"Therefore, there is no occasion for having recourse to any unnatural supposition of evil, to any destructive accident in nature, or to the agency of any preternatural cause, in explaining that which actually appears." [1]The French comparative anatomist, George Cuvier (1760-1802), did not agree. His work with fossils and strata led him to believe that the history of life was interrupted at least five times by great watery catastrophes followed by periods of special creation. The Professor of Geology at Oxford University, William Buckland (1784-1856), held the prevailing view during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that the special creation of God and the Noahaic Flood had distinct geological significance. They believed that catastrophes like the Flood interrupted the operation of natural laws by divine intervention so that process rates were significantly different in the past from the present rates. Those who held this view were called "catastrophists" and their view "catastrophism". This view was opposed by those who held that the process rates were unchanging and that there was no interruption of their operation by divine intervention. This view was called "uniformitarianism" and those who held it "uniformitarians." The uniformitarians considered the earth to be extremely old while the catastrophists held that the earth could have an age as young as about 6000 years. They accepted Bishop Ussher's calculation of the date of the creation in 4004 B.C.
Defending the uniformitarianism was the British lawyer, Charles Lyell (1797-1875), who wrote a series of volumes entitled, Principles of Geology. This work of Lyell presented the view that geology could understand past events by observing present processes. His work made clear that uniformatianisnism was basic in this understanding. Other men worked with Lyell and using his assumptions developed the standard geologic column with its major divisions organized upon paleontological evidence. Later Charles Darwin (1809-1882) made the Principle of Uniformity a basic assumption for interpreting evolutionary past history of life. "The present is the key to the past", as the Principle of Uniformity was expressed, became the foundation of geology as well as biology. By 1865 the field of historical geology was dominated by the evolutionary-uniforitarian view. And this system of interpreting the geological past, introduced by Hutton, popularized by Lyell, adopted by Darwin, has remained largely unchanged for over one hundred and fifty years. The Principle of Uniformity has been assumed to be the ultimate basis for interpreting all geologic, biologic, and astronomic data. The origin and history of universe have been explained from evolutionary and uniformitarian assumptions. Uniformitarianism has even influenced the social sciences and humanities. Even man's concept of God is said to evolve. Evolutionary-uniformitarianism has become an all-embracing and comprehensive view of reality.
There are various forms of theistic evolution and different terms have been used to identify them. Some of these are: "orthogenesis" (goal-directed evolution), "nomogenesis" (evolution according to fixed laws), "emergent evolution", "creative evolution", and others. None of these are accepted by the leaders of evolutionary thought. The evolutionist have excluded any divine intervention and their evolutionary views are only forms of naturalism, which by definition asserts only the reality of the natural and denies any supernatural reality. According to their understanding of evolution there can be no theistic evolution. But theistic evolution has not only been rejected by the evolutionist but also by many theists. There are many Christian writers that have insisted that evolution is itself anti-theistic and therefore theistic evolution is impossible. For example, Dr. Allen Higley writes,
"Theistic evolution, then, is a contradiction of terms. To maintain that evolution can be theistic is as inconsistent as to claim that falsehood is truth." [2]
The basic assumption of Darwin's theory of evolution is Mutable
Species. That is, the species of living beings are mutable: the
species come into existence, change, and not infrequently perish altogether.
Darwin developed a theory of natural selection, supporting it with
a large body of evidence, to account for this process and particularly to
explain the "transmutation of Species" and the origin of adaptations.
Hence he named his book, the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural
Selection. Christian theology (Protestant as well as Roman Catholic) has
been dominated by Aristotelian philosophy and Aristotle's view of species as
fixed and immutable was accepted. And they also accepted his view that the
change from potentiality to actuality was limited to the three basic types
of change: "alteration", or change of quality, "growth and
diminution", and "locomotion", or change of place,
and that there is no place for evolution or development of new species within
these three basic types of change. So Christian theology that was married to
the Aristotelian fixity of the species and that there is no evolution or
development into new species, rejected Darwinian evolution. The word "kind"
(Hebrew, min; LXX, genos; Latin Vulgate, genus) in
Genesis 1:21 was interpreted as species and according to Aristotle the
species were fixed. And this became the first issue in the
evolution/creation controversy. Later Biblical scholars began to realize
that the Hebrew word min did not mean "species" and must not be
identified with the modern concept of species or varieties. To attempt
to identify min with species or varieties is making the Biblical
record to speak with a modern scientific particularity it does not possess.
