The evangelical community is still mired in a swamp in its attempt to understand the proper relationship between biblical interpretation and scientific endeavor. Evangelical scientists are anxious to know how biblical data and principles affect the data and theories of geology, cosmology, biology, and anthropology. Can we scientists pursue our work with integrity and faithfulness to the inerrant Word of God if we draw from Scripture only generalized statements and principles about the interrelationships among God, man, and the created world? Or does submission to biblical authority also bind us to an interpretation of the details of the text that provides us not only with controls on the scope and character of scientific theories in general, but also with detailed data that are directly relevant to the content of specific theories? As scientists we hope for a clear word from the biblical scholars about how to deal with the biblical text, but instead we are confronted with exegetical and hermeneutical cacophony. We still wait for satisfying answers.
In turn, exegetes wonder about the relevance of extrabiblical data to the interpretation of portions of the Bible widely regarded to bear on questions of scientific interest. Should the exegete be immersed in the text alone and completely ignore the findings of geology and archeology? Or should the exegete take into account scientific data and use them to establish or suggest constraints on exegesis? Exegetes face the mirror-image of the problem of the scientists, for those who want to take extrabiblical data into account are also confronted with confusion of voices. Scientific creationists, atheistic naturalists, theistic evolutionists, and progressive creationists 1 present conflicting views about current scientific data and theory. To whom should exegetes listen? Exegetes may have favored certain biblical interpretations because they think there is validity either to the "origins model" of scientific creationism or to the standard scientific models of cosmic and terrestrial history.
To exacerbate an already confused situation, proponents of the various approaches to the relationship between scientific work and biblical interpretation often cling to those approaches so tenaciously that those who disagree run the risk of calling down upon themselves a variety of epithets. Those of us mired in the swamp seem to be more interested in name-calling and blaming one another than in getting out of the swamp and onto more suitable terrain for more effective cooperation in God's kingdom.
I suggest that to get out of the swamp we must retrace our steps and see how we got there in the first place. This retracing involves an immense historical task, so I will describe only aspects of the path we have followed. Here I will review the past 300 years of interpretation of the Bible in relationship to questions solely of geological interest. Specifically I will explore how Christians have related the Bible to an understanding of earth history. The great majority of those whose interpretations are surveyed here were/are either Christian naturalists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries or practicing Christian geologists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Virtually all of these naturalists/geologists were/ are in the mainstream of geological thinking of their times and well represent the opinions of working Christian scientists. To supplement the interpretations of these Christian naturalists and geologists, I also consider the views of some scientific creationists, Christian astrophysicists, and theologians as they relate to the history of the Earth.
There have, of course, been many ways of relating the Bible and the results of scientific endeavor, but among evangelical Christians there have been two major traditions. On the one hand is a long tradition that I term literalism. Literalism has insisted that the early chapters of Genesis are literal narratives that report in succinct, quasi-photographic manner a succession of historical events, the physical artifacts of which are potentially discoverable. In addition, Genesis 1-11, the wisdom literature, and other relevant texts are also seen as containing information of high precision that must be incorporated into any scientific reconstruction of terrestrial history or theorizing about the earth's physical structure. To the extent that a scientific reconstruction of terrestrial or cosmic history is at variance with the biblical text, literally interpreted, to that extent is the reconstruction in error.
The great Christian naturalists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were predominantly literalists who used the Bible as a framework for their hypotheses about earth history. They tried to fit the limited available empirical data and information from classical history into a literalistic biblical framework. Though differing from seventeenth century naturalists, scientific creationists are today's literalists.2 They have taken a negative stance toward the results of contemporary scientific investigation unlike the seventeenth century literalists. Modern literalism is opposed to the ideas of evolution and a lengthy terrestrial history, and it is disturbed by the inability of modern science to verify the occurrence of a global flood. Scientific creationism calls for a complete rejection of many major themes of modern science and for a total restructuring of science within the theoretical framework established by biblical principles and data, literally understood.
Both literalism and concordism regard Genesis 1-11 as historical reports, and they have assumed that there is an intended correspondence between the sequence of events as narrated in Genesis and the sequence of historical events that can potentially be reconstructed by science. The difference lies in their understanding of the specific contents of the sequence of events in Genesis and geology. I suggest that the long succession of literalist and concordist efforts, many of which were well-founded at the time, has led us into the swamp from which we now seek to extricate ourselves. I suggest that both traditions have ultimately failed, for evangelicals are no closer now to identifying the supposed geological and cosmological products of the supposed sequence of biblical events than they were 300 years ago. I further suggest that both literalism and concordism have outlived their usefulness, and that these approaches should be abandoned for a newer approach that does not try to answer technical scientific questions with biblical data.4
Below, I trace the development of the literalistic and concordistic traditions and their responses to empirical and theoretical advances in geology. Both traditions have perpetrated so many variations on their basic themes as to become amusing. The long series of variations on the literalist theme from the seventeenth century to scientific creationism presents us with conflicting accounts of a supposedly "biblical" earth, all of which fall to deal adequately with what we know about our planet. In literalism, empirical data have been distorted to "agree" with "biblical" conclusions so that literalism today undermines honest, Christian scientific endeavor. In contrast, all of the variations on the concordist theme give us a Bible that is constantly held hostage to the latest scientific theorizing. Texts are twisted, pulled, poked, stretched, and prodded to "agree" with scientific conclusions so that concordism today undermines honest, Christian exegesis. Evangelicals need a new approach in which both exegesis and science are aware of and benefit from one another, and in which biblical exegesis and science are both free to be carried out with integrity on their own terms.
