I. The Issue

In two recent issues of WTJ¹ I maintained that 300 years of concordistic and literalistic attempts to harmonize the findings of geology and the early chapters of Genesis had failed and that "to achieve an appropriate understanding of the relationship between biblical texts and scientific activity, then literalism and concordism should be abandoned and new approaches developed" (p. 293). Some possible avenues for future work were briefly explored.

John Byl challenged my thesis by claiming that empirical data and theory were not adequately distinguished and that I failed to reckon with the subjective and speculative nature of theorizing.² He questioned "whether the geological evidence is indeed as unambiguous" (p. 144) as I claimed. He also thought I had not sufficiently considered the role of miracles in earth history. In sum, Byl asserted that I had adopted a "secular" theory of geology and had attempted to impose that theory on Scripture.

Byl has raised important questions. Although the discussion would best be continued on a good geological field trip, these few pages of the Journal will have to suffice.

II. Some Aspects of the Christian Philosophy of Geology

1. The Strength of Geological Evidence

Is the geological evidence regarding the earth's antiquity and the flood compelling? All manner of unsolved problems remain in geology as in any science. Nevertheless, despite Byl's misgivings and the opposition of "creation scientists," the broad conclusions of geology regarding the antiquity and main lines of historical development of the earth are well established and rest on solid evidential and theoretical grounds. Discussion of the numerous lines of massive amounts of evidence is beyond the scope of this article.³ I will simply assert that the evidence points toward an extremely old planet that has experienced a variety of mountain-building episodes, continental migrations, and igneous intrusions, as well as development and extinction of numerous organisms. The fossil evidence⁴ cannot be construed in a manner that is compatible with the understanding that animals from the entire globe migrated to and from the ark. Deposits unequivocally related to Noah's flood have not been found. The evidence relevant to these conclusions has been critically sifted and evaluated by thousands of competent professional geologists, Christian and non-Christian alike.

That the conclusions have been opposed by "creation scientists" is as irrelevant as if I decided to oppose quantum mechanics. The reason is that the opponents of an old earth idea are not qualified geologists who have the technical expertise to make the proper evaluations of the evidence. There is, to my knowledge, only one flood geologist in the United States who has a Ph.D. in geology. Even those committed to flood geology are constrained to admit that the geological features present severe problems for their framework.

Christians ought to accept the conclusions of geology with the same degree of tentativeness or confidence with which they are accepted by qualified professional practitioners of the science. Christians should be no more suspicious of the established results of geology than they are of those of chemistry and physics. The burden of proof for rejecting those conclusions lies with the opponents of standard geology.

2. Is Geology "Secular"?

Byl repeatedly dismissed geology by labelling it "secular." He assumed that because many scientific leaders have a naive, faulty philosophy of science,⁵ geology is founded on "secular" principles. If this assumption is valid, then mathematics, physics, and chemistry are also "secular," and we should suspect the conclusions of "secular" science such as the kinetic theory of gases, the laws of motion, and the theory of ionic bonding.

But the assumption is invalid. The science of geology was established in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by a diverse group of Europeans that was strongly influenced, if not dominated, by moderate Calvinists. Christian principles played an important role in the development of geology and continue to do so even though they may no longer be recognized by non-Christians. To employ Cornelius Van Til's metaphor, the unbelievers within the sciences are using borrowed capital.

Byl and I heartily agree about the undesirable influence of "secular" man. He rightly warned about "secular" sociology, psychology, and anthropology. But these disciplines investigate human beings and their behavior and so inevitably differ significantly from the natural sciences. Acceptance of scientific conclusions about the physical world that may have been developed by a non-Christian will not inexorably lead to capitulation to non-Christian theories of psychology or sociology.

