Grand Canyon Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

June 18, 2024June 17, 2024

The Grand Canyon and Change

The Bible tells us that God designed planet Earth with the capacity to change, and the geologic and fossil record agrees with that. The Grand Canyon is one of the most fascinating places on Earth. By going to the bottom of the canyon eight times and floating on the Colorado River four times, I have seen the history of change and its benefits to humans. I have also seen the harm that humans have inflicted on the Colorado River.

The Grand Canyon is not just one massive layer of rock. The canyon exhibits multiple layers of different kinds of rocks, and each layer has a different story to tell. At the bottom of the Grand Canyon, we see rocks forged in Earth’s creation. They are tilted and eroded with a layer of sedimentary rocks on top of the eroded surface. The sedimentary rocks contain the remains of creatures that lived in an ocean that once covered the region. One animal is the trilobite, similar to today’s horseshoe crabs. A layer of petrified mud called Bright Angel Shale rests on top of the sandstone, and Mauv Limestone covers the shale layer. Limestone is only deposited in deep oceans, so change was involved.

The sea became shallower for a while and then deeper again, indicating climate change. This deeper layer is called the Redwall Limestone, but the red is caused by iron minerals seeping from rocks above it. This limestone layer is 800 feet thick and is covered by the 700-foot-thick Supai formation, which contains corals, crinoids, and gastropods not seen in earlier layers.

With a warmer climate, the ocean became shallow enough that land plants could exist. More change happened, and the area became a desert, laying down the Coconino Sandstone. That layer contains frosted sand grains produced by high winds blowing the sand, which does not happen underwater. We can see lava flows on top of some of these layers, revealing the change produced by volcanic activity. Then, a shallow sea developed and got deeper, producing the Kaibab Limestone with many ocean creatures we don’t find in earlier layers.

Over time, a series of geological changes transformed the area we now know as the Colorado Plateau. These changes, including the uplift of the land and subsequent erosion, are what we see today in the Grand Canyon. They are a testament to the dynamic nature of our planet and the resources it has provided for human survival.

Some people suggest that Noah’s flood produced the Grand Canyon. They are ignorant of petrology – the study of rocks. The canyon is 278 miles long and gives a solid testimony to the patience and wisdom of God. Noah’s time was yet to come when all of these layers were deposited, and Noah’s flood is not recorded in the rocks or biology of ancient times. Saying that God created all of these layers and fossils to fool us makes God a liar, and James 1:13 says God never misleads us. Make sure the evidence supports your convictions – not unquestioning belief in denominational teachings or blind faith in chance as the causal agent for Earth and its amazing features and living things.

July 24, 2021August 1, 2021

The Tradition of Dispensationalism and the Earth’s Age

The Tradition of Dispensationalism and the Age of the Earth — Grand Canyon Limestone

Yesterday we looked at the denominational tradition of dispensationalism and its promotion of the idea that Earth’s age is only 6000 years or so. The promotors of this denominational teaching have spent millions of dollars producing the Creation Museum in the Dallas area, the Creation Theme Park and Ark Encounter with Ken Ham in Kentucky. They have also produced massive numbers of books, videos, and public presentations promoting their doctrine. It is a high-dollar operation and has influenced many Christians.

The tradition of dispensationalism presented in these museums and programs has so many scientific and logical problems, it would take a book to deal with them all. Here are a few:

Their understanding of the origins of rocks is very weak. For example, the Grand Canyon has massive amounts of limestone. Their contention that the flood of Noah produced the limestone is dead wrong. A flood never produces a chemically precipitated rock like limestone. Sandstone, conglomerate, and shale are flood deposits, and they exist in small amounts in the canyon.

Their understanding of radioactive dating is very bad. Nuclear dating methods correlate well with other dating methods. Carbon 14 is not used for very old things because its half-life is too short, so scientists use many other radioactive materials for older datings. The average high school physics student knows these methods and understands this point.

