SUNDAY STUDY: Where Did Earth’s Water Come From?
By Ken Ham @answersingenesis.org
Earth is a “pale blue dot,” thanks to oceans, lakes, and rivers that cover 71% of the planet’s surface. But where did this abundance of water come from? Well, a recent popular science item reporting on a new study of meteorites begins by claiming, “No one knows how or when such massive quantities of water arrived on Earth.” But I wish they’d asked me first because I know how and when!
You see, as I tell kids and families, we have the history book of the universe, the Bible, at our fingertips, giving us the proper framework for understanding history. We don’t have to puzzle over how a planet managed to amass so much water. We know Someone who has always been there and who revealed to us what happened in the past. We know both the how and when—God created earth covered in water (it wasn’t until day three of creation week that God created the dry land) just around six thousand years ago. Then, during the global flood of Noah’s day just 4,350 years ago, the fountains of the great deep burst forth and water poured out from inside the earth (today, there’s still more water under the earth’s crust than above it!). So today’s water came from: 1) day one of creation week and 2) inside the earth during the flood.
It’s only when we ignore the eyewitness account of history that our watery world becomes a mystery. Consider the new study I mentioned above. It found that conventional evolutionary thought about the origin of water on our planet is wrong. “Melted meteorites” couldn’t have brought water to earth as they lose their water in the “melting” process. The researchers claim this gets them closer to understanding the origin of water on earth, but all it really does is rule out one explanation—they still don’t know how it could’ve happened!
And think of how “lucky” earth is in the evolutionary view:
- Just the right distance from the sun to be not too hot and not too cold
- Just the right sun that’s the right size and fairly stable and predictable
- Just the right size to hold on to our atmosphere (an atmosphere that just so happens to be just right for life!)
- The perfect magnetic field to stop harmful radiation from the sun but not harm life
- A moon just the right size and distance from earth to control our tides
- Oceans, lakes, and rivers of fresh and salty water—in liquid form!
- Just the right tilt so we experience the seasons
- And so much more!
As the late Dr. David Menton used to say, what “dumb luck” that all of this came together by chance, random processes! Yes, even when it comes to water, what “dumb luck” would be required that enough meteorites—and the exact right kind of meteorites—happened to land on earth and at the right time for the water to remain for life to somehow evolve—also by “dumb luck.” It strains credulity!
Yes, it takes a lot of faith—a blind faith—to believe in evolutionary ideas. A faith that really is credulous. Instead of putting our faith in meteorites that somehow supposedly happened to bring water to this earth, let’s put our faith and trust in the Creator who gave us physical water and, more than that, who quenches our spiritual thirst through the gift of his Son, the living water.
Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (John 4:13–14)