Recent History
January 1, 1695
An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth
In 1695, John Woodward's An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth viewed the Genesis flood as dissolving rocks and earth into a thick slurry which caught up all living things, and when the waters settled formed strata according to the specific gravity of these materials, including fossils of the organisms.
In 1695, John Woodward's An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth viewed the Genesis flood as dissolving rocks and earth into a thick slurry which caught up all living things, and when the waters settled formed strata according to the specific gravity of these materials, including fossils of the organisms. When it was pointed out that lower layers were often less dense and forces that shattered rock would destroy organic remains, he resorted to the explanation that a divine miracle had temporarily suspended gravity.
January 1, 1696
A New Theory of the Earth, from Its Original, to the Consummation of All Things : Wherein the Creation of the World in Six Days, the Universal Deluge, and the General Conflagration, as Laid Down in the Holy Scriptures, Are Shewn to Be Perfectly..
William Whiston's New Theory of the Earth of 1696 combined scripture with Newtonian physics to propose that the original chaos was the atmosphere of a comet with the days of creation each taking a year, and the Genesis flood had resulted from a second comet. His explanation of how the flood caused mountains and the fossil sequence was similar to Woodward's.
William Whiston's New Theory of the Earth of 1696 combined scripture with Newtonian physics to propose that the original chaos was the atmosphere of a comet with the days of creation each taking a year, and the Genesis flood had resulted from a second comet. His explanation of how the flood caused mountains and the fossil sequence was similar to Woodward's.
The book is organized as follows:
Introduction, discussing the text of Creation according to Genesis
Book I: Lematta, discussing the premises and assumptions on which his argument is based;
Book II: Hypotheses, discussing his model for the origin of the Earth;
Book III: Phaenomena, discussing evidence predicted by his model;
Book IV: Solutions, discussing how his model explains the evidence;
Appendix: An abstract of his theory drawn from various sources.
In the introduction, Whiston discusses the Mosaic account of creation. He argues for a literal interpretation of Genesis, writing:
"We must never forsake the plain, obvious, easy and natural sense, unless where the nature of the thing itself, parallel places, or evident reason, afford a solid and sufficient reason for so doing."
In so doing, he challenges allegorical and mythological interpretations of Genesis, concluding that:
"The Mosaic Creation is not a nice and philosophical account of the origin of all things; but a historical and true representation of the formation of our single Earth out of a confused Chaos, and of the successive and visible changes thereof each Day, till it became the habitation of mankind." (p.3)
He interprets the Genesis account of creation as being only of the preparation of the Earth for mankind, and not as an account of creation from nothing. He draws this from the text, as the account speaks of the waters that existed before God's first creative act on the first day, implying that the Earth predates Genesis chapter one.
He interprets the account of "placing the heavenly bodies in the firmament" as simply being a consequence of the terrestrial frame of reference, for the heavenly bodies do in fact revolve about the Earth from the perspective of a man standing on the Earth.
He describes his Arianism, or the view that Jesus is subordinate to God but first in creation, a view considered heretical within much of Christianity. He also asserts that it is very reasonable to believe that man may well be simply one of many intelligent beings, and certainly not the highest before God. He wrote that humanity was fallen, and currently in a miserable state akin to probation.
He concludes the introduction with his three Postulata:
"The obvious or literal sense of scripture is the true and real one, where no evidence reason can be given to the contrary.
That which is clearly accountable in a natural way, is not, without reason to be ascribed to a miraculous power.
What ancient tradition asserts of the constitution of nature, or of the origin and primitive states of the world, is to be allowed for true, where ‘tis fully agreeable to scripture, reason, and philosophy."
January 1, 1823
Origins
Other naturalists were critical of Diluvialism: the Church of Scotland pastor John Fleming published opposing arguments in a series of articles from 1823 onwards.
Other naturalists were critical of Diluvialism: the Church of Scotland pastor John Fleming published opposing arguments in a series of articles from 1823 onwards. He was critical of the assumption that fossils resembling modern tropical species had been swept north "by some violent means", which he regarded as absurd considering the "unbroken state" of fossil remains. For example, fossil mammoths demonstrated adaptation to the same northern climates now prevalent where they were found. He criticized Buckland's identification of red mud in the Kirkdale cave as diluvial, when near identical mud in other caves had been described as fluvial.[5] While Cuvier had reconciled geology with a loose reading of the biblical text, Fleming argued that such a union was "indiscreet" and turned to a more literal view of Genesis:[30]
But if the supposed impetuous torrent excavated valleys, and transported masses of rocks to a distance from their original repositories, then must the soil have been swept from off the earth to the destruction of the vegetable tribes. Moses does not record such an occurrence. On the contrary, in his history of the dove and the olive-leaf plucked off, he furnishes a proof that the flood was not so violent in its motions as to disturb the soil, nor to overturn the trees which it supported.
