Re: [asa] Augustine and Young Earth Creationism

"...many held undogmatically to a youngish earth, along with
_/egocentrism/_." (emphasis added) Was that an unintentional anagram
of "geocentricism", Michael? Even if so, I like it!

I also find it ironic that Lord Kelvin, who is included on lists of
important creationist scientists in some YEC publications, was adamant
in his dogmatics against dismayed evolutionists of the 19th century that
the earth could not have the untold eons of age they thought so
necessary. He insisted instead that the earth was clearly a mere ... 20
- 40 million years old! -- due to traditional thermodynamic cooling
rates. Radioactive input wasn't in the picture yet. But Kelvin is
another example of a creationist who doesn't fit the young-earth pattern.

--merv

Michael Roberts wrote:
> One cannot say what the dominant view of the early church was on
> Genesis, some like Athenagoras thought it was a few thousand - 5500BC
> others were undecided on the length of days etc. None placed it at the
> centre but many held undogmatically to a youngish earth, along with
> egocentrism.
>
> It is often claimed that until the geologists came along in c1800 the
> church held to a young earth. That was not the case. In a continuing
> project on the period from 1500 to 1850 or so, I found that most did
> not follow Ussher . Also many allowed a long time for the existence of
> Chaos(tohu va bohu) before creation in 6 days (poss more than 24 hr
> days), so from 1600 most accepted creation was older than 4000BC, by
> 1700 many were open to a little more time, and by 1770 many Christians
> allowed for deep time. What amazes me is that few Christians were
> vocal against geology until T Gisborne the first of the Anti
> geologists publ;ished a book in 1817 and then we have those around
> till most went extinct in c1855. (It resurfaced later in the century
> in the SDA and pre-LCMS Lutherans).
>
> I have argued this and given the evidence in a paper in the
> Evangelical Quarterly in 2002 and in the chapter below which is about
> to be published
>
>
> Genesis Chapter One and Geological Time from Hugo Grotius and Marin
> Mersenne to William Conybeare and Thomas Chalmers (1620 to 1825), /
> March 2007 /*in Myth and Geology *(Special Publication of the
> Geological Society of London)
>
>
>
> To claim that the church was YEC is as absurd as criticising all
> before 1543 for not accepting heliocentricity or Darwin for not
> accepting genes
>
>
>
> Michael
>
>

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Received on Sat Mar 3 16:03:12 2007