British scriptural geologists in the first half of the nineteenth century: part 1
Historical setting

TJ Archive > Volume 11 Issue 2 > British scriptural geologists in the first half of the nineteenth century: part 1

	First published: TJ 11(2):221–252 August 1997 Browse this issue

by Terry Mortenson

Summary

seventh day.¹⁷⁵ In rejecting the uniformitarian and catastrophist views of his day,¹⁷⁶ he argued that 6,000 years had not yet passed since the creation of Adam, the first man, and that the antediluvian patriarchs had literally lived some 900 years.^177,178 He argued at some length that the Noachian Flood was a historical global catastrophe and that all men were descended from Noah, having been dispersed throughout the earth after the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel.¹⁷⁹

Martin Luther (1483–1546) started his verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Genesis in 1535 and completed it ten years later.^180,181 Criticising Augustine in several points for his lapse into allegorical interpretations, Luther frequently insisted that the first eleven chapters were literal history.^182,183 He took all the days of creation as literal 24-hour days, with the sun and other heavenly bodies created on Day 4, and believed that all this took place less than 6,000 years before. Referring to Exodus 20:11, he argued that Genesis 1:1 was the beginning of the first day and was not describing a creation before the first day.¹⁸⁴ He stressed that at the end of the week of creation, everything was perfect and God ceased (and never resumed) His creative work; procreation of life continues under His providence.¹⁸⁵ The animals initially were vegetarian and some only became carnivorous as a result of God’s curse at the Fall, which Luther believed affected the whole earth, not just man.¹⁸⁶ This curse was made more severe at the Flood, which destroyed the whole surface of the earth, obliterating among other things the Garden of Eden, which, according to Luther, is the reason we cannot now find it. He said the pre-Flood world was like a paradise compared to the earth afterwards.^187,188

The other great reformer, John Calvin (1509–1565), also took the early chapters of Genesis as reliable history handed down faithfully and without corruption from Adam to Moses.^189,190 Many have remarked on Calvin’s notion of accommodation.^191,192 He said that Moses sometimes ‘accommodated his discourse to the received custom’ of the Jews¹⁹³ and ‘does not speak with philosophical acuteness’ but ‘addresses himself to our senses’ using a ‘homely style’.¹⁹⁴ However, it has often not been noted that Calvin nevertheless contended for a creation of the world in six literal days less than 6,000 years ago.^195,196 He emphasised the literal order of the creation events, especially that light was created on Day 1 before the sun and other celestial bodies on Day 4, and the literal creation of Adam from dust and Eve from the rib of Adam.¹⁹⁷ In his view, the Fall brought a curse on the whole creation, not just on man, and the global Flood, which was ‘an interruption in the order of nature’, destroyed the animals and the surface of the earth along with man.¹⁹⁸

John Wesley (1701–1791) clearly favoured the practical benefits of science and wrote two books to popularise useful knowledge in medicine and electricity. But he was wary of theoretical science because of its potential for leading people towards deism or atheism. In his two-volume Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation (1763) he relied heavily on the work of others in presenting the traditional arguments from design for God’s existence, as was so popular in eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain.¹⁹⁹ He never wrote extensively on creation or the Flood, but in this work he stated his belief that the various rock strata were ‘doubtless formed by the general Deluge’ and that the account of creation, which was about 4,000 years before Christ, was, along with the rest of the Scriptures, ‘void of any material error’.^200,201 In several published sermons he repeatedly emphasised that the original creation was perfect, without any moral or physical evil (such as earthquakes, volcanoes, weeds and animal death), which both came into the world after man sinned.^202–205

Commentaries in the early nineteenth century

We now turn to the nineteenth century commentaries. Extremely important in this regard is the work of Thomas Hartwell Horne (1780–1862), who was an Anglican clergyman, although for much of his working life he also served as assistant librarian in the department of printed books at the British Museum. He did not write a commentary on the Bible, but he was one of the great biblical scholars of his time. Among his numerous literary productions, his greatest work was the massive Introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures, first published in 1818 in three volumes (1,700 pages) after 17 years of research. Not finding an adequate resource for his own study of the Bible, Horne had read, and in many cases bought, the writings of the most eminent biblical critics, both British and foreign.²⁰⁶ Continually revised and expanded, Horne’s work grew to five volumes by the ninth edition in 1846, with two more editions after that in the United Kingdom and also many editions in America during these years. In spite of its size and cost, these editions sold over 15,000 copies in the United Kingdom and many thousands in the United States of America.²⁰⁷ From the start it received high reviews from magazines representing all the denominations (and both high church and evangelical Anglican), and was one of the primary textbooks for the study of the Scriptures in all English-speaking Protestant colleges and universities in the British empire.^208,209 A one-volume abridged version, designed for the common man, was A Compendious Introduction to the Study of the Bible, which was first published in 1827 and eventually reached a tenth edition in 1862.

Given Horne’s great influence on the church, both its clergy and laity, it is helpful to consider briefly his views on the inspiration of Scripture, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the interpretation of Genesis.

Horne’s view of the nature and extent of the inspiration of Scripture was expressed in the following.

‘When it is said, that Scripture is divinely inspired, we are not to understand that the Almighty suggested every word, or dictated every expression. From the different styles in which the books are written, and from the different manner in which the same events are related and predicted by different authors, it appears that the sacred penmen were permitted to write as their several tempers, understandings, and habits of life directed … Nor is it to be supposed that they were even thus inspired [by direct revelation] in every fact which they related, or in every precept which they delivered. They were left to the common use of their faculties, and did not, upon every occasion, stand in need of supernatural communication … In some cases, inspiration only produced correctness and accuracy in relating past occurrences, or in reciting the words of others’.²¹⁰

He then defined four degrees of inspiration: inspiration of direction (for example, Solomon’s wise counsel), of superintendency (that is, protecting from error), of elevation (that is, revealing previously unknown ideas), and of suggestion (that is, giving exact words). He continued,

‘But whatever distinctions are made with respect to the sorts, degrees or modes of inspiration, we may rest assured that one property belongs to every inspired writing, namely, that it is free from error, that is any material error. This property must be considered as extending to the whole of each of those writings, of which, a part only is inspired;²¹¹ for it is not to be supposed that God would suffer any such errors, as might tend to mislead our faith or pervert our practice, to be mixed with those truths, which he himself has mercifully revealed to his rational creatures as the means of their eternal salvation. In this restricted sense it may be asserted, that the sacred writers always wrote under the influence, or guidance, or care, of the Holy Spirit, which sufficiently establishes the truth and divine authority of all Scripture.

‘That the authors of the historical books of the Old Testament were occasionally inspired²¹² is certain, since they frequently display an acquaintance with the counsels and designs of God, and often reveal his future dispensations in the clearest predictions. But though it is evident that the sacred historians sometimes wrote under immediate operation of the Holy Spirit, it does not follow that they derived from Revelation the knowledge of those things, which might be collected from the common sources of human intelligence. It is sufficient to believe, that, by the general superintendence of the Holy Spirit, they were directed in the choice of their materials, enlightened to judge the truth and importance of those accounts from which they borrowed their information, and prevented from recording any material error … It is enough for us to know, that every writer of the Old Testament was inspired, and that the whole of the history it contains without any exception or reserve, is true’.^213,214

This view of the inspiration of Scripture (which kept it free from error, especially in the historical books) was expressed by Horne throughout his life as well as by other biblical scholars.²¹⁵ Thomas Scott, in the preface to his commentary on the Bible, wrote that inspiration meant:

‘Such a complete and immediate communication, by the Holy Spirit, to the minds of sacred writers, of those things which could not have been otherwise known; and such an effectual superintendency, as to those particulars concerning which they might otherwise obtain information, as sufficed absolutely to preserve them from every degree of error, in all things which could in the least affect any of the doctrines or precepts contained in their writings, or mislead any person who considered them as a divine and infallible standard of truth and duty. Every sentence, in this view, must be considered as “the sure testimony of God”, in that sense in which it is proposed as truth. Facts occurred, and words were spoken, as to the import of them, and the instruction contained in them, exactly as they stand here recorded’.²¹⁶

Rev William Symington, in his introduction to the 1841 edition of Scott’s commentary, added,

‘The Scriptures are an authoritative, perfect, and infallible rule of faith, … embracing every truth which man is to believe, every duty which man is required to perform, every consolation which man can need to enjoy; as to history beginning with creation and ending with the consummation of all things …’ ^217,218

