IN 1696, the successor to Sir Isaac Newton's chair,
William Whiston, published the novel theory that the Noachian
Flood was caused by the passing of a comet extremely close to
the earth. In 1755 the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, published the
idea that the Flood was caused by the collapse of rings composed of
"watery vapours" that supposedly once encircled the earth
like Saturn's rings.
Although sometimes bordering on the bizarre, the firm conviction of the eighteenth-century mind was that the universal Flood has left its marks upon the surface of the earth. But with the birth of the modern theory of evolution in the mid-1750's this concept faced its first full-scale threat. DeMaillet, one of the earliest of the French evolutionists, scoffed at the idea of a flood through the mouth of his make-believe philosopher, Telliamed. Another French evolutionist of the same era, Comte de Buff on, had no room for the Flood in his naturalistic theory, as Green attests: "Clearly, the scientific world was ready for a theory of the earth which would dispense with the Deluge and seek the key to fossil phenomena and earth history in nature itself. . . . Buffon's theory of the earth, contained in the first volume of his Natural History (1749) had precisely that aim." 1
Why should the pre-Darwinian evolutionists demonstrate such antagonism toward the Biblical Flood? Could it be that they foresaw that such a belief would be one of the chief barriers placed in the path of the progress of organic evolution.
With the dawn of the nineteenth century we turn to France, where evolution had planted its stronghold first and fore most in pre-Darwinian days.
The evolutionist Jean Baptiste de La marck not only substituted unlimited time for the six thousand years but also gradual imperceptible changes for catastrophic events, such as the Flood. He did so with a passion. "He ridiculed the idea that fossils were authentic monuments of the Deluge or of some great catastrophe in nature." 2
Another historian, a countryman of Lamarck's, writes: "No less severe was his philosophical hostility amounting to hatred for the tradition of the Deluge and the Biblical creation story, indeed for everything which recalled the Christian theory of nature." 3
Such outspoken assertions called for a counterattack, and the one who be came the leader of the opposing camp was the Frenchman Cuvier, the father of vertebrate paleontology.
Cuvier's school of thought, which be came known as Catastrophism, did not assign all fossils to the time of the Noachian Flood. For him the Flood was simply the last (and not necessarily the greatest) of a series of worldwide inundations interspersed with successive creations. Thus both the traditional Creation and Flood concepts were altered.
Catastrophism quickly leaped to the British Isles, and its chief proponent became a theologian turned geologist, William Buckland, who in the 1820's was considered to be "the foremost English geologist, the chief architect of the catastrophist synthesis." 4 His book, Reliquiae Diluvianae, which appeared in 1823, "was of such a high scientific calibre . . . that it firmly implanted the actuality of the Deluge in the minds of geologists, as well as non-geologists, not only in Britain, but throughout Europe and America." 5
Many of the prominent Catastrophists stepped from a theological background into geology. Adam Sedgwick, for one, classified the Cambrian system of rocks and William Conybeare wrote an authoritative work on geology. It is surprising to many to discover how the majority of early geologists in England worked from a diluvial viewpoint, thus earning the title of scriptural geologists.
The year 1830 marked a rapid turning of the tide away from Catastrophism to the opposite view known as Uniformitarianism. This was accomplished almost single-handedly by Charles Lyell, who became known as the father or high priest of uniformitarianism.
Lyell's newly published book, Principles of Geology, provided the wind for Charles Darwin's sails during his famous voyage on the Beagle and provided the geological structure into which the biological phase of evolution could be fitted.
However, Lyell's uniformitarianism was simply an amplification to the full est degree of that which was first ex pounded by the Scottish geologist, James Hutton. For both men the survival of this view depended on the elimination of the Biblical Flood and Biblical chronology. One historian has summarized Hutton's accomplishments: "He thus banished all catastrophes from his theory. Even the Noachian deluge was excluded because, he observed, 'general deluges form no part of the theory of the earth; for, the purpose of this earth is evidently to maintain vegetable and animal life, and not to destroy them.' To Hutton must be the credit for being the first British naturalist to make a complete break with Moses." 6
Lyell derived much of his inspiration not only from Hutton but also from the French evolutionist, Lamarck. Al though enamored by Lamarck's endless ages of time, he refused to accept his evolutionary arrangement of living things. In fact, Lyell in 1830 argued strongly for man's appearance in a distinct supernatural act that took place about six thousand years ago!
Roadblocks to Uniformitarianism
Many of Lyell's arguments for the uniformity of all natural processes were derived from George Poulett-Scrope's book on Italian volcanoes. For him as well as Lyell it was evident that the greatest roadblock in the path of Uniformitarianism was the Biblical Flood. By stretching earth history into "millions of years" the Flood could be eliminated. Geological evidence could then be explained on the basis of gradual changes over immense periods of time, rather than abrupt changes in a brief time interval. It should by now be fully evident that the concepts of Biblical chronology (Creation week placed only a few millennia in the past) and Biblical geology (universal Flood) are inseparably interwoven.