Our survey of the history of interpretation begins with the diluvialist tradition of late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Britain. In diluvialism Scripture provided the main outline of terrestrial history. The writings of classical historians and scattered empirical evidence from the earth provided secondary sources of information that helped fill in the detail and were believed to corroborate the biblical accounts. The biblical scheme of creation, fall, flood, and final consummation provided the main events in earth history, and the biblical materials relating to these events were typically understood in literal terms. The creation was assumed to be a recent creation in six ordinary days, and the flood was assumed to be global. Typically, the Noachic flood was the centerpiece around which the various speculative theories of the earth were constructed.
But what was the source of the deluge? Previous attempts to find an adequate source in terms of rational, secondary causes had failed, and it would not do to avoid the problem by falling back on the notion that God had ad hoc created and then annihilated the flood waters. The answer lay in a great subterranean abyss of waters that was incorporated into the original earth and overflowed the surface at the time of the flood.
The original globe, said Burnet, developed into a layered structure from the "chaos" of Gen 1:2, a chaos that was "a fluid, dark, confus'd mass, without distinction of Elements; made up of all variety of parts, but without Order, or any determinate Form."7 Following Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, Burnet suggested that the chaos underwent a differentiation process in which "the heaviest and grossest parts would sink down towards the middle of it…and the rest would float above."8
The interior of the globe, rich in subterranean water, coalesced prior to the exterior. Gen 1:2 referred to this early phase of development when it said that "darkness was upon the face of the Abysse, or of the Deep, as we render it; there the Abysse was open, or covered with darkness only, namely before the exteriour Earth was form'd."9 As the differentiation process finished, the abyss was covered by a solid crust. The completed earth was such that "the face of the Earth before the Deluge was smooth, regular, and uniform; without Mountains, and without a Sea."10 This primitive earth from top to bottom consisted of an atmosphere, solid crust, subterranean abyss of waters, and interior earth.
Burnet was convinced that there are "places of Scripture that seem manifestly to describe this same form of the Abysse with the Earth above it."11 He appealed to Ps 24:2, "He founded the Earth upon the Seas, and establish'd it upon the Floods" and to Ps 136:6, "He stretched out the Earth above the Waters," as proof texts, for "this Foundation of the Earth upon the Waters, or extension of it above the Waters, doth most aptly agree to that structure and situation of the Abysse and the Ante-diluvian Earth, which we have assign'd them."12 Burnet also appealed to Ps 33:7: "He gathereth the Waters of the Sea as in a Bag, he layeth up the Abysses in storehouses.
This answers very fitly and naturally to the place and disposition of the Abysse which it had before the Deluge, inclos'd within the vault of the Earth."13
The heat of the sun continuously penetrated the earth's interior, causing expansion. The pressure of the abyss on the underside of the solid crust produced fissures within the crust. The expansion and fissuring process came to a climax as the earth's crust was disrupted, and an enormous volume of waters was released from the subterranean abyss completely overflowing the earth's surface. Job 38:8-10 provided the biblical support for this cataclysm:
The beginning and ending of the deluge, said Burnet, were marked by going and coming, that is, by many repeated "fluctuations and reciprocations" of waves.
At the conclusion of the flood, the waters returned to the newly opened sea and ultimately to the subterranean abyss which was connected to the ocean floor by channelways. The "violent commotion" of the abyss during and after the flood was noted in Ps 104:9:
The verse obviously does not apply to the original creation, claimed Burnet, for the waters did overflow the earth after its creation.
The proposed interpretations of the biblical texts seemed obvious to Burnet, but subsequent writers, equally committed to global diluvialism, did not agree that Scripture said what Burnet thought. Among the more irenic of Burnet's critics was the great scientist Robert Hooke. Like many of his contemporaries, Hooke tried to provide a meaningful explanation for the location of organic remains in mountains far from the sea. Many naturalists regarded fossils as genuine organic remains that had been deposited during the flood. Hooke, however, thought that Burnet's version of the flood was inadequate to account for fossils and rock strata. The main difficulty was that the flood did not last long enough to produce the effects claimed for it:
Instead, Hooke attributed the location of fossils to upheaval of the seabed by successive earthquakes.