Referring to the arguments of continental biblical critics such as Astruc, Eichhorn, Rosenmüller and Bauer (along with Geddes from Scotland), Horne vigorously contended for the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the literal historicity of Genesis, especially the first three chapters, stating that Genesis ‘narrates the true origin and history of all created things, in opposition to the erroneous notions entertained by the heathen nations’.²¹⁹ Horne also responded to objections for a global Noachian Flood, which he believed was confirmed by fossils, the paucity of the human population, the late inventions and progress of the arts and science, and the flood traditions of other peoples from around the world.^220,221 In 1834 he considered Granville Penn’s (one of the scriptural geologists) Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies the best harmonisation of geology and Scripture, whereas in 1839 it was George Fairholme’s (another scriptural geologist) The Mosaic Deluge.^222,223 Not until the 1856 edition of his Introduction did he accept the gap theory and local flood theory.²²⁴

To the proper interpretation of Scripture Horne devoted about 480 pages. He argued that a word in a given context had only one intended meaning, but that there were two senses: the literal and the spiritual sense. The latter was rooted in the former and was not a transfer of meaning of the words, but the application of them to a different subject (for example, the literal sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 spiritually applies to Christ). Because of the past abuse of the spiritual sense, he cautioned against too much use of it. Instead he said the ‘plain, obvious literal meaning’ should be sought, and not abandoned for a figurative interpretation unless there is ‘absolute and evident necessity’ in the text or wider Scriptures.²²⁵ Such necessary cases were those in which the literal meaning contradicted doctrinal or moral teachings of other Scriptures or clearer passages on the same subject or in which it resulted in a logical absurdity (though he cautioned against too quickly concluding that there was a real absurdity).²²⁶

Horne also devoted 70 pages to the various kinds of figurative language used in the Bible, but he prefaced it by saying,

‘The literal meaning of words must be retained, more in the historical books, than in those which are poetical. For it is the duty of an historian to relate transactions simply as they happened; while a poet has license to ornament his subject by the aid of figures, … the style of narration in the historical books is simple and generally devoid of ornament … we must not look for a figurative style in the historical books, and still less are historical narratives to be changed into allegories and parables, unless these be obviously apparent. Those expositors therefore violate this rule for the interpretation of the Scriptures, who allegorize the history of the fall of man or that of the prophet of Jonah’.²²⁷

In 1814 William Van Mildert (1765–1836), Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, delivered the Oxford Bampton lectures, in which he discussed the interpretation of Scripture. He affirmed that correct interpretation depended on a due reverence for Scripture as a work of divine inspiration and on a willingness to obey and believe what was learned from Scripture. He insisted on the absolute authority of Scripture over tradition (especially the Catholic Church and Pope), human reason, and supposed direct communications from God; Scripture must be interpreted from Scripture. Without this conviction, he argued, Christians would be in danger of being led astray into heresy.²²⁸

These then were the dominant views of Scripture (and particularly Genesis) at the time of the Genesis-geology debate in the years 1820–1845. Table 1 shows how many of the commentaries in use in the early nineteenth century interpreted key verses in Genesis, as well as a few verses elsewhere which refer to the relation of the sun to the earth so as to compare the commentator’s view of Copernican astronomy. Most of the works were recommended by Horne,²²⁹ and all were in use in the early decades of the nineteenth century, although the most popular were those by Scott, Henry, Clarke, D’Oyly and Mant, Fuller and Gill, about which a brief comment is appropriate.

Thomas Scott (1747–1821) was an Anglican clergyman, who befriended and eventually succeeded John Newton as curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire. His commentary was first written between 1788 and 1792. In the United Kingdom it went through four editions in Scott’s lifetime and at least two after that, with another eight editions in America, all together totalling more than 37,000 copies. It was also translated into Welsh and Swedish. According to Sir James Stephens, it was ‘the greatest theological performance of our age and country’.^230,231

George D’Oyly (1778–1846), a notable Anglican theologian and principal promoter of the establishment of King’s College in London, and Richard Mant (1776–1848), an Anglican rector and later bishop, were two high churchmen who published a commentary in 1817 for middle class people as an alternative to the most popular evangelical ones by Thomas Scott and Matthew Henry. They consulted 160 authors for their notes. A second edition came out in 1823 and the small paper copies made it the cheapest of all extant commentaries in 1818.^232,233

Adam Clarke (1762?–1832) was a Methodist preacher, a close friend of John Wesley, and his denomination’s greatest scholar. In addition to preaching 6,615 different sermons during the years 1782–1808 (and walking over 7,000 miles to the various preaching points in and around London), he mastered the classics, early Christian Fathers and oriental writers, learning Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and other eastern languages to do so. Natural science was also a favourite subject. Over the years he became a fellow of the Antiquarian Society (1813), the Royal Irish Academy (1821), the Geological Society (1823), the Royal Asiatic Society (1823) and other societies. His greatest work was his commentary, which was produced from 1810 to 1826 and appeared in several editions up to 1874.^234–236

 

Namea (year)b	Date of creation	Genesis 1:1c	‘Day’	Sun on Day 4d	Flood	Joshua 10:12e	Psalm 19:5–6f	Psalm 96:10g
Ainsworth (1639)	4004 BC	Day 1	24 hour	nc	global	nc	nc-a	nc-a
Richardson (1655)	4004 BC	Summary	24 hour	nc	global	lm	rh	nc
Stackhouse/Gleiga (1817/1737)	ages ago?h	nc	24 hour	nc	global	lm-h	nc	nc
Patrick (1809/1738)	4004 BC?i	nc	24 hour	created	global	lm, nc-a	nc	nc
Gill (1809/1763)	4004 BC	Day 1	24 hour	created	global	lm-h	nc-a	nc-a
Purver (1764)	4004 BC	Summary	24 hour	nc	global	lm-h	nc-a	nc-a
Dodd (1765)	4004 BC	Day 1	24 hour	created	global	lm-h	nc-a	nc-a
Henry/Blomfield (1810/1765)	~ 4000 BC	Day 1	24 hour	created	global	lm, nc-a	nc-a	nc-a
Brown (1816/1777)	4004 BC	Day 1	nck	created	global	nc	nc-a	nc-a
Geddes (1792)	ages ago	Summary	ages	appeared	myth	myth	nc	nc
Priestley (1803)	ages ago	nc	ages	appeared	global?	lm, nc-a	nc	nc
Fuller (1806)	4004 BC?	nc	nck	created	global	nc	nc	nc
D’Oyly/Manta (1817)	4004 BC	Summary	24 hour	created	global	lm-h	nc-a	nc-a
Hornea (1818/1856)j	4004 BC	nc	nck	nc	global	nc	nc	nc
Clarkea (1836)	4004 BC	nc	24 hour	created?	global	lm-h	la	law-unbrok
Scotta (1841/1812)	4004 BC	nc	24 hour	created	global	lm-h	nc-a	nc-a, law-unbrok

Notes for Table 1

a. This indicates that the author consciously defended his position in reference to rival cosmologies, whether pagan or geological.

b. The years are first that of the edition I consulted, followed by the original publication, where known, or the date when the author made his last revisions, whichever is latest. D’Oyly, Mant, Scott, Horne, Dodd, Patrick, Richardson, Stackhouse and Gleig were Anglicans; Gill and Fuller were Baptists; Clarke was a Methodist; Brown was a Presbyterian; Geddes was Catholic; Henry (edited by Blomfield) was a non-conformist; Priestley was a Unitarian; Purver was a Quaker. According to Horne, Ainsworth was Jewish, but to me he appears Christian in doctrine.

c. ‘Summary’ means that Genesis 1:1 was taken as a summary statement of the whole Creation Week; ‘Day 1’ means it referred to the first act of Day 1; ‘nc means the author did not make specific or clear comment.

d. ‘Created’ means that the Sun was actually created on Day 4; ‘appeared’ means it only appeared on Day 4, having been created sometime before.

e. ‘nc’ means no comment was made on the passage; ‘lm’ means a literal historical miracle; ‘lm-h’ means a literal miracle described according to appearance, not the modern astronomical heliocentric view, which the commentator accepted as true; ‘nc-a’ means no comment was made in relation to astronomy; ‘myth’ means the passage was taken as a myth, not as history.

