Excellent comment from Ted. Too my shame I have hardly read any Silliman but
I have a copy of Hitchcock "Religion of Geology" which Ted has got on line.
Hitchcock's book was published in 1851 and has a freshness which jumps the
160 years and feels up to date. It is one of those books which I can read
both historically and spiritually and though I do not dot his "i"s or cross
his "t"s it is very helpful in helping one/me to see the relationship of
geology and christianity. Most of his approach stands the test of time -
unless you are a nit-picker.
Another useful book is John Pye Smith "The relation of the Holy Scriptues
and some parts of geological science" 1839 and later editions. I dont agree
with his interpretation of Genesis but I can see why he held it. There is
much excellent stuff in it and his grasp of geology is absolutely excellent
and I have used it as a source book for geology in 1840 because in other
places I have found it so good. He is good on miracles and death before the
fall.
Lastly I also recommend people use Ramm's book. It was written in 1955 and
is remarkably good and has weathered well. It is usually worth referring to
and I do several times a year.
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 1:53 PM
Subject: Mortenson, etc
> IMO, Mortenson's webpage is likely to convince his primary audience--home
> schoolers, members of fundamentalist churches, and many Christian school
> teachers and administrators--that anything other than a YEC position is
> simply unacceptable biblically, *and* wrong scientifically as well. The
> scriptural geologists were largely irrelevant after about 1830, but their
> ideas didn't really disappear entirely. As many have noted, the emerging
> professional geologists of that period, many of whom were Christian
> believers with a high view of biblical authority, simply could not accept
a
> young earth position, and came increasingly after 1830 also to reject the
> view that Noah's flood had significantly altered the surface of the earth.
>
>
> Some of the arguments used by two leading American evangelicals, Benjamin
> Silliman of Yale (the greatest science teacher of the century) and Edward
> Hitchcock of Amherst (the leading American geologist prior to the Civil
> War), are found in writings I have made available at the following URL:
> http://www.messiah.edu/HPAGES/FACSTAFF/TDAVIS/texts.htm
>
> The main reason I began to develop this URL a couple of years ago (the
> progress is slow, I could use help) is, that I hope to make available many
> similar texts, as a way of witnessing to the church today about the kind
of
> conversation, involving very deep and careful thinking about the biblical
> and scientific issues, that has taken place in the past. In other words,
to
> help recover the "noble tradition" of science and faith of the 19th
century,
> whose passing was lamented nearly 50 years ago by the late Bernard Ramm.
> Like Mortenson, I believe that history is too important to be left to the
> historians; unlike Mortenson, I hold (with Calvin, Augustine, Silliman,
and
> Hitchcock) that the Bible is not a scientific text: as Calvin said
> concerning Genesis, let him who would learn astronomy and other recondite
> arts, go elsewhere. Also unlike Mortenson--or at least like many of those
> with similar ideas--I am not in the business of demonizing those whose
views
> on this are different from mine.
>
> Ted Davis
>
>
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Feb 07 2002 - 13:07:35 EST