Hooke did, however, propose one way in which Noah's flood might account for the present position of fossils. The only way to save the Noahic deluge as an agent of fossilization and stratification was to recognize that fossiliferous rocks were former seabottom that had been elevated to form land. Said Hooke, " Unless we supposed that there were thereby a change wrought of the superficial Parts of the Globe, and that those Parts which before the Flood were dry Land became Sea, and the Parts which were before covered by the Sea after the said Deluge, became the dry Land, it seems to me, that these appearances cannot be solved by Noah's Flood."17
Hooke suggested that God created a twofold separation that led to two Armaments. A separation in the middle of the light formed the firmament of heaven, identified with the atmosphere. A separation in the middle of the darkness that covered the watery abyss above the central earth formed the firmament between the waters. The firmament between the waters was the solid, hard spherical shell of the earth placed between the ocean above and an abyss of waters below. Hooke's picture of the primordial structure of the earth resembled Burnet's. The order, from the interior outward, was a central earth or great abyss enclosed in darkness by a shell of water that lay beneath the firmament. The firmament, that is, the rocky shell of the earth, lay above the subterranean waters. Above the rocky shell was more water upon which the Spirit was said to move. Thus the original globe was covered by water.
Hooke proposed that the spherical firmament or shell "was in some places raised or forced outwards, and some other parts were pressed downwards or inwards, and sunk lower, when in the ninth Verse, God commanded the Waters under the Heaven to be gathered together to one place, and the dry Land to appear."18 Thus the rocky shell was deformed into bulges and depressions and "in this State the Earth seems to remain till the time of the Flood."19 At that time the fountains of the great deep were "pulled up."
For Hooke it was the present-day ocean bottom that was flooded and had subsequently sunk. By contrast, the present land surface was elevated during the flood, so that the fossils in rocks were produced on the seabed prior to the flood rather than by burial of animals and plants during the flood.
A more vigorous critic of Burnet was Erasmus Warren, rector of Worlington in Suffolk. In 1690, Warren issued a devastating broadside against the Sacred Theory entitled Geologia.21 Although Burnet believed in a literal creation, paradise, fall, and universal deluge, Warren felt that Burnet had not been literal enough. He claimed that the Sacred Theory "does strike at Religion, and assault it…in the very Foundation of it…For in several things…it contradicts Scripture."22
Warren claimed that Burnet's chaos was too formless; it "was no Earth, nor had it any specific or distinct Earth in it."23 Rather Gen 1:2 indicated the desolate character of the original globe: "The Earth (in its original imperfection and nakedness) was a Chaos: an incultivate and uninhabited lump, rude and confused beyond all imagination, as having neither good form nor furniture in it. But then at the same time it was an Earth too; and so not such a Chaos as the Theory speaks it."24
Warren insisted that the original earth had mountains and seas. Moreover, the great deep was no subterranean abyss, because Burnet misinterpreted the texts that he claimed established the existence of the subterranean abyss. Warren proposed that Ps 24:2 and 136:6 spoke not of superposition of land on water but of Juxtaposition of land by the sea: "And so, He founded it by the seas, and established it by the Floods. Which David might the rather note, because so much of Palestine (where he lived) lay along by the Mediterranean. Though when our Learned Translators turned the word upon; they made it speak most true English. For where land lies by the Sea, we commonly say, it lies upon it."25 Of Ps 33:7 Warren commented,
He further insisted that "heap" is a better translation in Ps 33:7 than "bag."
Warren did agree with Burnet that God had not specially created waters just for the flood. Creation was a finished act. Besides, God mentioned the agents used for the flood-rain and the deep. But Warren believed that Burnet had greatly overestimated the amount of water needed for the flood. The deluge could not have involved total dissolution of the world, for the rivers of the garden of Eden would have been completely obliterated. Why would Moses have bothered to mention the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, known to readers of his own day? Gen 7:20 had been misinterpreted. Burnet wanted to cover the summits of all the mountains produced during the deluge with at least 15 cubits of water. Surprisingly, Warren was less literalistic than Burnet:
The result was that mountain peaks could project well above the surface of the flood whereas the lower flanks would be covered. Only the regional land surface, excepting local excess elevations, would be covered to a depth of 15 cubits. Because the flood was not as deep as Burnet thought, there was no need for a subterranean abyss.
In place of the issuing of waters through fractures leading to the subterranean abyss, Warren proposed a more familiar source--caves: "The breaking up of the Fountains of Tehom Rabbah, or the great Deep, (which the Theory insists so much upon) was no more than the breaking up of such Caverns."28 Appealing to Ps 78:15, "He clave the rocks and gave them drink in the great deeps," Warren asserted, "That is, he gave them that for drink, which was in those great Deeps till he fetcht it out of them. And what great Deeps could they be, but great deep Caverns in the Rocks?"29 These caves were located high in the mountains so that during the flood the waters would run down from above: "But though these Caverns be called Deeps, we must not take them, for profound places that went down into the Earth below the common surface of it: on the contrary, they were situate above it. And therefore the Waters issuing out of them, came running down. So we find in the next verse of the same Psalm…He caused them to run down."30
Woodward devoted little attention to the source of floodwaters. Without developing an elaborate cosmogony or mechanism for release of floodwaters, Woodward assumed that the flood was caused by overflow of the subterranean abyss. Woodward's main concern was with the effects of the flood rather than its mechanism. According to Woodward, the surface of the earth was "dissolved" by the surging waters. By "dissolved" he meant that rock and soil were broken down into fine constituent particles or "corpuscles." Because of this "dissolution" the flood consisted of a mixture of water, fine particles of rock and mineral matter, and suspended organic remains. As the waters returned to the abyss, suspended matter settled out in order of specific gravity. Consequently the post-diluvian surface of the earth was characterized by pronounced stratification of sandstones, limestones, coal, and similar rock types. Because the suspended particles were deposited in order of specific gravity, Woodward claimed that those strata toward the bottom of a pile of stratified rocks were those of the highest density and those strata higher up in a pile were characterized by lower density. The remains of dead plants and animals were also incorporated into the accumulating strata, presumably in order of specific gravity, to become fossils.