f. ‘nc’ means no comment was made on the passage; ‘nc-a’ means no comment was made in relation to astronomy; ‘rh’ means the commentator rejected the heliocentric view; ‘la’ means the commentator believed that the Biblical writer used literal language of appearance.

g. ‘nc’ means no comment was made on the passage; ‘nc-a’ means no comment was made in relation to astronomy; ‘law-unbrok’ means that the interpretation of the Earth cannot be moved was that the Earth cannot be moved from its relative place compared to the other heavenly bodies, that is, the laws governing the Earth and Universe cannot be broken.

h. Stackhouse believed the Earth and Solar System were created at Genesis 1:1, but the rest of the Universe of celestial bodies may have existed for an immense time before this. Gleig, on the other hand, believed that Genesis 1:1 referred to all the heavenly bodies. Although he believed the text would allow for a gap theory (either of chaotic matter existing for ages or this world being built out of the wreck of another), he was not convinced that this was what actually happened. Both men believed that the events beginning from Genesis 1:3 onwards occurred in 4004 BC.

i. Patrick said that the text would not rule out the possibility of a long time period before Genesis 1:3, when the literal six-day creation occurred about 6,000 years ago. But he conceived the formless and void creation to have been a chaotic mass of muddy matter, which was void of any plants or animals.

j. Horne continued to hold these views on creation and the Flood until the 1856 tenth edition of his work, when he embraced the gap theory.

k. Though Brown, Fuller and Horne made no explicit comment about the length of the creation days, they clearly took them as 24-hour days. This is evident in the fact that Brown and Horne believed the date of creation was 4004 BC, and although Fuller was not explicit about the date of creation, he believed the creation of the Sun was literally on Day 4.

John Gill (1697–1771) was a Baptist pastor and Bible scholar, who received his doctor of divinity at Aberdeen in 1756. According to T.H. Horne, he had no equal in rabbinical literature, but he often excessively spiritualised the biblical text,^237,238 a fact which sheds light on his interpretation of Genesis seen in Table 1. His magnum opus, Exposition of the Holy Scriptures, was produced between 1746 and 1766.

Another Baptist theologian was Andrew Fuller (1754–1815), who was a pastor in Kettering, Northamptonshire, and a friend of the Anglican scriptural geologist, George Bugg. Fuller had a strong interest in missions and influenced William Carey to become the first missionary with the Baptist Missionary Society, which Fuller helped found and directed. His two-volume Expository Discourses on the Book of Genesis appeared in 1806.^239,240

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) was a non-conformist divine and commentator. His remarks on the Pentateuch were published in 1708 and Joshua through Acts came out before his death. His comments on the rest of the Bible were published posthumously by 13 non-conformist divines. His commentary was well known and valued throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.²⁴¹

From this analysis it is seen that at the time of the scriptural geologists the dominant view of the biblical commentators was that Scripture was infallible and unerring, in matters of history as well as theology and morality. Most of them also believed that Genesis 1–11 was historical narrative describing a creation which was only about 6,000 years old.²⁴² Though many of them expressed their belief that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun, and that in relation to astronomy the biblical writers used the common language of appearance (which also fit the astronomical understanding at the time they wrote), they took the account of the long day of Joshua as literal history, just as they did Genesis 1–11.

Although the commentaries in widespread use in the 1820s and 1830s defended the young-earth view, this did not reflect the views of all evangelicals and high churchmen, as noted earlier. In addition to the prominent old-earth proponents named earlier, the editors of the high church magazines, British Critic and Christian Remembrancer, and the evangelical magazine, Christian Observer, also generally accepted the old-earth geological theory, though they did not firmly commit themselves on how it should be harmonised with Scripture (that is, day-age or gap theory on Genesis 1, and local or tranquil Noachian Flood). All these Christians adopted their old-earth interpretations of Genesis because of the influence of the new geological theories, but they all professed to believe that the Scriptures were divinely inspired, infallible and historically reliable. So for these evangelical and high church old-earth proponents the issue was not the nature of Scripture, but rather its correct interpretation and the role of science in determining that interpretation.

Defining a competent geologist

Having considered some of the historical background and social, intellectual and spiritual context in which the scriptural geologists opposed the old-earth theories, we must look at one more issue to understand the debate properly. Before we can ascertain the level of geological ignorance or acumen of any of the scriptural geologists, we must define, as best we can, what constituted a competent geologist in the early nineteenth century. How do we distinguish a ‘real geologist’ from a ‘quasi-geological theologian’ at this time? What qualified a person to critically evaluate geological arguments for an old earth?

In his mapping of the field of geological competence, Rudwick broadly defined geological competence as the ability to deliver reliable information or ideas on the subject. But measuring such competence in the 1820s and 1830s was and is difficult, partly because the definition was not static or suprahistorically absolute,²⁴³ but was being progressively refined as geological development approached mid-nineteenth century. Therefore, Rudwick said,

‘to talk of a geological “community” at the time of the Devonian controversy [1834–1837] is misleading on many counts, not least because it suggests anachronistically a strong-boundaried professional group marked by standardized training and certification, with only the uninitiated lay public outside’.²⁴⁴

He went on to say that therefore ‘the formal hierarchies of position and influence are by no means coincident’ with what he termed ‘the informal and tacit gradient of attributed competence’.²⁴⁵ Rudwick described three zones of this gradient of attributed competence in the mid-1830s.

Zone 1 was the small group of ‘élite geologists’, who were characterised by a primary commitment to geology (rather than some other science), high activity in the affairs of geological institutions and in practical field work, and very productive in the publication of geological information. Most importantly, they considered themselves, and others consider them, to be the competent arbiters of the most fundamental issues of geological theory and methodology. According to Rudwick, this class included not only the most well-known geologists (Sedgwick, Murchison, De la Beche, Lyell, Greenough, Buckland, Conybeare, Phillips and Darwin), but also Whewell and Humboldt, because of their weighty achievements in other sciences and their appreciable work in geology.

Zone 2 was what Rudwick termed the ‘accomplished geologists’. This zone contained two different groups. One comprised those scientists whose primary commitment was to some other science in which they were regarded among the élite, but their scientific judgment impinged in an auxiliary way on geology. They did little or no geological field work and did not publish much, if anything, on the subject. Men in this category of ‘accomplished geologists’ included the botanists Lindley and Brongniart, the fish expert Agassiz and the conchologist Sowerby. The other group of ‘accomplished geologists’ comprised men who were primarily focussed on geology and were expert on a particular geographical region, group of strata or group of fossils. Their geological opinions were highly regarded by the élite geologists, but in matters of theory their judgments were only respected on points where the élite had less expertise.

Zone 3 was the ‘amateur geologists’, men and a few women whose geological knowledge was restricted to a very localised area. This group included country gentlemen and ladies, physicians, lawyers and clergymen with intimate knowledge of the area near their homes, as well as government officials, military officers and others whose jobs took them to isolated parts of the world. Their knowledge was trusted by the élite only at the strictly ‘factual’ level.

Within these zones of attributed competence, the élite geologists regarded only themselves as competent to propose the most fundamental, theoretical or global claims to geological knowledge.²⁴⁶ Beyond these three zones lay the general public. The geological statements of people in this category (which included quarrymen and miners) were never accepted as reliable until checked and corroborated by those with recognised geological competence.

As enlightening as Rudwick’s discussion of these three zones is for understanding geological competence in the mid-1830s during the Devonian controversy, for a number of reasons it is not immediately clear how to apply this analysis to the assessment of the geological competence of the scriptural geologists to critically evaluate the arguments in favour of an old earth.

First, though it accurately describes competence relative to the Devonian controversy, it does not enable us to adequately place people who were not involved in that debate, such as William Smith, Robert Bakewell, and leading American geologists, who were recognised by many geologists to have broader and deeper knowledge of geology than the ‘accomplished geologists’ (and even the ‘élite geologist’ Whewell), but who were not a part of the élite.

Second, Rudwick pictured diagrammatically the fact that some of the scriptural geologists were included within the class of ‘amateur geologists’,²⁴⁷ those whom the leading geologists at the time of the Devonian controversy ‘regarded as at least modestly active and competent in geology’.²⁴⁸ However, it would be difficult to prove that in 1822, after the scriptural geologist, George Young, had published four journal articles on geology and his Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast (in which he objected to old-earth theory), he was any less active in geological field work and geological reading, or any less capable of geological theorising than Sedgwick, Buckland or Lyell, especially given the great amount of exposed strata in Yorkshire which represented a major portion of the secondary formations and were right at Young’s doorstep.

