Geology and Revelation: or, the Ancient History of the Earth, considered in the geological facts and revealed religion.Molloy, Gerald
Religion
Geology and Revelation: or, the Ancient History of the Earth, considered in the geological facts and revealed religion.
Molloy, Gerald
Bible and geology; Bible and science
Reviewing the progress of opinion touching the relations of Science
to Revealed Religion, it is noteworthy that while many Protestant
theologians and writers on both sides of the Atlantic have, until a
recent period, treated the discoveries of science, and especially of
Geology, so far as they affect theological dogmas, in a manner, if
not of contempt, at least of distrust or unfairness: on the contrary,
the Romanist writers who have discussed these themes, have done so,
generally, in a spirit of broad catholicity well calculated to command
the respect it merits. They have shown no sensitiveness or timidity
lest, perchance, their exegesis might be disturbed by candidly
admitting the changes demanded by the discoveries of Science.
The author’s discussion of the principles of Geology evinces much
familiarity both with the science and what is equally important, the
necessities of the unscientific reader. He has presented, in the second
part of his book, an interesting review, infused by copious quotations
from the Christian Fathers, from the time of St. Augustine, showing
that long before Geology had any existence as a science, and of course,
when the discussions and doubts it has excited were unknown, the
essential points respecting Time and the order of Creation had received
careful attention from devout thinkers, and that the conclusions at
which they arrived, on purely theological grounds, were, in most cases,
much the same as those which the best writers of our time deduce from
Geological evidence.
It is now thirty-five years since (1835) CARDINAL, then DR. WISEMAN,
delivered in Rome, before the English College, of which he was the
head, his Lectures, already referred to, on the connection between
Science and Religion, in the fifth and sixth of which he considers more
particularly the Geological argument. The spirit of these lectures
was a just rebuke to the narrow bigotry of such writers as MR. CROLY,
FAIRHOLM, and GRANVILLE PENN, as well as certain American theologians,
who, by means of arrogance and denunciation, sought to silence the
voice of truth, as proclaimed in the language of discovery, announcing
the nature and the extent of those changes in life and in physical
development which are recorded in the Genesis of the Rocks, because
they conceived these immutable truths must of necessity conflict with
the Genesis of Moses; the real conflict being only with their narrow
interpretations. With rare moral courage DR. WISEMAN grappled with the
great questions discussed so well in his lectures, at a time when there
prevailed, with reference to such themes, a very wide-spread distrust,
even among men of moderate opinions. In fact, the candor and courtesy
displayed by DR. WISEMAN in his lectures, presents an enviable contrast
to the acrimony of many theologians, and worthy of all praise, and
in harmony with the learning and good taste which characterize his
writings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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