3. The Presuppositions of Geology

What principles underlie geology and other natural sciences? At root natural science assumes the ordered nature of the world as well as human ability to make some sense of the world. While scientists commonly do not consider the grounds for the order they assume, Christianity provides those grounds. Christianity claims that modern science is possible only on the biblical presupposition that God is the creator, sustainer, and providential governor of all things. Everything that exists he upholds at every moment by the word of his power. God's world is a world of order, regularity, covenant faithfulness, dependability, and, therefore, some measure of predictability. Moreover, God has created human beings with minds that can come into fruitful contact with the world and can understand it. Sin and rebellion may hamper but do not prevent efforts to understand. These biblical doctrines of a voluntary divine creation and of divine governance were highly influential in spawning the modern scientific enterprise in the seventeenth century.⁶

4. Criteria for Theory Selection

If we grant these most basic presuppositions about reality, how should we construct theoretical explanations of the behavior of the physical world? What criteria should be used to assess the validity of those theories? All modern natural sciences employ a variety of criteria in the evaluation of scientific theories, and the fundamental criteria are no different for geology than for other physical sciences.⁷ A valid scientific theory ought at least to be internally logical, able to account for relevant data, consistent with accepted bodies of knowledge from other relevant disciplines, able to unify a diverse array of observations that may not hitherto have been recognized as directly related, capable of yielding predictions that are testable and sustainable, and fruitful in opening up new avenues of research. No doubt other criteria are also applicable. Given that Christianity posits a world that is a unity and that is rational, that God's knowledge is a unity, and that humans are God's image-bearers, these criteria are consistent with a Christian world view.

Whether or not a scientific theory meets all these criteria is invariably a collective judgment call on the part of the community of qualified practitioners of the appropriate science. Given the propensity of scientists to disagree with one another and to make differing assessments of various bodies of data, it must be regarded as a rare and striking event when a theory achieves the status of a near consensus.

III. Accounting for Relevant Data

Two of these criteria need closer inspection. First, a valid theory in any discipline must account for relevant observations satisfactorily; it must be empirically constrained. Byl, however, wrote of the "subjective and speculative" nature of scientific theorizing. He dismissed the notion that observations are evidence for anything apart from a theoretical framework of interpretation. He wrote as if totally inert data passively waited for one of an infinite number of theoretical frameworks to be superimposed on them on subjective grounds. Popper was favorably quoted to the effect that theories are "free creations of our mind."

Three things may be said in response. First, there is, of course, an important role for speculation and creative hypothesizing in science. Nevertheless, a speculation will eventually end up on the intellectual scrap heap unless it satisfactorily accounts for a wide range of observations. Virtually all of Byl's infinite number of theories will rapidly be discarded. Only appropriate and valid theories will "make sense" of data.

Secondly, observations may carry weight in spite of our theoretical frameworks. Surely that is the case with the Bible. Although we cannot help but approach the Bible with certain preconceptions, views, and values that shape the way that we interpret and read the Word, the Reformed tradition (as well as many other evangelical tradions...ed.'s note) has always insisted upon openness to the power of the Word and Spirit. Is there not an independent, objective power in Scripture itself that constantly challenges, shapes, and forces us to adjust our values, presuppositions, and world views? The biblical data have an impact on us that may lead us to rethink our explanatory frameworks. Our frameworks of biblical interpretation are not rigid and fixed forever but are themselves affected by the biblical data.

So it is in geology. Of course, the observations that we make about rocks and mountains are interpreted within a theoretical framework. But precisely because rocks, fossils, minerals, and mountains are creatures of the living God, and precisely because God is immanent in and revealed through them, they have power over against us and our theories. These created objects do affect our thinking. There is an evidential pressure put on us by what we observe. It cannot be otherwise when we are confronted by what God has made. Precisely because of the force of geological observations made over the centuries Christian geologists have gradually adjusted their theoretical frameworks of explanation so that they could satisfactorily account for what they observed.⁸

In the third place, theories may be "free creations of our minds," but some geological theories don't require vast inputs of creativity and imagination. The creative element is perhaps less important in aspects of geology than in more abstract disciplines like physics because geology deals with objects and phenomena that are part of the experience of ordinary people not trained in the sciences. For example, the rock layers from which we attempt to reconstruct the history of the earth contain many features that are widely familiar. The conception that such a history may be constructed arises by analogy with our experience of stacking of layered objects in sequence. We know that stacking requires the passage of time, and we know that the layers on the bottom of a stack get there before the superposed layers.