The 1820's witnessed one of the stormiest conflicts in geological history between Catastrophists and Uniformitarians, paralleling remarkably the Fundamentalist controversy almost precisely one hundred years later. After one conflict with the Diluvialists at a Geological Society meeting in 1829 Lyell wrote a friend: "Murchison and I fought stoutly, and Buckland was very piano. Conybeare's memoir is not strong by any means. He admits three deluges before the Noachian, and Buckland adds . . . many catastrophes besides, so we have driven them out of the Mosaic record fairly." 7
Produced Shock Waves
The first publication of Lyell's book in 1830 made one of the greatest impacts on the field of geology, an impact that could be compared only to that made 29 years later by Darwin's The Origin of the Species. It also produced shock waves in theology.
Unfortunately, the ranks of the Catastrophists became quickly scattered and many began actually to abandon their faith in a universal flood. Among these were Adam Sedgwick and the "dean of the diluvialists," William Buckland. It is ironic that one who was a student of Buckland for three years, Charles Lyell, would eventually win out over the catastrophism championed by his mentor. Although Buckland never accepted uniformitarianism as such, he did ultimately dispense with the Biblical flood.
Did any of the "scriptural geologists" become susceptible to the concept of organic evolution? One historian speaks of "Sedgwick's apostasy" and his public "recantation" as a result of his dismissal of the Flood. Although he did not abandon his belief in catastrophes he did eliminate the Noachian Flood as one of them.8 Buckland simply transferred the Flood from a universal experience to a local event.
The most convincing example of susceptibility to Darwinian evolution after the abandonment of Biblical chronology and Biblical geology is Charles Lyell himself. At first he held to the concept of Biblical chronology being valid only for the human race, and not for the whole fossil record, a position which he fiercely defended for three decades. But with the publication of Darwin's The Origin of the Species he began to weaken, although not fast enough to suit Darwin.
In 1863 Lyell published a book called the Antiquity of Man, the title itself indicating that he had by then given up his view that man's history was limited to six thousand years. Finally, "the tenth edition of the Principles, published in 1866, contains an excellent account of the leading principles of Darwin's work." 9 One historian goes into great detail in explaining what he calls the "conversion of Lyell to Darwinism." 10
One of the leading authorities on Darwin today, Loren Eiseley, writes: "Curiously, though Lyell won in the geological field a victory similar to the one Darwin was later to achieve in biology, he did not become an evolutionist until his last years, although today it seems to us that evolution was the normal consequence of the system he presented." 11
Another adds: "Just as Lyell had expelled the Deluge from the geological history of Europe, so now Darwin threw even graver doubt on 'the veracity of Moses as an historian.' " 12 The chief apostle of Darwinism in the nineteenth century, Thomas Huxley, in 1887 summarized Lyell's accomplishments: "I cannot but believe that Lyell was, for others, as for myself, the chief agent in smoothing the road for Darwin." 13
It is strange indeed that the one who strictly held to uniformitarianism in the geological realm refused to apply it in any way to the biological realm until the time described in 1863 by a theologian turned evolutionist, Charles Kingsley: "Darwin is conquering every where, and rushing in like a flood by the mere force of truth and fact." 14 Having let loose of Biblical chronology and the Biblical Flood, Lyell, among a host of others, was caught up in the flood of Darwinism.
1 John C. Green, The Death of Adam (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1959), pp. 54, 55.
2 Francis C. Haber, The Age of the World: Moses to Darwin (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), p. 177.
3 Sainte-Beuve, quoted in Bentley Glass, Owsei Tempkin, and William L. Straus, eds., Forerunners of Darwin (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), p. 277.
4 Charles C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1951), p. 98.
5 Haber, op. cit., p. 211.
6 Gordon L. Davies, The Earth in Decay (London: Macdonald and Co., 1968), p. 163.
7 Haber, op. cit., p. 216.
8 Gillispie, op. cit., pp. 142, 143.
9 Carl von Zittel, History of Geology and Paleontology (London: J. Cramer of Wernheim [1962 reprint], 1901), p. 195.
10 R. Hooykaas, The Principle of Uniformity in Geology, Biology, and Theology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963), p. 105ff.
11 Loren C. Eiseley, Darwin's Century (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1961, 2d edition), p. 99.
12 Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfleld, The Discovery of Time (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1965), p. 226.
13 Glass, op. cit., p. 374.
14 Ernest R. Trattner, Architects of Ideas (New York: Carrick and Evans, 1938), p. 23