(This is long--sorry-and will make everyone mad at me once again)
One of the things I decided to do while I was here in Scotland was to obtain
some of the original editions of creationist books from the 1800s. Many of
them were published here in the UK so I am hoping to be able to find them
among antiquarian book stores. In that quest, one of the authors I wanted
to obtain was Granville Penn. Penn is a name that no one today knows, but he
was influential in Christianity taking the young-earth path as he was one of
the first Christians to publish young-earth material as Geologists were
rejecting both the deluge and the 6,000 year old earth. I had first heard of
Penn in Hugh Miller's _Testimony of the Rocks_ where one of Penn's earlier
books, _Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies_ (London:
1825), was cited. (I hope to find this gem)
I was surprised to find Penn's _Conversations on Geology_ (London: J. W.
Southgate and Son, 1840) on the shelf of a book seller at a book fair we
went to a few weeks ago. (over here you have to pay to get into a book
seller's fair which I find a bit odd).
Anyway, Penn illustrates two things about apologetical efforts. First, it
illustrates young-earth creationism's utter stagnation, in which the same
ideas advocated 160 years ago are the same ones advocated today. Like people
in the mythical Brigadoon, young-earth creationists are stuck in a time warp
from which it is difficult to escape. Secondly, Penn's book illustrates the
arrogance of apologists who think they can defy the data and conclusions of
their age. Often the apologist fancies that he alone has solved the riddle
of the ages and that future generations will applaud him even if the present
one disdains his solution. This arrogance is quite obvious in Penn's writing
because of the literary style he chose. Thirdly, it illustrates the poor
scholarship of the young-earth creationist in that the originators of
various ideas are given no credit by modern writers, who probably are not
even aware of the intellectual debt that is owed.
Penn occupied a pivotal position in the history of young-earth creationism.
Leaders of Geology were rejecting the Mosaic account just as Penn was
penning his books. Sedgwick had given up on the flood in 1831. He wrote:
"Having been myself a believer, and, to the best of my power, a propagator
of what I now regard as a philosophic heresy, and having more than once been
quoted for opinions I do not now maintain, I think it right, as one of my
last acts before I quit this Chair, thus publicly to read my recantation. .
.
"There is, I think, one great negative conclusion now incontestably
established - that the vast masses of diluvial gravel, scattered almost over
the surface of the earth, do not belong to one violent and transitory
period. . .
"We ought, indeed, to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian
theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the
Mosaic Flood. . . . In classing together distant unknown formations under
one name; in giving them a simultaneous origin, and in determining their
date, not by the organic remains we had discovered, but by those we expected
hypothetically hereafter to discover, in them; we have given one more
example of the passion with which the mind fastens upon general conclusions
and of the readiness with which it leaves the consideration of unconnected
truths."" Sedgwick cited by Stephen J. Gould, The Freezing of Noah, The
Flamingo's Smile, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), p. 125.
Buckland, Sedgwick's mentor and the last world-famous geologist who
supported the world-wide Noachian deluge rejected it in 1936.
"The granddaddy of flood theories (and the one now embraced so
anachronistically by creationists) had been kicking around for several
centuries the idea that a single flood had produced all, or nearly all, the
geological strata. This version was no longer credible by Buckland's time,
and he dismissed it in a single paragraph written in 1836 and still quite
sufficient to refute what our moral majoritarians tried to impose upon the
children of Arkansas:
'Some have attempted to ascribe the formation of all the
stratified rocks to the effects of the Mosaic Deluge; an opinion which is
irreconcilable with the enormous thickness and almost infinite subdivisions
of these strata, and with numerous and regular successions which they
contain of the remains of animals and vegetables, differing more and more
widely from existing species, as the strata in which we find them are older
or placed at greater depths." ~ Stephen J. Gould, The Flamingo's Smile, (New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1985), p. 115
Yet, in spite of this, Penn continued, along with many others to propagate
geological and scientific nonsense in support of the Bible. And this
tradition continues to this very day.
To begin with we will examine the issue of arrogance as illustrated in the
writings of Penn and then modern apologists. Granville Penn was extremely
egotistical. He wrote _Conversations on Geology_ in the style of a dialogue
and used Mrs. R. to describe not only Penn's theories, but Penn himself.