The account in Genesis 1 indicates at least ten categories of organic life
that were specifically created "after their [his] kind". This phrase occurs
ten times in the first chapter of Genesis. These categories are,
in the plant kingdom: (1) grass, (2) herbs, (3) fruit trees;
in the animal kingdom the specific categories mentioned are:
(1) sea monsters, (2) other marine animals, (3) birds, (4) beasts of the
earth,
(5) cattle, (6) crawling animals.
Finally, man "kind" was created as another completely separate category.
Although there is some uncertainty in the meaning
of the Hebrew word min, it is obvious that the word does not have a
definite and fixed scientific meaning. But one "kind" could not transform
itself into another "kind". There is certainly here no thought of an
evolutionary continuity of all forms of life, but rather one of definite and
distinct categories. Furthermore, the sense of the passage in Genesis is that
there is great number of kinds that were created in the nine categories
(excluding man) that are specifically listed. There is certainly room for
variation within each kind, as is obvious from all the different races and
nations of men, with the vast variety of physical characteristics, that are
descended from the first man and are included within the human "kind". The
same is true for the other kinds. Many different varieties can emerge within
the basic framework of each kind, but also there are no variations that extend
outside the basic framework. This concept has been called
micro-evolution and seeks to formulate this understanding of kinds.
Many evangelicals have recently called for a giving up the fixity of species
and to allow derivation of species from species. In 1948 Russell Mixter in a
series articles, bound together as Creation and Evolution, cites such
evangelicals as Hamilton, Dewar, and Short as believing in development within
restricted areas. Mixter writes,
"As a creationist I am willing to accept the origin of species from other species called micro-evolution." [4]Mixter was very careful to reject macro-evolution.
"Observe, therefore, that the conservative may scrap the doctrine of the 'fixity of species' also without jeopardizing his major premises. The Christian, thus, can accommodate a 'threshold' evolution, i. e., a wide and varied change within the 'kinds' originally created by God. We shall return to this in moment....Now, observe that both Christianity and science can accommodate the datum that the functional and structural aspect of man and certain animals are similar. The problem, therefore, cannot turn upon this issue. Next, the doctrine of the 'fixity of species' is not required by either structure. The real crux, we feel, is the Bible's rejection of the evolutionary hypothesis that the 'kinds' of Genesis are related to still more primitive orders by their being evolved from them. On 'threshold' evolution view, there are gaps which exist between the original 'kinds,' while on the 'total' evolution view, each 'kind' can be traced back to a more primitive type, and that, to a still more primitive, ad infinitum.
But let us challenge the validity of the 'total' evolution scheme. Paleontology reveals that there are actual gaps in our knowledge of the relation between the 'kinds,' a datum which 'threshold' evolution can account for more smoothly than a 'total' evolution.... When science is faced with these gaps, it resorts to such hypotheses as 'missing links' (which are still missing!) and 'mutations,' while the Christian needs only to point to the fact that God, in the original creation, decreed that gaps should exist to mark off the original 'kinds'--herbs yielding seeds, creeping things, beasts, etc." [5]
"These are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and heavens." (KJV)The word "day" here refers to the six days of creation, thus, to a period of time and not to a literal 24-hour day. Warranty for this interpretation is also found in II Pet. 3:8, "...one day is with the Lord as a thousand years." (Compare, Psa. 90:4).
Those who advocate this day-age theory argued that there is a correspondence between the order of the six days of Genesis 1 and the order of development of the earth and its various forms of life as represented by the geologic ages. That is, in both Genesis and geology, first comes the inorganic universe, then simple forms of life, then more complex forms of life, and finally man. Since the same order is in both cases, geology gives us the way to understand how God created the universe.
"8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.They argue that it is quite clear that the six work days of God's creation are identical in duration with the six days of man's work week. To argue otherwise for this very precise commandment, that the days of creation are not literal 24-hour days is to make the reason for this commandment meaningless and irrelevant. Thus the day-age theory must be discarded because it is contrary to the Scriptures.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all your work.
