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APPENDIX D
GEOLOGICAL NATURAL
HISTORY: BIBLICAL CATASTROPHISM VS. UNIFORMITARIANISM
Natural history is man’s attempt at telling the story of
natural development over time. It is one of the tasks dominion man seeks to do.
As a dominion work it depends upon the limitations of man’s reason and
experience--subjects discussed in Chapter Three. I pointed out there that
reason is a limited tool. It can supply logical rigor to our thinking, but such
rigor can show us reality only if our categories and logical rules fit reality.
I also pointed out in Chapter Three that our
experience as finite creatures is very limited. We
cannot extend our experience backwards in time beyond human observations except
by speculation and conjecture.
All attempts, therefore, at writing natural histories
must cope with man’s limited reason and experience in space and time. Either
God’s revelation of the origin and destiny of nature is accepted as reasonable
and as empirically-observed data, or it is not. Presuppositionally, a decision
has to be made: which will be the final reference point--the Word of God or the
thoughts of man?
In the geological realm the battle between biblical
faith and paganism is wrapped up in the opposing interpretative principles of
biblical catastrophism and pagan uniformitarianism. First, I will show the
difference in these principles, then I will summarize the history of their use
in geology. Finally, I will show what is happening in this field today among
creationist students.
PRESUPPOSITIONS BEHIND CATASTROPHISM AND
UNIFORMITARIANISM.
Interpreting the causes of and the time required for
deposition of rock is just another area of natural history writing. On the
biblical basis, three major events play a critical role: creation, fall, and
flood. All rock formations have been caused by one or more of these three major
acts of God. Creation established the antediluvian earth and a structure of rock
and soil that later was reworked into the form we observe today. The fall
introduced death and so all fossils must postdate this event. Natural evil and
catastrophes begin after this time. The flood and its after-effects become the
major geological catastrophe of all history. This “high energy” epoch is
thought to explain each rock formation and each fossil assemblage.
On the pagan basis, however, a completely different
interpretative principle operates. In this view death and evil.125 are “normal” so that fossils all go back to whenever
they first appeared in the evolutionary process. The universe is “safe” from
any catastrophic intervention of the biblical God so there has certainly not
been any such high energy event like the flood that could have caused most of
the global geologic formations. All rock formations and fossil assemblages,
therefore, came about from a variety of “low energy” processes similar to those
we observe today: river flooding, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. This
principle used to interpret the rock strata is known as the principle of
“uniformitarianism”.
Uniformitarianism is another version of the pagan idea
of the Continuity of Being seen in the biological and physical realms
(Appendices B and C). Everything supposedly comes about as the sum of a long
series of very small incremental changes. This idea excludes in principle the
possibility of great discontinuities and sudden changes.
As geological studies began after the Protestant Reformation,
several Bible-believing naturalists tried to develop a flood-model to explain
the newly-discovered data. To their credit, it was these Bible-believers who
first argued against the medieval interpretation that fossils were strange
object produced “in situ”. They insisted that fossils were the organic remains
of a catastrophe.
By the late 1600s, however, certain weaknesses in
their approach led them to begin reinterpreting Genesis to allow more time for
the natural history of the earth. Unintentionally, they insisted upon
explaining geological data by means of processes that were still going on in
their day. In short, they allowed the foreign principle of uniformitarianism to
take hold of their work. Anti-biblical critics attacked them by saying that
such natural processes could never have brought this planet about in six
literal days.
The 19th century saw the total victory of the
uniformitarians before Darwin ever published any of his works. The
accommodationist strategy toward the Genesis narrative by Christians was
already well underway. No one ever challenged the validity of the
uniformatarian principle that everyone was using and accepting. Only a few
Seventh Day Adventist naturalists kept the old flood geology model alive.
In 1961, however, the battle was resumed by the
publication, The Genesis Flood, by Whitcomb and Morris. These authors, on the
basis of a very careful exegesis of Genesis 1-11, insisted that the Bible could
not accommodate uniformitarianism. The narrative simply recorded too much
evidence of God’s catastrophic dealing.126 with the
earth for it to be ignored. Following in their footsteps have come a group of
younger Bible-believing scientists who are now seeking to create a new flood
model of geology more consistent than that of the early Protestant
naturalists.[1]
Uniformitarian-based geology that completely dominates
the intellectual world today prides itself on its ability to explain the many
different geological formations around the world with one picture. Geologists
speak of a “geological column” that contains the historical record of
macro-evolution from its lower layers of simpler fossil forms to its upper
layers with more complex fossil forms. They assure us that the many layers of
sedimentary rock took untold millions of years to lay down. Vast times were
required for the necessary volume of debris to accumulate in order to supply
thick sedimentary rock layers (many thousands of feet thick). Erosion of large
chunks of such sedimentary rock--so-called “missing” layers--demands hundreds
of thousands of years.
The challenge for Bible-believing scientists is to
explain such features in terms of the creation, fall, and flood events. How can
they account for fossil separation in the geologic column, the thickness of
sedimentary rock formations, and the erosion of entire “missing” layers? And
why are there no human fossils found in the deeper layers of the geological
column? I will summarize some of their present day efforts.
