From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed Jan 29 2003 - 16:56:04 EST
Michael wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of Michael Roberts
>Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 10:29
>In 1857virtually all scots presbytarians and nearly all anglicans accepted
vast ages of geology. At that time there was a lower proportion of
>YEC than there are today. (Remember old fashioned evangelicals and
fundamentalists believe in an old earth. None of this new-fangled YEC for
them) !857 was
>also the year when Hugh Miller ppublished Teh testimony of the Rocks - a
classic on geology and genesis.
Two comments on Miller's book. I am delighted that you do acknowledge here
(at least implicitly) that there were YECs. Miller spends an entire chapter
on YEC arguments and he wouldn't have done that if they were totally
insignificant. Secondly, I have both the American version and the British
1857 version of this work. In the American version, there is an extended
preface by the editors which may shed some light upon the expectations with
which Miller's book was greeted. Below is from p. 165 of Foundation, Fall
and Flood, 1998. It is my view of what was bugging Miller. Before the
historians slap me (as they do everytime I touch on history) I will simply
say this is my view, and there is some reading between the lines.:
*****begin********
In the autumn of 1855, an American publisher received an offer
for the publication of a new book by Hugh Miller. Miller was a famous
British geologist who was also a devout Christian. He had written a very
popular book on the Old Red Sandstone. Miller believed the Bible. He was
also concerned with the distortions concerning geology, which were being
made by his fellow Christians. This new book would address the tension
between geology and the Bible. The publishers were very interested and
closed the deal at once.
Over the next year, advance pages were written and dispatched to
the American publisher. As the editor perused the papers they were
convinced that this book was a monumental work. They wrote, "It became more
and more evident that the work was destined not only to extend his fame, but
to establish for him new and special claims to the admiration and gratitude
of mankind." The editor felt that Miller had been successful in dealing with
the science/religion issue.
As Miller struggled with the issues and finished his work, he
became more and more depressed. No one knows what was actually going
through his mind during the final stages of manuscript preparation but the
issues of how to explain the Divine record were clearly on his mind. As a
geologist, Miller knew that he had not solved the issue of the flood. All
he had done was explain why the Flood could not be global. He had not
offered a detailed and successful scenario for the Flood. He had suggested
that the Caspian basin was the locale for Noah's flood. His scenario did not
allow one to point to a group of rocks and say, "There, those are the rocks
deposited by the Flood." All he did was note that the Caspian used to be
bigger than it is now, but that does not prove that the Caspian was
catastrophically filled. It simply proves that the water is evaporating more
rapidly today than the rivers can replenish it. He admitted that he was on
weak ground and called his view a 'conjecture'.1 He also admitted that the
Flood might have been miraculous rather than natural.2 This was almost
equivalent to admitting that he had not solved the problem.
Miller's despair grew. On the night of December 23, 1856, after
finishing the proof reading of his manuscript, Miller called his doctor to
dinner. There he told the doctor that he had been up at night for several
weeks working on the book. The doctor told him that he had been
overworking, that he should stop work and take a rest. Miller agreed that
that would be good.
After their dinner, Hugh Miller took his bath, and retired to
his bedroom. An hour or so later, the maid entered the room and found a look
of horror on his face. She fled the room rapidly. Later that night, Hugh
Miller, the famous author, wrote a note to his wife, pulled out his pistol
and shot himself to death.
Christians who do not study geology are unaware of the
difficulties this subject presents to the believer, but Hugh Miller knew!
While not coming to the depths of despair Miller faced, I have found it very
difficult to deal with the misunderstandings of geology I hear from the
pulpit. Miller knew, as I know, that what my fellow Christians are teaching
about science is not correct. It challenges one's faith when he realizes
that most of one's fellow believers are quite willing to make definitive
statements about geology and other areas of science when they have never
studied the subjects. It is painful to know that Christian apologists
regularly ignore observational data.
Miller blew his brains out.
*******end***********
Having now gone through 3 winters in Scotland where Miller committed
suicide, I can attest that the constant darkness (very short days) can get
one down. That had to have an impact on his point of view. Dec. 23rd is
about as dark as it gets--a mere 6 hours of low to the horizon sun. But the
thing that struck me was that people were expecting him to have solved the
flood problem, and it was obvious that he knew he hadn't.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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