10 Questions Every Christian Needs To Answer.

[Jenny A]

I was thinking through two different positions, 'have rainbows always existed?' or 'were they created at the time of their designation as a sign?'

So far I don't have a satisfactory reason as to which one is true (though one may be more plausible than the other). Honestly it's somewhat irrelevant to me which of these two hypothesis are true within the context of our conversation. Either way, God created the water cycle and the nature of light and thus the rainbow. Either at the time of creation, or at the time He designated it as a sign.

You think so? Really? It's a natural result of how light is refracted when passing through objects such and water, glass, and plastic. Having designed both light and substances light can pass through, he'd of had to work harder to prevent rainbows than to create them.

I misunderstood the value you would get out of our conversation. Namely you were looking to explore how God could have changed the water cycle to create rainbows at the time He designated them as a sign and not what I was pondering. Since the former is of interest to you I would suggest looking into Whitcomb and Morris. From what I understand one or both of them hypothesized a model that involved what is called a vapor canopy. It's not something I'm very familiar with but from my understanding they hypothesized that the earth's atmosphere was in such a state that the planet was like a giant terrarium. In this environment there would be no rain and so no rainbow. They further hypothesized that the effect of the flood on the atmosphere changed it into a state that we observe today (along with the 'newly created' water cycle). And thus, we have rainbows immediately following the flood but not before.

That kind of hogwash is exactly why the Bible (or any other book) should not be used as an infallible source. That it's bad science follows directly from the initial decision to try to squash all the evidence into a pattern that would fit Genesis.