Some of the things Penn has Mrs. R. say about him would make anyone blush.
An example:
*********Passage********
“Edward
“I confess, however, that I should not like to give up some of the
geological opinions which I have already imbibed.
Mrs. R.
“That is exactly the feeling which so often prevents the abolition of error
and the establishment of truth.—But lets see how Mr. Penn proceeds as the
‘architect of ruin,’ as Burke might perhaps have called him.
Christina
“If he is fond of ruins, I have no doubt that I shall like him.
"Mrs. R.
He is at least an enthusiast for his system and that seldom fails to rivet
attention. He makes no distinction between Wernerians and Huttonians but
calls all previous geologists Mineral Geologists in contradistinction to
himself, the MOSAIC GEOLOGIST.” Granville Penn, Conversations on Geology,
(London: J. W. Southgate and Son, 1840), p. 246-247
**
"Mrs. R.
Till within a few years, these two have been the prevailing systems
[Huttonian and Wernerian geology--grm]; but another has lately appeared
which seems likely, I think, to supersede them: It is called by Mr.
Granville Penn, who is its great champion, the MOSAIC GEOLOGY, because it is
chiefly derived from the Mosaic History of the Creation and the Deluge."
Granville Penn, Conversations on Geology, (London: J. W. Southgate and Son,
1840), p. 38
and
"Mrs. R.
Not at all, so long as the Mosaic Geology can find such advocates as Mr.
Penn, who is extensively acquainted with the facts and theories of modern
Mineral Geologists, as he calls all those who are not his own disciples. I
am certain you will be pleased with his system; for it is no less ingenious
than probable, and will give you much more sublime views of the creation
than are to be found in the inspired poem of Milton; and that is saying a
great deal." Granville Penn, Conversations on Geology, (London: J. W.
Southgate and Son, 1840), p. 38
***********GRM comments********************
What arrogance to write these things about oneself! But then those who
think that everyone else is wrong save themselves must by definition be
arrogant. But modern apologists engage in a form of arrogance for their
movement rather than blowing their own horn as did Penn. Rob Koons, in one
of the most overblown statements about a modern apologist wrote:
"Dembski is the Isaac Newton of information theory, and since this is the
Age of Information, that makes Dembski one of the most important thinkers of
our time. His 'law of conservation of information' represents a
revolutionary breakthrough. In Intelligent Design Dembski explains the
meaning and significane of his discoveries with such clarity that the
general public can readily grasp them. he convincingly diagnoses our present
confusions about the relationship between science and theology and offers a
promising alternative."
ROB KOONS, associate professor of philosophy, University of Texas"
http://www.gospelcom.net/ivpress/title/rev/1581.html
see also www.apologetics.org/news/ink1.html
Not bad press for a man who, by the admission of Stephen Meyer, got the
definitiion of complexity backwards in his PSCF article. But even Phillip
Johnson has grandiose views of the importance of his movement. He wrote:
"Dembski is one of the most important of the "design" theorists who are
sparking a scientific revolution by legitimating the concept of intelligent
design in science. At some point not far in the future, scientists will be
saying "of course biological organisms are intelligently designed," and "of
course neo-Darwinism was never more than a pseudoscientific philosophical
ideology like Freudianism and Marxism." When that happens, William Dembski
will deserve a lot of the credit.
Phillip E. Johnson,
professor of law, University of California at Berkeley,
author of Darwin on Trial"
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/dembski/docs/bd-dibook.html
Scientific revolutions are very rare and it is highly, highly dubious that
an actual revolution is being generated by Dembski. Don Boys illustrates
this arrogance by noting how his opponents cling to their wrong ideas:
"Evolutionists would rather cling to a fairy tale than rest on a fact. The
gaps are filled with guesses. There is nothing I repeat nothing to link man
to the apes. And it's also true of other creatures." ~ Don Boys, Evolution:
Fact,Fraud or Faith, (Largo: Freedom Publications, 1994), p. 131-132
All of these statements show an arrogance that is different only in form
from that of Penn.
And Penn is the earliest writer I know of who uses the presuppositional
approach to rejecting modern science. This is the approach in which one
denies critical assumptions in order to reject what modern science says.