What is the Geologic Column? The backbone of
historical geology is the picture we all get in school of the “geologic
column”, that vertical sequence of fossilized life forms ranging from the
“earliest” microbes in Precambrian rock to the “latest” forms similar to
present ones in Cenozoic rock. Using the principle of superposition, that the
upper rock was deposited after the lower rock and is therefore older,
geologists confidently assure us that this column depicts the natural history
of the earth.
By using so-called “index fossils” which appear
limited to certain strata and epochs only, geologists can correlate a rock
layer in one place with a rock layer bearing the same index fossils in another
place. From such correlations the geological column is built up from segments
existing here and there.
Bible-believing young-earth creationists begin by
carefully scrutinizing this column just as their biologist colleagues
scrutinize the so-called “fact” of evolution. What exactly is the logical
process involved in building this column? Logically, a certain circular
reasoning seems to be involved. If I discover a rock layer “A” on top of
another rock layer “C”, by.127 superposition “A” ought to
follow “C”. However if the index fossils in “A” and “C” belong to two “ages”
separated by a third set of index fossils missing from this formation, I have
to suppose that there is a missing layer “B”. Even if I cannot find physical
evidence that there was such a layer, I am bound by this pagan system to claim
“B” existed at one time. In one sense the column is logically dependent upon an
evolutionary sequence of index fossils, but evolution is dependent upon the
column!
How much of the column actually exists across the
earth’s land masses? In a remarkable study John Woodmorappe divided the earth’s
land surface into 967 equal areas. He then surveyed geological literature for
reports on the fragments of the column found in each area. He found, much to
his surprise, that of the 10 periods in the geologic column less than 13% of
the earth’s land surface has as many as five periods represented and less than
one percent has all 10 periods in place. These figures count the periods
whether or not they are even in the proper sequence. He concludes:
“Since only a small percentage of the earth’s surface
obeys even a significant portion of the geologic column, it becomes an overall
exercise of gargantuan special pleading and imagination for the
evolutionary-uniformitarian paradigm to maintain that there ever were geologic
periods.”[2] Areas of “missing” layers are usually explained as due to non-
deposition or erosion, but Woodmorappe notes that this excuse “is self-serving
because there is no deterministic reason why the earth’s land surface should
(or should not) become everywhere depositional sometime within any span of
several tens of millions of years comprising each geological period. (This
claim) does not face the question whether or not these geologic periods ever
existed in the first place.”[3]
Flood geologists, therefore, must explain the general
fossil patterns shown in the different rock layers, but they do not need to
explain the hypothetical geological column.
Evidences of Out-of-order Layers and Catastrophic
Sedimentation. Positive evidences that support flood geology and cause problems
for classical uniformitarian geology include out-of- order layers and
catastrophic sedimentation. Many places on earth feature supposedly “older”
layers with early index fossils on top of “younger” layers with later index
fossils. If it weren’t for the fossils, by superposition these layers would be
dated in order from below to above. Often no physical evidence exists of any
overthrusting or lateral thrusting, but because evolutionary theory requires
the proper sequence of index fossils geologists feel bound to let the physical
evidence yield to the biological evidence. Flood geologists, however, accept
the physical evidence of straightforward superposition and date the layers from
below to above..128
Other evidence includes “polystrata” fossils.
Petrified tree trunks (at varying angles to the vertical) are sometimes seen
piercing several layers of rock. Quite obviously such layers all must have been
laid down quite rapidly before the tree rotted away! Fossil clusters or
“graveyards” jammed together also testify to rapid processes at work. These
evidences show high energy catastrophism at work to preserve fossils rapidly.
John Woodmorappe’s Tectonically-Associated Biological Provinces (TAB) Model. To
explain various fossil patterns on the basis of one flood event, Woodmorappe
has devised what he calls a tectonically-associated biological provinces (TAB)
model. In this model, antediluvian regions or provinces are visualized with the
general characteristics of, say, a Paleozoic epoch or a Mesozoic era. Then as
the flood began with the “fountains of the deep” breaking up (Gen. 7:11), giant
sinkholes or down-warpings developed in the earth’s crust. Water poured into
such areas entombing their life forms with sedimentary debris. As the food
continued, more and more such regions were affected which resemble the higher
portions of the classical geological column. Locally, many exceptions to this
sequence occurred, but globally there was a statistical prevalence for the sequence.
Through this mechanism Woodmorappe is able to explain the fossil
differentiation in strata, the distribution of phyla in the fossil record, and
even the relative absence of human remains in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic
periods.[4]
In the closing stages of the flood and subsequent
terrestrial adjustments after the flood, flood strata were reworked, folded,
eroded, and covered over with volcanic outflows. Thus Woodmorappe’s TAB model
goes into details never before addressed in flood modeling. Such work shows
indeed that rational explanations that utilize the eye-witness record of
Scripture are not only possible but offer more plausibility than the
Bible-denying pagan approaches.
1. See discussion in Chapter
1.
2. John Woodmorappe, “The
Essential Nonexistence of the Evolutionary-Uniformitarian Geologic Column: A
Quantitative Assessment,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 18 (June,
1981), p. 69.
3. Ibid
4. John Woodmorappe, “A
Diluvialogical Treatise on the Stratigraphic Separation of Fossils,” Creation
Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 20 (December, 1983), pp. 167-171..129