Scriptural geologist

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Scriptural geologists (or mosaic geologists) were "a heterogeneous group of writers" in the early nineteenth century, who claimed "the primacy of literalistic biblical exegesis" and a short 'Young Earth' time-scale.[1] Their views were marginalised and ignored by the scientific community of their time.[1][2][3] They "had much the same relationship to 'philosophical' (or scientific) geologists as their indirect descendants, the twentieth-century creationists."[1] Paul Wood describes them as "mostly Anglican evangelicals" with "no institutional focus and little sense of commonality".[4] They generally lacked any background in geology,[5][6] and had little influence even in church circles.[5]

Contents

[edit] Background

[edit] Reason for appearance

British Geology had been theologically based until the last decades of the eighteenth century, and among the educated in Britain an old-earth cosmology was not a foregone conclusion.[7] As historian of science Nicolaas Rupke notes, classical scholarship in Britain traditionally turned to documents, such as the Bible, when it came to questions concerning world history and chronology.[8] Scripture provided the foundational assumptions and geology's primary purpose was to explain geological data in terms of Creation and the Flood. Amateurs and popular geologists long after Hutton continued using a scripture based geology.[9]

The early history of British geology is the story of how a new intellectual community (i.e., Geological Society of London, BAAS, etc.) laid exclusive claim to telling earth history and to geology as opposed by Scriptural geologists. By the 1880s the new science would apparently win. The word ‘geology’ would become synonymous with an old earth history. And ‘science’ would become synonymous with ‘natural science’, shutting out theology, once queen of the sciences. However, for the first half of the nineteenth century ‘geology’ was still a contested term.[7]

Hutton’s revolutionary geological assertion that there was “no vestige of a beginning-no prospect of an end” at the beginning of the 19th century was difficult for the conventional mind to accept, without loss of faith. There were only two ways in which sincere men could be expected to treat this new geology: they could work out a compromise with it, or utterly repudiate it. Both schools had strenuous and able advocates and no one thought permitting the errors of the opposite school to go undisputed. this resulted in a considerable pamphlet war engaging the abilities of genuinely competent men for nearly half a century. Thomas Chalmers, a minister of the Scottish Kirk, attempted to face the problem posed by this new geology in 1804 when he suggested that Scripture and “modern” geology could agree, in a sense, but “only at the cost of a remarkable reinterpretation of Scripture.” Reduced to its simplest terms, the early verses of Genesis recorded not one Creation but two; and the aeons of geology fall between. Thus there may have been an " interval" [or “Gap”] between the primal Creation and the Six Day's work—time for all of geologic history. Chalmers’ suggestion was favorably received by theological liberals, the party of "reconciliation," such as Edward Hitchcock, W. D. Conybeare, and the future Cardinal Wiseman. Sharon Turner included it in his children’s book A Sacred History of the World. When Buckland retreated from this youthful diluvial orthodoxy toward uniformitarianism it became his refuge. The gap theory became almost the official British rival to the continental framework hypothesis. Its appeal to many simple clergymen was such that the casual pulpit assurance that there was no conflict between geology and the Bible was based, probably seven times out of ten, on Chalmers’ gap theory.[10]

Historian of Religion Arthur McCalla considers that "All geological work that was taken seriously by experts took for granted the reality of deep time" and that scriptural geologists were not given "the slightest credence" by working geologists.[11] Irish-Scottish Studies Lecturer Ralph O'Connor disagrees, considers McCalla's views to be an "overstatement", and states that "the 'orthodoxy' of an old-earth cosmology was not there for the taking; it had to be painstakingly constructed, using various performance strategies designed to persuade the literate classes that the new school of geology trumped biblical exegesis in questions about earth history."[12]

The British scriptural geologists' writings came in two waves before Darwin's writings on evolution. The first, in the 1820s, was in response to 'gap theory' and included Granville Penn's A Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies (1822) and George Bugg's Scriptural Geology (1826). Realizing that the majority opinion was slipping away from scriptural geology, their zeal increased. While the period from 1815-1830 represents the incubation of the movement, 1830 to 1844 marks its most intense and significant activity.[13] This was largely in response to Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology and William Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, which diverged from flood geology. Responses included George Fairholme's General View of the Geology of Scripture (1833) and The Mosaic Deluge (1837).[14]