Penn writes:
********Penn's Passage**********
“Edward
“But might not God create the world in a state of chaos, and after imposing
upon it the laws of chemical affinity, leave these to operate in the same
way they now do?
Mrs. R.
“The conjecture is plausible enough, but such fancies are not good
philosophy. Newton himself sometimes indulged perhaps too much in similar
suppositions, as when he talked of some kind of ether as the cause of
gravity, and when he said, ‘if the earth were formed of a uniformly yielding
substance, and if it were to become deprived of its motion, it would settle
into a perfect sphere.’ The Mineral Geologists, without thinking of Newton’s
‘if,’ state this as the fact.”Granville Penn, Conversations on Geology,
(London: J. W. Southgate and Son, 1840), p.248-249
***********GRM Comments**************
GRM:Notice the denial of the assumption to avoid the conclusion. Modern
young-earth creationists use this technique with radioactive dating. Gish
writes:
"Not only is there no way to verify the validity of these assumptions, but
inherent in these assumptions are factors that assure that the ages so
derived, whether accurate or not, will always range in the millions to
billions of years (excluding the carbon?14 method, which is useful for
dating samples only a few thousand years old.)." ~ Duane Gish, Evolution:
The Challenge of the Fossil Record, (El Cajon: Creation?Life Publishers,
1985), p. 51
GRM: Also note the similarity in the way an evolutionary universe is
rejected between Mrs. R.'s response above and what moderns do in saying it
isn't good philosophy. Johnson wrote:
"To the extent that evolutionary scientists claim that unintelligent
material forces were sufficient to produce plants and animals, I think their
belief is based more upon naturalistic philosophy than upon empirical
evidence."
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/aaup.htm
*********Penn's passage continues:
"Edward
“Their error appears to be in not carrying their analysis beyond
particulars, while Newton proceeds step by step, till he arrives at the
grand cause, an INTELLIGENT CREATOR.”
Mrs. R.
“This is indeed the origin of their error; and Mr. Penn, therefore, ranks
them among the philosophers who, as Lord Bacon says, impede knowledge, ‘by
slipping off particular sciences from the root and stock of universal
knowledge.’ De Luc, whom I have so often mentioned, was aware that the
Mineral Geology did not agree with the Grand Newtonian principle of
referring to the Creator, and he makes the singular apology that the term
creation is physically unintelligible. To me, however, it is quite as
intelligible as the term chaos.
Granville Penn, Conversations on Geology, (London: J. W. Southgate and Son,
1840), p.249
***********GRM comments**************
It is interesting that even modern apologists make this tiresome claim that
their opponents are suppressing information or impeding knowledge. Phillip
Johnson writes:
"If laboratory science cannot establish a mechanism, and if fossil studies
cannot find the common ancestors and transitional links then Darwinism fails
as an empirical theory. But Darwinists suppress consideration of that
possibility by invoking a distinction between the 'fact' of evolution and
Darwin's particular theory." ~ Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, (Downers
Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993), p. 66
And Steidl writes:
Speaking of the Scientists belief in old Universe
"In fact, they will never give it up, even if it means compromising their
reason or even their professional integrity, for to admit creation is to
admit the existence of the God of the Bible. This is exactly what the world
system will not do." ~ Paul Steidl, The Earth, The Stars, and the Bible,
(Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1979),
p. 94
Nothing changes in 160 years.
Penn is the earliest writer I know of to use the appearance of age
argument. A guy named Saussure might have used it earlier but I don't have
his work. He writes in an extended passage concerning the appearance of age:
[this quote is immediately following the one above--grm-]
************Penn's passage*********************
“Edward
“If I rightly understand your sketch of Mr. Penn’s views, he thinks that the
whole globe was created in the same way as plants and animals.
Mrs. R.
“Precisely so: for if, with Newton, we refer similar appearances to similar
causes, we must conclude that the three great classes of animals, vegetables
and minerals, have a community of system, the earth being fitted to support
the two firstm and they again being necessarily dependent on the earth. They
are, therefore, constituent parts of one whole, and the first formations of
each must accordingly be referred to the same cause and to the same mode.”
