I think there were in the early 19th century, as Glenn Morton notes (using
appropriate texts from Edward Hitchcock and Hugh Miller) rather more
YECs--what they themselves might have called "biblical" or "scriptural"
geologists--than one might gather from what Michael Roberts says. Michael's
concern seems to be that lots of modern ignorami apparently think there were
essentially no Christians who thought otherwise (than YEC), and he is right
that lots of modern ignorami think this, and they are wrong about it: there
were a truckload of Christian geologists, e.g., who accepted the earth's
great antiquity, though a good number of them prior to the 1850s at least
did not also accept the antiquity of humans. On the other hand, as Glenn
stresses, there were also lots of Christian thinkers--I hesitate to call
them "geologists," since already in that day the real geologists were
pulling away from the "scriptural geologists" and other popular writers--who
found the idea of an old earth enormously disturbing (I don't exaggerate by
wording it that way). This is precisely why Hitchcock, Silliman, and Miller
were so keen to make their case for allegorial interpretations of some sort
(though Hitchcock was pretty darn sure that his favorite view, the
creation/restitution or "gap" view, was really the "literal" interpretation
of Genesis): they knew that the popular view was untenable, and they wanted
gently or otherwise to nudge the church into accepting real science.
By the latter half of the 19th century, to the best of my knowledge, the YE
position had pretty much faded into obscurity among educated Christians,
though the hoi polloi might have held YE views more widely (it's always hard
to know about the hoi polloi at this historical distance). SDA people (as
Ron Numbers notes) held YE views quite strongly and still do. They also
combined this with "flood geology" for the combination that is now YEC. Ron
thinks the combination was rare or unknown outside SDA circles for decades,
I think it was more widely held than Ron thinks, but still not very widely
held among educated Christians.
This issue is (like all historical questions) very much dependent on which
precise historical period one asks about, which countries, and which
Christians. It gets pretty messy, that's one of the things about history
that frustrates many scientists, it can look like one *%&$ fact after
another (to quote someone loosely). On the other hand, some of the sciences
can be pretty messy too, looking like one *&$% fact after another, until you
know enough to recognize the principles in operation.
Ted Davis
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