Scripture in the Hands of Geologists

(Part One)
by Davis A. Young
(WTJ 49, Spring 1987)
I. The Problem
1. Introduction
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.

astrophysicists, and theologians as they relate to the history of the Earth.

Because theologians, pastors, and exegetes who read the Journal may confine their study of
biblical texts to the Bible study tools written by other theologians, pastors, and exegetes,
most readers are probably not familiar with the material presented here. Thus they will
likely have little sense of the extreme variation of interpretation of biblical details relevant
to scientific questions. I suggest that only if the history of these interpretations is grasped
can the evangelical community make any serious headway in arriving at a satisfactory
solution to the issues of theology and science.
2. Summary of Interpretive Traditions
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.

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.

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.

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

The second major tradition, concordism,3 which developed toward the close of the
eighteenth century, has been much more positive than literalism toward the conclusions of
the scientific enterprise. Concordists have generally been comfortable with the ideas that the
earth has had a long, dynamic history, that biological evolution is a valid theory, and that
the flood was not a global catastrophe. While concordism has also treated Genesis 1-11 as
historical narrative, it has seen that literal interpretations of some biblical texts conflict with
the results of science. Thus concordism has harmonized scientific findings with Genesis by
adopting a variety of figurative, symbolic, or broad interpretations of the text. The days of
Genesis 1 have been treated as long periods of time, the genealogies of Genesis 5 were said
to omit names, and the universal language of the flood story was said to be universal from
the point of view of one going through the flood. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries the majority of evangelical scientists have adopted concordistic methods. While
literalism today is represented by the Creation Research Society, concordism is
commonplace within the American Scientific Affiliation.
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.
II. Literalism
1. Seventeenth-Century British Diluvialism
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.

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
itand 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 hadbefore the Deluge, inclos'd within the vault of the Earth."13

The first major diluvialist work was Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth,5
originally published in 1681. Burnet believed that the present globe could not be like the
original earth of paradise, for mountains and ocean basins were evidences of a disordered
and imperfect world. The mountains were "great ruines," and of the ocean he mused, "When
I present this great Gulf to my imagination, emptied of all its waters, naked and gaping at
the Sun, stretching its jaws from one end of the Earth to another, it appears to me the most
ghastly thing in Nature."6 The channel of the sea must be a "secondary" work. With this
view of the present world, Burnet developed a theory of the primeval earth and of how it
came to look as it does today. The key to the transformation, from order to disorder lay in
the deluge.

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:
Or who shut up the Sea with doors when it brake forth, as if it had issu'd out of
a womb? Who can doubt but this was at the breaking open of the Fountains of
the Abysse, Gen. 7:11 when the waters gusht out, as out of the great womb of
Nature; and by reason of that confusion and perturbation of Air and Water that
rise upon it, a thick mist and darkness was round the Earth, and all things as in
a second Chaos, When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness
a swadling band for it, and brake up for it my decreed place, and made bars and
doors. Namelythe present Chanel of the Sea was made when the Abysse was
broke up, and at the same time were made the shory Rocks and Mountains
which are the bars and boundaries of the Sea.14
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.

But what was the source of the deluge? Previous attempts to find an adequate source in

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 Waters went up by the Mountains, came down by the Valleys unto the
place which thou hast founded for them. I know some interpret that passage of
the state of the waters in the beginning, when they cover'd the face of the whole
Earth, Gen. 1:2 but that cannot be, because of what follows in the next Verse;
Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to
cover the Earth.15
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:
That space of time will not be found of duration long enough to produce de
novo such multitudes of those Creatures, and to such Magnitudes and Ages of
growth as many of them seem to have had, and it will be difficult to be
imagined, that such Creatures as do not swim in the Water, should, by the
Effects of that Deluge, be taken from their Residences in the bottom of the Sea
and carried to the top of the Mountains, or to places so far remote from those
Residences.16
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."
What I understand by the great Deep, I shewed before; that is, the sinkings
inward of the Firmament in the middle of the Waters; and the forcing up of the
Fountains of the great Deep, I conceive to signify the raising again of those
parts that were before sunk to receive the Sea; and a Consequent of that would
necessarily be a sinking of that which was the dry Land, and a Consequent of
that, flowing and increasing of the Sea from out of that which was the great
Deep, and a prevailing and increasing upon that which was a sinking Earth
the sinking parts went as much below the Level, as before they were above,
and the rising parts by degrees ascended as much above as they had been
below, and that which had been the bottom of the Sea under the Water, became
the dry Land, and that which had been before the dry Land, now became the
bottom of the Sea, whether the Waters retreated from off these parts which
were raised when the Flood was finished.20
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 itin the very Foundation of itFor in several thingsit
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 gathered the waters of the Sea as in a Bag, He layeth up the Abysses in
Storehouses. Which, says the Theory, answers very fitly and naturally to the
place and disposition of the Abyss which it had before the Deluge, inclosed