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God:
in it thou shalt do no work. thou, nor thy son,
nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days did the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them is,
and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day,
and hallowed it."
(Exodus 20:8-11 KJV)
"Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with Genesis cosmogony remains." [8].The Scriptural basis for this theory is supposed to be in the second verse of Genesis 1. In 1876, G. H. Pember in his book Earth's Earliest Ages argues that the Hebrew word asah translated "made" does not refer to creation out nothing but to recreation or making over. The original heavens and earth was created out of nothing (Hebrew, bara), but the things of the six days are made (Hebrew, asah), not created. [9]. The Hebrew words tohu va bohu, translated "without form and void", refer to something once in a good state, but now in need of repair and recreation. These words tohu va bohu express "an outpouring of the wrath of God" [10]. And the Hebrew conjunctive waw, usually translated "and", should be be translated here as "but", indicating a break between the two verses. Also the Hebrew verb hayah, usually translated "was", should be translated here as "become". Thus Genesis 1:1-2 should be translated,
"1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth;Pember writes,
2 but the earth became ruined and empty
and darkness was on upon the face of the deep." [11].
"Furthermore, according to Isaiah 45:18 God did not create the world tohu. Therefore, Genesis 1:2 can only refer to a judgment passed upon the earth by God and age after age may have rolled away, and it was probably during their course that the strata of the earth's crust were gradually developed. Hence, the geological attacks upon the Scriptures are altogther wide of the mark and are a beating of the air. There is room for any length of time between the first and second verses of the Bible. And again; since we have no inspired account of the geological formations we are at liberty to believe they were developed in order that we find them." [12].
The gap theory was also espoused by Harry Rimmer, who was one of the outstanding spokesman for Fundamentalism in matters of science and the Bible until his death. Rimmer's views are found in his book Modern Science and the Genesis Record (1937). He rejected the day-age interpretation of Genesis 1 and argued vigrously for 24-hour solar days, although he admitted that he could not prove with finality whether the Hebrew word yom means a 24-hour day or a period of time. He asserted that the day-age theory was a concession to evolutionary geology and followed Pember in accepting the gap theory and his interpretation of Genesis 1:2. He assered that the "and" at the beginning of verse 1:2 should be translated "but". He appealed to the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate for support. He appealed also to Isaiah 45:8 to prove that God did not make the world a waste. A waste world must be a judged world. He claimed that the Hebrew had no word for "become", so the Hebrew verb hayah must be pressed into service and translated "become". And finally he appealed to Ezekiel 28:11-17 as the story of Satan's fall, causing the world to brought into the condition described in Genesis 1:2.
Many Hebrew scholars have been critical of the Scriptural basis of the gap theory. They point out that the Hebrew word translated "and" at the beginning of verse 2 is simply the ordinary Hebrew "waw connective", a simple connective which in itself cannot indicate a break as that asserted in the proposed interpretation. It occurs at the beginning of both Leviticus and Numbers with nothing preceding except the preceding book, and it has no special significance as a break between verses. And many Hebrew scholars also diagree with the giving of the verb hayah in verse two the meaning of "becoming". There is a Hebrew expression with this meaning, but it is not used in this verse. The word used here is the verb "to be" and appears to signify that the earth is an unfinished, unformed state, much like the condition of clay in hands of the potter before he molds into a definite shape. Instead of the result of a cataclysm, it is in the state of an object before it is fashioned into a finish product. Rimmer's appeal to the Septuagint is misleading: it uses de rather that alla. In Greek the de is a weak connective that can mean "and" or "but". The strong adversative Greek conjunction for "but" is alla, and the Greek word de means "but" only in men/de construction; it is commonly used as a transitional, or continuative particle. [13] And the Latin has autem which is another weak adversative word like de, whereas the strong adversative word in Latin for "but" is sed. There is no support in the Hebrew of Genesis 1 for the gap theory of a long interval of time between verse 1 and 2 of Genesis 1.
