Ellen G. White and Subterranean Fires—Part 1

FIVE YEARS before the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, John Wesley preached a sermon entitled "The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes." Excerpts from his sermon give this vivid description of the June 7, 1692, earthquake that destroyed 90 percent of Port Royal, Jamaica: "The earth, opening, swallowed up people. . . . The sand in the street rose like waves of the sea.... The earthquake was attended with a hollow rumbling sound, like that of thunder. .. . The ground heaved and swelled like a rolling sea. ... In many places the earth would crack, and open and shut quick and fast ... in some whereof the people were swallowed up." ¹

Writing a century and a half after Wesley's sermon, Ellen White, whose early training was in Methodism, presents a detailed description of the origin of both earthquakes and volcanoes that echoes John Wesley's words. She writes: "Volcanic eruptions follow; and these often failing to give sufficient vent to the heated elements, the earth itself is convulsed, the ground heaves and swells like the waves of the sea, great fissures appear, and sometimes cities, villages, and burning mountains are swallowed up." ² And in the same context she writes, "There are heavy explosions underground, which sound like muffled thunder."

Wesley had developed a keen interest in natural phenomena, and his years of thinking and reading on the subject were incorporated into a two-volume work dated 1784, Wisdom of God in the Creation, or a Compendium of Natural Philosophy. The first chapter of volume 2, dealing with the topic of fire, contains a list of four causes for earthquakes: 1. The sinking of a large earth mass into a subterranean cavity; 2. subterranean waters eroding away the roots of mountains, causing a portion to collapse; 3. air that is trapped in the "bowels of the earth," contracting and expanding with "incredible force"; 4. the burning of in flammable substances, such as sulfur, bursting up to the surface and being "the cause of violent earthquakes." ³

Wesley attributes the source for these fires to the burning of not only sulfur but also bitumen (an asphalt-like or thick oil-like substance).⁴

Like Wesley, Ellen White links volcanic and earthquake activity with the burning of bituminous products in the presence of water. "The coal and oil frequently ignite and burn beneath the surface of the earth. Thus rocks are heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted. The action of the water upon the lime adds fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, volcanoes and fiery issues." ⁵ Could it be that she has borrowed her model for subterranean fires from John Wesley?

Wesley's sermon on the cause of earthquakes where the description quoted in the first paragraph is found is part of volume 7 of his Works, which she may have read in light of the fact that she once quoted extensively from volume 3 of his Works.⁶ Other parallels suggest familiarity. She states that "sometimes cities, villages and burning mountains are swallowed up." The phrase, "burning mountains," is used in the above quote from Wesley and else where.⁷ The description of cities and mountains being swallowed up is found twice in Wesley: "By this means many earthquakes have been occasioned, and whole cities swallowed up." "These fires cause trembling and concussions, or violent eruptions: and perhaps open wide, and deep gulfs wherein whole cities, yea, mountains are swallowed up." ⁸

Parallels can be carried two steps further. Wesley used the expression, "bowels of the earth," on more than one occasion.⁹ Ellen White utilizes the identical expression on several occasions where dealing with subterranean fires.¹⁰ Wesley also described the sound accompanying earthquakes as "a hollow rumbling sound, like that of thunder. Ellen White, in describing the same phenomenon, says, "There are heavy explosions underground, which sound like muffled thunder." ¹¹

Ellen White's Statements Summarized

Before prematurely drawing conclusions, the salient points on the Ellen White statements regarding subterranean fires should be summarized, as taken from her earliest description of this interesting phenomena in Spiritual Gifts:¹²

1. The formation of coal beds is linked to the Noachian Flood. "At the time of the Flood these forests were torn up or broken down and buried in the earth... . They have since petrified and become coal, which accounts for the large coal beds which are now found."

2. A byproduct of coal formation is oil. "This coal has produced oil."

3. Subterranean fires are fueled by the burning of both coal and oil under ground. "God causes large quantities of coal and oil to ignite and burn."

4. Ground water is added, producing explosions, and thus earthquakes. "The action of fire and water upon the ledges of rocks and ore, causes loud explosions which sound like muffled thunder."

5. Earthquake and volcanic activity are linked together as products of subterranean fires. "The action of water upon limestone adds fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, vol canoes, and fiery issues."

6. Both limestone and iron ore are connected with the burning coal beds and oil deposits. "Rocks are intensely heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted."

7. The circulation of air is also involved. "The air is heated and suffocating."

8. Deposits of coal and oil are to be found removed from these subterranean fires. "Coal and oil are generally to be found where there are no burning mountains or fiery issues."

The question is whether any of these eight key concepts have been derived from contemporaries or predecessors. A historical search reveals that the idea of subterranean fires has been promoted ever since the days of Aristotle and Lucretius. However, perhaps the first scientist to link these fires with coal was Nicolaus Steno in the seventeenth century, who surmised that both coal and bitumen were the byproducts left by a subterranean fire. ¹³

One of the most popular writers on geological phenomena in the seventeenth century was Thomas Burnet, who authored Sacred Theory of the Earth, dated to the year 1691 and fol lowed by several editions. His theory simply is that the interior of the earth is hollow and is supported by underground pillars around which underground rivers and lakes abound. The Flood resulted from the collapse of the vaulted domes into the watery abyss below. He observed that the Black Sea and the Mediterranean had no currents at their outlets, and he was puzzled by the fact that they did not overflow their bounds because the influx of water through rivers far exceeded any possible loss at the observable outlets. His conclusion was this: "'Tis certain they must have some secret conveyances into the bowels of the earth." ¹⁴ This unusual idea that underground rivers form a complete cycle conveying water from the ocean to the terrestrial sources of waters is also found in John Wesley's writings. ¹⁵

Burnet says that earthquakes produce "an heavy dead sound, like a dull thunder." ¹⁶ Ellen White, almost exactly three hundred years later, says, "There are heavy explosions underground, which sound like muffled thunder." Does this necessitate a borrowing process? Why then do we find no shred of the hollow-earth concept in Ellen White?