within the Vault of the Earth, as in a Bagg or in a Storehouse. But I say it sutes
the present form of the Earth as well as it does the first: only this difference.
The Bagg and Storehouses, supposed to be in the first Earth, were shut; but in
this, they are open. Yet, it sutes it much better upon two accounts. For in the
Earth as it is now, there aremany Treasuries or Storehouses of Waters
(according to the Text) which has the word in the Plural Number. Whereas in
the first Earth, there could be but one, before the disruption.26
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:
We shall find there a great mistake in the common Hypothesis touching their
Depth. For whereas they have been supposed, to be fifteen Cubits higher than
the highest Mountains; they were indeed but fifteen Cubits high in all, above
the surface of the Earth. Not that the Waters were no where higher than just
fifteen Cubits above the Ground: they might in most places be thirty, forty, or
fifty Cubits high or higher This therefore we lay down as the Foundation of
our Hypothesis, that the highest parts of the Earth, that is, of the common
surface of it, were under Water but fifteen Cubits in depth.27
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 PsalmHe caused them to run down."30
Of great significance in British diluvialism was An Essay toward a Natural History of the
Earth31 issued in 1695 by John Woodward, Professor of Physick in Gresham College.
Woodward, one of the most prominent naturalists of the latter seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, was far more familiar with the character of the earth than either Burnet
or Warren. He wanted to put terrestrial history on a sounder observational basis, and he
stressed that rock strata and their contained fossils may be satisfactorily explained by the

biblical universal deluge.

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
that Part of the Globe where the Blow was received; and that with Force
sufficient to rake with it the whole Bottom of the Ocean, and to carry it upon
the Land; heaping up into Mountains those earthy Parts it had born away with
itAnd again, the Recoil of this Heap of Waters would return towards the
opposite Parts of the Earth, with a lesser Impetus than the first, and so
reciprocating many times, would at last come to settle in such a Manner as we
now observe in the Structure of the superficial Parts of the Globe.39
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:
We may justly understand thereby his impressing, exciting, or producing such
Motions, Agitations, and Fermentations of the several Parts; such particular
Powers of Attraction or Avoidance (besides the general one of Gravity) of
Concord or Enmity, of Union or Separation; and all these in such certain
Quantities, on such certain Conditions of Bodies, and in such certain distinct
Parts and Regions of the Chaos, as were proper and necessary for that particular
Course and Disposition of Nature which it seem'd good to the Divine Spirit to
introduce, and on which this future frame of things here below was ever after to
depend.43
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

Waters is not so great, as in a part of one of our short Days, to descend from
the middle Regions of the dry Land into the Seas adjoyning to them; nor if it
were, could the Land be dry enough in an instant for the Production of all those
Plants and Vegetables, which yet we are assur'd appear'd the same Day upon
the face of it; which Difficulties vanish, if we allow the primitive Days to have
been Years also.46
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.

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

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, isto 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

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,
On the former part of this Day the Waters of the Globe were to be drain'd off
all the dry Lands into the Seas; and on the same Day afterward, all the Plants
and Vegetables were to spring out of the Earth. Now the Velocity of running

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 tail 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.
John Ray was another great naturalist of the era. In his major work, Three PhysicoTheological Discourses,48 Ray pondered at length the creation and the flood. He believed
that the original earth was under water as indicated by Gen 1:2 and corroborated by Ps
104:6-9. Although he fully accepted the idea of a subterranean abyss, he did not think that
the separation of water from dry land in Gen 1:9-10 had anything to do with the abyss.
"And that this Gathering together of Waters was not into any subterraneous Abyss, seems
likewise clear from the Text: For it is said, That GOD called this Collection of Waters Seas,
as if it had been on purpose to prevent such a Mistake."49