[edit] Geological competence

Professor of intellectual history David N. Livingstone states that scriptural geologists "were not, as it turns out, geologists at all", concluding that "while it may be proper to speak of Scriptural Geology, it is not really accurate to speak of Scriptural Geologists."[6] L. Piccardi and W. Bruce Masse state that "[a]part from George Young, none of these scriptural geologists had any geological competence".[5] David Clifford states that they were "not themselves geologists" but rather "keen but biased amateurs" and that one of them, James Mellor Brown, "felt that no scientific expertise was required when examining scientific matters."[15] Taking a more positive view, Milton Millhauser states that the leaders of the party were "by no means ignorant of the science [they] assailed."[16]

They have been described as "genteel laymen ... versed in polite literature; clergymen, linguists, and antiquaries — those, in general, with vested interests in mediating the meaning of books, rather than rocks, in churches and classrooms", although a number of them were involved in fossil collecting or scientific endeavours. However for the majority, geology was not their main scientific interest, but rather a transient or peripheral concern.[17]

O'Connor argues that terminology in the 21st-century is a stumbling-block to modern analysis of geologic competence of the scriptural geologists because science today is understood in the language of Lyell and Darwin rather than that of Penn and Fairholme. Scriptural geologists saw themselves as ‘geologists’ (in the early 19th-century understanding of the term) and valued geologic fieldwork. Biblical exegesis, too, was central to science in general and earth history in particular.[18] For the educated of the early 19th-century the Bible was itself valuable evidence. Evidence does not speak for itself, but requires interpretation. A heap of strata, or a line of Hebrew, is interpreted in various ways. To use the words ‘geology’ or ‘science’ in the 21st century sense automatically excludes Scriptural geologist perspectives on this debate, and skews the discussion from the start.[7]

Granville Penn

Granville Penn was the great-grandson of William Penn. He attended Magdalen College, Oxford and then became an assistant chief clerk in the War Department. His major work on geology (1822) was A Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies. Penn made no claim to be a geologist, yet he was well read in the geological literature of his day. He argued that sound logical induction was critical to the development of a reliable geological history of the earth rather than the quantity of geological observations.[19]

Penn repeatedly stressed that geology was different from other sciences in that it dealt with past history, rather than merely presently observable processes. Like George Young, Penn found that he disagreed with geologists over interpretation of facts, rather than the facts themselves. Such alleged facts were not truly facts, but rather theoretical inferences. He contended that the view that the "facts in geology are self-evident and need only to be seen to be believed" was a deceptive premise. Geologists were therefore often not aware of how theory-laden were such "facts."[20]

Contemporary Hugh Miller described Granville Penn as one of "the abler and more respectable anti-geologists" and "certainly one of the most extensively informed of his class,"[21] Millhauser adds that Granville Penn "had studied geology"[22] and was "by no means ignorant of the science [he] assailed"[23]

Yet Miller described Penn's view of Biblical verses that conflicted with his [Millers] own views as "mere idle glosses, ignorantly or surreptitiously introduced into the text by ancient copyists."[24] Gillispie chastised Penn as among "men of the lunatic fringe, ... [who] got out their fantastic geologies and natural histories, a literature which enjoyed surprising vogue, but which is too absurd to disinter".[25] Millhauser said the Penn "had come to suspect it [the new geology] of a tendency toward Lucretian materialism."[22]

George Young

George Young studied literature and philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He excelled in mathematics and natural philosophy under the tutelage of Professor John Playfair. He completed his degree with high honours and then studied theology at Selkirk. In 1806 he became the pastor of the Chapel in Cliff Street serving for 42 years until his death. 1838 he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Miami College (Oxford, Ohio).

He wrote two works on geology. A Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast, (with John Bird in 1822). Ten years later he published Scriptural Geology (1838). He added an Appendix in 1840 in response to John Pye Smith's theory that Genesis described a local creation and Flood in Mesopotamia.[26]

Geologist Martin Simpson described Young's Geological Survey as "in every way worthy of a pupil of the celebrated Playfair."[27] And, Piccardi and Masse say that George Young was geologically competent.[5] Young explained the Flood and the geological record by natural processes like those operating today, though significantly exaggerated during the Flood. He thus argued similar to the catastrophists who challenged the uniformitarian interpretations of geological data. He didn’t reject geologic facts, but rather, he objected to certain interpretations of those facts. He opposed old earth theories because he alleged they ignored substantial differing geological facts and involved exegetically unsound interpretations of Scripture.[26]

