What were the instrumental Causes or Means of the Flood? Whether was it effected by natural or supernatural Means only? Whether was God no further concerned in it, than in so ordering second Causes at first, as of themselves necessarily to bring it in at such a time?
First, Those that hold this Deluge was altogether miraculous, and that God Almighty created Waters on purpose to serve this occasion, and when they had done their work destroyed them again, dispatcht the Business, and loose or cut the Knot in a few words. And yet this Hypothesis is not so absurd and precarious, as at first sight it may seem to be. For the World being already full, there needed not, nor indeed could be any Creation of Water out of nothing, but only a Transmutation of some other Body into Water. Now if we grant all Natural Bodies, even the Elements themselves, to be mutually transmutable, as few Men doubt, and some think they can demonstrate; why might not the Divine Power and Providence bring together at that time such: natural Agents, as might change the Air or Aether, or both together into Water; and so supply what was wanting in Rains, and extraordinary Eruptions of Springs. To them that argue the Improbability of such a change, from the great quantity of Air requisite to the making of a little Water; it may be answered, That if Air, and all Bodies commixt with it, were together changed into Water, they must needs make a bulk of Water of equal quantity with themselves, unless we will grant a Peripatetical Condensation and Rarefaction; and hold that the same Matter may have sometimes a greater, sometimes a lesser quantity or extension.
This Cause [the conversion of Air into Water] the Learned Jesuite Athanasius Kircher, in his Book De Arca Noae, alledges as the undoubted instrumental Cause or Means of the Deluge in these words, Dico totum illud aereum spatium usque ad supremam regionem aeris, praepotentis Dei virtute, in aquas, per inexplicabilem nubium coacervatarum multitudinem, quâ replebatur, conversam esse; cujus ubertas tanta fuit, ut Aer supremus cum inferiori in Oceanum commutatus videri potuerit, non naturae viribus, sed illius cujus voluntati & imperio cuncta subsunt. That is, I affirm, That all that Aereal space that reaches up to the supreme Region of the Air, was, by the power of the Omnipolent God, and instrumentality of an inexplicable multitude of Clouds amassed together, wherewith it was filled, changed into Water, so that the upper and lower Air might seem to be transmuted into an Ocean, not by the strength of Nature, but of him to whose Will and Power all things are subject. And he is so confident1 that this Deluge, in which the Water was raised fifteen Cubits above the highest by Mountains, was not, nor could be effected by natural Causes; but by the right hand of the most High God only; that he saith, No Man can deny it, but he who doth not penetrate how far the power of Nature can extend, and where it is limited. To conclude, this Hypothesis hath the Suffrages of most Learned Men. But because the Scripture assigning the Causes or Means of the Inundation, makes no mention of any conversion of Air into Water, but only of the breaking up the Fountains of the Great Deep, and the opening of the Windows of Heaven, I suppose those Causes may be sufficient to work the Effect, and that we need not have recourse to such an Assistance.
As for those that make the Deluge Topical, and restrain it to a narrow compass of Land; their Opinion is, I think, sufficiently confuted by a late ingenious2 Author, to whom therefore I refer the Reader.
I shall not undertake the Defence or Confutation of those or any other Hypothesis: only tell you which at present seems to me most probable, and that is theirs, who for a partial cause of the Deluge, assign either a change of the Center of the Earth, or a violent depression of the Surface of the Ocean, and a forcing the Waters up from the subterraneous Abyss through the Channels of the Fountains that were then broken up and opened.
First then, let us consider what Causes the Scripture assigns of the Flood; and they are two: 1. The breaking up the Fountains of the great Deep: 2. The opening of the Windows of Heaven. I shall first treat of this last. By the opening of the Windows of Heaven, is (I suppose) to be understood the causing of all the Water that was suspended in the Air to descend down in Rain upon the Earth; the effect hereof here mentioned being a long continuing Rain of Forty days. And that these Treasuries of the Air will afford no small quantity of Water, may be made appear, both by Scripture and Reason. 1. By Scripture, which opposes the Waters that are above the Heavens or Firmament, to those that are under them; which if they were not ἰσόῤῥοπα, and in some measure equal, it would never do. Gen. 1. 6. God is said to make a Firmament in the midst of the Waters, and to divide the Waters which were under the Firmament, from the Waters which were above the Firmament. And this was the work of a whole day, and consequently no inconsiderable thing. By the Heavens or Firmament in this place, is to be understood the inferiour Region of the Air, wherein the Fowls fly: who Gen. 1. 20. are said to fly above the Earth, in the open Firmament of Heaven; though elsewhere it be taken for the Celestial Regions, wherein the Sun, and Moon, and Stars are placed.