Transcript The Genesis Flood in Pre-Darwinian American Geology

The Genesis Flood
in
Pre-Darwinian American Geology:
The Case of Edward Hitchcock
Rodney L. Stiling
Department of History
Seattle Pacific University
[email protected]
206/281-2680
19C American Geology
• Qualitative
Quantitative
• Proto-mathematical
Mathematical
• Pre-petroleum
Petroleum
• Pre-Darwinian
Darwinian
Edward Hitchcock
1793-1864
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Pastor
Teacher
Professor of Geology & Chemistry
College President
Author
Professional Geologist
– State Surveys
– AGS / AAGN / AAAS
Hitchcock and Geology
• Student of Benjamin Silliman at Yale
• Professor of Geology and Chemistry at
Amherst College from 1825
• Head of Massachusetts State Geological
Survey (1831 – 1841)
• First President of Association of American
Geologists and Naturalists (1841)
• Founding Member of AAAS
The Flood: Four Interpretations
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Revolution Model (Cuvier)
Diluvial Model (Buckland)
Transient / Blended Model (Buckland)
Local / Regional Model (Smith)
Four Floods Overview
Thomas Cole (1801-1848)
“The Subsiding Waters of the Deluge” (1829)
Continental-Seabed
Revolution Model (~1820)
Drawn from Georges Cuvier (1812)–
“the catastrophes . . . caused the different parts of our
continents to rise by degrees from the basin of the sea,
but it has also frequently happened, that lands which
had been laid dry have been again covered by the water
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if there is any circumstance thoroughly established in
geology, it is, that the crust of our globe has been
subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the epoch of
which cannot be dated much farther back than five or six
thousand years ago."
Revolution Model
Revolution Model (~1820)continued
Hitchcock:
“the crust of our globe has undergone several
revolutions by the overflowing of water – and
secondly that the last revolution of this kind
was not very remote”
“Our present continents were in the bottom of
the ocean in the antediluvian day and the
continents that then existed are now in the
same situation – that is when the first were
submerged the last emerged”
Diluvial Model (1823)
William Buckland (1784-1856)
Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823)
“. . .undeniable evidence of a recent transient
inundation . . . . justified in applying the
epithet diluvial to the results of this great
convulsion. . .”
Hitchcock: Diluvium = Flood evidence
Geology is “found more and more to speak
the language of Revelation”
Diluvial Model
Blended / Transient Model (1838)
• Hitchcock: “deluge” and “powerful rush of
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water” have indeed swept North America, but,
“is it, or is it not identical with that described by
Moses?”
Problem: Human remains never found in diluvial
formations (Buckland, 1836)
Therefore diluvium anterior to humankind
Deluges frequent but brief; Noah’s Flood
evidence either blended or overgrown: “no
traces be now remaining on the earth’s surface
of that event.”
Local/Regional/Partial Model
(1841)
• Influence of John Pye Smith (1774-1851)
• On the Relation Between the Holy Scriptures
and Some Parts of Geological Science
(1839)
• Hitchcock – Flood: “universal terms with
limited meaning” and “not universal over the
globe, but only over the region inhabited by
man.”
• Central Asia – no geological traces
Local/Regional/Partial Flood
Local/Regional/Partial Flood
Hitchcock’s Summary
“ on no subject has there been a greater
change of opinion. From a belief in the
complete destruction and dissolution of the
globe by that event, those best qualified to
judge now doubt whether it be possible to
identify one mark of that event in nature.”
The Religion of Geology (1851)
Relations of Geosciences with
Religion: Hitchcock
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Remained fully committed to Christian faith
Found lifelong joy and fulfillment in the pursuit of the
geological sciences
Committed to scientific rigor and excellence
Never backed away from belief that the Genesis Flood
constituted an actual historical event
Thus : Commitment to reconciliation of science and
scripture. “Christian Geologist” and “Reconciler”
Result: adjusted both scriptural interpretation models
and geological models to maintain reconciliation