Rimmer appealed to Ezekiel 28:11-17 as the story of Satan's fall, causing the world to be brought into the condition described in Genesis 1:2. But his interpretation of Ezekiel 28 has problems. Although this passage has been applied to Satan, the passage is a message ("a lamentation") about the "king of Tyre" and not Satan (see verse 12). And the Isaiah 14:12-15 passage where Lucifer is addressed is in the middle of a prophecy ("proverb") against the king of Babylon (see verse 4). Even if these passages are applied to Satan, they do not say when this fall of Lucifer occurred. Other passages of Scripture have Satan in heaven after the creation man (Job 1:6-12; Rev. 12:7-13). This Revelation passage places the fall of Satan from heaven in the future, not at the creation of the heavens and the earth. And there is also the problem that lead to the postulating the pre-Adamic cataclysm; that is, to reconcile the Bible and geology by providing sufficient time for the geologic strata. But there is no evidence in the orthodox system of historical geology for such a cataclysm. And no geologist would accept the gap theory for this very reason.
Back in the sixteenth, seventeeth, and eighteenth centuries various investigators of geological data found that a vast variety of animal and vegetable life was buried in the strata of the earth. Fossils were being found in every country of Europe. Some were even discovered high in the Alps, and others were unearthed below the sea level, deep in German and Welsh coal mines. The fossils included remains of marine animals, mammoths, bison, giants birds, dinosaurs, exotic vegetation, and many other hard-to-classify forms. Some were tiny and many were huge in size. There were so many forms and sizes of fossils that their classification became quite an art. Some of the fossils were found in the backyards of the academics of that day.
These abundant fossils demanded an explanation. Many scholars thought that some gigantic, watery cataclysm or cataclysms in the past was the explanation. This explanation immediately suggested the Biblical flood. Some sought for alternate explanations. Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the Museum of Natural History at Paris, one of greatest names in the history of the science of geology, propounded a theory of successive floods or catastrophes followed with a series of restoratons. He believed that the ocean waters shifted about, covering first one territory then another. The flora and fauna would be buried under the drifting sands. When the waters would recede, animals and vegatation would again migrate into the region. Evidence of this on a limited scale had been demonstrated again and again. Finally there was one big flood a few thousand years ago which prepared the world with the now existing geologic strata and flora and fauna. Cuvier differed with the simple theory of Carolus Linnaeus and advocated the disappearance of forms due to these floods. Cuvier also indicated that fossil man was late and was not mixed in with the older fossils. The older fossils could not be counted as part of the evidence for the flood.
Cuvier theory was criticized on two grounds:
(1) certain forms were caught in certain strata; whereas if ocean
waters came in, a regular cross section of life would have been captured;
(2) if all of a certain species were to be eliminated, then
the entire world would have to be flooded. And if the whole earth had
to be flooded for the elimination of a certain species, then a recreation,
not a migration, would be needed to account for the repopulation of
various tracts of the earth. This is precisely what Louis Agassiz argued
in light of these difficulties of Cuvier's theory. Successive creation
would account for suddeness of the appearance of species; sudden catastrophes
would account for their disappearance.
Of the two men, Agassiz was closer to the data of geology. Fossils do suddenly appear in a geologic strata. Cuvier's position could not account for the progression in the appearance of the fossils. In neither case is there any close parallelism with the Genesis account. These men were defending creationism, not the Genesis account of the flood. Many of the English geologist of the early nineteenth century, such as Adam Sedgwick, Roderick Murchison, and William Buckland, adopted Cuvier's theory because it seem to offer an easy explanation of the fossil strata. William Buckland (1784-1856), Professor of Geology at Oxford University, as early as 1820, when a reader on geology at Oxford, published his Vindiciae Geologicae, or the Connection of Geology with Religion Explained, in which he held to views that were essentially those of Cuvier. His abandonment of the older Flood Geology was expressed in the following words:
"It seems ... impossible to ascribe the formation of these strata to ... the single year occupied by the Mosaic deluge ... The strata ... must be referred ... to periods of greater antiquity." [14]In 1823 Buckland published his Reliquiae Diluvianae (Relics of the Flood), which secured his fame. In it he set forth the thesis that evidences of the Flood, which he named dilvuium, are to be found in the great deposits of "drift" and in the bones of tropical animals such as elephants, hippopotami, and tigers, which he had found jumbled together in a Yorkshire cave at Kirkdale. Cuvier adopted Buckland's evidence for the Deluge and incorporated into his last and greatest work, Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface de Globe (1826). For much of the nineteenth century, the "diluvium theory" of Buckland, which was based on upon the "successive catastrophes theory" of Cuvier, gripped the imaginations of the theologians who were happy to have such positive evidence of the universality of the Flood, even if it meant relegating the vast majority of fossils to pre-Adamic catastrophes. After all, they reasoned, it was important to keep in step with the very latest geological theories, especially since the "diluvium" deposits of Buckland and Cuvier gave them plenty of ammunition against the deist who had never been willing to admit God's power to destroy mankind by an universal Deluge. In the twentieth century Fundamentalism largely ignored both Cuvier, Agassiz and Buckland.