George Bugg

George Bugg received a B.A. degree from St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1795. He was ordained deacon in York and became a priest and curate of Dewsbury, near Leeds. Bugg's most significant work was his massive two-volume Scriptural Geology. Volume I (361 pages) appeared in 1826. Volume II (356 pages) was published in 1827. Bugg believed, along with most evangelicals and high churchmen of his time, that the scriptures were infallible in matters of religion, morality and history.[28]

Bugg was aware that critics may object to the binding of geology to the Bible as a repetition of the mistakes the church made at the time of Galileo. But he held that there was a significant difference. Copernicus could easily reconcile his theory with scripture. But according to Bugg, modern geologists could not harmonize the Bible with their theories without changing the meaning of the scriptures. He contended that "the history of creation has one plain, obvious, and consistent meaning, throughout all the Word of God." There is no hint of any other meaning than the obvious one in the rest of Scripture unless the Biblical authors have misled their readers.[28]

Millhouse quotes Bugg saying, "Was ever the word of God laid so deplorably prostrate at the feet of an infant and precocious science!"[22] Wood says the Bugg was just "an embittered clergyman who could not find a benefice".[4]

Andrew Ure

Andrew Ure was a scientists who obtained his M.A. in 1798-99 and his M.D. in Glasgow in 1801. He served briefly as an army surgeon then in 1803 became a member of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow. He replaced Dr. George Birkbeck as Professor of Natural Philosophy (specializing in chemistry and physics) at the recently formed Andersonian Institution (now the University of Strathclyde). He was probably the first consulting chemist in Britain, highly esteemed by contemporary scientists. Michael Faraday said that not one of Ure's chemical analyses was ever impugned.[29]

He was one of the original honorary fellows of the Geological Society of London shortly after it was founded in 1807, was an original member of the Astronomical Society and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1822. He wrote extensively throughout his life, including A Dictionary of Chemistry (1821), Elements of the Art of Dyeing (1824), and A New System of Geology (1829, 621 pages).[29]

He felt that one needed to follow the example of Bacon and Newton to build a sound geological theory. He insisted that geology, like any science, must be based on experimentation, careful observation and sound inductive logic. To Ure, the Bible was not a scientific textbook, but it was relevant to the question of earth history. He made a sharp distinction between the present operation of the universe and its origins. In his mind, the proper domain of science is in the repeatable and experimental study of the functioning of the creation in the observable present. But when we turn to the unobservable past we are entering into a great deal of speculation.[30]

Adam Sedgwick condemned Ure's A New System of Geology in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society in 1830, 'pulled it to pieces without mercy', calling it a "monument of folly".[31][32] Gillispie chastised Andrew Ure as of the "men of the lunatic fringe"[33] who produced clerical "fulminations against science in general and all its works",[34] Ure was a scientists, not a cleric.

John Murray

John Murry had a keen interest in science. Though he eventually attained M.A. and PhD degrees, he was literally self-taught early in his career. He became a Fellow of the Linnaean Society, the Society of Antiquities, the London Geological Society and the London Horticultural Society. In 1837 he was an annual member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

He lectured and did experimental research while traveling broadly to observe geological and archaeological fieldwork first-hand. He studied rocks and fossils, using chemical analysis at times. From a broad acquaintance with many scientific fields he interpreted the geological evidence within his understanding of and belief in the Scriptures.

His Portrait of Geology (214 pages) appeared anonymously was written to give verifications from geology of design in creation. He acknowledged that there were unsolved geological issues for his views. But because of the infant state of geology he was confident that these geological problems would eventually be solved.[35]

George Fairholme

George Fairholme’s first-hand geological studies involved many years of more wide-ranging travel than some of the well-known geologists. He was also well-versed in the leading contemporary geological literature and he published in reputable scientific journals of his era inviting critique. Fairholme attended and participated in scientific meetings and critically interacted with leading geologists in person or by mail.[36]

His assessment of the laws and processes of nature was comparable to leading catastrophists of his day and he contributed new observations and inferences to the store of geological facts. He was not opposed to the study of geology; rather, he did battle with the new geological theories which were, in his view, inconsistent with Scripture and scientific facts.[36]

He did not think that Genesis taught a method of natural philosophy or geology. Rather, it offers dependable way marks to guide geology into a true grasp of earth history. He tried to show from geology and geography that a global Flood had molded the current surface of the continents. The strata were not the consequence of processes functioning over millions of years, but were connected chiefly with the Flood.[36]