Third, to say that experts in other scientific fields, with little or no field work or publications in geology, were more competent than scriptural geologists, who did both activities, is to imply that social standing in the scientific establishment and general scientific reasoning ability were far more important criteria of geological competence (at least in the minds of the geological élite) than actual first- and second-hand knowledge of geological phenomena. But this is a strange definition. On this basis, the scriptural geologist, Andrew Ure, should be ranked higher in geological competence than George Young, a conclusion most inconsistent with the facts and actual opinions of the recognised geologists of the time.

Fourth, this definition of competence was determined by a small group of ‘élite geologists’, some of whom gained their élite status before they had achieved a high level of geological competence. Sedgwick, for instance, attained the prestigious position of Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge in 1818 when by his own admission he knew very little about the subject and had done virtually no field work.^249,250

Fifth, the definition does not objectively reflect a person’s knowledge of geological literature, and intellectual ability to understand geological arguments and evaluate the logical soundness of induction from agreed upon geological facts.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, the authors of the catastrophist and uniformitarian theories of a very old earth constructed those theories and presented their geological evidence in defence of their theories long before the Devonian controversy illuminated and developed a more restrictive definition of geological competence. Hutton, Werner and Cuvier (along with Buffon and Laplace, both non-geologists) were the chief authors of the old-earth view.²⁵¹ But at the time they proposed their theories they were not very competent by the standards of the mid-1830s. Furthermore, while the Devonian controversy involved very technical discussions, it was not introducing or finally establishing the old-earth theory, but only hammering out details within the old-earth interpretive framework, and therefore only one or two scriptural geologists even made mention of the Devonian controversy. In the late 1810s, when the old-earth view was firmly established in the minds of leading geologists at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh, other institutions of higher education, the Geological Society of London and many of the provincial philosophical societies, Hutton, Werner and Cuvier would have only met the criteria of ‘amateur geologists’.²⁵²

So in order to assess the geological competence of the scriptural geologists to critically evaluate the theories of an old earth and the evidences presented in favour of those theories, we must also look at geological competence in the light of some additional possible criteria as seen in the lives of those who, all agree, were competent geologists, such as Charles Lyell and William Buckland, two of the greatest British geologists of the nineteenth century, as well as others.

In terms of education, Buckland, son of a clergyman, studied classics at Oxford from 1801–1805 in preparation for his ordained ministry. However, his real interest was in science, particularly geology, and he learned much from the writings and lectures on mineralogy and geology by Dr John Kidd, an Oxford University chemistry professor and a founding member of the London Geological Society.^253–256 Buckland took his first geological tour in 1808 alone in the countryside of Berkshire and Wiltshire, and soon thereafter began to give an annual eight-lecture series on mineralogy (from 1813) and on geology (from 1819). Lyell studied law at Oxford and later at Lincoln’s Inn to become a barrister, which was his vocation until 1828. While at Oxford he attended Buckland’s eight geology lectures in the springs of 1817 to 1819. Sometime before 1826 he had read Robert Bakewell’s Introduction to Geology²⁵⁷ and John Playfair’s Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory, the latter of which had a significant influence on the development of his own ideas about the history of the earth.²⁵⁸

Some people in Britain had studied mineralogy or chemistry as a background for their geological investigations. This was particularly true of the Scots. They had geological instruction at Edinburgh University much earlier than Oxford and Cambridge, and Robert Jameson, one of their most prominent geologists, was an alumnus of the German institute, Bergakademie Freiberg, where the famous old-earth mineralogist, Abraham Werner, had taught from 1775 to 1817.²⁵⁹ But Buckland and Lyell had a more limited educational background in the subject area. Their expertise came predominantly through self-education. It was the same with other leading British geologists of the nineteenth century. George Greenough, the first president of the Geological Society of London, trained in law. Roderick Murchison, who was significant in working out the Devonian and Silurian systems of strata in the 1830s and 1840s, had a military education. In fact, it is said that he chose to study stratigraphical geology because it did not require the academics of mineralogy. Henry De la Beche similarly had a military education. He eventually headed up the geological survey of Britain for the government and led the efforts to found the School of Mines in London.²⁶⁰ As noted earlier, Adam Sedgwick admitted that he was practically ignorant of geology when in 1818 he was elected to the Geological Society and to be Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge. What little he did know of geology came from reading, not field experience, though this quickly changed after 1818.

William Fitton, who later became president of the London Geological Society, was rather emphatic on this matter of education, when he defended the Society in 1817 saying

‘It has been remarked by critics that the want of education is sometimes of advantage to a man of genius, who is thus free to the suggestions of invention, and is neither biased in favour of erroneous maxims, nor deterred from the trial of his own powers by names of high authority. On this principle it is evident that the members of the Geological Society have derived great benefit from their want of systematic instruction. At the time of its formation there was, in fact, no English school of mineralogy where they could imbibe either information or prejudice. They were neither Vulcanists nor Neptunists nor Wernerians nor Huttonians, but plain men, who felt the importance of a subject about which they knew very little in detail; and, guided only by a sincere desire to learn, they have produced, with a rapidity that is truly surprising, publications of the greatest interest and importance upon the subjects to which they have devoted’.²⁶¹

So while university studies in chemistry or mineralogy were seen by some as helpful, they were not necessary to be regarded as a competent geologist in the 1820s and 1830s. In fact, professional training in science generally did not become established until the late 1840s.²⁶²

Certainly we would expect that a non-negotiable characteristic of a good geologist was his personal firsthand observations of the rocks, fossils and strata of the earth’s crust. Buckland and Lyell both had ample experience here. Buckland regularly went exploring the geological features in the countryside and took students on field trips. He had an extensive collection of fossils and rocks, which he always used in his lectures. His most famous field work, of course, was related to the fossils found in the Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire and incorporated into his early defence of the Noachian Flood in Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823).

Lyell, though a practising barrister until 1828, spent some considerable time in the field before writing his Principles of Geology (1830–1833). In the summer of 1823 he visited Paris and met the catastrophists Humboldt, Cuvier and Brongniart and made some geological excursions in the area. In 1825 he went on geological field trips in southwest England and later with Buckland in Scotland. And he spent three months in 1828 in the Auvergne region of France with Roderick Murchison studying the river valleys. Many more trips followed as he gave up law and pursued geology on a more full-time basis. However, the original two-volume manuscript of his Principles was given to the publisher in late 1827, six months before he made his first major geological tour, which was through France and northern Italy.^263,264

In addition to geological reading (or education) and field work, other criteria could be suggested which might be assumed to be necessary marks of a competent geologist, but which in a study of the recognised geologists of the 1820s and 1830s prove not to be essential. We will consider several of these briefly.

(1) A competent geologist need not be a member of the Geological Society of London.

William Smith, considered to be one of the best practical geologists in early nineteenth century Britain, was never a member of the Geological Society. In fact, many of the leading practical geologists,²⁶⁵ such as John Farey and Robert Bakewell, were not members and many of the early members and officers of the Society were not geologists, even well into the late 1820’s after its birth in 1807. Furthermore, Rudwick has estimated that at the time of the Devonian controversy (1834–1837) only two-thirds of the competent geologists in Britain were members of the Society.²⁶⁶

(2) Being well-travelled, especially internationally, or having firsthand knowledge of the geology and geography of an area was not essential to write competently on geology.

John Macculloch was praised by Lyell as an excellent geologist, who had a lasting and powerful influence on geology and even on Lyell’s own thinking, even though Macculloch was a catastrophist geologist and his two-volume System of Geology (1831) had many imperfections, including outdated information.^267,268 Yet in defence of the fact that Macculloch based his System of Geology mainly on what he observed in Britain, he stated

‘Geologists have been acused [sic] of founding theories upon single and favoured districts; yet have I drawn my chief illustrations from Britain? It is true: but there is no resemblance in the applications: as I can also justify this proceeding. Geological facts have no relation to geography: the earth is everywhere of the same general structure. And I need not hesitate to say, that excepting volcanoes, and little more, this little island contains every fact in the world, with much that is almost peculiar to itself; and that more knowledge can be acquired from a careful examination of it, than from all the writings of all those who have prided themselves on the extent of their travels’.²⁶⁹

Like the scriptural geologist George Fairholme, Lyell wrote on the causes and age of Niagara Falls in his Principles of Geology supposedly based on the writings of other reliable observers, long before he himself visited America (including the Falls) in 1841–1842.²⁷⁰ Nevertheless, Lyell discredited the great German mineralogist and author of the Neptunist theory, Abraham Werner, because Werner made a universal theory of the earth based on very little personal knowledge of the geology of areas outside his native Saxony. Ospovat has pointed out, however, that James Hutton, author of the Vulcanist theory of earth history and forefather of Lyell’s own uniformitarian ideas, likewise travelled little outside his native Scotland.^271,272 In fact, Hutton first published his cyclical theory of the earth in 1785 before he had studied any rocks in the field.²⁷³

Similarly, Georges Cuvier, who travelled very little outside of the environs of Paris, based his Theory of the Earth (1813) exclusively on a study of the Paris Basin, or rather a study of the fossils found there by others, for he himself relied on others, primarily Alexandre Brongniart, for the geological information.^274,275

(3) A person need not be gainfully employed as a geologist in order to be a competent geologist in the 1820s and 1830s.