"I entertain the same opinion as Linnaeus on this subject; nor do I feel, though a clergyman, the slightest reason to conceal my sentiments, though they are opposed to the notions which a false philosophy has generated in the public mind. I have formed my notions of the Noachian deluge, not from Ovid, but from the Bible. There the simple narrative of Moses permits me to believe, that the waters rose upon the earth by degrees ... that the flood exhibited no violent impetuosity, displacing neither the soil nor the vegetable tribes which it supports ... With this conviction in my mind, I am not prepared to witness in nature any remaining marks of the catastrophe, and I find my respect for authority of revelation heightened, when I see, on the present surface, no memorials of the event." [15]Buckland adopted the tranquil view of the Genesis Flood as shown in the sixth series of "Bridgewater Treatises", which he delivered in 1836, where he writes his recantation of earlier views concerning his identification of superficial deposits with the Genesis Flood.
"Discoveries which have been made since the publication of this work [the Reliquiae Diluvianae], shows that many of the animals therein described, existed during more than one geological period preceding the catastrophe by which they were exptirated. Hence it seems more probable that the event in question was the last of many geological revolutions that have been produced by violent irruption of water, rather than by the comparatively tranquil inundation described in the Inspired Narrative. It has been justly argued, against the attempt to identify these two great historical and natural phenomena, that, as the rise and fall of the waters of the Mosaic deluge are described to have been gradual and of short duration, they would have produced comparatively little change on the surface of the country they overflowed." [16]What does the Scripture say about the movements and effects of the waters of the Flood? That is, does the Genesis account of Flood describe a "tranquil" event? The answer seems to be "no". At the beginning of the Flood Genesis 7:11-12 (NAS) says,
"11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month,And at verse 17 it continues,
on the seventeenth day of the month,
on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open,
and the floodgates of the sky were opened.
12 And rains fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights."
"17 Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days;And at the end of the Flood, Genesis 8:1-5 (NAS) says,
and the waters increased and lift up the ark,
so that it rose above the earth.
18 And the water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth;
and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
19 And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth,
so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.
20 The waters prevailed fifteen cubits higher,
and the mountains were covered.
21 And all flesh that moved on the earth perished,
birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind;
22 of all that was on the dry land,
all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died.
23 Thus He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the land,
from man to animals to creeping thing and to birds in the sky,
and they were blotted out from the earth;
and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark.
24 And the water prevailed upon the earth for one hundred and fifty days."
"1 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark;This is not a tranquil flood. Its length (150 days), extent ("all flesh that moved on the earth perished"), and depth (15 cubits above the high mountains) does not describe a flood that is "gradual and of short duration." This is not a flood mild and gentle, geologically impotent, leaving no physical evidences that it ever occurred. As Henry Morris, former professor of hydraulic engineering and chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, says:
and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.
2 Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates in the sky were closed,
and the rain from the sky was restrained;
3 and the water receded steadily from the earth,
and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.
4 And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month,
the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.
5 And the water decreased steadily until the tenth month;
in the tenth month, on the first day of the month,
the tops of the mountains became visible."