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 Center of the Earth being at that time changed, and set nearer to the Center
or Middle of our Continent, whereupon the Atlantick and Pacifick Oceans must
needs press upon the subterraneous Abyss, and so by Mediation thereof, force
the Water upward, and at last it to run out at those wide Mouths and Apertures
made by the Divine Power breaking up the Fountains of the great DeepThese
Waters thus poured out from the Orifices of the Fountains upon the Earth, the
Declivity being changed by the Removal of the Center, could not flow down to
the Sea again, but must needs stagnate upon the Earth, and overflow it; and
afterwards the Earth returning to its old Center, return also to their former
Receptacles.55
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."
Although diluvialism was dying throughout the mid-eighteenth century,57 one of the most
creative British diluvialist treatments was Alexander Catcott's A Treatise on the Deluge,58
published in 1761. The strength of Catcott's diluvialism lay in the fact that he was an
excellent field worker who made careful observations of fossils, strata, landforms, and
particularly surficial gravel and boulder deposits. Catcott's field studies were all done for the
glory of God and with a desire to provide physical evidence for the veracity of the history
of Moses.
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.
2. The Collapse of Diluvialism
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.
3. Scientific Creationism
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 itthis 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
For the creation of light Morris noted that
setting the electromagnetic forces into operation in effect completed the
energizing of the physical cosmos. Though no doubt oversimplified, this
tremendous creative act of the Godhead might be summarized by saying that the
nuclear forces maintaining the integrity of matter were activated by the Father
when He created the elements of the space-mass-time continuum, the
gravitational forces were activated by the Spirit when He brought form and
motion to the initially static and formless matter, and the electromagnetic forces
were activated by the Word when He called light into existence out of the
darkness.72
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."73 The firmament
separated two bodies of water, one a shoreless ocean, the other a "vapor canopy." The
waters above the firmament probably
constituted a vast blanket of water vapor above the troposphere and possibly
above the stratosphere as well, in the high-temperature region now known as
the ionosphere, and extending far into space. They could not have been the
clouds of water droplets which now float in the atmosphere, because the
Scripture says they were 'above the firmament.' Furthermore, there was no 'rain
upon the earth' in those days (Genesis 2:5), nor any 'bow in the cloud' (Genesis
9:13), both of which must have been present if these upper waters represented
merely the regime of clouds which functions in the present hydrologic
economy.74
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.
Glenn R. Morton challenged the vapor canopy hypothesis on physical grounds.83 According
to Morton, if the waters of Gen 1:7 do not refer to a vapor canopy or to liquid or vaporous
water in any form, then the verse must refer to water in the form of ice. Morton ruled out a
solid ice canopy because it would be mechanically unstable. The only alternative was that
"the Earth before the flood had a set of rings like Saturn's or Jupiter's, only made up of ice
particles."84 The ring of ice particles was identified with the waters above the firmament and
was one source of the flood.
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
Scripture supports the concept of waters above the atmosphere being
responsible for the 40 days of continuous rain. However, the nature of the

waters above the atmosphere may be more than a vapor canopy and/or ice rings.
After separation of the primordial ocean, the composition of the water below
the atmosphere was such that dry land appeared. On what exegetical basis
would we assume that the waters above the firmament are compositionally
different from the waters below? The implication is that the mineralogical
potential of the waters above the atmosphere were (sic) the same as the ocean
from which dry land was formed. This assumes the primordial ocean was a
homogeneous mixture before division by the atmosphere. The waters above the
atmosphere could then be expected to contain mixtures of ice and rock. It is
possible that the comets, asteroids, meteorites, and outer planetary moon (and
planets?), excluding the uniquely created Earth and Moon, are remnants, a
reminder, of the preFlood 'waters above.'87
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
Burnet

Fluid, dark, confused mass

Gen 1:6-8

Gen 7:11
Subterranean abyss

breaks out
Hooke

Warren
Ray

Watery abyss

Two firmaments;
firmament between
waters is rocky shell of
earth separating ocean
from subterranean abyss

Incultivate and
uninhabited lump

Caverns in mountains

Earth under water

Amount of water above

firmament equals
amount below; clouds
and subterranean abyss

Halley

Forcing of subterranean
abyss into underside of
firmament causes ocean
to overflow

Realignment of center of
earth thus pressing on
abyss
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

Formation of vapor
canopy and ocean

Draining of vapor
canopy

Morris

Component of matter in
universe in a watery
matrix

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
Bombardment of earth
atmosphere are mixtures by meteorites tilts earth's
of ice and rock
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.
(to be continued)
Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506
NOTES
* This paper was written during my tenure as a fellow in the Calvin Center for Christian
Scholarship during the 1984-85 academic year. For their invaluable comments throughout
the year I wish to express my gratitude to my colleagues in the center: Robert Snow,
Howard Van Till, John Stek, George Marsden, Clarence Menninga, and John Suk.
1 Scientific creationists generally believe that creation took place in a succession of
miraculous divine fiats spanning six 24-hour days. This creation is believed to have
occurred only a few thousand years ago. Scientific creationists also believe that most
fossilbearing stratified rocks were deposited during a global deluge at the time of Noah.

