Religion and natural philosophy [“science”] in earth studies*

Cosmogonies

Chronologies

Natural theology

*Europe in the 16th to early 19th centuries J. Bourgeois 2007 ESS 408/508

Warnings about confounding scripture and nature from influential early Christian thinkers/writers

When it is asked what we ought to believe in matters of religion, the answer is not to be sought in the exploration of the nature of things, after the manner of those whom the Greeks call “physicists.” . . .

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds as certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

Augustine of Hippo [St. Augustine]A.D. 354 – 430

fromEnchiridionc. 420

quoted in Lindberg, D.C., 1986. “Science and the early Church,” in D.C. Lindberg and R. Numbers, eds. God and Nature, Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, Univ. of California Press, p. 19-48.

Warnings about confounding scripture and nature from influential early Christian thinkers/writers

[St.] Thomas Aquinas c. 1225 – 1274 A.D.

quoted in Grant, E., 1986. “Science and theology in the Middle Ages,” in D.C. Lindberg and R. Numbers, eds. God and Nature, Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, Univ. of California Press, p. 49-75.

First, the truth of Scripture must be held inviolable. Secondly, when there are different ways of explaining a Scriptural text, no particular explanation should be held so rigidly that, if convincing arguments show it to be false, anyone dare to insist that it still is the definitive sense of the text. Otherwise unbelievers will scorn Sacred Scripture, and the way to faith will be closed to them.

from Summa theologiae1265 - 1274

Archbishop James Ussher1581 - 1656

1650Ussher’s chronology

Ussher was NOT the first to calculate time since the first day of Genesis

But his work was footnoted in the King James Bible

Joseph Justus Scaliger1540-1609

De Emendatione Temporum (1583)

Univ. of Leiden library

religious leader and scholar, expanded the notion of classical historyfrom [just] Greek and Ancient Roman to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian

a cosmogony which

outlined world history – assumed universal;

scale of time traditional [Mosaic] 6000 years

Giordano Bruno 1548 - 1600

Bruno being burned at the stake, after refusing to recant, even after torture

February, 1600, Rome

Described a cosmos without center or boundaries -- infinite, eternal, possibly uncreated-- allowed possibility of plurality of worlds

Mystic, heretic, pantheistDenied original sinExcommunicated itinerant

“It was not Copernicus or Galileo but Giordano Bruno who grasped the great truth that the so-called fixed stars were actually huge suns like our own. Bruno conceived of a universe extending outward infinitely, containing suns without end, each, perhaps, racing through space with its own family of planets; Bruno's cosmos was a bold concept indeed, when compared with the stiffing, enclosed systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus.”

W. Hollister, UCSB

Ptolemy (left) andCopernicus (right) both imagined a fixed sphere of stars

“Bruno visualized a planetary system similar to

the one of Copernicus with a new concept that the stars

extended outward infinitely”

A.D. 1543c. 150 A.D.

c. 1584 A.D.

Galileo Galilei1564 - 1642

Galileo before the Holy Office, a 19th century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

Beginning in 1614, finally culminating in trial and condemnation in 1633, Galileo and his writings got him in trouble with Catholic dogmatists

René Descartes 1596 – 1650champion of rational thoughtmechanistic view of cosmos

Philosophiae Principia1644

read excerpt inreading packet

Earth starts as glowing mass, differentiates into three zones,

outer region further layered, arranged by density.

Ruptures of the outer crust generate topography, e.g.

I – incandescent, glowing center; M – opaque solid?C,E – solids, with C being “very solid and very heavy”

airwater

4th ed. published posthumously

René Descartes 1596 – 1650

Strategies to avoid trouble -- Due to Galileo’s trial (1630s), Descartes “denies” his own theory

Universe of indefinite limits

Earth and possibly countless other bodies had own origins and histories

Detached Earth history from cosmic history

Possible to conceive human history in Bible as separate from history of cosmos

sounds like Giordano Bruno…

Isaac Newton1643 - 1727

Newton, reacting to Descartes’ mechanistic view, writes letters to Thomas Burnet

Newton tries to reconcile religion with the “laws of Nature”

Evidence for divinity:regularity of solar system“perfection” of creation

Attempted to reconcile Genesis with “science”, but also wrote to Burnet his view that Genesis was written for common folk, was not sophisticated

Still, he tried to reconcile Mosaic account using natural laws; e.g., perhaps Earth not turning on the first day, which in that case could be very long.

Thomas Burnet1635 – 1715

Sacred Theory of the Earth [1680s]

frontispieceS.J. Gould writes about Burnet

Mosaic account is a brief and finite Earth history in an ocean of past and future cosmic time

Used natural knowledge to amplify and illuminate biblical narrative – can we use the laws of physics [first principles of Newton] to explain . . . ?

