However, it seems clear when he returns that his parents have been dead for some time. The flood as a means of God s just cleansing the earth has Biblical precedent that makes the priest s choice of searching for God in the aftermath of a flood consistent with his training. The distinction is complicated, of course, by the fact that the words are often considered synonymous. There seems to me to be a strong link, however, between McCarthy s understanding of the world as presented in this novel and the central principles of chaos theory and the functioning of nonlinear systems. He consistently returns in this novel to the idea that life confounds prediction.
People speak about what is in store.
But there is nothing in store. The day is made of what has come before. The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. No man can know. No prophet foresee.