The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences

by Edward Hitchcock

This position is too plain to the practical geologist to need a formal argument to sustain it. But there are many intelligent men, who do not see clearly why the remains of marine animals and plants may not be referred to the deluge. And if they could be, then all the demands of the geologist for long periods anterior to man are without foundation. But they cannot be, for the following reasons:—

First. On this supposition the organic remains ought to be confusedly mingled together, since they must have been brought over the land promiscuously by the waters of the deluge; but they are in fact arranged in as much order as the specimens of a well-regulated cabinet. The different rocks that lie above one another do, indeed, contain some species that are common; but the most are peculiar. It is impossible to explain such a fact if they were deposited by the deluge.

Secondly. On this theory, at least, a part of the organic remains ought to correspond with living animals and plants, since the deluge took place so long after the six days of creation. But with the exception of a few species near the top of the series, the fossil species are wholly unlike those now alive.

Thirdly. How, by this theory, can we explain the fact, that there are found in the rocks at least five distinct races of animals and plants, so unlike that they could not have been contemporaries? or for the fact, that most of them are of a highly tropical character? or for the fact, that as we rise higher in the rocks, there is a nearer and nearer approach to existing species?

Fourthly. This theory requires us to admit, that in three hundred and eighty days the waters of the deluge deposited rocks at least six miles in thickness, over half or two thirds of our existing continents; and these rocks made up of hundreds of thick beds, exceedingly unlike one another in composition and organic contents. Will any reasonable man believe this possible without a miracle?

But I need not multiply arguments on this point. It is a theory which no reasonable man can long maintain after studying the subject. And if it be indeed true, that neither in the drift, nor in the fossiliferous rocks, can we discover any traces of the deluge, then we shall find them nowhere on the globe. But

Thirdly. There are no facts in geology that afford any presumption against the occurrence of the Noachian deluge, but rather the contrary.

The geologist says only, that if any traces of it exist, he cannot distinguish them from the effects of other analogous agencies that have operated on the globe at various periods. Some parts of the globe do not exhibit marks of any powerful aqueous action, such as high northern and southern latitudes do exhibit. But the sacred record, in its account of the access and subsidence of diluvial waters, does not require us to suppose any great degree of violence in their action on the surface; and although currents somewhat powerful must have been the result, yet they may not have existed every where, nor have always left traces of their passage where they did exist. On the other hand, the geologist will admit, as we have already seen, that in the elevation and subsidence of mountains and continents, and in volcanic agency generally, of which geology contains so many examples, we have an adequate cause for extensive, if not universal, deluges; nor can he say how recently this cause may have operated beneath certain oceans, sufficiently to produce the deluge of the Scriptures. So that, in fact, we have in geology a presumption in favor of, rather than against, such a deluge. Nay, some, who have examined Armenia, have thought they found there a deposit which could be referred to the deluge of Noah; but I have no access to any facts on this point.

Fourthly. There are reasons, both in natural history and in the Scriptures, for supposing that the deluge may not have been universal over the globe, but only over the region inhabited by man.

This is a position of no small importance, and will, therefore, require our careful examination. And in the beginning, I wish to premise, that I assume the deluge to have been brought about by natural operations, or in conformity with the laws of nature. I feel no reluctance in admitting it to have been strictly miraculous, provided the narrative will allow of such a conclusion. But if it was miraculous, then we must give up the idea of philosophizing about it, and believe the facts simply on the divine testimony. For how can we philosophize upon an event that is brought about by the direct efficiency of God, and without reference to existing natural laws, and, it may be, in contravention of them, unless, indeed, the history contains such contradictions as even infinite power and wisdom could not make harmonious? Some writers endeavor to show the conformity of the sacred history of the deluge to established natural laws, until they meet with some objection too strong to be answered, when they turn round and declare the whole occurrence to have been miraculous. This I conceive to be absurd, and I shall accordingly proceed on the supposition that the whole event was a penal infliction, brought about by natural laws; or, at least, if there was any thing miraculous, it consisted in giving greater power to natural operations, without interfering with the regular sequence of cause and effect. And does not the narrative leave the impression on the mind of the reader, that it was brought about by natural means? The sacred writer distinctly assigns two natural causes of the increase of the waters, viz., a rain of forty days and the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, which doubtless means an overflow of the ocean; and, to hasten the subsidence of the waters, it is said that God made a wind to blow over the surface. It is no proof of miraculous agency, that the whole work is referred to the immediate power of God, for it is well known that this is the usual mode in which the sacred writers speak of natural events.