Fleming was a vitalist who was strongly opposed to materialism. He believed that a 'vital principle' was inherent in the embryo with the capacity of "developing in succession the destined plan of existence."[8] He was a close associate of Robert Edmond Grant, who considered that the same laws of life affected all organisms.
In 1824, Fleming became involved in a famous controversy with the geologist William Buckland (1784–1856) about the nature of The Flood as described in the Bible. In 1828, he published his History of British Animals. This book addressed not only extant, but also fossil species. It explained the presence of fossils by climate change, suggesting that extinct species would have survived if weather conditions had been favorable. These theories contributed to the advancement of biogeography, and exerted some influence on Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Flemings' comments on instinct in his book Philosophy of Zoology had influenced Darwin.[9]
In 1831, Fleming found some fossils which he recognized as fish in the Old Red Sandstone units at Fife. This did not fit the generally accepted notion that the Earth was approximately 6,000 years old.
Partial list of publications
1821: Insecta in Supplement to the fourth, fifth and sixth editions of the Encyclopae-dia Britannica, with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences
1837: Molluscous Animals
1851: The Temperature of the Seasons, and Its Influence on Inorganic Objects, and on Plants and Animals
January 1, 1830
The Animal Kingdom
Cuvier proposed a series of catastrophes, each of which had totally wiped out animal and plant populations (thus producing the fossils), followed by a period of calm during which God restocked the earth with new (and improved) species.
Meanwhile, orthodox Christianity was saved from
the embarrassing inadequacies of the Diluvial Theory
by the French geologist, naturalist, and member of
the Académie des Sciences, Baron Georges Cuvier
(1769-1832). To explain the progressive sequences of
fossils found in rock sediments, Cuvier proposed
a series of catastrophes, each of which had totally wiped
out animal and plant populations (thus producing the
fossils), followed by a period of calm during which
God restocked the earth with new (and improved)
species, The Noachian Flood was just one of these.
The Catastrophe Theory was a great balm to many
troubled minds. Adam Sedgwick, a geologist at
Cambridge University and a teacher of Charles Darwin,
expounded the theory thus: 'At succeeding periods
new tribes of beings were called into existence,
not merely as progeny of those that had appeared
before them, but as new and living proof of creative
interference; and though formed on the same plan,
and bearing the same marks of wise contrivance, of-
tentimes unlike those creatures which preceded them,
as if they had been matured in a different portion of the
universe and cast upon the earth by the collision of
another planet.'
In formulating the Catastrophe Theory, Cuvier rou-
tinely took for granted an extreme rapidity of changes
in times past as compared with the present, but con-
ceded that perhaps a little more than six thousand
years was required. So, following the example of his
countryman, Comte Georges de Buffon (1707-1778),
he added eighty thousand years on to the age of the
earth. According to calculations of members of the
Académie, made after Cuvier's death, there had been
twenty-seven successive acts of creation, the products
of each but the last being obliterated in subsequent
catastrophes, thus providing a geological 'clock'. An
Englishman, William Smith (1769-1839), raised the
number of strata to thirty-two.
Opposite: This fossil
crocodile, illustrated in
Cuvier's book, The
Animal Kingdom (1830),
is obviously related to
present-day species
and it was such finds
that posed a problem to
the proponents of the
Diluvial Theory.
Baron Georges Leopold
Cuvier, the French
comparative anatomist,
explained away the
progressive sequences
of fossils found in strata
by proposing a series of
catastrophes, the Flood
being just one of these.
January 1, 1864
After the Flood
Ellen G. White, took a six-day creation literally, and believed that she received divine messages supplementing and supporting the Bible. Her visions of the flood and its aftermath, published in 1864, described a catastrophic deluge which reshaped the entire surface of the Earth.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church, led by Ellen G. White, took a six-day creation literally, and believed that she received divine messages supplementing and supporting the Bible. Her visions of the flood and its aftermath, published in 1864, described a catastrophic deluge which reshaped the entire surface of the Earth, followed by a powerful wind which piled up new high mountains, burying the bodies of men and beasts. Buried forests became coal and oil, and where God later caused these to burn, they reacted with limestone and water to cause "earthquakes, volcanoes and fiery issues".[44][45]