"Even on the basis of uniformitarian considerations (the relatively small local floods of the present are often tremendously destructive, leaving great gullies and thick deposits of sediment) it should be obvious that a global kataklusmos [flood], such as the Bible describes, with its torrents of water from the skies, its erupting reservoirs from the depths, its universal destruction, its violent tidal actions, its great wind, its rising mountains and sinking basins, and other non-traquil phenomena must surely have accomplished far more geologic work than a great number of local floods could ever do. ... The idea of a worldwide, year-long "tranquil" flood is hydrologically and geophysically absurd." [17]
But no sooner had the theologians scrapped the Flood theory of geology for the succesive catastrophes theories of Cuvier, Agassiz and Buckland, than the professional geologist began to abandon the successive catastrophes theory. And before the Christian public had adjusted its thinking to the new theory, the geologist fell under the spell of "tranquil theory" of the Flood, which removed the Flood from the category of geologic catastrophes and left it without any visible traces. With the Flood removed from consideration in geology, Cuvier's views were replaced by Lyellian school of uniformitarian geology, and within a generation Cuvier's view sank into almost complete oblivion. The fact that Lyellian uniformitarianism as the true philosophy of geology is accepted today in all major centers of scientific learning in the world can be attributed partially to Charles Darwin. He was a disciple of Lyell and he built his theory of organic evolution upon the uniformitarian foundation which Lyell had laid. Darwin was not reluctant to expressed his graditude to Lyell; in his Origin of the Species, he says,
"He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognize as having produced a revolution in natural science, and yet does not admit how vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume." [18]
An examination of Genesis 6-9 show that obviously the flood describe there
is not a local flood. The following is some arguments against a local flood.
[20]
George McCready Price was a prolific writer starting in the 1910's and
extending into 1940's. He published six major volumes and many articles.
Among his publications are
The New Geology (1923),
Evolutionary Geology and the New Catastrophism (1926),
Geological-Ages Hoax (1931),
The Modern Flood Theory of Geology (1935),
How Did The World Begin (1942), and
Common Sense Geology (1946).
He was considered authorative in his own denomination and also received
a substantial response among other fundamentalist circles. He achieved no
significant following in secular circles and a certain amount of scorn.
Price was a learned man with a limited academic education of only three
years of college and several years of religious education. But he was
self-taught and he was familar with practically everything that had been
published in geology during his time. He made extensive field trips and
compiled illustrations of fossil finds and stratigraphical formations of
dramatic interest and phenomenal length. He made a strong case against
uniformitarianism that was largely ignored and scorned rather than refuted.
Although his examples presented in his books are impressive and
well-documented, he was ignored by the geologists, ostensibly because of
his largely self-made education. The only serious attempts to refute
Price's examples was done by J. L. Kulp, of Columbia University's
Lamount Geological Laboratory. Kulp dealt with only one of Price's example,
though certainly one of the most spectacular, that is, the large section of
the Canadian Rockies in Alberta extending down into Montana, where an
extensive Pre-Cambrian limestone is resting in apparent conformity upon
Cretaceous shale bed. In a rather technical discussion Kulp tries to show
that Price's interpretation of the geologic formation was wrong.
Byron Nelson published two major works, After Its Kind (1927) and The Deluge Story In Stone (1931). In the first book he mainly opposes the Darwinian biology and in the second he opposes Lyellian geology. In the first he concentrates mainly on the contradictions between Lamarkianism (environmental determinism) and Mendelianism (genetics). In the second he concentrates on the contradictions between uniformitarian explanations and catastrophics evidence. In this second work on geology he quitely closely follows the pattern that was establish by Price. He recounts the many amazing evidences of catastrophism as illustrated in the fossil record. In addition to the evidence against uniformitarianism Nelson includes the historical development of catastrophism. He recounts the existence of catastrophic themes in ancient literature and traditions of many cultures. Nelson's work was broader than Price's, appealing to a larger audience.
Alfred Rehwinkel published in the 1940's and 1950's and his major work entitled The Flood was published in 1951. Like Price and Nelson, Rehwinkel was a seminary professor. But his background and education was more extensive than Price's and the subjects he taught was larger. While Price wrote only on geology, Rehwinkel kept abreast with other fields. Catastrophism was not the only project that he worked on.