Layers of rock are commonly composed of familiar objects like pebbles or sand grains. The layers may contain features closely resembling mud cracks, ripple marks, animal tracks, skeletal parts, and raindrop prints. Can the geologist be excused for theorizing that those features originally were mud cracks, ripple marks, animal tracks, and so on because of experience with known modern examples? We theorize about these features in terms of established knowledge of modern-day analogs. That means that we theorize that fossilized mud cracks formed the way modern ones do, that is, on water-saturated mud flats that have subsequently become thoroughly desiccated. Such theories constructed by analogy with present features and phenomena generally account satisfactorily for the observations. Other theories of strata have not explained those features nearly so satisfactorily. We can even use our knowledge of floods to conclude that a universal flood does not satisfactorily account for the features of rock strata.

IV. Agreement with Other Bodies of Knowledge

Second, a valid theory in any discipline should also be consistent with other relevant bodies of knowledge. Our explanations of rock formation are consistent with what is already known about the behavior of mud, animals, sand dunes, and so on. Geological theories should also be consistent with established principles of physics, chemistry, and biology. We would not propose a theory of sedimentation that violated the principle of gravitation. Byl suggested that another relevant body of knowledge with which a valid geological theory might agree is the Bible: "We could specify that a prime criterion for theory selection be conformity with Scripture" (p. 150). He rightly recognized that there were problems with that criterion. Here are some problems that he did not consider.

1. Is Interpretation of the Bible Unproblematic?

Because Byl was troubled that established geological theories conflict with literalistic or concordistic interpretations of parts of Genesis 1-11, he questioned the validity of the allegedly "secular" geological theories. He asked, "Is it not more plausible that any deficiency lies in our fallible scientific theories rather than in God's written Word?" (p. 147). He asserted that "rather than modifying the contents of Scripture, a better approach would be to base our science on biblically valid presuppositions" (p. 150). And he said that "since Genesis deals with the distant past, it can conflict not with our present geological data but only with certain theoretical extrapolations of that data" (p. 145).

The quotations imply that interpretation of the Bible is unproblematic. The content of the Bible was repeatedly confused with his interpretation of it. Byl seemed to assume that "Scripture" is identical to "the traditional understanding of Scripture." In response to the three quotations we may assert that, of course, there is no deficiency in God's written Word. Maybe, however, the deficiency lies in our fallible theological theories rather than in God's creation. My original article suggested that not God's written Word but our exegesis of parts of that Word may be deficient.⁹ I no more advocated any modification of the contents of Scripture than Byl advocated a change in the contents of the created world. I advocated the possibility of a modification of interpretation of those contents. And Genesis can't conflict with the realities of creation, but our fallible exegesis can conflict with our fallible scientific interpretation.

Byl's critique implied that natural science, especially geology, is the only discipline that needs to distinguish between observation and theory. He ignored the fact that our understanding of the biblical text is also filtered through theoretical frameworks. All one needs to do is to look at the profession of biblical studies to realize how value-laden and subjective is that discipline! Exegesis and theology are as strongly affected by the approach one takes as is science. There is more consensus among geologists about the proper interpretation of rocks than there is about the proper interpretation of the Bible among theologians and biblical scholars, even among those guided by the Holy Spirit.

Christians do well to remember that church history is rich in examples of scientific discovery and theory assisting the church to arrive at an improved interpretation of the text. Ps 93:1 says: "The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved." But we do not question the rotation of the earth, its revolution about the sun, or its movement through the galaxy. Although the heliocentric theory of solar-system mechanics flagrantly violates the literal interpretation of the text, it is compatible with the Bible. Ps 93:1 does not affirm heliocentricity, but the verse's pronouncement about the immobility of the earth is not a comment on the physical motion of the planet, so there is no inconsistency. Heliocentric theory "agrees" with Scripture by not being inconsistent with it. Heliocentricity and Ps 93:1 are complementary.