Edward
“That is, I suppose, if we can prove one of these to have been created
immediately by God, it will follow that the others, also, have been formed
in the same way.
Mrs. R.
“Such is Mr. Penn’s argument, and it appears to be incontrovertible. He goes
on to support it by proving the individual creation of animals and plants.
Edward
“He might have taken it for granted, I think; as it is not, so far as I
know, denied by any body.
Mrs. R.
“You will, however, see his application more strikingly, from his ingenious
mode of proof. If we trace back, then, the generations of men, we shall
ultimately arrive at a first man, or parent of all; and, though it will not
alter the force of the argument whether this first man was created in a
state of infancy, boyhood, or manhood, it is most probably that he was
formed mature, with a bodily structure similar to our own, having his soft
flesh supported and strengthened by means of bones. The first inquiry,
therefore, will be, what is the use and the formation of bone?
Edward
“I confess, I cannot perceive how this is to bear upon Geology.
Mrs. R.
“You shall soon see that; but you must allow me to develop the argument. The
use of the bones we are told by anatomists, is to give shape and firmness to
the body, to serve as levers for the muscles, and, in the case of the ribs,
to protect the heart and the lungs, while the bones of the skull protect the
brain. But, when first formed, bones are very soft and pulpy, as is seen by
examining the chick in an egg during the progress of hatching; and it is
only by degrees that the bones become perfectly hard.”
Edward
“I have often remarked this at table, in lamb and veal, in which the bones
were soft and gristly.
Mrs. R.
“This gradual hardening is the process of the formation of bone at present,
but we must not thence conclude that the bones of the first man were at
first soft, and then gradually became hard; for he was at once created
perfect. Yet, were a bone of the first man now remaining and given to an
anatomist, he could not probably tell, from its appearance, that it had not
been formed like other bones, just as the Mineral Geologist infers from the
rocks which now exist, that they have been precipitated and crystallized
from the waters of chaos, or ejected from the bowels of the earth, melted by
fire.”
Edward
“Ah! I now perceive the ingenuity of the argument: the conclusion of the
anatomist, that the bone of the first man had at first been soft, and had
become gradually firm and hard, would be wrong because it was at first
created hard; and and the conclusion of the Mineral Geologist is,
therefore, equally erroneous, who says, that the rocks which are now hard
and solid, were formerly dissolved in the ocean, or melted by heat.”
Mrs. R.
“This is the reasoning which goes to prove that in such cases we cannot
make just inferences from what we actually see, without taking other
circumstances into account. Mr. Penn applies the same mode of reasoning to
the first tree as he has applied to the first man; and, as every tree
consists of a root, trunk, and branches, composed of wood, his first inquiry
is, what is wood?
Edward
“The answer to this must obviously be, that wood is a solid substance,
which gives strength and support to trees, as bones do to the bodies of
animals.
Mrs. R.
“Yes: but you have omitted the most important circumstance; for wood is at
first soft and herbaceous, as you may have remarked in the young shoots of a
rose-tree, and only become slowly and gradually hard and solid by a
progressive course; but, in the the wood of the first tree, the wood could
not have gone through this gradual process of hardening, for it must have
been formed so at once and suddenly. Now, if a portion of this first tree
remained at present, and if a chip of its wood were to be mingled with chips
of other trees, that have been propagated from seed or suckers, the
naturalist would not be able to perceive by inspection that it had not
proceeded gradually and slowly from a soft to a hard state, in the same way
as the Mineral Geologist can see nothing in rocks but crystals, which have
arisen from solutions, or fusions of mineral matter by water or by fire.”
Edward
“And, of course, on the same principles as before, the inference of the
naturalist would, like that of the anatomist, be false; inasmuch as the real
mode of the first formation of trees, like that of bones was in direct
contradiction to the present indication of their appearance.”
Mrs. R.
“Let us now consider the first created rock, as we have considered the
first created bone and the first created wood. Rocks are, by the Mineral
Geologists, looked upon as the first and most solid bones of this globe,
forming, in some measure, the skeleton, and, as it were, the rough framework
of the earth. They are also said to be stamped with the character of a
formation altogether crystalline, as if they were really the product of a
tranquil precipitation; though the sensible appearances of rocks which
suggest crystallization to the Wernerian and petrifaction to the Huttonian,
are exactly of the same authority with those which suggest the preceding
erroneous conclusions respecting bones and wood, and, it may be added, the
erroneous conclusions of the peasant who, from sensible appearances, infers
that the sun actually sets at night in the ocean, and again in the morning
rises over the hills.