Murchison was an independently wealthy, retired military man, who did not take a job as a geologist until he replaced De la Beche in the 1840s in the governmental Department of Geological Survey. De la Beche himself initially did his geological work living off funds from his father, a plantation owner in the West Indies, before becoming a government geologist in the mid-1830s. Lyell was initially a barrister by profession. Then for a short time he earned a little from geological lectures presented to a paying public. But for most of his life he lived off the royalties of his successful geological writings. George P. Scrope married into wealth, which funded his early geological research on volcanoes and valleys in France, and he spent most of his professional life as an MP from Stroud (for 35 years) before resuming geological work in his retirement. George Greenough, the first president of the Geological Society and active in geology for many years after that, was likewise independently wealthy.^276–278 In fact, it was not until the late 1840s, in large measure because of the ‘Devonian controversy’, that we see the rise of the professional specialist (as opposed to the independently wealthy gentleman) in geology.²⁷⁹

(4) A competent geologist in the early nineteenth century did not necessarily have a good knowledge of conchology.

One might think that this would be absolutely essential, since shells were by far the most common fossils found in the geological record and the most important fossils used to identify, correlate and relatively date the strata in various locations. However, William Smith, ‘the Father of English Geology’, who was recognised for having developed this technique for classifying the strata, said the following in 1817 about his Stratigraphical System of Organised Fossils:

‘errors in [my] stratified arrangement can be corrected by those only who are locally acquainted with the strata, and the numerous organized Fossils they contain. On this principle I have ventured, without much knowledge of Conchology, and with weak aids in that science to give the outlines of a systematic arrangement [of the geological record]’.²⁸⁰

Similarly, Lyell based his uniformitarian theory largely on the fossil shells of the Tertiary, but he did not start learning conchology until 1830, the year Volume I of his Principles of Geology was published and two years after the theory was firmly fixed in his mind.²⁸¹

(5) A person did not need to publish geological articles in scientific journals in order to be regarded as a competent geologist.

William Smith is an example of this. His geological publications were limited to his important geological maps and six works which explained his system of stratigraphy based on fossils.

(6) A competent geologist’s interpretations of the rocks were not unaffected by non-scientific considerations.

Nicholaas Rupke has argued persuasively that Buckland’s catastrophist geology was significantly influenced by his involvement in university and social reform. Speaking of the reform going on in Britain at the time, Rupke wrote,

‘The geological notion of progressive earth history can not be separated from this historical milieu. The progressivism of the English school [of geology, of which Buckland was a leader] was formulated at a time when the idea of progress was becoming a major determinant of cultural expectation in English society’.²⁸²

In other words, the progressive nature of the geological record was used as a basis for and was, to some extent, shaped by the idea that man and society were improving.

Lyell likewise was not a purely objective observer of the geological facts. A number of recent historians of science and geologists have shown that politics, economics and deistic or unitarian theology had a significant bearing on the interpretation of geological formations given by Lyell (and Scrope, upon whom Lyell heavily relied).^283–290 In his discussion of Lyell and the uniformitarian-catastrophist debate in the 1820s and 1830s, geologist Derek Ager, a leader in the twentieth century renaissance of geological catastrophism, has remarked

‘My excuse for this lengthy and amateur digression into history is that I have been trying to show how I think geology got into the hands of the theoreticians who were conditioned by the social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field’.²⁹¹

American old-earth geologist, Edward Hitchcock, argued that both the French geologists and Lyell had a hostility against the Bible, which very much affected their interpretation of the Noachian Flood and the geological evidence.²⁹² And as noted earlier in the discussion on deism, both Hutton and Werner were strongly influenced in their geological theories of earth history by their deistic convictions.

(7) To be considered geologically competent (even highly so) a person did not need to agree with the dominant theory.

This is obvious, but it is worth stating. Lyell was considered geologically competent when his extreme uniformitarian theory was presented in opposition to the mainstream view of the catastrophists. Therefore, a scriptural geologist could not legitimately be considered geologically incompetent simply because he opposed the old-earth interpretations of the rocks. In the 1820s and 1830s it would have been inconsistent to say that in order to be considered as geologically competent a person could not question the time and natural processes responsible for the production of the whole geological record (as the scriptural geologists did), when catastrophists and uniformitarians were debating over the time and processes involved in producing particular formations or strata within that record. This is especially seen in the case of William Smith, who unlike any other catastrophists and the uniformitarians believed in multiple supernatural catastrophes, each followed by supernatural creation.²⁹³ Yet in 1829 Phillips wrote of him,

‘Mr Smith is no theorist in the ordinary sense of the word. His whole life has been spent in practical researches, to prove the truth, and extend the benefit, of those general laws of structure which he was the first to promulgate in England. Besides discovering, at nearly the same period as Werner, the principle of the arrangement of secondary strata, he added the important doctrine, that organic fossils are distributed in the earth according to regular laws, and may be employed to discriminate and identify the rocks. Werner and Smith are, therefore, the leaders of the modern school of geology, and whilst every fresh investigation illustrates the truth of their general principles, their names will be honoured with increasing respect, though every “theory” should be forgotten’.²⁹⁴

Conclusion on competence

The definition of geological competence was not fixed in the 1820s and 1830s as geology matured as a science, and certainly, as Rudwick has shown, there was a gradient of competence. But the level of competence needed to propose or debate a detailed stratigraphy of a particular region within the old-earth framework (such as in the Devonian controversy of the mid-1830s) was much higher than that needed to propose the old-earth framework and to state its supporting evidences (in the years 1790–1815), or to criticise those theories and arguments, as the scriptural geologists did. Upon consideration of further criteria than those proposed by Rudwick, it may be argued that a competent geologist in the 1820s and 1830s was one who devoted a significant portion of his time to firsthand observation of the geological formations in the field and was knowledgably conversant with current geological literature, facts and theories. If, added to these, his field observations were not just regional, but national or international in extent, if he published his research in reputable scientific journals and/or books, if he was a member of one or more scientific societies, if he had personal contact with recognised geologists, if he added new facts to the pool of geological knowledge, if he earned his living from his geological work, etc., then so much the better. But these latter attributes were not necessary in the 1820s and 1830s to qualify as a competent geologist who was able to critically evaluate the theories of an old-earth and the geological evidences adduced as proof of those theories.

These considerations assist in the evaluation of the Genesis-geology debate and the part which the scriptural geologists played in it. In subsequent papers it will be argued that Young, Murray, Rhind and Fairholme were quite competent in geology (possessing even some of the extra characteristics mentioned above) and had as much or more first and secondhand geological knowledge than some of those categorised by Rudwick as accomplished, or even élite, geologists. It will also be shown that some of the other scriptural geologists were better informed geologically than was (or is) generally acknowledged by their critics.

Summary

In this paper we have considered the historical context of the British scriptural geologists. They wrote at a time of incredible change. Politically, monarchial government was moving in the direction of representative democracy. The Industrial Revolution was bringing an explosion of new technology, shifting the population into the cities, helping to elevate the social status of science, and improving the standard of living for many but accentuating the poverty of some. Reason was being raised to the place of supreme authority in determining truth, and deists and atheists were openly or subtly challenging the Christian worldview. This had an effect not only on scientific assumptions and methodology, but also on biblical scholarship and faith in the Scriptures. In the early nineteenth century, science and scientists were just beginning to become specialised in the way that we know them to be today, and the study of geology was still very much in its infancy, more as a ‘gentleman’s avocation’ than as a profession. Though in early nineteenth century Britain there were strong defenders of Christian orthodoxy among both high churchmen and evangelicals, liberal theology was slowly penetrating and transforming the churches. And after several centuries of close ties between geology and Scripture, the study of the rocks and fossils was being divorced from the study of the Bible, resulting in a departure from the dominant traditional interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis.