Charles Gillispie listed Fairholme as among "the lunatic fringe."[33]

Henry Cole

Henry Cole received the B.D. degree in 1848 and D.D. in 1854 from university at Clare Hall, Cambridge. For over forty years he taught, preached, and wrote extensively. He translated six works of Martin Luther and one each of Calvin and Melanchthon.[37]

In 1830 Adam Sedgwick generalized that Scriptural geologists promoted "a deformed progeny of heretical and fantastical conclusions, by which sober philosophy has been put to open shame, and sometimes even the charities of life have been exposed to violation."[38] Early in 1834 he added that, "They have committed the folly and SIN of dogmatizing," and "of writing mischievous nonsense;" they have an "ignorance of the laws of nature and of material phenomena" and ideas "hatched among their own conceits;" they "have sinned against plain sense," displayed "bigotry and ignorance," and "assail[ed] with maledictions and words of evil omen" because of the "truth their eyes cannot bear to look upon;" so they invented "an ignorant and dishonest hypothesis."[39] Henry Cole wrote a 136-page "letter" entitled Popular Geology Subversive of Divine Revelation (1834), responding to Sedgwick in kind. He referred to Sedgwick's ideas as "unscriptural and anti-Christian," "scripture-defying", "revelation-subverting," and "baseless speculations and self-contradictions," which were "impious and infidel".[40]

Cole railed against the new geological theories in defense of the truth, as he saw it. To Cole the actual conflict was not between science and Christianity, for he held that experimental science and the study of the rocks and fossils were appropriate and valuable undertakings. Rather, he was convinced that the new geological theories about how the rocks were formed were part of a spiritual conflict that began in the Garden of Eden.[37]

Thomas Gisborne

Thomas Gisborne graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge, with a B.A. in 1780 as sixth wrangler and first chancellor's medalist. In 1783 He received his M.A. While in college he became a close friend for fifty years of William Wilberforce.

Gisborne wrote thirteen books, many of which went through numerous printings (two were interpreted into Welsh and German). Two of his books were related to science: Testimony of Natural Theology to Christianity (1818) and Considerations on Modern Theories of Geology (1837).

In his Natural Theology he said that the geological and palaeontological evidence obviously showed, to him, that we live in a derelict realm, considerably altered from the initial creation. Though a minister, He did not argue against geological study or facts. What he wanted to do was to appraise the reasoning of the implications drawn from the geological facts to develop models of pre-Adamite antiquity.[41]

Sir William Cockburn, 11th Baronet

William Cockburn attained the merit of twelfth wrangler at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1795. He was a Fellow of the university from 1796 to 1806, procuring an M.A. in 1798. In 1823 he received a doctor of divinity degree.

Though Cockburn was not a geologist, neither was he wholly unfamiliar with geological literature and concrete geological occurrences. He did not fight the study of geology or quarrel with facts of geology. But he did contest the logical inferences from those facts cited by his adversaries. His common method was to advance doubts and make queries. [42]

Gillispie described "reasonably respectable" William Cockburn, Dean of York, as spouting clerical "fulminations against science in general and all its works",[34] and writing[43] "clerical attacks on geology and uninformed attempts to frame theoretical systems reconciling the geological and scriptural records."[44]

[edit] Reception

[edit] By historians of science

A number of modern historians have "rounded on scriptural geologists as simplistic fundamentalists who defended an untenable and anti-scientific worldview". Historian of science Charles Gillispie chastised a number of them as "men of the lunatic fringe, like Granville Penn, John Faber, Andrew Ure, and George Fairholme, [who] got out their fantastic geologies and natural histories, a literature which enjoyed surprising vogue, but which is too absurd to disinter".[25] Gillispie describes their views, along with their "reasonably respectable" colleagues (such as Edward Bouverie Pusey and William Cockburn, Dean of York), as clerical "fulminations against science in general and all its works",[45] and listed the works of Cockburn[46] and Fairholme[47] as among "clerical attacks on geology and uninformed attempts to frame theoretical systems reconciling the geological and scriptural records."[48] Martin J. S. Rudwick initially dismissed them as mere 'dogmatic irritants', but later discerned a couple of points of consilience: a concern with time and sequence; and an adoption of the pictorial conventions of some scriptural geologists by the mainstream.[25]