Edward
“But, if Mr. Penn’s reasoning be just, I cannot perceive how we are to
explain the regularity of the beds in which we now find rocks disposed.
Mrs. R.
“Just in the same way as you explain the regularity of the plates in the
shell of the first tortoise, or the regular successive compartments in the
pulp of the first orange.
Edward
“But the diversified colours and structures of granite, sandstone, and
basalt, will scarcely be accounted for on a similar principle.
Mrs. R.
“Why? These are not more different from each other than the wool of the
first sheep, the hair of the first dog, and the fur of the first squirrel;
and, when the Mineral Geologist can tell Mr. Penn why and how the skin of
the first lion was plain, the skin of the first tiger striped, and the skin
of the first leopard spotted, then will he tell him how and why marble
differs from sandstone, and chalk from flint; and how and why chalk is
white, basalt black, and rock-crystal transparent.
Edward
“That, however, is not an answer, but a confession of inability to answer.
Mrs. R.
“The author concludes from the argument, that rocks were not formed by
diposition nor melting, but at once by the fiat of the great-Creator, in the
same way as animals and plants were formed; and, from the record of Moses,
he infers that, at their first formation, the rocks were wholly covered with
water, though not the fanciful chaotic ocean, but the salt waters of the
sea. It is here that the record, he thinks, triumphs over the pure
supposition of the theorist, who, though he confesses his ignorance,
continues to flounder on through the muddy waters of conjecture.”Granville
Penn, Conversations on Geology, (London: J. W. Southgate and Son, 1840), p.
249-256
**********GRM comments*********
Note how similar this modern example is to the argument that Penn
presented. This one is presented by John Mark Reynolds, one of the
peripheral ID proponents. He writes:
"If God, for example, created with the appearance of age or history, then
how could a human being ever discover this fact? The age of the cosmos has
great theological and metaphysical implications and yet that is the very
sort of question that science can never answer with certainty."~ John Mark
Reynolds, "The Bible and Science: Toward a Rational Harmonization," in
Robert T. Walsh, editor, The Third International Conference on Creationism,
(Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1994), p. 453
Or John Morris:
"God knew that this superficial appearance of history could be
misunderstood by those not having access to the originally created state, or
not having the patience to study it, and so He told us in His Word when this
was accomplished. Today, some scientists, attempting to discern the age of
things, deny the possibility of Creation, and having denied truth, come to a
wrong conclusion. If one denies this possibility of a functionally mature
Creation, he or she will perhaps mistake that functional maturity for age."
~ John Morris, The Young Earth, (Colorado Springs: Master Books, 1994), p.
42
Or this from Henry Morris who says:
"There is no intrinsic reason why these dramatic increases in brightness
have to be interpreted as taking place in the stars rather than in the
streams of photons leading from the stars." ~ Henry M. Morris, Biblical
Basis for Modern Science, (Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse, 1984), p. 176
In other words, science can't tell the difference between age and the
apearance of age even if we examine the phenomenon. This is exactly what
Penn was saying. In 160 years, this argument hasn't changed at all and
indeed is nothing more than an escape mechanism to avoid the impact of
observational data.
Penn also is the earliest person after Geology's rejection of the deluge of
whom I know who argued that all the geological strata are due to the
Deluge. He wrote (note also the arrogance of Penn complimenting himself):
*********Penn passage***********
“Edward
“To me the arguments appear very ingenious, and so far just; but, if I may
be permitted to say so, they do not prove enough; for, though they account
for the regularity of rocks and diversity of colour and structure, they do
not explain the convulsions which we have been considering, that have, in so
many places, left the rocks shattered and in ruins.”
Mrs. R.
“Mr. Penn, who is a pupil of the celebrated Saussure, is too good a
Geologist, and has been too long among the Alps and Pyrennees, to omit this
important point; but he explains it from the Mosaic record, and not from a
fancied succession of deluges, as the Wernerians do.”
