What does the Bible say about uniformitarianism vs. catastrophism?

Now that the treatises on geology, which have appeared since the epoch of Lyell's "Principles of Geology," exhibit the subject as treated in a totally different manner and spirit from that in which it had previously been viewed, is true. The grand object now, is to represent the whole process, by which the earth has assumed its present form, as a gradual one, effected by forces similar both in kind and degree to what we are acquainted with in historical times, the denial in short of catastrophe. That change is very gradual, and that catastrophe on a very large scale is absent during the historical period, i.e. whilst the earth is the platform on which man's history is being worked out, no one denies. Farther than this the modern theory is false; its object in representing change as always gradual and occupying immense periods is to shut out God, and to deny creation by substituting a sort of perpetual motion. But the various phenomena presented by geology and physical geography are wholly opposed to the notion of a merely gradual process. Time after time sudden and violent destruction has come upon both plants and animals. The mountain system of the globe exhibits the action of force on a prodigious scale, infinitely surpassing anything which has happened since the earth became the abode of man. The former theory such as that granite forms the sub-stratum of all the rocks is denied — a denial which is sought to be justified by the fact that granite is found intruding and overlying as regards the super-incumbent rocks. But such action is simply local and partial, and is no disproof whatever of what Humboldt says in his Cosmos 1. 305, "What we call the older Silurian strata are only the upper portions of the solid crust of the earth. The eruptive rocks which we see breaking through, pushing aside, and heaving up these, arise from depths that are inaccessible to us … I also hold it as more than probable that a primordial granite-rock is the foundation of the great systems of stratification which are filled with such variety of organic remains." In the main this is true, though since Humboldt's time fossil indications of life have been found somewhat lower down than was then known. But geological (including palaeontological) and biological theories are now made to accommodate each other. Valuable testimony on this subject is contained in D'Orbigny's Cours de Palaeontologie, Vol. 2. pp. 251-258, for a quotation from which, with some sensible and important remarks, my readers should consult "Lectures on the Pentateuch," by Mr. Kelly, Introduction, p. xxix. (to be had of W. Walters, 53, Paternoster Row). The whole of that Introduction should be read, dealing as it does in a godly and able manner, with several of the errors of the present day. In fact, works of science (more especially those dealing with geology and biology) are palpably constructed on the atheistic principle of shutting out God. Past, present, and future, continuity is the grand object. There is law, but as little of God as possible; and unhappily this is the idea, not only accepted and adopted by our author, but actually sought by him to be carried into theology, and into the spiritual world. Religious doctrines, the facts and truths "revealed" not by "the other sciences," but in Holy Scripture, are too "catastrophic" for him, and must undergo the process of "science-making" such as is exhibited in this book. Whilst infidels with more consistency deny creation and Christianity, he, whilst owning these in a certain sense, does his utmost to alter their divine character. It would be bad enough if evolution were confined to this world; to adopt the notion in reference to the next, to the spiritual world (in however modified a way), is to do despite to the Spirit of grace, and is revolting to every proper Christian thought and feeling. Ruined sinners by nature, saved through sheer grace, and in consequence of the sufferings of Another; our title to heaven, His precious blood: where can there possibly be room for evolution here?

We have seen light (involving heat) caused to act for the Adamic earth, and that atmosphere which sustains an enormous body of waters above those that lie below: both of them results of essential importance for what was coming, and of course adapted by divine power and wisdom to the system in which the human race were to exist. It was needless and foreign for a divine revelation to explain how these and other works of God were effected. The important truth for His people, and for every soul of man, to know, is that He is both the Originator and the Maker of all. No student of geology doubts mechanical any more than chemical agency on the largest scale in forming the crust of the earth. Heat, water, and air have played their part under His hand in change, and waste, and progressive formation. But it is only the petty and pedantic unbelief of some who cry up such gradual secondary causes as are now seen, shutting out the evidence (which geology itself affords to candid minds) of repeated and enormous transformations, and all but entire revolution of organic life, in both extinction and new creation, with the corresponding change of the globe and its temperature which this implies, and each of these not for a brief space but for ages before the earth of man. Facts plainly enough point to these conclusions for those who occupy themselves with the natural antiquities of the earth. Nor can it be doubted that each successive tale inscribed on the fossiliferous rocky tablets of the earth shows on the whole distinct progress, in no way as mere development of the antecedent condition, but the fresh fruit of creative acts, even if some species seem renewed for the subsequent phase, and all with evident relation to the earth as it was to be for Adam, and as it will be when the Second man takes it with the universe itself for His inheritance. Unity of plan marks all from first to last.

