Page 18

ETS 2001: Boundaries on creation and Noah's Flood: Early 19

century British Scriptural Geologists

Terry Mortenson, PhD

tmortenson@AnswersInGenesis.org

P. 18

"Many reverend Geologists, however, would evince their reverence for the divine

Revelation by making a distinction between its historical and its moral portions; and
maintaining, that the latter only is inspired and absolute Truth; but that the former is not so;
and therefore is open to any latitude of philosophic and scientific interpretation, modification
or denial! . . . According to these impious and infidel modifiers and separators, there is not one
third of the Word of God that is inspired; for not more, nor perhaps so much, of that Word,
is occupied in abstract moral revelation, instruction, and precept. The other two thirds,
therefore, are open to any scientific modification and interpretation; or, (if scientifically
required,) to a total denial! It may however be safely asserted, that whoever professedly,
before men, disbelieves the inspiration of any part of Revelation, disbelieves, in the sight of
God, its inspiration altogether. If such principles were permitted of the most High to proceed
to their ultimate drifts and tendencies, how long would they be sweeping all faith in revealed
and inspired Veracity from off the face of the earth?" . . .

"What the consequences of such things must be to a revelation-possessing land, time

will rapidly and awfully unfold in its opening pages of national scepticism, infidelity, and
apostacy [sic], and of God's righteous vengeance on the same!"

I would suggest that the last 170 years in the Western World has confirmed the Scriptural
geologists' worst fears. This seems particularly obvious in Britain and America, where the gospel
has previously had such great cultural influence.

So, in light of all this, I will stand with my Scriptural geologist forefathers and insist that the

age of the earth and its history matter--enormously. It is not a secondary side issue, but it strikes
at the very heart of philosophical naturalism's stranglehold of science, culture and much of the
church, which first seized its victims in the early 19

century Genesis-geology debate. We need to

realize that biological evolution (in whatever form) is only one strand of naturalistic
interpretations of the physical creation. In Eccl. 4:12 we read that, "a cord of three strands is not
easily torn." Removing one strand may weaken the rope. But the church will not be liberated
from the bondage to philosophical naturalism, if only biological evolution is rejected. Old-earth
geological evolution and old-universe astronomical evolution must also be rejected. Both the Bible
and the demonstrated scientific facts require it. The Scriptural geologists of the early 19

century

were convinced of this and wrote to persuade other Christians. Today, we likewise need to
become informed and convinced of the plain and literal truth of Genesis and contend for that truth,
when the scientific evidence is more clearly on the side of Genesis than it was even in the early
decades of the 19

century.

Henry Cole, Popular Geology Subversive of Divine Revelation (London: Hatchard and Son, 1834), pp. ix-

x, 44-45 (footnote), emphasis in original. In this book Cole, an Anglican minister, is responding to the writings of
old-Earth Cambridge University geologist and fellow ordained Anglican, Adam Sedgwick.