To Woodward, the flood was "the most horrible and portentous Catastrophe that Nature ever yet saw: an elegant, orderly, and habitable Earth quite unhinged, shattered all to pieces, and turned into an heap of ruins."32 Nonetheless behind this catastrophe was a "steady Hand, producing good out of evil: the most consummate and absolute Order and Beauty, out of the highest Confusion and Deformity: acting with the most exquisite Contrivance and Wisdom."33 The flood was not sent solely to punish mankind for his well deserved sins; rather the intention was "principally against the Earth that then was; with design to destroy and alter that Constitution of it, which was apparently calculated and contrived for a state of Innocence: to fashion it afresh, and give it a Constitution more nearly accommodated to the present Frailties of its Inhabitants."34
In 1694, Edmond Halley gave a lecture before the Royal Society of London that was later published in 1724.35 Halley judged that the flood was universal as evidenced by fossil remains "far and above the Sea." He rejected the idea of a special creation and annihilation of waters claiming that this was "by much the most difficult Hypothesis that can be thought of to effect it."36 Halley thought that the almighty generally made "use of Natural Means to bring about his Will."37 As ordinary rain falling for even 40 days could not begin to cover the earth, the language of Genesis must mean some extraordinary fall of water "not as Rain, but in one great Body; as if the Firmament, supposed by Moses to sustain a Supra-aerial Sea, had been broken in, and at the same Time that the Ocean did flow in upon the Land, so as to cover all with Water."38 Halley proposed that the shock of a comet passing by the earth would lead to overflow of the ocean onto land. With the passing of the comet, the axis of the earth would be altered. The shock would be so great that the sea would run violently towards
The shock of the comet "would also occasion a differing Length of the Day and Year, and change the Axis of the Globe, according to the Obliquity of the Incidence of the Stroak, and the Direction thereof, in relation to the former Axis."40 Thus for Halley the "great deep" meant the ocean which overflowed the land during the flood by virtue of cometary action.
Strongly influenced by Sir Isaac Newton's physics, Edmond Halley's work on comets, and John Woodward's studies of strata and fossils, William Whiston, Newton's successor in mathematics at Cambridge, published A New Theory of the Earth41 in 1696. Whiston placed the global deluge within a framework of the latest sound physics. Impressed by Halley's studies, he emphasized the major role that comets were thought to play in terrestrial history at the birth of the planet, at the time of the fall, and later during the deluge.
Whiston suggested that the earth formed from a large comet, identified with the deep and chaos of Gen 1:2. Given the dense, cloudy nature of Whiston's comet, one would expect darkness upon the face of the deep. The comet's atmosphere was, according to Whiston, hundreds of miles thick, and "if this be not sufficient to account for this thick Darkness on the Face of the Abyss, 'twill, I imagine be difficult to solve it better."42 Eventually the Spirit of God went to work on this comet:
The comet, said to be about 7000-8000 miles in diameter, differentiated so that heavier particles sank toward the center of a coagulating earth and lighter particles settled more slowly. The result of this process was a primitive Burnetian earth with a central core, subterranean abyss, rocky shell, and atmosphere. Whiston's earth, too, did not have a large primitive ocean but only small surficial bodies of water. As the atmosphere developed, the air cleared and light appeared in keeping with Gen 1:3-5. On the second day of creation differentiation continued as vapors of the air were elevated and inferior waters were "enclosed in the Pores, Interstices and Bowels of the Earth, or lay upon the Surface thereof."44
Whiston's primitive earth rotated on an upright axis annually. Whiston claimed that the six days of creation were each one year long. To provide biblical support for that claim Whiston engaged in impressive exegetical gymnastics. His approach was to illustrate from several texts the equation of days and years, as, for example, Gen 5:4-5, "The days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died"; 2 Sam 2:11, "The number of Days that David was King in Hebron, over the house of Judah, was seven Years and six months. The Days that David reigned over Israel were forty years"; the combination of Deut 14:28, "Bring your Tyths after three Years," and Amos 4:4, "Bring your Tyths after three Days"; and also Num 14:33-34 and Daniel 9 with its seventy "weeks" of years.45
Whiston also pointed out the difficulties in interpreting the six days of creation as ordinary 24-hour days. He thought that the events of days three and six could not have taken place within 24 hours. Of day three he said,
Whiston also argued that on the "day" of their creation Adam and Eve had far more to do than could be accomplished in an ordinary day.