Edward
“I do not recollect any passage in Genesis which mentions the convulsions
or breaking-up of rocks.
Mrs. R.
“Nor is there any, perhaps, which directly mentions it. But Mr. Penn says,
that though the earth was created on the first day, it was ‘invisible and
unfurnished,’ not ‘without forms and void,’ as our translation has it; and
the sea continued to cover the rocks till the third day, when God said, ‘Let
the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the
dry land appear,’ and it was so. From this he very plausibly infers, that
to provide a basin for the waters, in order to collect them into one place,
a violent disruption and deepening of the solid crust of the earth must have
taken place, and its solid framework burst, fractured, and subverted in all
those parts where depression was required to produce the deep bed of the
ocean. As this first revolution of the earth happened before the creation of
plants and animals, it explains the circumstance of none of their remains
being now found in the rocks called primitive.”
Edward
“This is, indeed, very ingenious and plausible; but I am disappointed in
not having a more distinct account of it in the record.
Mrs. R.
“Even this Mr. Penn has discovered, in a beautiful passage in the hundred
and fourth Psalm, which, for anything known to the contrary, may have been
written by Moses. Christian will favour us by reading what I have marked.”
Christina
“’Who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be moved. Thou
coverest it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the
mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; as the voice of thy thunder they hasted
away. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys into the
PLACE which thous hast formed for them. Thou didst set a bound that they may
not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.”
Mrs. R.
“Now it appears from this sublime history—from the ‘rebuke’ and the
‘thunder,’ that it was a crisis of stupendous and terrible convulsion, when
the waters of the sea were fixed in their channel, and the dry land and its
mountains elevated above the level of the great deep.”
Edward
“I am completely satisfied with this explanation; but there are many points
of Geology which we formerly considered, which it will not account for the
existence, for instance, of conglomerate rocks evidently formed from others,
and the remarkable facts which you told us of large trees, inclosed in
sandstone quarries, converted into coal.”
Mrs. R.
“All these, and similar appearance, Mr. Penn explains by the second grand
revolution—the Deluge of Noah and the circumstances which preceded it, from
the creation onwards. It is important to recollect, that the period from the
creation to the deluge was more than sixteen hundred and fifty years, and,
during that time, it is obvious that immense beds of shells would be formed
in the sea, and not only so, but very probably would afterwards be covered
with beds of sand, clay, and mud, and cemented together by the glutinous
matter of the animals themselves. Similar circumstances would also tend to
cover, with extensive deposits, the moss-beds of sea-weed, corals, sponges,
and other marine productions then existing. It is, also to be remarked, that
the constant tides and storms of the sea, as we formerly noticed, would tend
to wear down the rock exposed to their warfare, and thence would form
immense beds of sand, gravel, and clay, all of which would, of course, exist
in the bed of the ocean at the time of the deluge.”
Edward
“This appears, however, to be little more than a version of Dr. Hutton’s
system.
Mrs. R.
“The account of the Deluge you will find to be very different from any
system; for Mr. Penn is no less original than simple.”
Edward
“I scarcely conceive how he can say anything new upon that subject, if he
adhere to the history.
Mr. R.
“You shall judge better of that when you hear his account. All the recent
Geologists agree, that the immense beds of sand, clay, and gravel now
covering the earth’s surface have been formed in the bosom of a tranquil
water, and have been exposed by its retreat or removal. Now, Mr. Penn finds
it recorded by Moses, that the former earth was altogether destroyed, and a
new earth raised from the bottom of the former sea. The record states, that,
in consequence of the wickedness of man being great, God resolved to destroy
’ man and beast,’—‘all flesh, together with the earth,’ excepting only Noah
and his family and a select number of animals.”
Edward
“I never remarked the words, ‘together with the earth,’ before, though they
seem to be so important.
Mrs. R.
“All previous Geologists have overlooked them in the same culpable manner;
but St. Peter was well aware of the force of the passage when he says
expressly, ‘the world which then was, perished, being overflowed with water;
and Job also says the earth’s foundations ‘were destroyed by a flood of
water;’ and, in another place, ‘he sendeth forth his waters and they destroy
the earth.’ What is no less conclusive, is the promise given after the
Deluge,--‘Neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth.’
