From: Ted Davis (TDavis@messiah.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 08 2003 - 12:32:26 EDT
I really have little to offer on this age of the earth conversation, it's so
settled in my mind that it would be almost impossible for me to consider a
"young" earth position--probably as difficult as it would be for me to
consider a geocentric position. However, I think it interesting and
instructive to quote from Bernard Ramm's The Christian View of Science and
Scripture (1954, citing my copy of the 1962 printing).
The context is Ramm's discussion of geology, the immediate context his
discussion of George McCready Price's "flood geology" view--which had been
endorsed more or less by several evangelical scientists and biblical
scholars in the mid-twentieth century. Price had been willing to accept at
least the possibility of an old universe and solar system, but not old forms
of life. The view he supported is now essentially that of "scientific
creationism," namely that living things were created separately on six
literal days just a few thousand years ago; and that the biblical flood had
been responsible for producing all or nearly all fossiliferous rock.
I think what Ramm said then, is still applicable (pp. 181-2):
"What geologists have spread out over three billion years all took place
during a flood of little more than a year's duration. Somebody is very
sadly mistaken if the range of possibilities is from one year to three
billion years. [paragraph] The so-called strength of Price's work is his
effort to poke holes into the uniformitarian geology of Lyell as it is
taught in standard books on geology. We must be careful of a logical
fallacy at this point. To show the logical fallacies of another theory does
not automatically prove ours to be right. ... Suppose that 80 per cent of
the geologic record makes clear sense when interpreted from the Lyellian
point of view, and that 20 per cent remains a problem for uniformitarian
geology. We have our choice of taking the 80 per cent as established and
going to work on the 20 per cent; or, of taking the 20 per cent as
normative, and trying to dissolve the 80 per cent. Price adopts the latter
procedure. The author does not know what the actual percentages are, but he
is sure that he is generous to Price in the choice of the above percentages.
If by analogy Price's principle were followed *in other sciences* it is
obvious that chaos would resut. ... Price is popular for one reason
alone--that he has stridden forth like David to meet the Goliath of modern
uniformitarian geology and that even though the giant has not fallen Price
has been slinging his smooth stones for more than forty years."
ted
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