[edit] Bibliography of works by scriptural geologists

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c Rudwick, Martin J. S. (1988). The Great Devonian Controversy. pp. 42-44. ISBN 0226731022. 
  2. ^ Rudwick, Martin J. S. (2008). Worlds before Adam. p. 84. ISBN 0226731286. "But since [William Henry Fitton] and other geologists regarded [scriptural geology] as scientifically worthless…" 
  3. ^ Wood 2004, p. 168
  4. ^ a b Wood 2004, p. 169
  5. ^ a b c d Piccardi, L.; W. Bruce Masse (2007). Myth and Geology. London: Geological Society. p. 46. ISBN 1862392161. 
  6. ^ a b Livingstone, Hart & Noll 1999, pp. 186–187
  7. ^ a b c O’Connor 2007, pp. 361–362
  8. ^ Rupke, Nicolaas (1983). The Great Chain of History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 42–50. ISBN 0198229070. 
  9. ^ Millhauser 1954, p. 67
  10. ^ Millhauser 1954, pp. 66–70
  11. ^ A., McCalla, (2006). The creationist debate: the encounter between the Bible and the historical mind. T \& T Clark International. p. 65. ISBN 0826464475. 
  12. ^ O’Connor 2007, p. 361
  13. ^ Millhauser 1954, p. 72
  14. ^ Livingstone, Hart & Noll 1999, pp. 178–179
  15. ^ Clifford 2006, pp. 133–134
  16. ^ Millhauser 1954, p. 73
  17. ^ O’Connor 2007, pp. 371–373
  18. ^ O’Connor 2007, pp. 362
  19. ^ Mortenson 1996, pp. 85-118.
  20. ^ Mortenson 1996, p. 92.
  21. ^ Miller, Hugh (1857)). The Testimony of the Rocks. pp. 367-68. 
  22. ^ a b c Millhauser 1954, p. 71.
  23. ^ Millhauser 1954, p. 73.
  24. ^ Clifford 2006, p. 133.
  25. ^ a b c Brooke & Cantor 2000, p. 57
  26. ^ a b Mortenson 1996, pp. 315-352.
  27. ^ Simpson 1884, pp. iv-v.
  28. ^ a b Mortenson 1996, pp. 119-154.
  29. ^ a b Mortenson 1996, pp. 155-180.
  30. ^ Mortenson 1996, pp. 162-163.
  31. ^ Brooke & Cantor 2000, p. 62.
  32. ^ Clark, John (1970). The Life and Letters of the Reverend Adam Sedgwick. Westmead: Gregg International Publishers. p. 362. ISBN 057629117X. 
  33. ^ a b Brooke & Cantor 2000, p. 57.
  34. ^ a b Gillispie 1996, p. 152.
  35. ^ Mortenson 1996, pp. 276-314.
  36. ^ a b c Mortenson 1996, pp. 224-254.
  37. ^ a b Mortenson 1996, pp. 181-196.
  38. ^ Adam Sedgwick, (1830), "Annual General Meeting of the Geological Society, Presidential address," Philosophical Magazine, N.S. Vol. VII, No. 40, 310.
  39. ^ Adam Sedgwick, (1834), Discourse (second edition), 148-153.
  40. ^ Henry Cole, Popular Geology Subversive of Divine Revelation (1834), 52, 113
  41. ^ Mortenson 1996, pp. 197-213.
  42. ^ Mortenson 1996, pp. 353-360.
  43. ^ Specifically: The Bible Defended Against the British Association (1839) and A Letter to Professor Buckland Concerning the Origin of the World (1838)
  44. ^ Gillispie 1996, p. 248.
  45. ^ Gillispie 1996, p. 152
  46. ^ Specifically: The Bible Defended Against the British Association (1839) and A Letter to Professor Buckland Concerning the Origin of the World (1838)
  47. ^ Specifically: New and Conclusive Physical Demonstrations: Both of the Fact and Period of the Mosaic Deluge and of Its Having Been the Only Event of the Kind that Has Ever Occurred upon the Earth (1838)
  48. ^ Gillispie 1996, p. 248

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

  • Morrell, Jack; Arnold Thackray (1984). Gentlemen of Science. London: Royal Historical Society. ISBN 0861931033. 
  • Lynch, John (2002). Creationism and Scriptural Geology, 1817-1857. Bristol: Thoemmes Press. ISBN 1855069288. 
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