Doubts about the deluge.
986.
A DOUBTFUL POINT.
Here a doubt arises, and that is: whether the deluge, which happened
at the time of Noah, was universal or not. And it would seem not,
for the reasons now to be given: We have it in the Bible that this
deluge lasted 40 days and 40 nights of incessant and universal rain,
and that this rain rose to ten cubits above the highest mountains in
the world. And if it had been that the rain was universal, it would
have covered our globe which is spherical in form. And this
spherical surface is equally distant in every part, from the centre
of its sphere; hence the sphere of the waters being under the same
conditions, it is impossible that the water upon it should move,
because water, in itself, does not move unless it falls; therefore
how could the waters of such a deluge depart, if it is proved that
it has no motion? and if it departed how could it move unless it
went upwards? Here, then, natural reasons are wanting; hence to
remove this doubt it is necessary to call in a miracle to aid us, or
else to say that all this water was evaporated by the heat of the
sun.
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