Burnet connects these subterranean fires with the fires of the last days as does Ellen White, but with a different mechanism. According to Burnet, severe droughts in the last days will remove all water from subaerial rivers and lakes, as well as from subterranean rivers and lakes, thus allowing all vegetation and all the underground stores of bitumen, sulfur, coal, pitch and oil to ignite. This is the last great conflagration. ¹⁷ After mentioning the "sulphurous ground" igniting, he describes vividly the descent of fire from the skies: "Lastly the lightnings of the air, and the flaming stream of the melting skies, will mingle and join with these burnings of the earth." ¹⁸ On one occasion Ellen White suggests that "the weapons of God are concealed in the bowels of the earth, which He will draw forth to unite with the fire from heaven . . . ," and on at least three other occasions she specifically mentions lightning uniting with these last-day fires, as in the following case: "In the final conflagration God will in His wrath send lightning from heaven that will unite with the fire in the earth." ¹⁹ This role of lightning is apparently not referred to by John Wesley, so that Ellen White did not obtain it from Burnet via Wesley. How can one say that, because there are similarities in wording be tween Burnet and Mrs. White, the latter is the literary heir of the former, when there are striking differences between the two? In Ellen White there is no suggestion of a hollow earth, no hint of the idea that the water cycle is totally terrestrial and does not involve evaporation; and in Burnet there is no linking of deposits of coal and oil with the Flood.

The speculations on subterranean fires spilled over into the early nineteenth century, and the most influential geologist at the turn of the century, Abraham Werner, held to such views. Visiting Bohemia in 1777, he found subterranean fires in coal beds there, and noting that the surrounding hills contained basalt, he labeled them "pseudo-volcanic hills." ²⁰ A few years later he arrived at "the highly probable conjecture that most, if not all, vol canoes arise from the combustion of underground seams of coal." ²¹ Werner rejected any notion of a hot interior for the earth. Although he did his writing in German, his views were promulgated by the Wernerian Society, which held sway in the first two decades of the nineteenth century in England. But Ellen White was not Wernerian in any sense, because Werner did not attribute the earth's sedimentary strata to the Flood, but to precipitation out of a vast prime val ocean.

By 1850, the concept of subterranean fires was dead. There were no more hollow chambers; no more underground rivers; no combustion of coal, bitumen, or sulfur; no heating of air and vapors to produce earthquakes and volcanoes.

Relics of a Bygone Age?

Are the Spirit of Prophecy passages merely relics of a bygone age? There is an answer, and it comes into focus as we crystallize the following conclusions: (1) Similar phraseology does not necessitate a borrowing process. For example, the expression, "bowels of the earth," is found not only in Burnet and Wesley but also in a host of authors over a period of two centuries.²² There is a difference between borrowing terminology and borrowing concepts. One does not necessitate the other. (2) The differences are more striking than the similarities, and any decision on literary borrowing should be based upon an evaluation of both, otherwise the conclusions will be bankrupt. (3) Ellen White's passages demonstrate a divine guiding force that prevents her from falling into a hundred pitfalls of erroneous concepts. When she states that the coal beds were ignited, it is not in the same vein of thought as the great thinker, Descartes, who suggested that subterranean rock slides produced sparks that ignited the flammable vapors—an idea he may have borrowed from Varenius^.23 When she mentions the presence of air, it is not in the style of Andrew Ure, who in 1829 postulated huge air-filled caverns under Mt. Vesuvius that supposedly exhibited subterranean lightning and thunder.²⁴ After all, did not scientists hear actual thunder below Vesuvius? (4) The inspiration of Ellen White's description of subterranean fires does not stand or fall on the question of whether each element is unique. If it does, then her mention of the latter-day lightning uniting with the fires in the bowels of the earth is open to serious challenge, since this element was first suggested almost exactly two centuries earlier by authors Spencer and Gale.²⁵ It need not be, because we do not question the inspiration of a Bible writer who utilizes traditional sources (for example, Jude's inspiration is not challenged because of his reference to a passage from the book of Enoch²⁶). Therefore, the discovery of words, phrases, clauses, or even parallel para graphs from contemporaries or predecessors within the inspired writings should not come as a surprise to any one. ²⁷ It simply demonstrates eloquently that no one person has a monopoly on truth. (5) Taken as a whole and not piecemeal, Ellen White's magnificent account of subterranean fires is the product of a mind that is infused with the divine and the human. Even if we were to concede that she was familiar with John Wesley's handling of the same subject (which could well be the case), we find that there is actually a wide chasm between the two authors. Theirs are different cosmologies. She clearly parts company with all her predecessors. In Ellen White there is no trace of eroding streams and violent winds; no vaulted cavities that collapse and thus cause the Flood; no hollow caverns echoing with subterranean thunder; no fires fueled by underground stores of sulfur, naphtha, or niter. Viewed as a unit, her concept of subterranean fires is unique, and we search in vain to find it lent to her by a single human source.

The real question is not whether Ellen White has used contemporary sources, but whether her writings can be labeled as inspired. If indeed they are inspired, then we would expect scientific confirmation of her cosmology, especially as it relates to underground fires. Where on Planet Earth do we find burning coal beds producing volcanoes today? Is there a correlation between earthquakes, vol canoes, and the burning of coal and oil? These questions will be handled in Part 2.