Objection Answer

THE "TICKING TIME BOMB" OBJECTION: says that if God created the world "very good," then he cannot have created it with a mechanism (tidal pumping of supercritical water) that was destined to fail at some point.
Answer

The earth was no more a "ticking time bomb" than Adam and Eve were. They were created perfectly sinless, yet capable of making the choice to sin. If God knew they would sin, then was He responsible for creating spiritual ticking time bombs? HPT suggests that had Adam and Eve not sinned, the earth would never have broken open and the supercritical water would have stayed below where it belonged. God had designed an ingenious energy harvesting system, using the gravity of the moon, the subterranean water, and the crust of the earth. The moon pulled gently on the crust, lifting it just slightly, which created heat that was absorbed by the water. The heat in the water was radiated up through the crust, providing very even and gentle geothermal heat. This system would have reached equilibrium so that just the right amount of energy was released all the time, with everything staying in perfect balance. It was NOT inevitable that the crust would have cracked. We don't exactly know how the Fall affected the crust of the earth, but we can be sure that God's original design for the earth was perfect-- it would not have cracked.

Speculating what would have happened if Adam and Eve had never sinned is a poor use of our time. We simply don't know. We can be sure that God is infinitely wise, and in his wisdom created the earth to be a beautiful, eternal paradise. Sin seems to have changed almost every aspect of the earth and every living thing upon it. It even marred the moon and created dangerous asteroids. The good news is that God promises in His word that His plan is to restore the earth to its original perfection and to restore those who trust Him to be eternally sinless.

TURBULENCE WILL CAUSE HORIZONTAL SPREADING AT LEADING EDGE OF FOUNTAINS: This objection claims that as the fountains erupted, they would have created so much turbulence in the atmosphere that the result would have been a spreading effect, creating horizontal kinetic energy that would spread the heat of the eruption sideways, overheating the atmosphere.
Answer

This claim fails to take into account the fact that anything, water molecules included, can't easily change direction when traveling at extreme velocities. (How quickly could a car change direction if it was traveling at 700 miles per hour?) The material coming up from the great deep had so much momentum that it could not possibly have spread to the sides. It passed through the atmosphere in about one second. There is no possible way for these molecules to have gone sideways in that short time. (This aspect of HPT has been analyzed by several mechanical engineers and they confirm its validity.) The power of the explosion would have "ripped" the atmosphere and passed right through it-- the atmosphere could not have provided enough force to blunt or redirect the eruption. Perhaps the objector was not aware of the velocity of the fountains.

 CALCULATION SHOWING TOO MUCH HEAT:  A calculation supposedly shows lethal heat being released into atmosphere.
Answer

The objector arbitrarily chose one-millionth of a percentage for his calculations. He said that if only one millionth of the energy in the erupting fountains mixed with the atmosphere, the temperature would ave done up by 34 degrees C.  If he had taken his figures one digit further and used one ten-millionth instead, the temperature difference would only have been 3 degrees C.  Calculations by HPT advocates show that one ten-millionth (or less) is a more reasonable estimate than one millionth.

This type of objection is based on average temperatures, assuming that the released energy would have been able to mix into the atmosphere rather quickly.  We need to realize that the immense released energy was DIRECTED energy and was not being spread around. The incredible energy released by the Mt St Helens volcanic eruptions had no effect on the forests that were not directly in the path of the eruption. Astronauts sit in rockets that are releasing great amounts of explosive energy, but they are safe because they are not in the direct path of the directed energy. In the case of the erupting fountains of the deep, the energy was being directed at outer space, not at the earth. Very little of the kinetic energy of the fountains was transferred to the surface or to the atmosphere.

For a radio show that does into detail about heat objections:  https://kgov.com/heat-2

STEAM HEAT CONDUCTION OBJECTION:  Steam is a better conductor of heat than air is.  The hot steam coming out of the fountains would have mixed with the air of the atmosphere and raised the atmospheric temperature to lethal levels.
Answer

FALSE. The objector is not familiar enough with heat transfer. He should have consulted a steam table (such as the Keenan steam table) before making his claims. Steam is less conductive than air, out to 900 degrees F.

BOILING OCEANS OBJECTION:  The heat from the erupting supercritical water would have boiled the oceans (as well as over-heating the atmosphere).
Answer

This objection fails to take into account several key factors. The first is that substances cool as they expand. Walt Brown is an expert in heat transfer (PhD in Heat Transfer from MIT) so he has done calculations to show how quickly the supercritical water would have cooled off as it was released from the great deep. The bottom of the crack in the crust act like a nozzle, and the behavior of substances coming out of a nozzle are well known (see link below). When the supercritical fluids were released, the rate of expansion and cooling was dramatic. By the time the SCW reached the earth's surface, it was no longer supercritical. The second factor that heat critics fail to take into account is boundary conditions. Most of the material in the erupting fountains never came into contact with either the surface oceans or the atmosphere, so very little of the heat energy was transferred to the earth's surface. As the Flood progressed, other processes, such as volcanism, did produce heat that warmed the oceans, but the effect was minor enough that many ocean creatures survived.