We could insist that any valid theory from the realm of physics, chemistry, or geology must also be consistent with biblical knowledge. A scientific theory, for example, the kinetic theory of gases, may not necessarily be in clear harmony with Scripture for the simple reason that Scripture may say nothing directly relevant about that theory. Nevertheless a valid theory must not be inconsistent with the biblical data properly interpreted.

Given the rapid developments today in biblical studies we need caution in making pronouncements about what is certain in Genesis 1-11. We cannot always assume ahead of time that we already have the correct biblical interpretation when a new scientific theory comes along. Frequently it has required establishment and acceptance of a valid scientific theory to point out that what was thought to be valid biblical knowledge needed to be rethought and that a new interpretation of the Bible had to be developed. Such may be the case in the matter of geology and the early chapters of Genesis.

2. The Role of Miracles in Science

Byl also suggested that geology should take into account the possibility of miracle. Although noting that I said that one could avoid the force of geological evidence by appeal to miraculous events, Byl nevertheless charged that my approach "in essence denies the possibility of miracles" (p. 151), and he spoke of "its apparent denial of the ability of God to perform miracles" (p. 149). But I insisted on God's ability to perform miracles (p. 298). Furthermore, geology can no more dispute the possibility of divine miracle than can physics, chemistry, or mathematics.¹⁰ Science, as Byl rightly pointed out, is incapable of judging whether or not miracles have occurred.

As my article stated, however, the question is not whether God can perform miracles when and where he chooses but whether he did perform miracles during the flood and during the early history of the earth. As in our reconstruction of human history so in our reconstruction of the geological past we assume that God acted mediately in the absence of unequivocal biblical evidence to the contrary. Byl must demonstrate on solid biblical grounds precisely what geological events and phenomena require miracle for explanation. Otherwise science must be excused for proceeding under its normal rules of inquiry. Obviously the initial creation of the universe was miraculous, but I doubt that the Bible demands miracles during prehuman earth history and during the flood. I am particularly skeptical of claims that the flood was replete with miracles. Many commentators assert that the text does not demand miracle, but those who do appeal to miracles almost invariably invoke them only when they cannot explain some aspect of the flood on "natural" grounds. Miracles must not be used as a cover for our ignorance.

I suggested that miracles were generally used as signs and that eyewitnesses were present. Byl proposed the creation of Eve as an example of a miracle where no eyewitnesses were present. But weren't both Adam and Eve there? Because God talked with Adam and Eve in the garden, Eve would learn that she had been brought into existence by God's miraculous power. Adam would certainly have realized that. Byl also begged the question when he asserted that "it is precisely in the first chapters of Genesis where God is presented as performing many miraculous deeds" (p. 149). Which are these, and why?

Byl dismissed my argument that if we explain the geological record in terms of one sheer miracle of creation then we cannot define a boundary this side of which we may study rocks scientifically. He claimed that all miracles somehow interfere with the chain of cause and effect. Perhaps so, but even if true, the sciences of physics, chemistry, and astronomy are unaffected. The conclusions of astronomy regarding eclipses and the motions of the solar system are not affected by biblical miracles like the star of Bethlehem, Joshua's long day, or the sun going backward on Ahaz's sundial. The ascension of Jesus does not affect the validity of the theory of gravitation, nor does the floating axe head affect our theories of buoyancy and viscosity. We simply have singularities that do not fit the theory. At least in human history we know when and what the miracles were, but geological history would be completely undermined by bringing in miracles about which we have no information at all. More to the point, of no other biblical miracles do we still have the products of those miracles to throw us off the track in a scientific investigation. For example, we no longer have the bodies of Adam and Eve or of Jesus. We have no idea what mass of salt in the Dead Sea valley might be Lot's wife. We no longer have the results of the plagues of Egypt. We don't have the floating axe head. We don't have the wine that Jesus made at Cana. In contrast, we still do have a staggeringly mountainous mass of geological phenomena. Start invoking miracles for which we have no evidence and our understanding of geological history completely vanishes.