Prominent scientific creationists include Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and Thomas Barnes.
Institutions such as the Creation Research Society, the Institute for Creation Research, and
the Bible-Science Association represent the interests of scientific creationists. Atheistic
naturalists generally accept the notion that matter is eternal and that the universe is selfexistent
and autonomous. The universe is not dependent on divine creation or providence
and may therefore be understood in terms of autonomous natural law. Carl Sagan is
representative of this viewpoint. Atheistic naturalism is common in popular literature on
science and appears in such journals as The Humanist. Theistic evolutionists generally
accept an ancient universe and earth as well as complete biological evolution including man.
However, they would regard such evolution as God's method of creation and providence.
Among theistic evolutionists are heterodox Christians like Teilhard de Chardin and orthodox
Christians such as V. Elving Anderson. Progressive creationists also accept an ancient
universe and earth, but they see a more limited role for biological evolution. The typical
progressive creationist believes that God may have miraculously intervened to create life,
major groups of animals and plants, and particularly man. Bernard Ramm and Russell
Maatman might be considered progressive creationists. Both theistic evolutionists and
progressive creationists find a home in the American Scientific Affiliation.
In my judgment, the terms scientific creationist, theistic evolutionist, and progressive
creationist are all terribly misleading and have helped to perpetuate much of the confusion
about how to relate Christian faith and scientific work. The terms ought to be abandoned.
2 For a representative sample of scientific creationism, the reader should consult such works
as H. M. Morris and G. E. Parker, What is Creation Science? (San Diego: Master Book,
1982) or H. M. Morris, Scientific Creationism (San Diego: Creation-Life, 1974).
3 Concordism, as I use the term, is an approach or set of approaches for harmonizing the
results of science with the biblical data. Concordism is generally comfortable with most of
the broad conclusions of science and therefore tends to adopt nonliteral interpretations of
relevant biblical texts. Concordism includes the gap, day-age, intermittent-day and
revelation day theories of Genesis 1. The approach that I adopted in my first book Creation
and the Flood was distinctly concordist in character.
One could perhaps properly consider both literalism and concordism as I am using them in
this paper as concordistic in the sense that both points of view believe that a correspondence
or concordance between biblical data and historical data is possible. We could distinguish
between narrow concordism (literalism) and broad concordism (concordism), but I have
chosen to make a distinction between literalism and corcordism simply because the term
concordism has most often been used of such theories as the gap theory and day-age theory
rather than the kinds of views put forward by today's scientific creationists.
4 This statement must not be construed to mean that the Bible has no relevance for science.
For example, the Bible provides the foundation for scientific activity with its teaching of
divine creation and faithful governance of the world. But I suggest that we do not find
earthquake mechanisms, theories of voicanism, or data about stellar structure in the Bible.
The Bible does not provide the results of geological or astronomical investigations. By
contrast, it may well be that for some disciplines such as archeology and history, the Bible
does provide some information which is relevant to our contemporary technical questions.
Clearly, Scripture has already yielded data of great value to archeologists. But it has not
done so for geology, astronomy, or the other physical sciences.
5 Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth (London: Centaur Press, 1965).
6 Ibid., 102.
7 Ibid., 49.
8 Ibid., 54.
9 Ibid., 73.

