History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in ChristendomWhite, Andrew Dickson
Religion
History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
White, Andrew Dickson
Religion and science -- History
As typical of his more moderate opponents we may take Fairholme, who in
1837 published his Mosaic Deluge, and argued that no early convulsions
of the earth, such as those supposed by geologists, could have taken
place, because there could have been no deluge "before moral guilt could
possibly have been incurred"--that is to say, before the creation of
mankind. In touching terms he bewailed the defection of the President of
the Geological Society and Dean Buckland--protesting against geologists
who "persist in closing their eyes upon the solemn declarations of the
Almighty"
Still the geologists continued to seek truth: the germs planted
especially by William Smith, "the Father of English Geology" were
developed by a noble succession of investigators, and the victory was
sure. Meanwhile those theologians who felt that denunciation of
science as "godless" could accomplish little, laboured upon schemes for
reconciling geology with Genesis. Some of these show amazing ingenuity,
but an eminent religious authority, going over them with great
thoroughness, has well characterized them as "daring and fanciful." Such
attempts have been variously classified, but the fact regarding them
all is that each mixes up more or less of science with more or less of
Scripture, and produces a result more or less absurd. Though a few men
here and there have continued these exercises, the capitulation of the
party which set the literal account of the Deluge of Noah against the
facts revealed by geology was at last clearly made.(165)
(165) For Fairholme, see his Mosaic Deluge, London, 1837, p. 358. For a
very just characterization of various schemes of "reconciliation," see
Shields, The Final Philosophy, p. 340.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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