Their understanding of geologic processes is very weak. For example, how long did it take for continental glaciers to carve massive numbers of lakes and huge moraines that make up much of Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, and the Great Lakes? How long does it take to produce anthracite coal – not the lignite that can form rapidly?

They create problems by trying to squeeze events into a 6000-year Earth history to fit the tradition of dispensationalism. For example, Methuselah lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27) and is the grandfather of Noah. If Noah lived 950 years (Genesis 9:29) and was 600 years old when he went into the Ark (Genesis 7:11), was Methuselah killed by the flood? Over and over, the Bible tells us that God is outside of time. (See 2 Peter 3:8, Psalms 90:4. Psalms 102:27, Acts 1:7.) Despite that, dispensationalists want to lock God into a human time frame. They say that God made the universe and Earth look old even though they are not. Now you have God deliberately misleading humans, which James 1:13 says God would never do.

Our plea is to take what the Bible says without allowing human doctrines or denominational teachings to tell us what to believe. God could have done the creation instantly, but He chose to use vast amounts of time. By doing that, He enabled humans to find the resources we need by understanding how they were formed.

Don’t follow denominational traditions of dispensationalism! Just read and believe what the Bible says, realizing that it does not tell how old planet Earth is. If you are interested in learning more about dispensationalism, drop us a request, and we will mail you a copy of an article we published in the November/December 2008 issue of our journal titled “Destructive Dispensationalism.” Or you can read it online at THIS LINK. You can also read our previous posts on this subject HERE, HERE, and HERE.

February 10, 2021February 9, 2021

What Color Is Your River?

In my lifetime I have spent a lot of time on rivers. Living in Canada, I became acquainted with beautiful blue water with a clarity that allowed you to see the river’s bottom even at 20 feet. When my family moved to Bloomington, Indiana, I became involved with the White River, which was anything but white or blue. What color is your river?

In our 12 trips down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, I saw changes in the water from time to time. The river was sometimes brown and other times crystal blue depending on how much upstream water was being released from the Glen Canyon Dam. I now live on the Saint Joseph River in southern Michigan. I have read the notes of the first explorers who came through this area in which they tell of being able to see the bottom of the river through 20 feet of water. Now you can only see about a foot down. There has been a massive change in Americas’ rivers through the years.

In 1984, Satellites started taking pictures of rivers in the United States. Over 230,000 images have been taken and analyzed by the University of Pittsburgh, the University of North Carolina, and Duke University. The data shows that only five percent of Americas’ rivers are still blue. Twenty-eight percent are green, which in most cases is caused by algae. The remainder are yellow, with 11,629 miles of rivers having become distinctly greener since 1984.

As rivers change from blue to yellow to green, what can live in the rivers also changes. In the Saint Joseph River, where we live in Michigan, the kind of fish that live in the river today are far different from the native trout seen by the early settlers of this area. Today the river has large numbers of suckers and carp. There are some bass and panfish, and we do have salmon from Lake Michigan migrating up the river to spawn. Transplanted fish like walleye are popular, but the whole ecological makeup has changed.

What color is your river? More important is the question of what is causing the rivers to change color? The causes, according to the studies, are farm fertilizer runoff, dams, sewage, and global warming, which has raised the temperature so that cold-water fish cannot live in the river. This is more than the loss of recreational use of waterways. Numerous diseases, including cancer, are related to what is in the water we drink, bathe in, and provide to our animals.

The question of what color is your river leads to asking what you can do about it. Christians need to be vocal in encouraging our culture to initiate significant efforts to turn our waterways blue again. It is interesting that in Revelation 22:1-2, when the inspired writer wanted to portray some of the properties of heaven to mortal humans, he describes “a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal.” In ancient times, when people wanted to worship and get away from the hassle of human activity, they went to a river. (See Acts 16:13.) Today most of our rivers are not that attractive.

Data from Associated Press article by Seth Borenstein, January 9, 2021.