Edward
“He infers, therefore, I suppose, from all this, that a second earth was
produced at the Deluge after the first was destroyed.”
Mrs. R.
“Yes; and that it was upon the mountains of the new earth that the ark
rested. It will also follow that, if the first earth was formed (as we have
seen it was), by the breaking up of the first created rocks, in order to
form a basin for the retreat of the waters, it is highly probable that the
second earth, on which we now live, was formed in the same manner by
elevating the basin of the first sea, or by depressing and breaking up the
crust of the first land. The earth, therefore, which we now inhabit,
constituted the bed of the ocean for sixteen hundred and fifty years, and
was also washed by the waters of the Deluge for nearly one year. These two
circumstances will account well for the immense beds of marine shells found
both in the soil and in rocks, in all parts of the world hitherto
explored, --a circumstance which has induced Geologists, of the most
opposite opinions on other points, to agree unanimously that the present
land was formerly covered by the sea.
Edward
“This, indeed, will solve my problem about the existence of shells in
rocks; but I understood you to say before that the Wernerians refer many
phenomena to the Deluge.
Mrs. R.
“But not at all on Mr. Penn’s view of the event, as I have now stated it;
for it was never imagined that the former antediluvian land was now the bed
of the ocean, and our land its former channel. It was only said that the
water of the Deluge, by washing over our land, had produced the great masses
of shells and gravel which we now find through the space of twelve months
was probably too small for producing such an effect.”
Edward
“There is not, however, I suppose, any passage in the Mosaic record which
mentions the disruption of the rocks.
Mrs. R.
“Yes: it is said expressly, ‘all the fountains of the great deep were
broken up;’ and, when the waters were assuaged, the same ‘fountains’ were
‘stopped.’ In corroboration of this, there is the ample evidence of the
present appearance of rocks precipices, and mountains, which, I need not
tell you, exhibit every where the marks of convulsion and ruin,--vast
ravines bounded by fractured walls—Alpine pyramids of granite, with their
summits rent and ruined—the whole face of a country covered with gravel and
soil and huge blocks of stone, which have been detached from their native
rocks, and worn smooth by water, --all most eloquent witnesses of the great
catastrophe.”
Edward
“From the same conclusion it will follow, I presume, that the Garden of
Eden is now overflowed by the ocean: and, therefore, it would be in vain to
seek for it on our present land.
Mrs. R.
“This is one of Mr. Penn’s inferences, and he fortifies it with some
curious and ingenious criticism, some of which, however, I do not pretend to
understand; but the best part of his system, is the simple and natural
account which he gives of shells, and of the bones of animals, which are now
so abundantly found in rocks and buried in the soil of many parts of the
world, though, as this is both an extensive and interesting subject, it will
be better, I think, to reserve it for your next lesson.” Granville Penn,
Conversations on Geology, (London: J. W. Southgate and Son, 1840), p.
256-263
*******GRM comments********
Penn's view that the oceans and continents changed places, presaged
Rehwinkle's similar(but not identical) view of the flood.
"If all the deeper parts of the ocean were filled up by materials to a mean
depth, and all of the higher elevations on land would be planed down to an
average level, a universal ocean covering the entire earth to a depth of one
and a half miles would result. Surely the objection that there was not
enough water on the earth to produce the Flood, therefore, cannot stand, nor
would anyone seriously contend that the omnipotent God and Creator of the
universe lacked the physical means by which such a deluge could have been
brought upon the earth."Alfred M. Rehwinkle, THE FLOOD, (St. Louis:
Concordia, 1950), p.124.
Penn also holds to the rigid 1656 years between creation and flood as do
modern young-earth creationists. And to include my own views in this
critical assessment, Penn's view that Eden is now on the bottom of the ocean
presages my view that it is on the bottom of the Mediterranean. Having
criticized others for not changing, fairness requires that I must include
myself on this point. And frankly, to have anything in common with Penn is a
blow to the ego!
One can see that little has changed in over 160 years. I would say that this
is evidence of the intellectual stagnation of Christian apologetics.
glenn
see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
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