We are now prepared to consider individually a number of the scriptural geologists. They will be presented roughly in chronological order. After we have looked at each of these men and his arguments, we will then be in a position to make overall comparisons, summarise their common objections to the old-earth theories, and draw general conclusions about the nature of the debate in which they were engaged.

TJ Archive > Volume 11 Issue 2 > British scriptural geologists in the first half of the nineteenth century: part 1

Summary

Introduction

Geologist H.H. Read prefaced his book on the granite controversy a few decades ago with these words:

‘Geology, as the science of earth-history, is prone to controversy. The study of history of any kind depends upon documents and records. For the history of the earth’s crust, these documents are the rocks and their reading and interpretation are often difficult operations’.¹

During one such controversy in the first half of the nineteenth century in Britain, a tenacious and denominationally-eclectic band of naturalists and clergyman (and some were both) opposed the new geological theories being developed at the time, which said that the earth was millions of years old. These men became known as scriptural geologists, Mosaic geologists or biblical literalists.

The label, scriptural geologists, is preferred because three of their book titles used this language, and it was the most common label used by contemporaries and later historians. However, we need to be aware of the label’s liabilities. It has not always been used carefully, resulting in confusion and inaccurate analysis. Calling them scriptural geologists obscures the fact that some of them were competent geologists and some were not (and did not claim to be). Conversely, it sometimes is and was used by opponents to imply, erroneously, that these men all developed their objections to old-earth geological theories solely on the basis of Scripture.

These scriptural geologists held to the dominant Christian view within church history and in their own time,² namely, that Moses wrote Genesis 1–11 (along with the rest of Genesis) under divine inspiration and that these chapters ought to be interpreted literally³ as a reliable, fully historical account.⁴ This conviction led them to believe, like many contemporary and earlier Christians, that the Noachian Flood was a unique global catastrophe, which produced much, or most, of the fossil-bearing sedimentary rock formations, and that the earth was roughly 6,000 years old.

From this position they opposed with equal vigour both the uniformitarian theory of earth history propounded by James Hutton and Charles Lyell, and the catastrophist theory of Georges Cuvier, William Buckland, William Conybeare, Adam Sedgwick, etc. They also rejected, as compromises of Scripture, the gap theory,⁵ the day-age theory,⁶ the tranquil flood theory,⁷ the local flood theory,⁸ and the myth theory.⁹ Though all but the myth theory were advocated by Christians who believed in the divine inspiration and historicity of Genesis 1–11, the scriptural geologists believed their opponents’ theories were unconvincing interpretations of Scripture based on unproven old-earth theories of geology.

Science historian Martin Rudwick wrote in 1985 that they deserve more study, as they were

‘an important irritant and a serious disturbing factor in the scientific geologists’ campaign to establish and maintain their own public image as a source of reliable and authoritative knowledge’.¹⁰

The fact is that modern historians have largely overlooked the scriptural geologists—they have been generally misunderstood and often mischaracterised both by their contemporaries and by later historians.

Charles Lyell, the leading uniformitarian geologist, described them in 1827 as ‘wholly destitute of geological knowledge’ and unacquainted ‘with the elements of any one branch of natural history which bears on the science’. He said that they were ‘incapable of appreciating the force of objections, or of discerning the weight of inductions from numerous physical facts’. Instead he complained that

‘they endeavour to point out the accordance of the Mosaic history with phenomena which they have never studied’ and ‘every page of their writings proves their consummate incompetence’.¹¹

Thomas Chalmers, an evangelical pastor and leader in the 1843 disruption of the Scottish Church, regretted in 1835 that:

‘Penn, or Gisborne, or any other of our scriptural Geologists (had) entered upon this controversy without a sufficient preparation in natural science’.¹²

The Roman Catholic cardinal, Nicholas Wiseman, asserted that the scriptural geologists ‘reject all geological facts and principles’ and ‘severely reprove geologists for framing any theories in their science’.¹³ An anonymous letter to the editor of the Christian Observer in 1839 described them as ‘anti-geologist’ Christians.¹⁴ They were considered good, but ‘ignorant’ people by the reviewer of John Pye Smith’s book Relation Between Holy Scripture and Geological Science (1839).¹⁵ Buckland’s daughter wrote in her biography of him that his opponents in the 1820s were men ‘who feared the study of God’s earth would shake the foundations of Christianity’. Later she cited Baron Bunsen’s complaint (in a letter to his wife in 1839) that ‘Buckland is persecuted by bigots’.¹⁶

In 1896 Andrew White, whose views had enormous influence on the next generation of historians, referred only to clerical scriptural geologists, such as James Mellor Brown. Quoting Brown and others out of context, White said that these scriptural geologists believed that geology was ‘not a subject of lawful inquiry’, ‘a dark art’, ‘dangerous and disreputable’, and ‘a forbidden province’.¹⁷ Also in 1896, William Williamson, professor of botany in Manchester, described the work of George Young, the most geologically competent scriptural geologist, as ‘prejudiced rubbish’.¹⁸

Moving into the twentieth century, the scriptural geologists have been described as ‘scientifically worthless’,¹⁹ ‘scientifically illiterate Bibliolaters’ and ‘obscurantists’.^20–23 And they were ‘vociferous’, negative and defensive in their reaction to geology.²⁴

Particularly pertinent to the forthcoming analysis of George Fairholme, John Murray, William Rhind and George Young are comments by Harvard University geologist, Stephen Gould:

‘By 1830, no serious scientific catastrophist believed that cataclysms had a supernatural cause or that the earth was 6,000 years old. Yet, these notions were held by many laymen, and they were advocated by some quasi-scientific theologians’.²⁵

Davis Young, a Christian theistic evolutionary geologist and prominent writer on the creation/evolution debate in America, has implied a similar view—these scriptural geologists had no real geological knowledge.

‘A torrent of books and pamphlets were published on “scriptural” geology and Flood geology, all designed to uphold the traditional point of view on the age and history of the world.²⁶

‘The “heretical” and “infidel” tendencies of geology were roundly condemned by some churchmen, few of whom had any real knowledge of geology. Those who had geological knowledge were now largely convinced that the earth was very old’.²⁷

Charles Gillispie, one of the most influential recent historians of nineteenth century geology, was even more stinging in his general evaluation of the scriptural geologists when he stated that they were ‘men of the lunatic fringe’, who published ‘their own fantastic geologies and natural histories’, none of which ‘marked any advance on Kirwan’, who wrote at the turn of the nineteenth century. In fact their ideas were all ‘too absurd to disinter’.²⁸ He later continued,

‘the productions of men like George Fairholme, Andrew Ure and John Pye Smith set forth sillier, less well-informed systems (than Vestiges²⁹) reconciling the Mosaic record with empirically misconceived fact. Their errors cannot have seemed sufficiently damaging to science to merit professional refutation because no-one bothered to refute them’.³⁰

In commenting on their significance, Gillispie concluded,

‘Although too neat a generalization would be erroneous, the arguments of one generation of purely theological disputants more or less reflected the interpretations of the obstructionist side in the discussions among scientists of the preceding generation. Granville Penn, for example, Dean Cockburn of York, and George Fairholme to name three of the opponents of geology in Buckland’s time levelled against the whole of the science—catastrophist as well as uniformitarian—arguments very similar to those with which Deluc and Kirwan had attacked the Huttonians 25 years earlier … After Kirwan, no responsible scientist contended for the literal credibility of the Mosaic account of creation’.³¹

Millhauser similarly described them as ‘foes of science’ who were woefully ignorant of science and especially geology.³² Referring to these scriptural geologists, Haber asserted that ‘geological science and the advancement of scientific truth [were] pilloried and stoned by the ignorant literalists’ who vainly fought against ‘the heroic warriors in the army of science’.³³ More recently, James Moore has expressed an equally negative view of these scriptural geologists.