The original conditions of earth were irreversibly destroyed on Thursday, November 27, the 17th day of the second month from the autumnal equinox, when the earth passed through the atmosphere and tall of a great comet for a period of "about 10 or 12 hours." The "floodgates of heaven" were tremendous downpours of rain from the comet's atmosphere. "A great part of (the Vapours) being in a very Rare and Expanded condition, after their Primary Fall, would be immediately mounted upward into the Air, and afterward descend in violent and outrageous Rains upon the Face of the Earth."47 By its passage, the comet distorted the earth from spherical to elliptical, and enormous tides were created in both the subterranean abyss and the rocky shell. Because of its far greater rigidity, the rocky shell was unable to deform as much as the waters of the abyss. Severe stresses led to extensive fissuring of the rocks, and the rocky shell locally pushed downward onto the abyss forcing the waters upward through the fractured rock onto the surface. The combination of torrential, cometary rains and outflowing of the abyss redistributed surface features and led to the formation of strata and fossils in essentially Woodwardian fashion.
Much of Ray's work dealt with the flood. Ray was not convinced that a flood of only one year's duration could account for the observed distribution of fossil remains in mountains far from the sea, but he firmly believed in the flood and concerned himself about its causes. The sources of water were twofold: rain and the great deep. These two sources contributed about equally to the flood because the work of separation of waters on day two of creation suggested that the amount of water above the firmament was probably about equal to that below.50 The rain came through the "windows of heaven" and "By the Opening of the Windows of Heaven, is…to be understood the Causing of all the Water that was suspended in the Air to descend down in Rain upon the Earth."51 The "fountains of the great deep" were the "subterraneous Waters, which do and must necessarily communicate with the Sea."52
Ray proposed two hypotheses for bringing the abyssal waters onto the surface. One hypothesis entailed "a violent Depression of the Surface of the Ocean, and a Forcing the Waters up from the subterraneous Abyss through the Channels of the Fountains that were then broken up and opened."53 Just how the ocean's surface would be depressed he did not know; he was content to say that "the Divine Power might at that time, by the Instrumentality of some natural Agent, to us at present unknown, so depress the Surface of the Ocean, as to force the Waters of the Abyss through the forementioned Channels and Apertures, and so make them a partial and concurrent Cause of the Deluge."54
The view that Ray favored most, however, involved realignment of the center of the Earth. In this view
The advantage of this hypothesis lay in deliverance from the "insuperable Difficulty of finding eight, nay, twenty two Oceans of Water to effect it."56 The problem was that the flood would have been "topical" and confined to "our Continent."
Like many other diluvialists, Catcott accepted that a subterranean abyss of waters was responsible for the flood. He suggested that the spirit of God in Gen 1:2 referred to the movements of "airs" during the earth's primitive chaotic state. These air movements helped to transform the earth into a spherical ball consisting of concentric shells. The developing earth gradually developed two expanses or firmaments. Outside the surface of the earth was the upper air. Motions within the upper air led to separation of the oceans from the atmosphere. Catcott referred to the upper air as an exterior expanse. But there was also an interior expanse, a large volume of airs beneath the surface of the earth. In the beginning this interior firmament also expanded so that watery particles were pressed upward above the airs. Both expanses also exerted pressure on solid particles which coagulated into a spherical rocky shell that separated the waters of the ocean from the interior waters. Catcott's drawings show an earth which includes a central solid nucleus, an interior expanse, an orb of water (subterranean abyss), the solid shell of the earth, an orb of water (oceans), and the exterior expanse.59 The waters under the firmament were the waters above the solid shell and below the atmosphere. The waters beneath the solid shell and above the interior expanse were the waters above the firmament. Hence, in Catcott's primitive earth we have a bizarre situation in which the waters below the firmament were located physically above the waters above the firmament!
As the sun's heating action continued, expansive pressure of the interior firmament finally produced fracturing and fissuring of the solid shell of the earth. Ultimately the subterranean abyss overflowed the surface of the earth causing the Noachian deluge. Catcott, too, interpreted the "fountains of the great deep" as the subterranean abyss, but in the expression "the windows of heaven" he saw another reference to the abyss. The windows of heaven were openings into the interior expanse or "heaven" and were identified with the fractures and fissures in the solid shell through which the subterranean abyss had come flooding onto the surface.
At the conclusion of the flood, sediments that were suspended in the floodwaters settled in Woodwardian manner to form a set of smooth, concentric, stratified spheres around the globe producing an onion-like structure. From these smooth strata the mountains were carved as the floodwaters rushed off the face of the earth back into the oceans and ultimately down into the abyss. For Catcott mountains were purely erosional forms.