10 Ibid., 53.
11 Ibid., 75.
12 Ibid., 75-76.
13 Ibid., 76.
14 Ibid., 77-78.
15 Ibid., 72-73.
16 Robert Hooke, Lectures and Discourses of Earthquakes and Subterraneous Eruptions
(London: 1705) 412. This work was reprinted by Arno Press in 1978.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 414.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., 415.
21 Erasmus Warren, Geologia (London: B. Chiswell, 1690). The work was reprinted by Amo
Press in 1978. The full title of Warren's work is Geologia: or, a Discourse concerning the
Earth before the Deluge. Wherein the Form and Properties ascribed to it, in a book intitled
The Theory of the Earth, are excepted against: and it is made appear, That the Dissolution
of that Earth was not the Cause of the Universal Flood. Also, a New Explication of that
Flood is attempted.
22 Ibid., in preface, "To the Reader," pages unnumbered.
23 Ibid., 90.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., 137.
26 Ibid., 138-39.
27 Ibid., 300-301.
28 Ibid., 303.
29 Ibid.
30
Ibid.
31 John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth (London: R. Wilkin,
1695). This work was reprinted by Arno Press in 1978. The full title of Woodward's work is
An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth: and Terrestrial Bodies, especially
Minerals: as also of the Sea, Rivers, and Springs. With an Account of the Universal Deluge:
and of the Effects that it had upon the Earth.
32 Ibid., 82.
33 Ibid., 83.
34 Ibid., 84.
35 Edmond Halley, "Some Considerations about the Cause of the Universal Deluge," and
"Some Farther Thoughts upon the Same Subject," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society of London 33 (1724) 118-25. In his paper, Halley commented that the reason he
delayed publication for so long was that he was "apprehensive least by some unguarded
Expression he might incur the Censure of the Sacred Order." Moreover, even in 1724 he
had reservations about publication and had to be persuaded to publish his views at the
urging of the Secretary of the Royal Society.
36 Ibid., 120.
37 Ibid., 121.
38 Ibid., 120.
39 Ibid., 122.
40 Ibid.
41 William Whiston, A New Theory of the Earth (London: R. Roberts, 1696). This work was
reprinted by Amo Press in 1978. The full title of Whiston's work is 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 Scripture, are shewn to be perfectly agreeable to Reason and Philosophy.
42 Ibid., 72.
43 Ibid., 226.
44 Ibid., 159.
45 Ibid., 82-84.
46 Ibid., 89.
47 Ibid., 302.
48 John Ray, Three Physico-Theological Discourses (3rd ed.; London: Innys, 1713).
49 Ibid., 9.
50 Ibid., 73.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid., 75.
53 Ibid., 72-73.
54 Ibid., 119.
55 Ibid., 117-18.
56 Ibid., 118.
57 One important early eighteenth century diluvialist was the German scholar, J. J.
Scheuchzer. For a study of eighteenth century diluvialism see Rhoda Rappaport, "Geology
and Orthodoxy: the Case of Noah's Flood in Eighteenth-Century Thought," British Journal
for the History of Science 11 (1978) 1-18.
58 Alexander Catcott, A Treatise on the Deluge (2nd ed. London: E. Allen, 1768).
59 Ibid., 57.
60 Fettiplace Bellers, "A Description of the several Strata of Earth, Stone, Coal, etc. found
in a Coal-Pit at the West End of Dudley in Staffordshire," Philosophical Transaction of the
Royal Society of London 27 (1710) 541-44.
61 The term "angular unconformity" refers to a buried erosional surface.
62 See Granville Penn, A Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Cosmologies
(London; 1822) and George Fairholme, New and Conclusive Physical Demonstrations both
of the Fact and Period of the Mosaic Deluge (London: J. Ridgway, 1837).
63 For his most comprehensive treatment of flood geology see George M. Price, The New
Geology (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1923). See Byron Nelson, The Deluge Story in
Stone (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1968). The work was originally published in 1931. See also
Harold W. Clark, The New Diluvialism (Angwin, CA: Science Publications, 1946), and
Alfred M. Rehwinkel, The Flood (St. Louis: Concordia, 1951).
64 A summary of the evidence is beyond the scope of the paper, but includes radiometric
dating, facies analysis which shows that the sedimentary rock column was deposited by a
succession of varying environments through time, metamorphism, kinetics of mineral
formation, heat flow from cooling igneous rocks, and folding of sedimentary rocks. A small
sampling of the evidence can be found in my Creation and the Flood (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1977) and Christianity and the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).
65 Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record (San Diego: Creation Life, 1976).
66 In recent years, Morris seems to be shifting from the idea that the earth looks old but is
actually young toward the idea that the earth even looks young. He can do so because of the
development of the so-called scientific evidences for a young earth by Gentry and Barnes.
67 Ibid., 41.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., 50.
70 Ibid.

71 Ibid., 52.
72 Ibid., 56.
74 Ibid., 58.(73 Ibid., 58.(774 Ibid., 58.
74 Ibid., 59.
75 The vapor canopy hypothesis has been developed extensively by Joseph Dillow, The
Waters Above (Chicago: Moody, 1981).
76 Donald W. Patten, The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch (Seattle: Pacific Meridian,
1966).
77 Ibid., 62-65, 137-63.
78 D. Russell Humphreys, "Is the Earth's Core Water?" Creation Research Society
Quarterly 15 (1978) 141-47.
79 Ibid., 141.
80 Ibid
81 Ibid., 142.
82 Ibid.
83 Glenn R. Morton, "Can the Canopy Hold Water?" Creation Research Society Quarterly
16 (1979) 164-69.
84 Ibid., 169.
85 David W. Unfred, "Asteroidal Impacts and the Flood-Judgment," Creation Research
Society Quarterly 21 (1984) 82-87.
86 Ibid., 85.
87 Ibid., 86.
88 See Keil's commentary on Genesis in C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary
on the Old Testament. Vol 1. The Pentateuch. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, n.d.).
89 Valentine Hepp, Calvinism and the Philosophy of Nature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1930) 185.
90 John J. Davis, Paradise to Prison (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1975) 124-26.