PHOENIX — Did Noah’s flood create the Grand Canyon? Not a chance, say mainstream scientists, who maintain that the canyon’s layers of rocks were carved and chiseled by a persistent flow of water beginning some five million years ago. But Andrew A. Snelling — a geologist by training, a creationist by conviction — has a minority view, and he hoped to prove himself right.

In November 2013, Dr. Snelling — he has a doctorate in geology from the University of Sydney, in Australia, where he was born — asked administrators of Grand Canyon National Park for permission to remove some 60 half-pound rocks from certain areas along the edges of the Colorado River, which snakes through the canyon.

Last July, the administrators denied his request. This month, Dr. Snelling sued them, the National Park Service and the Interior Department, claiming the denial amounted to discrimination against his religious beliefs.

In an interview on Thursday, Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal defense group that is representing Dr. Snelling, said, “It’s one thing to debate the science, but to deny access to the data not based on the quality of a proposal or the nature of the inquiry, but on what you might do with it is an abuse of government power.”