Diluvialism was not the aberrant theory of a fringe group; it was mainstream natural history and was espoused by some of the ablest naturalists of the time. But diluvialism ultimately crumbled. Over the course of the eighteenth century, most students of the earth concluded that global diluvialism no longer provided a fruitful framework for further research. On the one hand, there was no consensus regarding mechanisms of the flood or interpretations of relevant biblical texts. There were so many proposals about the nature of the flood and of the great deep that about all that was agreed on was that there had been a global flood. Such diversity of interpretation called into question the use of the biblical story as a source of information about the flood as a geological event.
On the other hand, advances in understanding about the nature and distribution of strata and fossils placed great strains on diluvialism as a suitable theoretical framework. Almost as soon as it was published, Woodward's thesis of gravity stratification was discredited by the recognition of numerous instances in which lower density strata occurred below higher density strata.60 Careful mapping and description of successions of European strata throughout the eighteenth century led naturalists to recognize that sedimentary rock piles were thousands to tens of thousands of meters thick. These vast thicknesses consisted of hundreds to thousands of variably thick individual layers occurring in unvarying order and traceable for tens to hundreds of kilometers over the countryside. Even very thin layers only a few centimeters thick could be traced for long distances. Could a single-year flood, even a catastrophic one, account for the enormous thicknesses of strata, for the orderly successions of strata, and for very thin yet extensive layers?
Certain rock types could not be reconciled with diluvialism. Catcott's field notebooks indicate his puzzlement over conglomerate. The rounded pebbles in conglomerates came from previously existing consolidated rocks such as limestone or sandstone that were supposedly deposited as soft sediments by the flood. But how could the flood deposit soft sands and lime muds which would be solidified, then torn off and reincorporated as worn pebbles into a newer soft deposit of gravel while the entire globe was under water?
By the early nineteenth century diluvialism was even less credible. Detailed stratigraphic studies in the 1790s through 1810s disclosed systematic relationships between strata and their contained fossils. William Smith in Great Britain and Cuvier and Brongniart in France independently discovered that successive superposed strata were characterized by distinctive organic remains. Moreover, successively higher strata contained increasingly complex fossils. Layers containing marine fossils were commonly found interstratified with layers containing continental remains. Why would a turbulent flood produce such striking regularities of fossil distribution as well as alternations of thinly layered marine and continental sediments?
The geological community had also begun to recognize the significance of angular unconformities61 in the stratigraphic record. James Hutton recognized several localities in Scotland where nearly horizontal strata overlay the truncated edges of steeply tilted layers. To account for these uptilted strata, Hutton postulated that an older, originally horizontal pile of solidified strata experienced an episode of tilting and uplift. To explain the unconformable contact he proposed that the uplifted strata experienced erosion. The unconformable contact therefore represented an old erosional land surface. Later the uptilted and eroded strata were submerged and covered by newer deposits. By 1820, numerous examples of such unconformities had been discovered, and it was recognized that they were buried erosional surfaces that would be hard to explain by diluvialism.
For late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Christian geologists, the flood failed to explain a growing wealth of geological features. Those who wanted to maintain a literalist approach to the biblical texts increasingly found themselves on the outside of the geological community. Throughout the nineteenth century there was no lack of writing within a literalist framework, but the books of writers like Granville Penn or George Fairholme,62 despite some acquaintance with geology, overlooked many important details of geology. The views of literalists no longer carried weight with Christians thoroughly trained in geology.
Despite widening separation from the geological community, diluvialistic literalism has continued into the twentieth century. Twentieth century diluvialists have included George McCready Price, Byron Nelson, Harold Clark, and Alfred Rehwinkel.63 Their modern descendants are the scientific creationists (creation scientists). The scientific creationism movement in North America is dominated by engineers, chemists, physicists, and biologists, and includes few individuals with substantial geological training. The major theoreticians of scientific creationism are not geologists. The "flood geology" espoused by scientific creationists is not regarded as a viable option within the geological community any more than were the ideas of Penn or Fairholme; that community recognizes that global diluvialism was rendered untenable even by the limited evidence available to early nineteenth century geologists. Today the geological evidence is far more devastating to flood geology than it was in the early nineteenth century.64
When we consider the views of scientific creationists we are no longer looking at Scripture in the hands of geologists. Nevertheless, because of the vast popular appeal that the movement has among evangelical Christians, and because scientific creationists make numerous geological claims, we note some of the biblical interpretations that have been made by scientific creationists to correlate the Bible with knowledge about the earth.