But all this bygone succession of physical change is only left room for in the revealed word which dwells on man and Immanuel. Geological detail in scripture would have been as much out of place as any other science; but how can the room left for all, in what is said, be accounted for save as implying the knowledge of all by Him Who revealed His word? An original creation of the heavens and the earth without details, and unlimited even by myriads of years, "in the beginning," perfectly falls in with every ascertained fact; and a violent dislocation of the earth, of the highest importance for the race in its disarrangements, altogether different from and more thorough than any diluvial or merely superficial action, is also made known; followed by that "making" of heaven and earth which is historically described in Gen. 1:3-31 and referred to solemnly in Ex. 20:11.

But, in creating, God created not a confused and disorderly mass; He created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. The heavens, in fact, were never thrown into confusion — the earth was, as we see in Gen. 1:2; but this was after the beginning: how long is not said. Thousands or millions of years may have elapsed. It answered no moral end to reveal what science would investigate or conjecture. Only it is revealed, as befitting the divine character, that He is not a God — not a creator — of confusion. The confusion of the earth was subsequent, the reason or cause being unexplained as the interval or the history. The fact is distinctly revealed; and nobody would have failed to discern it, if philosophers had not misled the divines who are vain of standing well with the men of science. Geologists differ fundamentally to this day: some insisting on catastrophes, followed by renewals; others contending for continuous action of forces gradually operating. If there be a measure of truth in both, scripture leaves room for all, without straining the six days, which are wholly distinct from the immense ages that preceded man.

With this agrees the occurrence of the remarkable phraseology "waste and empty" elsewhere. There are but two other occasions: — Isa. 34:11, "the line of confusion [or waste] and the stones of emptiness;" and Jer. 4:23, "I beheld the earth; and lo! it was waste and emptiness." In both it is a desolation indicted, not the primary condition. So it is in Genesis 1:2. It is the more to be noted, as in Jeremiah it is said of the heavens at this time, that "they had no light." Thus is confirmed, by each of the other occurrences, the conviction that our text describes a state which befell the earth, possibly long after its original creation as in the verse before. It is to this interval that the successive ages of geology apply. Here are undeniable facts, full of interest, and implying creation made existent and extinguished. One's confidence in the hypotheses reared on all this may be otiose or enthusiastic; but the exact meaning of Moses' words in this verse leaves all the room that could be desired for those vast processes which may be gathered from the observed phenomena of the earth's crust. There is nothing in scripture to exclude a succession of creatures rising to higher organization from lower as the rule, with a striking exception here and there, from the Eozoon in the Laurentian rocks of Canada to the Mammalia, which most nearly resemble those of the earth as it is. But all the brilliant ingenuity of Sir C. Lyell, with others of kindred view, fails to explain or evade the proofs of change at this very period, immense as it may have been, incomparably vaster and more rapid than since man appeared. No doubt the deluge had the deepest moral significance, and is thus unique, because the human race, save those in the ark, was then swept away. But physically its traces were superficial compared with those far more ancient convulsions so apparent except to those who worship Time and Uniformitarianism.

"We simply assert" (says the cautious Sir R. I. Murchison), "on the countless evidences of fracture, dislocation, metamorphism, and inversion of the strata, and also on that of vast and clean-swept denudations, that these agencies were from time to time infinitely more energetic than in existing nature — in other words, that the metamorphisms and oscillations of the terrestrial crust, including the uprise of sea-bottoms, and the sweeping out of debris, were paroxysmal in comparison with the movements of our own era. We further maintain that no amount of time (of which no true geologist was ever parsimonious when recording the history of bygone accumulations of sediment, or of the different races of animals they contain) will enable us to account for the signs of many great breaks and convulsions which are visible in every mountain chain, and which the miner encounters in all underground workings. … The case therefore stands thus. The shelly and pebbly terraces which exist are signs of sudden elevations at different periods; whilst the theory of modern gradual elevation and depression is still wanting in any valid proof that such operations have taken place except within very limited areas. Much longer and more persistent observations must indeed be made before any definite conclusion can be reached respecting the rate of gradual elevation or depression which has been going on in the last thousand years, though we may confidently assert that such changes in the relations of land to water in the historical period have been infinitesimally small when compared with the many antecedent geological operations" (Siluria, 490-1, fifth ed., 1872).

