals, and people in the pre-Flood world.
God’s power is not subject to finite, fallible man’s assertions.
God’s power is not subject to finite, fallible man’s assertions. He is absolutely sovereign and can choose to do whatever He wants to do whenever and wherever He wants, even superseding the normally immutable laws of physics globally and throughout the universe. Our authority is God’s inerrant Word, not fallible, finite man’s fallacious ideas. Science changes, but God’s Word never does.