Was the flood in Genesis universal or local?
This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘The God of New Beginnings’ (1975).
It is an interesting question whether the flood as recorded in Genesis was a universal flood, or whether it was in some sense confined and local. Scientifically there is a good deal of evidence on both sides. Mark that—on both sides. When you read certain books you would think that there is evidence for only one side but there is a great deal of evidence for both. But once more the Apostle Peter comes to our aid by his reference to that law of uniformity that I mentioned earlier.1
Scoffers will say . . . 'For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation' . . . 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 . . . the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.' (2 Peter 3:3–6)
He says that the flood was a catastrophe that broke nature's normal uniformity. It is common knowledge that local floods take place all over the world with frequent rapidity, in Bangladesh and the Wash in England and parts of Belfast from time to time. They are local floods; they don't break nature's great law of uniformity, because it is part of the normal scheme of things that floods will come from time to time. If Noah's flood had been nothing more than one of these local floods, it would not have broken the law of uniformity. We have Peter's inspired testimony that the flood was certainly a major catastrophe of the kind that did break nature's uniformity.
1 See page 61 of the transcript, ‘The God of New Beginnings’.