SOME ill-informed persons have alleged that there are discrepancies between the statements of the Bible and the teachings of geology concerning the creation, the flood, &c. The following remarks are believed to be sound, and fairly to meet any prejudices from this quarter.
1. I freely admit that there is such a science as geology; yet no one who is entitled to respect, will claim that it is demonstrative. It is admitted by its friends to be yet incomplete as a science, and to be in a state of rapid advancement.
2. For a long time it has been coming nearer and nearer to the standard of revelation. Even the most scrutinizing of its devotees have yielded point after point, until it has lost by the concessions of its friends, most, if not all its supposed discrepancy with revelation. A little further progress in the science will probably show that its teachings wonderfully harmonize in all respects with the scriptural statements on the same subjects.
3. No class of respectable scientific men have probably been more hasty and rash in making assertions than some geologists. Buffon set the example. He supposed that the earth and moon had been rived off from the sun by the stroke of a comet, and that the momentum and motion thus received caused the moon to revolve around the earth and both the earth and moon to revolve around the sun. He supposed that the fiery vapors brought from the sun condensed into water and produced the ocean. Thus he proceeded from folly to folly, though with quite an air of confidence, and with an eloquence extremely captivating. It is hardly necessary to inform the reader that no respectable writer, now living, embraces the theory of Buffon above alluded to.
4. The assertions of some geologists are hardly more surprising than the facility with which one abandons ground formerly taken and confidently maintained by another, or even by himself. This necessarily results from the low state of the science and the uncertainty of many principles said to belong to it; and has often, though improperly, led some sober men to doubt whether geology has any claims to the rank and dignity of a science. Volumes would be required to show the sudden and total changes which have been made in a short time on this subject.
5. Men make unreasonable drafts on our belief when they demand our credence to the assertion that all processes of organization and induration, which have ever gone on, have proceeded as slowly as those we now witness on or near the surface of the earth. If they but admit that the laws of matter are distinct and different from the properties of matter, and that the laws of nature are nothing but the usual modes of divine operation in nature, how can they show that God, in the early periods of the world, did not give unusual celerity or efficiency to these laws? This view alone would preserve all that is essential in the distinction between creation and providence. If there were no Bible, we could not, without forfeiting a title to a truly scientific state of mind, ask less or yield more on this or some other points.
6. Christianity has fairly stood the test in regard to every true principle of real science which has yet been established, although oftentimes ignorant and timid friends, and ignorant and insolent enemies have been led to suppose there was a discrepancy. It will be so with geology. Of this we have the strongest assurance in the large and valuable contributions to natural theology made by this science. Between natural and revealed religion there is the firmest union and the best agreement. That which is really friendly to one, cannot be inimical to the other. The result always has proved it and always will prove it.
7. Geology has clearly settled the point that animal organization and life have not been eternal, and that there is no evidence that the human family has been in existence much more than five or six thousand years. From the time of Cuvier down, these things have not been seriously questioned. Thus, in the argument with a large number of skeptics we have an advantage of great importance.
8. Nor is there anything in scripture which asserts that animals never died until man sinned, or that they would not have died if man had not sinned; though it is freely admitted that man himself would have been immortal if he had not by transgression lost the favor of God. The Bible does not even assert, although it may be true, that there are circumstances revolting to our feelings often attending the death of animals, beyond what would have attended their dissolution if man had not sinned.
9. Nor is there anything in revelation which forbids us to believe that the substance of the earth was formed long before it received its present organization. The first verse of Genesis may relate to a period millions of ages prior to the events noticed in the rest of the chapter. Commentators who wrote hundreds, and some of them fifteen hundred years ago, seem to have understood the first verse as relating to a period far anterior to the creation of man. This interpretation, therefore, is not modern, nor made merely to obviate a difficulty. But if it were, it is so perfectly coincident with the just rules of interpretation, that there can be no just objection to it:
10. Nor do any considerable number of respectable geologists now resort to the supposition favored by Parkinson, Cuvier and Jameson, that the six days of creation were six periods of indefinite, or at least of vast duration. The word day does not necessarily, or always in scripture, signify a period of twenty-four hours. But there are serious difficulties from other quarters in giving this interpretation to this part of scripture. The objections to this "device of interpretation," as a respectable geologist calls it, are so great that sober critics have entirely rejected it, and a large majority of the best geologists now think such an interpretation uncalled for by any facts known in their favorite science.
11. Geologists generally admit that there is abundant evidence that the earth everywhere bears marks of having been subjected to a deluge. Cuvier after a long statement of facts and reasonings on the subject, says, "I think therefore with Deluc and Dolomieu, that if there be anything settled in geology, it is this, that the surface of our globe has been subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the date of which cannot be carried much farther back than five or six thousand years."
12. Every passage of scripture has been so explained, or can be so explained, in perfect consistency with the established laws of exegesis, as not in the slightest degree to interfere with the settled or generally received principles of geology.
The foregoing remarks are sufficient to put to rest all fears which have been entertained in any quarter from the science of geology. It would require only time to fortify every one of them with the proof believed to be appropriate to the subject.—The Bible True, pp. 47-51