‘Thus their typical ploy of ransacking geological works for contradictory assertions, for passages of which no real understanding is shown but which serve admirably to exercise and display the interpreter’s own proficiency in logic and linguistics’. [sic]³⁴

Quite unlike most other contemporary historians, Nicolaas Rupke was somewhat positive in describing some of the scriptural geologists as competent naturalists. In his view even some of the clergy were quite expert in the local geology around their parishes.³⁵ Paul Marston acknowledged that they were not anti-geology, but only opposed to the old-earth geological theories.³⁶ Nevertheless, these are very much a minority view among historians.

Whenever a group of people is so severely castigated by contemporaries and later historians, the student of history can be excused for being just a little suspicious that maybe there could be another side to the story. So it is important to investigate the evidence more closely and carefully, and as objectively as possible.

Another reason for studying these men is a fact closely related to the last point, namely, that very recent historians of science have written a number of articles and books giving reinterpretations of the historic relation of science to religious belief.^37–43 In this area, the ‘warfare’ thesis of White and Draper dominated scholarly thinking for far too long. According to them, science and Christianity were constantly in conflict and science won every battle.^44,45 Brooke points out that this warfare thesis was flawed because

1. White and Draper only considered the extreme positions and neglected those who saw religion and science as complementary, and

2. they evaluated past scientific achievements on the basis of later, rather than contemporary, knowledge.⁴⁶

Rudwick summarised the need for such fresh reinterpretations of the past when he stated,

‘This kind of scientific triumphalism is long overdue for critical reappraisal. Its claims to serious attention have been thoroughly demolished in other areas of the history of science, but it survives as an anomaly in the historical treatment of the relation of science to religious belief. This may be because the historians’ own attitudes are conditioned by the immature age at which religious beliefs and practices are abandoned by many, though not all, intellectuals in modern Western societies. This common experience may explain why many historians of science seem incapable of giving the religious beliefs of past cultures the same intelligent and empathic respect that they now routinely accord to even the strangest scientific beliefs of the past’.⁴⁷

This difficulty in giving a fair treatment of scientists who held strong religious beliefs, especially orthodox Christian beliefs, calls for a more careful assessment of the scriptural geologists, to whom the warfare myth continues to be applied.

A final reason for studying them is the recent renaissance of geological catastrophism. In the last twenty years or more there has been a growing criticism of Lyellian uniformitarianism and a return by some geologists to a kind of catastrophism reminiscent of the early nineteenth century views of Cuvier and Buckland (though definitely without any belief in the Noachian Flood).⁴⁸ Many geologists would no longer accept the statement given in 1972 under the entry, ‘catastrophism’, in The Penguin Dictionary of Geology:

‘The hypothesis, now more or less completely discarded, that changes in the earth occur as a result of isolated giant catastrophes of relatively short duration, as opposed to the idea, implicit in uniformitarianism, that small changes are taking place continuously’.⁴⁹

Derek Ager, a highly respected geologist and, until his recent death, one of the leading voices in the neocatastrophist camp, listed in his last book, The New Catastrophism (1993), a number of recent works which argue for a catastrophic view of earth history.⁵⁰ One of Ager’s reviewers wrote, ‘Now all has changed. We are rewriting geohistory … . We live in an age of neocatastrophism’.⁵¹ In addition to these books, numerous journal articles have been calling for either a rejection of uniformitarianism or a clearer definition of its influence on the interpretation of geological phenomena.⁵² In this new geological context the scriptural geologists could be reconsidered from different perspectives than those held earlier.

Intellectual and religious background

The controversies in early nineteenth century Britain regarding the relationship of the early chapters of Genesis to the geological discoveries and theories did not, of course, take place in a vacuum. They were part of a complex movement of thought with philosophical, theological, social, political and ecclesiastical dimensions, which pulsed through the educated minds of Europeans in general and of Britons in particular. The following highlights some of the most important people, events and currents of thought leading up to and contributing to a revolution in worldview which profoundly affected the nineteenth century Genesis-geology debate.

The Galileo affair

Shortly before his death in 1543 and with some hesitation, Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543), the Polish mathematician and astronomer, published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, in which he argued that the earth was not the centre of the universe, as generally believed, but rotated on its axis and revolved with the other known planets around the stationary sun. Over the subsequent decades opposition to his theory (as a description of physical reality, rather than merely as an alternative mathematical description) arose because it seemed contrary to common sense, was opposed to Aristotelian physics, lacked convincing astronomical evidence, and appeared contrary to a literal interpretation of various Scriptures. Approximately 150 years passed before his theory was generally accepted. But it was soon embraced by Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), though the latter was at first reluctant to publicise his views.

In 1613 Galileo finally came out in the open in his Letters on Sunspots. He argued that his observations of the heavens by means of the recently invented telescope were consistent with what Copernicus had proposed was the actual relationship and movement of the earth and heavenly bodies. Initially, the Catholic authorities accepted Galileo’s assertions as compatible with the teachings of the church. Eventually, however, Jesuit university professors (who were ultra-orthodox defenders of Catholic dogma and embraced the geocentric theory) were sufficiently provoked by Galileo’s further writings so that they pressured the Pope in 1633 to require Galileo to recant the heliocentric theory on the threat of excommunication.⁵³ He did publicly recant (though he remained a Copernican in his heart), but was still placed under house arrest the remainder of his life.

Largely as a result of the influence of Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274), the Roman Church in Galileo’s day, and for many previous centuries, had absorbed and ‘baptized’ the geocentric cosmological philosophy of Aristotle and Ptolemy.⁵⁴ The seventeenth century church leaders who opposed Galileo had not developed a cosmology simply by studying the Bible and ‘taking everything literally’, as is sometimes implied.

In any case this incident added considerable support to Galileo, and to others at the same time and later, who insisted on a complete bifurcation between the study of the creation and the study of Scripture.⁵⁵ The Bible was written to teach people theology and morality, not a system of natural philosophy, it was argued. Or as Galileo said, the intention of Scripture is ‘to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes’.⁵⁶ Therefore Galileo concluded that

‘nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words … On the contrary, having arrived at any certainties in physics, we ought to utilize these as the most appropriate aids in the true exposition of the Bible’.⁵⁷

With frequent reference to Galileo, this approach to the relation of science to the interpretation of Scripture was demanded by all the opponents of the British scriptural geologists of the early nineteenth century.⁵⁸ The old-earth proponents believed that, prior to the work of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, it was quite natural for Christians to take various verses in the Bible to imply an immovable earth surrounded by the revolving heavenly bodies because they had no philosophical or observational reasons to think otherwise. But once the new mathematical descriptions and telescopic observations had been made known, they were forced to reinterpret those verses so as to remove the apparent contradiction between the truth revealed by Scripture and that revealed by God’s creation. In exactly the same way, the old-earth proponents reasoned, geology has brought forward observational proof that the earth is much older than previously thought and so Christians must interpret Genesis 1 and Genesis 6–9 differently, so as to harmonise Scripture with this newly discovered teaching of creation.⁵⁹

It should be noted now that the Galileo affair was focused exclusively on the present structure and operation of the universe, rather than on how it came into being and attained its present arrangement [see also Q&A: Galileo, Geocentrism, and Joshua’s Long Day and Naturalism, Origin and Operation Science].⁶⁰

Francis Bacon

The famous English politician and philosopher, Francis Bacon (1561–1626), also had an enormous influence on the subsequent development of science and on the views of later Christians regarding the relationship of Scripture to science. He too promoted the separation of Scripture from scientific study of the physical world, although like Galileo and Copernicus he was not in any way denigrating the study of Scripture. Bacon put forth his ideas in the notion of the two books of God: the book of Scripture and the book of nature. In Advancement of Learning (1605) he made his well-known statement of the relationship of Scripture to nature:

‘For our Saviour saith, “You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God”; laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error; first the Scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing his power; whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures, by the general notions of reason and rules of speech; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency [sic] of God, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon his works’.⁶¹

Later in the same work he criticised the ‘school of Paracelsus’⁶² and others for pretending ‘to find the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures; scandalizing and traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane’. He continued in general terms,

‘For to seek heaven and earth in the word of God, whereof it is said, “Heaven and earth shall pass, but my word shall not pass”, is to seek temporary things amongst eternal; and as to seek divinity in philosophy is to seek the living amongst the dead, so to seek philosophy in divinity is to seek the dead amongst the living. … And again, the scope or purpose of the spirit of God is not to express matters of nature in the scriptures, otherwise than in passage, and for application to man’s capacity and to matters moral and divine’.⁶³