The leading spokesman for scientific creationism is Henry Morris, a prolific writer, speaker, debater, and administrator. Just as the scientific creationist movement is characterized by thoroughgoing biblical literalism, so Morris in his voluminous writings has consistently stressed the necessity for literal interpretation of Scripture. A representative sample of his views of Scripture as applied to science may be found in his "scientific and devotional commentary," The Genesis Record.65
Biblical creation is assumed to be instantaneous creation out of nothing without the use of means or materials. Such true creation is to be distinguished from making and forming. True creation involves the creation of an appearance of age.66 Surprisingly Morris, the supreme literalist, suggested that in Gen 1:1-2 the term "earth" "refers to the component of matter in the universe."67 Since "the earth itself originally had no form to it…this verse must speak essentially of the creation of the basic elements of matter, which thereafter were to be organized into the structured earth and later into other material bodies."68 Morris paraphrased the first two verses as follows: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth [or space and matter], and the matter so created was at first unformed and uninhabited."69 The deep of Gen 1:2 could not refer to the oceans, because the earth had no form as yet, so "the picture presented is one of all the basic material elements sustained in a pervasive watery matrix throughout the darkness of space."70 The activity of the spirit of God led to an energizing of the unorganized universe, and "as the outflowing energy from God's omnipresent Spirit began to flow outward and to permeate the cosmos, gravitational forces were activated and water and earth particles came together to form a great sphere moving through space."71
Events of the second day set the stage for the flood. Morris suggested that "the firmament referred to in this particular passage is obviously the atmosphere."74 The firmament separated two bodies of water, one a shoreless ocean, the other a "vapor canopy." The waters above the firmament probably
The vapor canopy provided a greenhouse effect so that the prediluvian world was springlike and free of violent storms. Ultimately, the antediluvian vapor canopy was destroyed when the sluicegates of heaven were opened. The collapse of the canopy was the major cause of the flood.75 He suggested that the "fountains of the great deep" probably referred to the oceans and to various subterraneous sources of water.
Another scenario for the flood in creationist terms was put forward by Donald Patten in The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch.76 Patten identified the " fountains of the great deep " with the ocean, and he envisioned great tides sweeping back and forth across continental landmasses. The cause of the flood was attributed to a "gravitational conflict" within the earth-moon system.77 An "astral visitor," some kind of asteroid-like body, closely approached the earth, and because of the great gravitational forces, the oceans experienced gigantic tides and flooded the land. The astral visitor also contained a great deal of ice that was dumped on the polar regions of earth to form the glacial ice sheets.
Physicist D. Russell Humphreys recently addressed the identity of the great deep of Gen 1:2.78 He sought to show that the great deep is the earth's outer fluid core. Rather than being composed of molten iron and nickel as espoused by the majority of geophysicists, the outer core was said to be water under extremely high pressure. Humphreys claimed that his idea was not "mere conjecture. Rather, it stems from what the Bible says about the Earth's interior. Creationists regard the Bible as a scientifically accurate account given by the God who created the earth."79 He felt that what the Bible said about the earth's physical structure should be regarded as "data of the highest reliability."80
Gen 1:2 and 2 Pet 3:5-6 both indicated the great importance of water in the initial creation. Since Peter said that the earth was formed out of water and by water, Humphreys proposed that "this means God formed the nuclei of silicon, iron, and other elements out of water by banding together the various combinations of neutrons and protons from the nuclei of hydrogen and oxygen atoms of water (nuclear reactions)."81 With the earth being formed out of so much water, there may still be a lot of water left over, even in excess of the oceans. To demonstrate the existence of the excess water, Humphreys appealed to Gen 2:5-6 with its watering of the face of the earth by a "mist". A simple mist or fog would not be adequate to take care of the water needs of the earth's vegetation. According to Humphreys the word "mist" occurs elsewhere only in Job 36:27 where it refers "to the water vapor or droplets in clouds which condense into raindrops."82 Thus the "mist" could be a cloud of water in the air, but a cloud that ascended from the earth.
Geysers are one mechanism for producing clouds from the ground. Thus Humphreys suggested that Gen 2:5-6 and Prov 8:24-28 spoke of gigantic geysers spraying water thousands of feet into the air and forming large clouds of mist that watered the vegetation as well as any rain cloud today. In addition, the four rivers of the Garden of Eden did not have rain or snow for their sources in view of the constraints of the biblical text. Therefore, Humphreys believed, a large-scale subterranean source such as supergeysers was necessary to feed the four rivers. The geysers erupted spectacularly at the time of the flood inasmuch as the fountains of the deep were said to burst open. Tremendously high pressures forced the waters of the deep upward from the core to the surface.
David W. Unfred attempted to show that the flood was caused by asteroidal impact on earth's surface.85 He suggested that impacting of a swarm of asteroids from outer space affected a permanent tilt in the earth's axis leading to displacement of the ocean with attendant massive sedimentation and erosion.86 Ice and rock debris certainly exist in the solar system, and Scripture teaches the existence of waters above the atmosphere. Unfred suggested
The original waters were not pure water but a mixture of water and rocky materials that subsequently differentiated as indicated by Gen 1:6-10.
The speculations of modern creationism, like those of seventeenth century diluvialism, know no bounds. While seventeenth and eighteenth century cosmogonists can be pardoned as children of their times who had little empirical data to constrain the bounds of speculation, current scientific creationist ideas are puzzling in view of the abundance of empirical data that invalidate them. Although today's literalism presents a semblance of scientific sophistication, it has largely ignored the vast wealth of empirical geological data that have come to light during the past 300 years that rule out a global deluge and a recent creation. There is no way that the literalistic approach to Genesis 1-11 can be sustained without appealing to miracle at every point at which scientific data conflict with a literal rendering of the biblical text.
