The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences

by Edward Hitchcock

I will venture to add another suggestion. If the bed of the Indian Ocean was uplifted by volcanic matter, struggling to get vent, vapor enough might have been liberated to account, on natural principles, for the forty days’ rain of the deluge. For it is well known that in volcanic eruptions drenching rains are often the result of the sudden condensation of the aqueous vapor.

We are here met, however, by a serious objection to the hypothesis, which gives only a limited extent to the deluge. If the present Mount Ararat, in Armenia, is the mountain on which the ark first rested, a deluge which covered its top must, by its flux and reflux, have overspread nearly all other portions of the globe, for that mountain rises seventeen thousand seven hundred feet above the ocean. But we are informed by Jerome, that the name Ararat was given generally to the mountains of Armenia; (indeed, that is the meaning of the name;) and long before geology existed, Shuckford suggested that some spot farther east corresponds better with the scriptural account of the place where the ark rested. For it is said of the families of the sons of Noah, that, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar. Now, Shinar, or Babylonia, lies nearly south of the Armenian Ararat, and the probability, therefore, is, that the true Ararat, from whose vicinity the descendants of Noah probably emigrated, lay much farther to the south. Again, if the ark rested upon the present Ararat, it is impossible, except by a miracle, that those who came out of it could have reached the plain below; for so exceedingly difficult of access is it, that it is doubtful whether, since the deluge, any one ever succeeded in reaching its summit, till the year 1829. Indeed, it is an article in the creed of the Armenian church that its ascent is impossible. That the almost universal tradition of Eastern nations should have fixed upon that mountain as the resting-place of the ark is not strange, considering that there is no mountain in all Asia so striking to behold.

But upon the whole, the probability is strong that some other elevation, less lofty and steep, was the radiating point of the postdiluvian races of man and other animals. The fact of Noah’s sending forth a dove from the ark, which came back in the evening with an olive leaf in her mouth, strengthens the preceding view. For neither upon the present Ararat, nor around it, does the olive grow, because it is too cold. Indeed, all its upper part is covered with perpetual ice. But if the Ararat of Scripture lay nearer the tropics, the olive might find upon it a congenial spot. A distinguished botanist adduced the fact about the olive as evidence against the Bible. But how easily refuted, if the theory now under examination be true!

In favor of this supposition, I might have urged another consideration, which, in my mind, has no little weight. It is impossible that the waters of the deluge should have covered the earth for a year, without destroying nearly all the existing vegetation. Yet nothing is said of the preservation of seeds in the ark; and if they had been preserved, certainly nothing but miraculous power, and that of the most remarkable kind, could have scattered them through the remotest continents and islands, so as to form distinct botanical districts, such as have been described. The olive, from which a leaf was plucked by the dove sent out of the ark, was probably situated upon elevated ground, and where it remained but a short time beneath the waters, and therefore did not lose its vitality.

It is probable that the theory which makes the deluge limited in extent will meet with more favor than any other, with candid and intelligent men, to meet the suggested difficulties of the case. But some, who are unwilling to abandon the idea of the universality of the deluge, avoid these difficulties by supposing a new creation to have taken place at that epoch. That such a new creation occurred at the commencement of several geological periods can hardly admit a doubt. And a presumption is hence derived in favor of a similar act at the beginning of the postdiluvian period, preceded as it was, like the other geological periods, by an almost entire destruction of organic life.

The principal objection to this view is, that no notice is taken of such a new creation in the Bible. And it would seem that an event of so much importance would hardly be passed in silence; and yet the bringing into existence new races of the inferior animals and plants could have but little bearing upon the object of revelation, which respects almost exclusively the spiritual condition of man. One, however, can hardly see why pairs and septuples of the animals, even in a limited district, need to have been preserved in the ark, if a new creation were to follow the coming catastrophe; nor why the creation of the antediluvian animals, so soon to perish, should have been so particularly described, while no notice was taken of the postdiluvian races, which were to occupy the earth so much longer time.

A third theory has been suggested by some, embracing both those which have been described. They admit the deluge to have been of limited extent, but suppose this limitation not to be sufficient to explain all the facts of revelation and of science, without a new creation also, at the commencement of the postdiluvian period. They suppose, indeed, that geology and natural history teach the occasional extinction of species, and the creation of others, even in our own times. And in regard to this latter view, it may at least be said that it is not contradicted by the Bible. Nay, one would almost suppose that the Psalmist were describing such a state of things when he says, Thou hidest thy face; they [animals] are troubled. Thou takest away their breath; they die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit; they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth. The resemblance between this language and that employed to describe the original creation is striking. Indeed, the same word (bawraw) is used.

Without attempting to decide which of these theories has the highest claim upon our belief, it is sufficient to remark, that either of them reconciles the facts of geology and natural history with the inspired record; nor does the adoption of either of them require us to put a forced and unnatural construction upon the language of the Bible. Even then, if we should admit that a construction agreeing with these theories is not the most natural meaning, yet if the facts of natural history unequivocally require such an interpretation to harmonize the Bible with nature, it is assuredly one of those cases where science must be allowed to modify our exegesis of Scripture. In the view of sound philosophy, such modification at once disarms scepticism of its cavils.

With two remarks of a practical character, I close the discussion of this subject.

First. The history of opinions respecting the Noachian deluge furnishes a salutary lesson to those employed in the examination of analogous subjects. We have seen these opinions assume almost every possible shape; yet, until recently they have all been maintained with the most positive and dogmatic assurance; and each particular theory has been regarded as involving the essence of the Bible, as being the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ, and whoever denied it virtually denied the Bible. But all reasonable and truly scientific men are fast coming to the conclusion, that the deluge has had very little to do with the present configuration of the globe, and that it is doubtful whether any trace of its occurrence will ever be found in nature; so that, on the one hand, all the alarms and denunciations of misguided Christians on this subject might have been spared; and, on the other hand, if the hasty exultation of the infidel, in his supposed discovery of discrepancy between nature and Moses, had been suppressed until the subject was understood, he would not have experienced the mortification of entire defeat.