Fifteen years later, Bacon developed these ideas further in Novum Organum (1620), where in condemning the mixture of superstition and theology in the works of Greeks, such as Pythagoras and Plato, he argued that it was foolish to attempt to found ‘a system of natural philosophy’ on the basis of Genesis 1, Job or other sections of the Bible, because such an ‘unsound admixture of things divine and human’ would produce not only an erroneous philosophy, but also a heretical religion.⁶⁴ In particular, Bacon chastised the scholastic theologians of his day for this unwise mingling of ‘the disputations and thorny philosophy of Aristotle with the body of Religion in an inordinate degree’.⁶⁵

Bacon also insisted that accurate knowledge of the physical world could only expand on the basis of inductive reasoning from a wealth of data collected by observation and experimentation. These two ideas (that is, the separation of the study of Scripture and creation, and the scientific method of inductive reasoning from observational data) were fundamental to the objectives of the Geological Society of London, founded in 1807, and many old-earth geologists repeatedly highlighted their dependence on Bacon.^66,67

But for this study, it will also become important to consider a little-noted passage relating to Bacon’s influence on geology. Just a few pages before the first quotation above from The Advancement of Learning, Bacon noted that the Levitical laws of leprosy teach

‘a principle of nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before maturity than after … So in this and very many other places in that law, there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much aspersion of philosophy. So likewise in that excellent book of Job, if it be revolved with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural philosophy; as for example cosmography and the roundness of the earth; [here he quoted the Latin of Job 26:7] wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north, and the finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched. So again matter of astronomy; [here he quoted the Latin of Job 38:31–32] where the fixing of the stars ever standing at equal distance is with great elegance noted. And in another place, [here he quoted the Latin of Job 9:9] where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern pole, calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern stars were in that climate unseen. Matter of generation [here he quoted the Latin of Job 10:10] etc. Matter of minerals [here was another partial quote of Job in Latin] and so forwards in that chapter. So likewise in the person of Salomon [sic] the King, we see the gift and endowment of wisdom and learning … Salomon became enabled not only to write those excellent parables or aphorisms concerning divine and moral philosophy, but also to compile a natural history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon the wall (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb), and also of all things that breathe and move’.⁶⁸

Earlier he had briefly expressed his belief in a literal six-day creation, after which the creation was complete. He also believed that the Flood and the confusion of the languages at the Tower of Babel were judgments of God.⁶⁹ Some of these beliefs were expressed in more detail in his Confession of Faith, first published posthumously in his Remains (1648), but written some unknown time before the summer of 1603.⁷⁰ This 8-page confession⁷¹ reads like a detailed, orthodox creed.

Of particular relevance to this study, he stated that during the six days of creation God ‘made all things in their first estate good’, each day’s work being a ‘perfection’, but that ‘heaven and earth, which were made for man’s use, were subdued to corruption by his fall’. Further, he believed that although God ceased his creation work on the first sabbath and never resumed it, He has continued ever since His providential work of sustaining His creation. Also, after the Fall, He has been doing His redemptive work. Furthermore, according to Bacon:

‘the laws of nature, which now remain and govern inviolably till the end of the world, began to be in force when God first rested from his works, and ceased to create; but received a revocation, in part, by the curse, since which time they change not’.⁷²

So clearly in Bacon’s mind, the laws of nature which scientists should endeavour to discover by observation and experimentation were not the means by which God created the fully-functioning universe and earth with its variety of plants, animals and man [so we see that he correctly distinguished operational and origins science].

These various remarks by Bacon about creation, the commencement of the laws of nature, Scripture and the study of nature might seem at first sight to be inconsistent or contradictory, and we might surmise that his remarks in Novum Organum represent a recantation of earlier statements. But there is no clear evidence that this was so.⁷³ All his remarks are important for understanding the nineteenth century Genesis-geology debate, in which old-earth geologists and many scriptural geologists disagreed over what it meant to be Baconian in one’s reasoning about the created world. It will be shown that one scriptural geologist, Granville Penn, argued (and some other scriptural geologists explicitly agreed with him) that Bacon’s beliefs, based on scriptural revelation, about the nature of the original creation and about when the present laws of nature came into operation, were as much a part of Bacon’s philosophic principles as his belief that the study of Scripture and the study of the natural world should not be unwisely mixed. In other words, the scriptural geologists believed that the former principles of Bacon qualified the meaning of his latter principle. Scriptural geologists also contended that it was unBaconian to be dogmatic about an old-earth general theory of the earth, when so little of the earth’s surface had been geologically studied in the early nineteenth century. So while the old-earth geologists claimed to be Baconian in a strict sense, the scriptural geologists considered that they too were following Bacon in important respects.

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment or ‘age of reason’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a time when reason was elevated to the place of supreme authority for determining truth. Some, such as René Descartes (1596–1650) and John Locke (1632–1704), sought to use reason to defend the Christian faith, but others used reason to discard all other forms of authority, especially tradition, religious experience, ecclesiastical leadership, and the revelation of Scripture. Ironically, they often relied heavily on the writings of Locke and Descartes to do so. Hazard wrote,

‘Was there ever a more singular example of the way in which after a while a doctrine may develop ideas completely at variance with those with which it started? … To the cause of religion, the Cartesian philosophy came bringing what seemed a most valuable support, to begin with. But that same philosophy bore within it a germ of irreligion which time was to bring to light, and which acts and works and is made deliberate use of to sap and undermine the foundations of belief’.⁷⁴

Descartes used the tools of examination, free inquiry and criticism to attempt to establish with certitude issues such as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. Sceptics used those same tools to overthrow those beliefs.

One of those sceptics was the Dutch Jew, Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677), who began his writing career in 1663 with a favourable, yet critical, account of the Cartesian system: Parts I and II of Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy, Demonstrated in the Geometric Manner. But his most damaging book was Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which was anonymously published in 1670. Before this appeared he had published nothing ‘which could shock the susceptibilities of Christians’,⁷⁵ but this surely did. The authorities tolerated it for four years before the Dutch State formally censored it and the Roman Catholic Church placed it on its Index of banned books.

In it Spinoza swept away all the traditional Christian beliefs, seeing Christianity as only a manner of external obedience to priests. He rejected the Scriptures as the prophetic revelation of God and like many later biblical critics he made a distinction between the Scriptures and the Word of God. Spinoza believed that the Word of God had been crusted over with errors and ancient culture by the human authors who produced the Scriptures. Not surprisingly, Spinoza strongly rejected the miracles in the Bible; miracles are impossible, he argued, because they contradict the universal laws of nature, which not even God can violate. Instead, miracles are simply events that primitive people, who were ignorant of such laws, cannot explain. He also denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and assigned the books Genesis to 2 Kings to the post-exilic scribe, Ezra. His primary concern in Tractatus was to establish a scientific method of hermeneutics. Spinoza attempted to interpret the Bible impartially without any presuppositions. His rejection of the supernatural nature of Scripture, however, was bound to be controversial for those who found both fulfilled prophecy and miracles recorded in it.

The ideas of Spinoza, though strongly opposed at the time, made their impact on the early nineteenth century in two ways: through the teaching of the English deists and the German and French biblical critics, many of whom were also deists.

In many regards Spinoza lived a calm and virtuous life. This was a significant reason that the Deists were so attracted to him at a time when there was so much strife, often violent, in Europe between people of differing theological and philosophical viewpoints.⁷⁶ A late nineteenth century English historian and expert on deistic writings, Sir Leslie Stephen, said, ‘It is enough to remark that the whole essence of the deist position may be found in Spinoza’s Tractatus’.⁷⁷

The essential theological beliefs or worldview of the deists can be readily seen in Spinoza (though his views had some marks of pantheism): the existence of a providential (and non-intervening), benevolent supreme Being, the obligation of man to worship this Being and to behave ethically, the need for repentance, the reality of divine rewards and punishment in this life and the next, and the supreme value of religious tolerance (because all religions are essentially the same). Deists also viewed the Creator God as a great watchmaker, who, once he had wound up the world, allowed it to run without interference according to the laws of nature. As a result, miracles were denied along with fulfilled prophecy and divine revelation. Deists sought to remove what they believed were the remaining vestiges of superstition and obscure, difficult doctrines in Christianity to make it more palatable to reasoning people of the scientific age. Major works included John Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious (1696), Anthony Collins’ Discourse of Free Thinking (1713), Thomas Woolston’s Discourses on