The geological record presents an overwhelming impression of vast antiquity and complex processes. Of course, that impression comes through our framework of interpretation, but it is the only framework that has ever successfully yielded fruitful theories or made sense of the geological data. If the mud cracks, ripple marks, and fossils had all been the result of a miraculous instantaneous act of inception, God could not have done a better job of confusing us. We would never have suspected miracle, and we didn't have the advantage of seeing the miracle. Byl, however, asserted that "God can be said to be deceiving us only if he has given his divine sanction on our theoretical assumptions" (p. 149). But God has not sanctioned atomic theory, gravitational theory, the cell theory of biology, the fractional crystallization theory of igneous rock formation, or the kinetic theory of gases either. Yet no one is claiming that God is actually performing constant miracles today even though it certainly looks as if things are behaving in accordance with those theories. We don't appeal to miracles in the behavior of atoms or gravity. If there were such an appeal, we would very likely complain that God was confusing us even though he hadn't sanctioned our theories.

In my article I also asked, "Why should our intellectual tools be mismatched against an illusory past in an effort which God blessed when he told us to 'subdue the earth'?" (p. 300). Curiously, Byl restricted the cultural mandate to practical application, but practical applications repeatedly arise out of theory. We could never have developed much of our technology without the development of electrical theory. Consider how much oil has been discovered by the application of reservoir theory. As physicist Ludgwig Boltzmann wrote: "There is nothing more practical than theory." To restrict the cultural mandate to the practical is arbitrary and violates the integrity of man as divine image-bearer.

3. What Rocks May Be Studied?

If the Bible is really a guide to scientific conclusions, then the burden of proof rests on Professor Byl to tell practicing geologists what rocks they can legitimately study in accordance with scientific principles and what rocks they must attribute to miracles. But to provide that guidance, one not only needs to show unequivocal evidence of miracle from Scripture but also must have an intimate acquaintance with geology in the field in order to know just what rocks may and may not be evaluated scientifically. It is easy to dismiss geology from a desk. But for the dismissal to carry any weight at all with geologists, the one dismissing geology must know geology in order to discount it knowledgeably. But then something marvelous will happen. In the process of learning geology, a person who is truly open to the wonder of God's creative activity will find himself or herself unavoidably confronted by the force of geological evidence that is not so easily explained away as the product of miracle once it is observed in the field again and again. It is small wonder that the dozens of trained Christian geologists with whom I am acquainted are agreed about the major conclusions of the science.

V. Bible and Science in Reevaluating the Text

Finally, Professor Byl thought that "it is noteworthy that Young does not question that, leaving aside extrabiblical sources, the literal interpretation of Genesis is the exegetically preferred one. His main objection to literalism is not that it misrepresents the biblical text, but that it allegedly distorts the empirical data to fit the biblical text" (p. 144). And in a footnote he observed, "What concerns me here, however, is that Young makes the choice solely on the basis of scientific, rather than exegetical, considerations" (p. 151 n. 12). But I do believe that there are strong biblical grounds for departing from traditional readings of Genesis 1-11 at a number of points. One might consider the fact that the seven-day structure of Genesis 1 resembles its usage as a literary convention in ancient Near Eastern epic literature, that other biblical texts imply that death was normal among animals prior to the fall, or that the language of the flood narrative does not demand geographical universality. Any number of qualified theologians can discuss those matters in more detail than I can.

