My wife got me a book called The Bible, Rocks and Time for Christmas, and I have never been more excited to receive a book as a gift. If you know me, then you know that I end up finishing about 2% of books that I begin, so the fact that I'm cruising right through this 500 pager says something. The book was written by two Geology professors from Calvin College, and it is an honest and academic-minded walkthrough of key issues related to the age of the Earth from historical, biblical and scientific perspectives.The first part of the book details historical perspectives on the age of the Earth from antiquity to present day. While reading, it was interesting to note that the majority of early geologists (the "founding fathers" of Geology if you will) were of the Christian faith. Some of the names I even remembered from my Geology 101 text book: Nicolas Steno, Georges Cuvier, William Buckland, William Smith and others. It is reasonable to assume that these guys all had a firm grasp on the Bible, yet when they observed the world around them, each one came to the conclusion that six literal 24-hour days could not account for the diversity they observed in rocks and fossils. Even as far back as the 3rd and 4th Century, Christian theologians like Origen and Augustine had thoughts that the six-day creation in Genesis may not consist of six literal 24-hour periods.
Another interesting thing I noted was that even if some early geologists were not "Christians", they were all at the very least deists who believed that a God created the universe but abandoned it with no supernatural intervention. Famous geologists like James Hutton, Charles Lyell and many others were in this group.
So in light of all of this new information, I began to wonder... Why is it that so many people in our society believe that a scientist must reject the existence of a God? I mean, this certainly was not the case during the development of the Geological Sciences, and I don't believe it to be the case now.
Think of it this way... Science is based on observation. Faith is based on what is unseen. These early geologists had the same faith as others before them, they just began to make new observations and develop new explanations for what they observed in rocks and fossils.
I suppose the purpose of this post is to show that science is not out to disprove God. In fact, history says that quite the opposite is true. The Geological Sciences were pioneered and developed by people who believed in God and were dedicated to learning more about Creation.
So then, I would like to reiterate to the reader that a career in the academic community does not require an atheistic worldview. Similarly, Biblical Christianity does not require the belief in a 6,000 year old Creation.
To take it a step further, I'd say that the practice of science can be improved when the universe is considered in context as the Creation of a divine author. Likewise, Christianity can be improved by closely studying the beauty and complexity of Creation.
These were just some quick thoughts I had after reading. I hope to start digging a bit deeper into the Bible and Genesis 1 in the near future... that is, if I can squeeze it between school, being a TA, and research.