October 17, 2020October 15, 2020

Grand Canyon Stratigraphy

Over the years, this ministry has taken groups of people on what we call the “Canyonlands Tour” more than 30 times. A highlight of that trip is visiting the Grand Canyon. Looking into the Canyon, we see the various layers of rock, with each layer having a different set of properties. The study of Grand Canyon stratigraphy shows God’s design that allows us to live on this planet.

The materials in the layers (strata) of Earth all come from the molten material that made up the planet at its origin. Molten material solidified into granite. The red orthoclase material weathered out of the granite first, producing clay. Feldspars containing vital elements like iron, magnesium, calcium, and potassium came out of the granite, leaving quartz behind. The quartz became sand, and the other elements became soil, limestone, and all the other materials we see in the strata today.

As we stand on the edge of the Canyon, we can see the alternating layers of the Grand Canyon stratigraphy. We see sandstone (made of quartz), shale (made from mud), conglomerate (made from gravel), and limestone (a chemically precipitated rock made slowly in an area of quiet water). Deep within the canyon, we see layers tilted at an angle, indicating catastrophic geologic activity. Below that, we see rocks that have been altered by heat and pressure (metamorphic rocks). At the very bottom, we see the original volcanic granite from which all of this was formed.

We gaze in awe at the history of Earth before our eyes, and we marvel at God’s wisdom in design to prepare this incredible planet on which we live.

September 28, 2019September 26, 2019

Formation of the Grand Canyon

For many years science has studied the formation of the Grand Canyon. No single event produced the carving of the canyon. The north rim is higher than the south rim because the whole area has been bowed into what is called a monocline. Such flexing weakens rock just as bending a stick will weaken it at the point of maximum bending. In addition to bending and cracks which weaken sections of rock, water in the area is flowing toward the sea. The Colorado River flows in a path that wanders and winds through the area scouring its bed as it goes. Streams flow into the Colorado flow along the faults through weakened rock materials carving deeper and deeper. All of these things contribute to the formation of the Grand Canyon.

Another obvious contributor is time. How much time did it take to carve the canyon? Some science books will point out that the Colorado River is currently eroding one-half foot of rock every 1,000 years. Then they suggest that if you take the 5,000 feet of vertical rock missing from the canyon and divide it by .5 feet, it would take 10,000 of the 1,000-year-periods. In other words, it would take 10,000,000 years to carve the canyon.

What is wrong with that estimate? Well, first of all, the river is in granite now, which is harder than the sedimentary rocks above it. More important is the assumption that the volume of water in the canyon has been constant. In the past, glaciers melted, producing massive volumes of water in the canyon. Today with the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell controlling the flow (except in a simulation of spring floods), no such volume takes place. Estimating the time required to carve the canyon based on present erosion rates is a self-evident case of bad science.

Another example of bad science comes from creationists who point to Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington as an indication of the time required. Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 blowing out massive amounts of ash, scoria, pumice, and other extruded volcanic rocks. Erosion produced vast canyons on the flanks of the mountain in a few years. Those who say that proves large canyons can be carved in a short time are overlooking the fact that the volcanic rocks are relatively light, easy to erode, and highly porous. To make comparisons between the Grand Canyon and Mount St. Helens is like comparing butter with steel. (For more on this, click HERE.)

So how long did the formation of the Grand Canyon take? No one can answer that question, just as no one can tell you the date of Genesis 1:1. Only those willing to add to the Word of God will give a date. Many denominational creationists will do this to defend their human creeds and traditions, but I suggest that it is a dangerous thing to do.

What we see in the Grand Canyon is an incredible testimony to the power, patience, wisdom, and design of God. In His creation of the Earth, God has produced the elements He knew we would need. He has engineered a planet that processes and redistributes those materials in such a way that they are always available. The Grand Canyon gives us a glimpse of the inside workings of this great machine we call Earth. Genesis 1:1 tells us God created it, not how or when – or how it works. But God has given humans a curiosity, so we look for answers to the formation of the Grand Canyon. The important thing for us to remember is, “God saw all he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 24, 2019May 21, 2019

Mount Rushmore and DNA

If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to visit two locations in the United States. One of them is the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the other is Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. They are both very impressive; however, they have a big difference. Mount Rushmore and DNA have something in common that the Grand Canyon does not.

The Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore are both made of stone, and both are very complex. The Grand Canyon is much larger, but Mount Rushmore demonstrates specified complexity while the Grand Canyon does not. The specified complexity of Mount Rushmore indicates that natural forces did not create it. It is evident that some intelligence has acted on the granite of that mountain to give it specified features. By contrast, the complex features of the Grand Canyon did not require the direct act of intelligent agents, but only natural forces.

How do I know that Mount Rushmore was acted on by intelligence? First, I recognized that the shape of the mountain is very improbable and highly complex. It doesn’t look like any mountain I have ever seen before. But then, the Grand Canyon is also very improbable and highly complex, and it is not exactly like any canyon I have seen before. More than that, I recognize that the patterns on Mount Rushmore match something that I have seen before—pictures of some US presidents. Very few people would argue with my idea that this mountain shows design by intelligent beings while natural forces can explain the Grand Canyon without requiring the direct action of intelligent agents.

So what do Mount Rushmore and DNA have in common? In recent years, scientists have unlocked the secrets of DNA. We know that the base sequences of DNA are very improbable and contain a highly complex set of instructions. The nucleotide base sequences specify the complex synthesis of proteins in three dimensions. Those who are familiar with computer programming recognize that there are “design patterns” in DNA. There is more than just complexity; there is SPECIFIED complexity to accomplish a complex task. Intelligent people write programs for computers to perform tasks, such as to create an animation of the synthesizing of a protein. Would it not require intelligence to arrange the base sequences in DNA to synthesize actual complex proteins in three dimensions?

In Mount Rushmore and DNA, we see something complex and very improbable. Mount Rushmore shows a recognizable pattern designed to accomplish a task—to show us the faces of some American presidents. DNA is millions of times more complex than Mount Rushmore, and unlike the Grand Canyon, it contains specified complexity. It contains the instructions for making a complex living creature such as a human being. Is it reasonable to say that Mount Rushmore was intelligently designed and that DNA just happened with no intelligent guidance? We suggest that to do so is not rational.
— Roland Earnst © 2019

May 10, 2019May 9, 2019

What Happened to the Teays River?

Yesterday, we talked about the Teays River and how, like other rivers, it brought water into dry areas. (To read yesterday’s post, click HERE.) The map above shows the approximate path of the river and its tributaries. But we didn’t tell you what happened to the Teays River.

As glaciers came southward across North America, they buried the river and its tributaries with massive amounts of sand and gravel. In the process, the river’s flooding and flowing impounded massive quantities of water. The Teays still exists today in water stored underground. I can drill a well 12 feet (3.7 m) in my back yard and hit potable water. The agricultural blessing of the Teays has made the Ohio River Valley fertile and has allowed cities to exist in areas that are not blessed with great surface water. What happened to the Teays River is still affecting our lives today.

In addition to the benefits we mentioned yesterday, the flooding of rivers also spreads diverse plants and the wildlife that feeds on them. The biggest watermelon I have ever eaten I found on an island on the White River near Spencer, Indiana. A friend of mine who enjoyed it with me recognized the species of melon, and we eventually found the patch that it came from some 75 miles upstream. In our trips through the Grand Canyon, we have frequently found plant life not native to Colorado thriving on sand bars in the canyon. When our river here in Michigan flooded in February of 2018, a layer of black soil was laid down in my yard and the woods on the edge of my property. Now there are dozens of plants growing in that soil which are not native to Michigan. Animal life of all kinds eat many of those plants.