Henry Morris' major work was The Genesis Flood (1961), co-authored by John C. Whitcomb Jr. Like Price, Nelson, and Rehwinkel, Whitcomb was as seminary professor; he was concerned with the theological implications of the Flood story in Genesis. Morris, on the other hand, had a different and valuable background. He had been a professor of hydraulic engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. His background in hydraulics brought insights in flood phenomena and his technical and scientific background brought a knowledge of such subjects as atmospheric chemistry, carbon-14 dating, meteoric dust, and the principles of sedimentation. In 1970 he left his long career in engineering to set up a new Christian liberal arts college with its curricula founded on creationism and the full Biblical authority, named Heritage College. He also founded an associated creation studies center designed to promote the broad field of scientific Biblical creationism, known as the Institute for Creation Research. The College was organized under the sponsorship of the large independent Scott Memorial Baptist Church in San Diego, California, with its famous pastor, Tim LaHaye, as its first president, and its associate pastor, Dr. Art Peters, as its Executive Vice-President. The College was intended to be trans-denominational. Dr. Henry Morris, as Vice President for Academic Affairs, set up the curricula and appropriate departments, all with a strong emphasis on Christian evidences, the scientific integrity of the Bible, and the foundation priority of creationism. The College grew rapidly and the ICR (as the Institute Creation Research was known) expanded with an international outreach with scientific lectures bringing the creationist message to every state of the union and around the world.
[1] James Hutton,
"Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws of Observable
in the Composition, Disolution and Restoration of Land Upon the Globe"
(Royal Society, Edinburgh Trans., Vol. 1, 1788, p. 285.).
[2] L. Allen Higley, Science and Truth
(New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1940), p. 31.
[3] Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and the Scriptures
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), pp. 113, 215, 271.
[4] Russell Mixter, "The Science of Heredity and the Source of Species"
Creation and Evolution (1948), p. 2.
[5] Edward John Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1948), pp. 238-239.
In a footnote at the end of the above quotation, Carnell says,
"Whether the 'kinds' of Genesis corresponds exactly to the orders of science, only further exhausive research can tell us. The Bible simply states that there are natural divisions; it is the job of the scientist to locate them."
[6] Peter W. Stoner, Science Speaks,
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1958), pp. 58-61.
Stoner's position is a variation of the day-age theory. He says,
"My own personal belief is that most of the days of Genesis are very short periods of time, separated by extremely long periods. Most of the acts of God, recorded in Genesis 1 and 2, can be identified with a great cataclysmic change recorded in geology. These are so great that tremendous changes in life occur between two geological layers. Many new forms appear simultaneously. Many old forms disappear as suddenly. The change is so sudden that no new layer, even ever so thin, occupies these great breaks which correspond to these acts of creation recorded in Genesis. The formation changes abrubtly from one layer to another. This with the scriptural statement, 'He spake and they stood forth,' lends strong support to the interpretation that the days of Genesis are, in part at least, short, intensive acts of creation, separated by long geological periods of time. This makes perfect harmony between science and the Scriptures." (Ibid., p. 61).The author (Ray Shelton) of this article once held to this view of the days of Genesis 1 and 2, while he was in college and graduate work.
[7] J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., "The Length of the Creative Days",
Christian Faith and Life, Vol. 41 (April, 1935), pp. 123ff.
[8] Edited by C. I. Scofield, Reference Edition of the Holy Bible
(New York: Oxford Press, 1917), p. 4, footnote 3.
[9] G. H. Pember, Earth's Earliest Ages
(first edition, 1876), p. 22.
[13] H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey,
A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947), p. 244.
[14] Quoted in Harold W. Clark's The New Diluvialism
(Angwin, California: Science Publications, 1946), p. 9.
[15] Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, XIV (April, 1826), pp. 214-215.
Quoted by John Pye Smith,
The Relation between The Holy Scriptures and Some Parts of Geological
Science
(5th ed.; London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), p. 101.
[16] William Buckland,
Geology and Mineralogy Considered With Reference to Natural Theology
(Bridgewater Treatises, 1836), p. 94. Quoted by
James M. Olmstead, Noah and His Times
(Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1854), p. 159.
[17] Henry M. Morris, ed., Scientific Creationism, General Edition,
Prepared by the technical staff and consultants of the
Institute of Creation Research,
(San Diego, California: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974, 3rd ed., 1976.),
pp. 254-255.
[18] Charles Darwin,
The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection.
Vol. XLIX of Great Books of the Western World
(Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc, 1955). p. 153.
[19] Bernard Ramm, op. cit., pp. 229-249.
[20] Morris, op. cit., pp. 250-254.