Table I summarizes the views of literalists. They have interpreted the "chaos" or "deep" of Gen 1:2 as a shapeless fluid mass, an uninhabited earth, a comet with a thick atmosphere, the earth under water, and the core of the earth. The events of the second day of creation have included one firmament and two Armaments, and the firmament has been interpreted as the sky, the rocky shell of the earth, and an airy interior of the earth. On the second day either the atmosphere and ocean, or a vapor canopy, or an outer space of rocky asteroids and meteorites was created. The mechanism of the flood has included the eruption of a subterranean abyss, caves in mountains, oceanic tides caused by comets, rain from a comet, realignment of the earth's center, depression of the abyss by the ocean floor, collapse of a vapor canopy, collapse of an icy asteroid on earth's surface, eruption of supergeysers from the earth's core, collapse of a ring of icy particles, and tilting of the earth's axis by bombardment of asteroids with subsequent displacement of its oceans. The extreme range of suggestions for interpretation of these and other details of the biblical text indicates that literalism has not yielded reliable answers about how to relate the biblical text to matters of scientific interest. Following a literal approach the Christian geologist still does not know from God's Word what happened on the second day of creation or how the flood occurred.
TABLE I
Summary of literalist interpretations of key Texts in Genesis
|
Gen 1:2 |
Gen 1:6-8 |
Gen 7:11 |
| Burnet |
Fluid, dark, confused mass |
|
Subterranean abyss breaks out |
| Hooke |
Watery abyss |
Two firmaments; firmament between waters is rocky shell of earth separating ocean from subterranean abyss |
Forcing of subterranean abyss into underside of firmament causes ocean to overflow |
| Warren |
Incultivate and uninhabited lump |
Caverns in mountains |
|
| Ray |
Earth under water |
Amount of water above firmament equals amount below; clouds and subterranean abyss |
Realignment of center of earth thus pressing on abyss |
| Halley |
|
|
Comet causes great oceanic tides |
| Whiston |
Comet with thick, dark atmosphere |
Elevation of vapors, draining of waters into pores, bowels, of earth |
Rain from comet's atmosphere; cometary tides fracture cruse of earth allowing outflow of subterranean abyss |
| Catcott |
Spirit of God = movement of airs |
Two Firmaments; internal and external expanse; waters are subterranean abyss; waters above firmament are above waters below firmament |
Floodgates are fissures in crust leading to internal ocean and heaven releasing the subterranean abyss |
| Morris |
Component of matter in universe in a watery matrix |
Formation of vapor canopy and ocean |
Draining of vapor canopy |
| Patten |
|
|
Ocean overflows land as ice is dumped on poles from astral visitor |
| Humphreys |
Earth made by fusion of oxygen and hydrogen atoms; the deep = watery inner core of earth |
|
Super geysers emanate from outer core |
| Morton |
|
Formation of ring of ice particles |
Collapse of ring of ice particles |
| Unfred |
|
Waters above atmosphere are mixtures of ice and rock |
Bombardment of earth by meteorites tilts earth's axis and displaces oceans |
How then can we say that the Bible gives us high quality scientific data? Moreover, literalist proposals seem increasingly bizarre, speculative, and divorced from the reality of the earth as known through scientific study. Almost all modern literalist speculations fail when viewed in the light of available data, and literalism continued will undermine any effort to do serious Christian science.
A danger that faces exegetes who are unaware of the history of literalism and are under the false impression that scientific creationism makes valid geological claims, is the desire to make suggestions about the mechanism of the flood or the events of the second day. It was, of course, understandable and acceptable in centuries gone by that exegetes would approach Genesis 1 or 7 as literal historical reports. Calvin, for example, assumed that the days of Genesis 1 were ordinary days, but he lived when extrabiblical data did not force him to struggle with the text as thoroughly as he would today. Many fine exegetes adopted literalistic views in part because they did not sense the force of geological data and thus assumed an ultimate compatibility of geology with a recent creation and global flood. C. F. Kell assumed such compatibility and insisted on six ordinary days of creation and a universal deluge.88 Valentine Hepp also strongly urged acceptance of a recent creation and a geographically universal flood, partly because he knew little enough about geology to think that George McCready Price was espousing a responsible alternative to early twentieth century mainstream geology.89 Similarly, J. J. Davis suggested that the flood was geographically universal and appealed to the work of Whitcomb and Morris as giving some basis for that view.90
I suggest that the evangelical community would be well served if commentators would familiarize themselves with the history of literalistic speculations, realize that literalism has not worked, and understand that literalistic interpretations of details have not meshed with the discoveries about our planet. I further suggest that we have been mistaken in assuming that the Bible teaches scientifically verifiable mechanisms of the flood or that it presents the rudiments of a physical model of the universe on the second day of creation. Given that all literalistic attempts to identify the great deep or the mechanism of the flood have failed in light of empirical data, I suggest that we not put much credence in the next literalist speculation, especially if it is presented as the "clear and plain" teaching of the Bible.