On the one hand the facts point to changes in earth and sea, and these repeatedly varied too with fresh water; to rocks igneous and stratified and metamorphosed, and (during the periods thus implied, and with a corresponding environment of temperature and constitution) to organised natures, vegetable and animal, from lower orders to high, short of man and those animals which accompany his appearance on the earth; to whole groups of these organisms in vast abundance coming to an end, and others quite distinct succeeding and extinguished in their turn. Would it not be a harsh supposition that God, in the fossils of the rocks, made a mere appearance of what once lived? that these petrified creatures never had animate existence here below? On the other hand, the principle and the fact of creation we see not more plainly revealed in ver. 1 than of disruption in ver. 2; and both before the actual preparation of the earth for Adam as described in the six days.

As the creation, announced in a few words of noble simplicity, is the first and most momentous of God's productive interventions, so the catastrophe here briefly described seems to be the last and greatest disturbance of the globe, the twenty-seventh or sub-Apennine stage, if we accept the elaborate conclusions of M. Alcide D'Orbigny (Paleontologie Stratigr., Tome ii. 800 - 824), a most competent naturalist. Then the Alps and Chilian Andes received their actual elevation, of itself (though with many other changes of enormous consequence) quite sufficient to account for universal confusion, with destruction of life on the earth, the deep supervening everywhere, and utter darkness pervading all. However vast, this state may have been for but a little while. The animals embedded ages before in the rocks had eyes; presumably therefore light then prevailed. Indeed some of the earliest organic remains had vision with the most striking adaptation to their circumstances, as the Trilobites of the Silurian and other beds, with their compound structure, each eye in one computed to have 6,000 facets (Owen's Pal. 48, 49, 2nd ed.). The language of ver. 2 is perfectly consistent with this, when compared with ver. 1, and in fact naturally supposes the darkness to be the effect of the disorder.

Now God formed the earth and seas in the condition which substantially abides to our days. How momentous an act for the race needs few words to explain. That both earth and seas had existed previously no geologist disputes, any more than the various phases of both according to the plants and animals that prevailed from one geologic age to another. Doubtless also, save for dead-level Uniformitarians if there be such, the epochs of change that destroyed the older creatures and beheld new races modified greatly both the earth and the seas; for each period had its own proper system, with changes in inorganic matter, water, atmosphere, temperature, and the like, corresponding to each new set of organised beings.

The earth then was to have that form for the most part which God saw best fitted for His new purpose: vast continents and vaster oceans, islands large and small, lakes salt and fresh, swamps and torrents, mountains and rivers, plains greater or less, and valleys not merely effected by gradual erosion but often by deep and sudden dislocation. It is common knowledge what a part is played in the physical economy of the world by the "seas," (which in Hebrew idiom embrace all large collections of waters, oceans, seas, lakes, and even rivers,) as well as by the varied disposition of the land, high or low. To this the disarrangement of Gen. 1:2 had directly contributed; as now in the separation of earth and seas after having been co-mingled for a time. Rapid extraordinary operations wrought, and of course slow and existing causes, in bringing about what was then done for man; but here we learn that God laid down the great landmarks which abide to this day. Gen. 2:11-14 is enough to indicate that men attribute to the deluge or other changes more than can be proved.

125 I have no contest with uniformity of laws of material nature; my question is about the inductive process. I admit habitual experience gives a general feeling of a uniform law in the order of nature. But even in this it is only present phenomena. The sun rises and sets, and I expect it to do so. But the most accurate science says this order must have begun, and it must end. I shall be told this is a mere general law; be it so (though it makes phenomenal induction a poor and foolish thing). But it proves that proof by induction from observed instances to others, on the assumption of uniformity in the course of nature, is no solid ground of reasoning. For this reason: the earth had a beginning, that is, as Mill admits, there was a change. That is, uniformity, which means no change, is not true.

