Scriptural geologists
Encyclopedia
Scriptural 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. Their views were marginalised and ignored by the scientific community
of their time. They "had much the same relationship to 'philosophical' (or scientific) geologists as their indirect descendants, the twentieth-century creationists." Paul Wood describes them as "mostly Anglican evangelicals" with "no institutional focus and little sense of commonality". They generally lacked any background in geology, and had little influence even in church circles.
notes, classical scholarship in Britain traditionally turned to documents, such as the Bible, when it came to questions concerning world history and chronology. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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."
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. 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).
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." L. Piccardi and W. Bruce Masse state that "[a]part from George Young, none of these scriptural geologists had any geological competence". 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." Taking a more positive view, Milton Millhauser states that the leaders of the party were "by no means ignorant of the science [they] assailed" and that Granville Penn "had studied geology".
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.
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. 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.
condemned Andrew 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".
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," Miller described Penn's view of Biblical verses that conflicted with his own views as "mere idle glosses, ignorantly or surreptitiously introduced into the text by ancient copyists." Thus he wrote:
Adam Sedgwick generalized in 1830 that they had 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." 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." Scriptural geologist Henry Cole responded to Sedgwick in kind referring to Sedgwick's ideas as "unscriptural and anti-Christian," "scripture-defying", "revelation-subverting," and "baseless speculations and self-contradictions," which were "impious and infidel".
Contemporary of George Young, geologist Martin Simpson described Young's Geological Survey as "in every way worthy of a pupil of the celebrated Playfair."
, Dean of York
), as clerical "fulminations against science in general and all its works", and listed the works of Cockburn and Fairholme as among "clerical attacks on geology and uninformed attempts to frame theoretical systems reconciling the geological and scriptural records." 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.
Young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism is the religious belief that Heavens, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago...
' time-scale. Their views were marginalised and ignored by the scientific community
Scientific community
The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
of their time. They "had much the same relationship to 'philosophical' (or scientific) geologists as their indirect descendants, the twentieth-century creationists." Paul Wood describes them as "mostly Anglican evangelicals" with "no institutional focus and little sense of commonality". They generally lacked any background in geology, and had little influence even in church circles.
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. As historian of science Nicolaas RupkeNicolaas Adrianus Rupke
Nicolaas Adrianus Rupke is a Dutch historian of science, who began his academic career as a marine geologist.He studied biology and geology at the university of Groningen and geology and the history of science at Princeton and Oxford...
notes, classical scholarship in Britain traditionally turned to documents, such as the Bible, when it came to questions concerning world history and chronology. 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.
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.
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. Thomas Chalmers
Thomas Chalmers
Thomas Chalmers , Scottish mathematician, political economist, divine and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland, was born at Anstruther in Fife.-Overview:...
, 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
Edward Hitchcock
Edward Hitchcock was a noted American geologist and the third President of Amherst College .-Life:...
, W. D. Conybeare
William Daniel Conybeare
William Daniel Conybeare FRS , dean of Llandaff, was an English geologist, palaeontologist and clergyman. He is probably best known for his ground-breaking work on marine reptile fossils in the 1820s, including important papers for the Geological Society of London on ichthyosaur anatomy and the...
, and the future Cardinal Wiseman. Sharon Turner
Sharon Turner
Sharon Turner was an English historian.-Life:Born in Pentonville, Turner was the eldest son of William and Ann Turner, Yorkshire natives who had settled in London upon marrying. He left school at fifteen to be articled to an attorney in the Temple...
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.
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. 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."
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'
Gap Creationism
Gap creationism is a form of Old Earth creationism that posits that the six-day creation, as described in the Book of Genesis, involved literal 24-hour days, but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, explaining...
and included Granville Penn
Granville Penn
Granville Penn was a great-grandson of Admiral Sir William Penn, a British author, and scriptural geologist.-Biography:...
's A Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies (1822) and George Bugg
George Bugg
George Bugg was an Anglican deacon and curate for several churches in England and a scriptural geologist, writing a two volume book called Scriptural Geology.-Biography:...