Rivers are the cleaners of both the land and the water. One interesting part of living on a river is watching what floats by – a log, a tree, human junk, and all kinds of minerals. When the river dumps its load in a delta or an alluvial fan, the minerals become available for human use. In the Colorado Plateau, an ancient river carried and deposited logs containing uranium. The water moved those logs and impregnated them with uraninite, a mineral used to obtain precious uranium for nuclear materials. In my college studies in geology and mineralogy, we learned how to “read” a river and use that information to locate critical materials for technology.

It is essential that we take care of our rivers. We need to understand rivers and recognize God’s design in creating a planet molded and shaped by flowing water. What happened to the Teays River was caused by ancient glaciers that carved the land and created the Great Lakes. What happens to our rivers today depends on us and our stewardship of what God has given us.

From Genesis to Revelation, we see rivers as critical elements in the story of human existence now and in the future. The most important river of all is described in Revelation 22:1-2: “And He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of the street of the City and on each side of the river was a Tree of Life bearing 12 crops of fruit and the leaves of the tree served as medicine for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but God’s throne and the Lamb shall be in it.”
— John N. Clayton © 2019

December 4, 2018December 3, 2018

Relying On Ignorance

Relying on Ignorance of Grand Canyon Formation
We often hear from young people who have been taught something in a Bible class or sermon or a religious publication or video that they know cannot be true. Many creationists and creationist groups lack training in the fields in which they claim to be experts, and they are relying on ignorance of their hearers. When smart young people hear something they know is incorrect, it gives them a reason to reject the church and perhaps reject God’s existence.

A classic example of this is shown in explanations of the Grand Canyon. Many writers try to explain away the formation of the Grand Canyon by saying that the Flood of Noah did it. They say the Flood formed the Canyon in a short time just a few thousand years ago. They claim that the Flood laid down the sediments, and when the water swept off the land, it carved the Grand Canyon.

As an Earth Science teacher in the public schools in South Bend, Indiana, I taught young people about petrology — the study of rocks. Knowing how rocks were formed enabled scientists to find resources such as copper, oil, marble, iron, and certain gems. We can now synthesize some of these materials by copying the methods by which they were formed in the Earth’s past. Relying on ignorance would not allow us to find or synthesize these materials.

We know that the deposition of materials and subsequent erosion by the Flood did not form the Grand Canyon. The dominant rock in the Grand Canyon is limestone. Children taking Earth Science courses learn that limestone is a chemical precipitate. Quiet waters produce it over a long time. Most of us know about rock candy in which a solution of sugar crystallizes to create the candy. Limestone produced by a similar process, as is halite, dolomite, and gypsum. These are chemically precipitated rocks, never deposited in moving water.

A recent headline in a creationist journal reads, “Rapid Limestone Deposits Match the Flood.” A young person told me that she didn’t want to hear anything else from the Church because the statements in the journal were clearly not true. She doubted anything the Church said was true as a result. She also pointed out other problems. The Canyon is not just one rock type. It has alternating layers of different materials produced by different climates and processes. There are desert-produced sandstones, conglomerates which are produced by running streams, salt deposits produced by evaporation, and lavas that flowed across the top of the rock layers below them and were not injected as sills.

There is a huge burden on us to know what we are talking about. We must be as accurate as we can in understanding what the evidence shows. The general public is ignorant of most of these things and will not call an error to our attention. However, young people today are better educated in scientific facts, and we must not be relying on ignorance to expect our explanations to go unchallenged.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

November 18, 2018November 13, 2018

Modern Misconceptions About the Flood

Perhaps the most argued event in the Old Testament is the flood of Noah described in Genesis. For the past several days we have been examining some of the questions people have. Today we will look at two modern misconceptions about the flood.

Did the Ark come to rest on Mount Ararat? The answer to that question is “no!” Genesis 8:4 says that the Ark came to rest “upon the mountains of Ararat” which is not modern day Mount Ararat. This is of little interest except that the claims of some people that they found the Ark on modern-day Mount Ararat are clearly erroneous.