My concern was to present historical and geological considerations from my area of expertise that are relevant to the discussion about these chapters. I've simply added to internal biblical evidence extrabiblical reasons for reconsidering some traditional readings of Genesis 1-11. Often in the past, extrabiblical discoveries pressured theologians into seeing textual evidence that was there all the time. Consider that archaeological discoveries have led to the recognition of many textual features that were overlooked until their importance was made clear by the archaeology. Or consider how science nudged exegetes to reconsider the reading of texts like Ps 93:1 in the days of Galileo. That is what geology is doing today.

The sooner the church develops a healthy attitude towards believing science and begins to regard science not as a threat but as a God-given tool for leading to an improved understanding of Scripture, the better for the church. The time is long overdue for us to stop hiding from what the Creator God of the Bible has put into our world.

Department of Geology, Geography, and Environmental Studies
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, Michigan

NOTES

¹ Davis A. Young, "Scripture in the Hands of Geologists," WTJ 49 (1987) 1-34 and 257-304.

² John Byl, "Scripture and Geologists," WTJ 51 ( 1989) 143-52.

³ The interested reader should consult the standard texts on historical geology, stratigraphy, or sedimentology for details of the geological evidence. For discussions of geology from a Christian perspective see Dan Wonderly, God's Time-Records in Ancient Sediments: Evidences of Long Time Spans in Earth's History (Flint, MI: Crystal Press, 1977); Dan Wonderly, Neglect of Geologic Data: Sedimentary Strata Compared with Young Earth Creationist Writings (Hatfield, PA: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1987); Alan Hayward, Creation and Evolution (London: Triangle, 1985) chaps. 5-9;John Wiester, The Genesis Connection (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983); Davis A. Young, Creation and the Flood (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979) chaps. 3 and 9; and Davis A. Young, Christianity and the Age of the Earth (Thousand Oaks, CA: Artisan, 1988) chaps. 6-10.

⁴ Some of the evidence was noted in my original article. Fossils were interpreted within other frameworks in previous centuries, but those frameworks ultimately collapsed and were abandoned because they were unable to account for the accumulation of observations about fossil distribution. Indeed, prior to the eighteenth century, many thinkers did not even regard fossils as organic. Hence, even a simple "fossil" is not a pure observational datum, but involves a complex of theoretical considerations.

⁵ A comment by Etienne Gilson is pertinent here: "Nothing equals the ignorance of the modern philosophers in matters of science, except the ignorance of modern scientists in matters of philosophy."

⁶ For some discussions of the religious influences on the development of early modern science see, e.g., Michael B. Foster, "The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science," Mind 43 (1934) 446-68; Eugene M. Klaaren, Religious Origins of Modern Science: Belief in Creation in Seventeenth Century Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977); Stanley Jaki, The Origin of Science and the Science of its Origin (South Bend, IN: Regnery Gateway, 1979); Reijer Hooykaas, Religion and the Rise of Modern Science (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972); and Colin A. Russell, Cross-Currents: Interactions between Science and Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985).

⁷ On criteria for theory selection and evaluation see Ernan McMullin, "Values in Science," PSA 2 (1982) 1-28, and chap. 2 in Howard Van Till, Davis A. Young, and Clarence Menninga, Science Held Hostage (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988).

⁸ That is precisely what I sought to document in my pair of articles. In previous centuries scholars interpreted geological features in terms of an allegedly biblical theoretical framework but that framework was simply unable to bear the weight of what was actually discovered in God's world. My own early fascination with the flood geology of Whitcomb and Morris collapsed because of the pressure of repeated geological observations.

⁹ The reader is invited to consult the perceptive article by Clark H. Pinnock, "Climbing out of a Swamp," Int 43 (1989) 143-55.

¹⁰ We need to stop assuming that the most vocal and blatant atheists are the authentic spokesmen for genuine science. Simply because some prominent scientists claim that science denies the reality of miracles or is antithetical to religion or opposes Christianity, we are under no obligation to believe that it is so. There are many scientists who are a little less philosophically naive than some of the atheists and agnostics and who have a much better sense of the limitations of science.