'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. This was largely in response to Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
's Principles of Geology
Principles of Geology
Principles of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation, is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell....
and William Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
's Bridgewater Treatise, Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, which diverged from flood geology
Flood geology
Flood geology is the interpretation of the geological history of the Earth in terms of the global flood described in Genesis 6–9. Similar views played a part in the early development of the science of geology, even after the Biblical chronology had been rejected by geologists in favour of an...
. Responses included George Fairholme's General View of the Geology of Scripture (1833) and The Mosaic Deluge (1837).
Geological competence
Professor of intellectual history David N. LivingstoneDavid N. Livingstone
David N. Livingstone , OBE, MRIA, FBA, AcSS, MAE, is Professor of Geography and Intellectual History, at Queen's University Belfast.- Personal background :...
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." L. Piccardi and W. Bruce Masse state that "[a]part from George Young, none of these scriptural geologists had any geological competence". 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." Taking a more positive view, Milton Millhauser states that the leaders of the party were "by no means ignorant of the science [they] assailed" and that Granville Penn "had studied geology".
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.
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. 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.
By their contemporaries
Adam SedgwickAdam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
condemned Andrew Ure
Andrew Ure
Andrew Ure was a Scottish doctor, scholar and chemist.-Biography:Andrew Ure was born in Glasgow, the son of Alexander Ure, a cheesemonger and his wife, Anne. He received an M.D. from Glasgow University in 1801, and served briefly as an army surgeon before settling in Glasgow, where he became a...
'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".
Hugh Miller
Hugh Miller
Hugh Miller was a self-taught Scottish geologist and writer, folklorist and an evangelical Christian.- Life and work :Born in Cromarty, he was educated in a parish school where he reportedly showed a love of reading. At 17 he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and his work in quarries, together with...
described Granville Penn as one of "the abler and more respectable anti-geologists" and "certainly one of the most extensively informed of his class," Miller described Penn's view of Biblical verses that conflicted with his own views as "mere idle glosses, ignorantly or surreptitiously introduced into the text by ancient copyists." Thus he wrote:
Adam Sedgwick generalized in 1830 that they had 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." 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." Scriptural geologist Henry Cole responded to Sedgwick in kind referring to Sedgwick's ideas as "unscriptural and anti-Christian," "scripture-defying", "revelation-subverting," and "baseless speculations and self-contradictions," which were "impious and infidel".
Contemporary of George Young, geologist Martin Simpson described Young's Geological Survey as "in every way worthy of a pupil of the celebrated Playfair."
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 Gillespie 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". Gillespie describes their views, along with their "reasonably respectable" colleagues (such as Edward Bouverie Pusey and William CockburnSir William Cockburn, 11th Baronet
Sir William Cockburn, 11th Baronet was a Church of England clergyman. He was Dean of York and was famously defended on a charge of simony by his nephew Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet in 1841....
, Dean of York
Dean of York
The Dean of York is the member of the clergy who is responsible for the running of the York Minster cathedral.-11th–12th centuries:* 1093–c.1135: Hugh* c.1138–1143: William of Sainte-Barbe...
), as clerical "fulminations against science in general and all its works", and listed the works of Cockburn and Fairholme as among "clerical attacks on geology and uninformed attempts to frame theoretical systems reconciling the geological and scriptural records." Martin J. S. Rudwick
Martin J. S. Rudwick
Martin John Spencer Rudwick is an emeritus professor of History at the University of California, San Diego and an affiliated research scholar at Cambridge University's Department of History and Philosophy of Science. His principal field of study is the history of the earth sciences, for which he...
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.
See also
- Young Earth creationismYoung Earth creationismYoung Earth creationism is the religious belief that Heavens, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago...
- Flood geologyFlood geologyFlood geology is the interpretation of the geological history of the Earth in terms of the global flood described in Genesis 6–9. Similar views played a part in the early development of the science of geology, even after the Biblical chronology had been rejected by geologists in favour of an...
- Biblical literalismBiblical literalismBiblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...
- Genesis creation narrative