For many years it has been appreciated by many Christians that the geological record is very largely one of the cataclysmic global flood as described in Genesis and referred to elsewhere in the Scriptures e.g. 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5; 2 Peter 3:3-6. (Men do not oppose long ages or a pre-creation view as such, they oppose any idea of 'God' and of 'judgment' as in Noah's flood.) Clearly such a flood would have left the remains of all types of life sorted by type in sediments soon hardened into rock. The earth in Genesis 1:1 was 'unformed and unfilled' — it is not necessary to understand it as 'wrecked'. These pre-creation ideas introduce even greater theological difficulties such as death before sin, and death operating where God had stated that all that He had made was very good. The fact that fossil creatures are either identical to modern creatures, including apes and men, or of a similar nature, point to the first creation pre-flood scene. It should also be mentioned that a long ages world view introduces more scientific difficulties than it seeks to solve, e.g. features of the universe which could not be as we now see them if there had been the long ages which are mooted. This is not the place to expand on this, but there is much literature available on the subject, both scriptural and scientific. Ed. STEM.]

We find a process in the creation of the material earth before it became the theatre of an intelligent creature. The word simply gives one or two facts. God created the heavens and the earth. Next the earth was without form, and void. Then we are brought down to the period when God began to prepare the earth for man. How long the earth was without form and void before the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, we are not told. Human science says there were ages between the first creative act and the appearance of man. Geology may be right in many of its deductions, such as the countless years required for the different "formations" which, we are told, were successive. It is said that the earth gives evidence of different stages in its existence, from creation to the time when man was made; that each stage was characterised by different productions, and in different conditions, and endured for ages; and these, having served the purpose of the Creator, passed away, making room for a further stage of His power and wisdom in the formation of the present earth. But scripture, while leaving room for the deductions of science, does not affirm them. A forest, under certain conditions, after the lapse of ages, may become coal, or a piece of charcoal become a diamond. I would only remark that God was able by a word to have created all these appearances which seem to have required ages for their development. Still, there is no solid reason from scripture to doubt these successive changes. On the contrary, there is presumptive evidence of their truth, for the earth is not yet in its last stage. No small change was effected at the deluge, when the waters again covered the face of the earth, "whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, and the opening of the windows of heaven, suggest images of disruption which nevertheless may have been exceeded by other and preceding effects of divine power, and also indicative of greater future changes in the earth and surrounding atmosphere than were effected by the overflowing rush of the waters of the flood. For another change is coming, and of far greater importance to man than has ever yet taken place. Not only the earth, but the heavens also, shall pass away. "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burnt up." "We look for new heavens, and a new earth." May we not say that the coming change is a presumptive proof that the inferences of geological researches are substantially correct?

Hence the days, from ver. 3 and onward, are wholly misapplied to the geologic ages. Where for this scheme have we the formation of the plutonic, volcanic, and metamorphic rocks? Where the upheaval of the mountain ranges and the tracing of the river systems? Where the succession of organic remains, marine and terrestrial, vegetable and animal, new ones following those extinguished, and mutually distinct, from the Laurentian beds to the Post-Pleiocene or Quaternary? The six days set forth the peculiar constitution God was pleased to establish for the existing or human world. What the geologic periods embrace is successive remodellings of the earth where sea and land have changed place, mountains were raised and valleys scooped, perhaps again and again, not only a sweeping away of old organic creation, but an introduction of new plants and animals, each assemblage confessed even by Lyell to admirably fit the new states of the globe; with singular varieties all pointing by harmony of parts and beauty of contrivance to One Divine Maker. These days only begin, when God, having closed the long undefined periods of progressive character, with repeated extermination of their correspondingly changed flora and fauna, forms, within the brief span of human labour, that system, inorganic and organic of which man is the appointed head, but enriched by all He had slowly deposited and rendered available to man's industry and profit by that dislocation which laid bare treasures so remote and manifold, so interesting and important.

Some may call the intervening periods development, but not accurately. The evidence afforded by different strata seem to point not to a gradual passing away by almost imperceptible changes from one stage to another, as "development" suggests, but rather to violent disruption at different epochs, the upheaval of what was beneath. This could only be by the "fiat" of the Creator. In fact, in creation there is no such thing as infidelity called development. Upon this present earth there are orders and classes of animals each endowed with intelligence, but varied as to degree. We call it instinct. It remains essentially the same now as when animals were first created. The process from tadpole to frog is cited as proof, or illustration of this theory. But tadpole and frog remain now the same as at the beginning. The frog never becomes an ox. The modern infidel's development is younger sister to the metempsychosis of a by-gone age. Both the offspring of a darkened mind. Perhaps its refuge from the just tribunal of an offended Judge, the dread of whose anger lay heavy upon the guilty conscience,