Diagram of what a high velocity flow does as it exits a nozzle:  https://media2.kgov.com/files/high-velocity-flow-doesnt-exit-a-nozzle-and-expand-sideways.png

Spreadsheet showing table and graph of how quickly the water's temperature dropped: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11Knz6StaDLThtTY98Jqdfm5ElZtIOix50IiryKWn95o/edit#gid=1283362764

For a 30-minute radio show that goes into detail about answers to heat critics: https://kgov.com/heat-2

THE MISSING SHORELINE OBJECTION:  An expert in geological water features in the post-Flood world claims that there is no evidence for the huge post-Flood lakes, especially Grand Lake, that HPT asserts were the cause of the formation of the Grand Canyon. In particular, the edges of Grand Lake are not observable, therefore it never existed.
Answer

Actually, there is quite a lot of evidence that Grand Lake did exist, both in the geological feature found within that area, and from images taken from airplanes showing how that area looks difference from the land around it. The reason that the edges of Grand Lake are not as distinct as those of Lake Missoula is that during the time that Grand Lake existed, the plateau on which is sits was slowing rising, due to the hydraulic force of magma happening underneath it and the shoreline was constantly changing. 

No other Flood or Grand Canyon theory has a mechanical explanation for "uplift." It's like they can just use the word "uplift" and mountains rise magically, with no need of anyone explaining what massive force could do this. HPT has a reasonable mechanism for what caused the hydraulic force that lifted sections of the Colorado Plateau while the newly-formed Rocky Mountains were slowly sinking into the mantle. Because the uplifting force under the Lake occurred at different times and in different places over several hundred years, the shoreline of the lake changed many times. The shoreline of Lake Missoula had not changed, so it remains visible. Because the shoreline of Grand Lake was not stable, it is not as visible today.

The Grand Canyon chapter of "In the Beginning" gives many other lines of evidence that support the existence of Grand Lake. For a video that summarizes the technical details of the Grand Canyon chapter, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ4eVMd3_PE&t=2028s

THE QUARTZ CRYSTAL ALIGNMENT PROBLEM states that there is no evidence that the quartz crystals in granite in the continental crust were ever aligned, and thus could never have produced the claimed enormous voltages during the Compression Event.
Answer

100000amperes for mag 6 earthquake amd a million ampere for mag sever Natil Geographic report 2013  It is almost like lightning underground.

Disturbances in the ionosphere have been observed before and during earthquakes, over the epicenter.

all quartz-rich rocks (quartzites, granites, gneisses, mylonites) did show piezoelectric effects when stressed with some of the findings showing "true piezoelectric effects"." J. R. Bishop, Tectonophysics vol 77, 1981.

"... frequently in quartzite, the quartz occurs as grains with isometric form but shows a preferential orientation in terms of internal crystal structure, that is, in terms of the axes of crystallization." E. I. Parkhomenko, Electrical Properties of Rocks (New York: Plenum Press, 1967),

 

HPT CANNOT EXPLAIN THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS  because they contain fossils and the theory doesn't allow for this.
Answer

Incorrect. HPT says that the layered strata, including what would become fossil-bearing strata, began forming during the Flood, due to liquefaction. By the time that mountains rose up, they were already covered with mud containing many marine animals, especially shelled creatures. The same holds true for other mountains. They were covered with marine mud before they were pushed up. There are fossilized clams at the top of Mt. Everest.

THE PACIFIC CRUST PROBLEM:    The Pacific crust (what used to be land where the Pacific ocean now is) cannot have sunk down and been buried under the ocean floor because seismic tomography has not detected granitic (continental) crust under the Pacific Ocean floor.
Answer

In fact, granitic continental crust HAS been detected in many places on the Pacific ocean floor. End note 49 in the chapter on ocean trenches in "In The Beginning" has quite a few quotes from articles in professional journals that confirm this. The largest piece of buried continental crust was found in 2017 off the east cost of New Zealand. It is called Zealandia and is our 8th continent. Additionally, it is highly likely that many pieces of Pacific crust in the middle of the Pacific were so badly fractured that they sank down, crushing the mantle underneath. Both melted. The granitic (sialic) magma came up and formed the steep seamounts (underwater volcanoes). Basaltic magma from melted mantle rock would be too runny to form steep mountains. However, much basaltic mantle magma did "pave" over much of the ocean floor. Thus, the missing continental crust in the Pacific might partly have been turned into the thousands of seamounts that cover the floor of the Pacific.

For a very informative 30-minute radio show that goes over this in depth, go to: https://kgov.com/answers-hpt-pacific-crust-problem

THE GEOMETRY PROBLEM:   This objection dates back to the early 1990s, when a prominent scientist claimed that if the pre-Flood crust was 10 miles thick, and was scrunched together during the Compression Event, this thickness would not have been enough to make the approx. 30 mile thick continental crust we have today (revealed by seismic studies).
Answer

The estimate of the original thickness of the crust was changed to as much as 60 miles thick, so this geometry objection is no longer valid. However, the estimate was not changed in order to "fix" the geometry problem, but rather to allow for the new information that was coming in about Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). If all the debris that makes up the TNOs came from the eroded and broken crust that was launched into space, the crust would have to have been thicker initially.

For a 30-minunte radio show about this objection, go to: https://kgov.com/answers-hpt-geometry-problem-now-60-mile-thick-crust