Was the Grand Canyon caused by the flood laying down strata and then carving the canyon by erosion? The answer to that question is also “no.” The rocks in the canyon are not of one deposition and are not flood strata. Floods leave a tangled mess of debris. The majority of rocks in the Grand Canyon are limestone which is a chemically precipitated rock. The limestone is interspersed with conglomerate, shale, desert deposits of sandstone, and some volcanic deposits. A flood would produce none of those except shale.

Do fossils in the Grand Canyon verify the flood? No, a flood produces a tangled mess of all kinds of remains of plants and animals. The rock layers in the Canyon have different animals at different layers. Each animal or plant grouping is a function of the environment in which they lived. That is not what a flood would do.

The question is not whether the flood happened, but rather what a flood would do and what remains from the flood. There are dozens of flood layers in the stratigraphy all over the American southwest, but which one might be related to Noah’s flood cannot be determined.

There are many modern misconceptions about the flood of Noah. The flood did not create the Grand Canyon. The rocks and fossils prove that. No one has found Noah’s Ark. The claims of someone finding the Ark have always turned out to be erroneous. We need to test every Spirit and not be sold a bill of goods by religious groups trying to back up their beliefs by claiming to have found the fossils of giants, an ark, or some other claimed artifact of the flood of Noah.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
We have a discussion of the flood in our video series program # 27 available on our doesgodexist.TV website. You can also look up information on the flood by doing a word search on our doesgodexist.org website search engine.

October 10, 2018October 11, 2018

God’s Engineering Skills

God's Engineering Skills at Sunset Crater
Yesterday we began to tell you about last month’s Canyonlands Educational Tour. It was a week of learning about how God works. In the canyonlands area, we can see God’s engineering skills.

Our trip was a bus tour with 50 people participating. We departed from Flagstaff, Arizona. That area allows us to study the basic rocks from which all other rocks were made, and that is volcanic material. Our analysis of elements in space and the minerals in Earth’s crust show us that all rocks are made of materials found in the interior of the Earth. For example, granite is made up of quartz which breaks down into sand and makes sandstone. Orthoclase is another constituent of granite, and it weathers to produce clay which is a major part of shale. Visiting Sunset Crater (pictured) and seeing the volcanic mountains surrounding Flagstaff allows us to understand the method by which God produced all other rocks.

In the first session of our trip on Sunday evening, before we departed, we pointed out the one basic assumption that underlies our entire trip. That assumption is that God is not a magician who does everything by slight of hand and magic. We see God’s engineering skills as He uses natural processes to produce things in the creation. The Bible tells us that “God planted a garden” (Genesis 2:8) not that He waved a magic wand and a garden appeared. When God created man’s body in Genesis 2:7, he “formed man of the dust of the earth.” The Hebrew word used to describe that process is yatshir which is a word denoting something an artist might do in creating a work of pottery from clay.

God did not “zap” the Grand Canyon into existence with all its many kinds of rocks and embedded fossils. Many religious people want to have God “speaking” these things into existence. The Bible indicates that God commanded the creation elements indicating that other agents were doing the actual work. In our twenty-first century mentality of rejecting scams and con-artists, it is important not to put God into the role of being a trickster. God did His creating process in such a way that we can discover the processes. That is the reason the Bible says we can “know God exists through the things He has made” (Romans 1:20). In Proverbs 8, wisdom personified speaks of God’s engineering skills.

We see the evidence of God’s engineering skills in the creation processes, and we read the Scriptures that tell what happened. Our approach to all of the evidence and the Scriptures is that they MUST agree. If the same God who gave us the Bible also did the creating, they cannot disagree. If there seems to be a conflict between the scientific evidence and what the Bible says, we either have bad science or bad theology or both. There has been plenty of both.

Tomorrow, we will continue to examine more of the things we saw of God’s engineering skills during our week in the canyonlands.
–John N. Clayton © 2018