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz1646 - 1716

Benoit de Maillet1656 - 1738

Strategies to avoid trouble – don’t publish your cosmogony in your own lifetime

Protogaea [1749 – 33 years after death]1) incandescent molten globe – 2) crystalline granite and gneiss3) sphere of water, universal ocean

Fossils are animal forms transformed in Earth history

Telliamed [de Maillet spelled backwards][1748 – 10 years after death]

universal ocean gradually drying upvalleys eroded as water retreatsridicules use of Noah’s flood in cosmogonies

much of Telliamed quite fanciful

Lisbon, Portugal, catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in 1755-- major impact on philosophy of the time

challenges philosophy that creation is perfect and God benificent

ref. Voltaire, Candide, e.g., “the best of all possible worlds” [not]

read excerpt inreading packet

Georges Louis le Clerc de Buffon1707 – 1788

Histoire Naturelle 1749 Introduction was a theory of the Earth

Italian edition of Buffon’s Natural History

Epoques de la Nature 1778

Cosmogony starts with molten Earth, six epochs plus a 7th – manFinite age of Earth [c. 100,000 yr], experiments with cooling iron balls

Separated science and religion, no attempt at reconciliation

Most persuasive cosmogony of late 18th century, but many didn’t accept it

Paley’s Natural Theology (1802) condemns Buffon

Pierre Simon Laplace1749 - 1827

1st edition was 1796Popular account

of cosmology

4th edition 1815

Start with hot gaseous mass – expanded sun, rotating and cooling• rings abandoned as mass contracts, accreted to planets• one ring left—asteroid belt• moons—same process on smaller scale

•1790s to early 1800s nebulous matter discovered [Herschel]

nebular hypothesis

Rejects supernatural,Calculates odds that solar system could be “accidental”

While not atheists, and working within a world largely controlled by the church,

these cosmogonists were attempting, primarily, to generate cosmogonies that

explained the world naturalistically,without requiring a strict adherence

to the Mosaic accounts.

Cosmogonies with reference to Mosaic accounts&handiwork of God

Joseph Justus Scaliger1540-1609

De Emendatione Temporum (1583)

Univ. of Leiden library

religious leader and scholar, expanded the notion of classical historyfrom [just] Greek and Ancient Roman to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian

•a cosmogony

•outlined world history – assumed universal;

•scale of time traditional [Mosaic] 6000 years

Thomas Burnet1635 – 1715

Sacred Theory of the Earth [1680s]

frontispieceS.J. Gould writes about Burnet

Mosaic account is a brief and finite Earth history in an ocean of past and future cosmic time

Used natural knowledge to amplify and illuminate biblical narrative – can we use the laws of physics [first principles of Newton] to explain . . . ?

read excerpt inreading packet

Athanasius Kircher1602 - 1680

Mundus Subterraneus, 1678

Kircher’s Mundus Subterraneus“the standard geological treatise of the 17th century”was more of a cosmology than a cosmogony

Kircher referred to his world as the handiwork of GOD

Remember this excerpt when we read aboutneptunism, volcanism and plutonism

A diagram from William Whiston's book, A New Theory of the Earth

[1696] showing the trajectory of the earth

and the flood-causing comet. 

Also wroteAstronomical Principles of ReligionNatural and Revealed [1717]

1696

William Whiston1667 - 1752

Comets explained great physical eventsin earth history – deluge & conflagration

Earth in harmonious equilibrium derived from original chaos

His “physics” defied Newtonian principles

John Woodward1667 - 1728

Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth [1695]

•Studied strata and fossils•Claimed whole sequence had settled in order of specific gravity out of chaotic global mixture at the time of the flood [Noah’s flood]•Flood benificent•His physical interpretation DIVERGES from literal interpretation, but invokes assistance of supernatural power

Response of some: Noah’s flood more localAnd occurred after MOST of Earth history

Anton Lazzaro Moro1689 - 1740

De Crostacei degli altri Marini Corpi che si trovano su Monti

[1740]

•Criticizes Burnet and Woodward•Rejects Noachian deluge to explain strata•Claimed he did not contradict but only supplemented Genesis account

Testament at end wherein reformers of studies state that book contains nothing contrary to the Holy Catholic faith

Histories Egyptian and Chinese civilizations was of comparable length as Mosaic calculation

Hard to explain distribution of plants and animals around the globe

Difficult to fit accumulating written and natural history into narrative framework of Genesis and following books

Problems with traditional chronology by 17th century

Were accounts indicating greater antiquity fraudulent?

Was God testing scholars’ faith?

Jean André deLuc1727 - 1817

Lettres Physique et Morales [1779]

•Conceded vast time scale of pre-human history

•But criticized eternalistic theories

•Flood only a few thousand years ago--tremendous disturbance

•Christians need only be concerned with creation and history of mankind

•For rest of history, Genesis should be seen as symbolic

However, work like Woodward’s and othershelped establish the discipline of stratigraphy [see Hallam, Ch. 3]

Strata show long history before any fossils [azoic period]; creation of all life separated from time of Earth’s origin

Traditional literal chronology [6000 yrs] can’t explain Earth history without supernatural causes

AND the tradition of Natural Theology persisted

By the late 18th to early 19th century, most “scriptural geologists” have left the “scientific” community

Natural theology is the attempt to find evidence of a God or intelligent designer without recourse to any special or supposedly supernatural revelation. [Wikipedia]

Wikipedia also says:From the 8th century, the Mutazalite school of Islam, compelled to defend their principles against the orthodox Islam of their day, looked for support in philosophy, and are one of the first to pursue a rational theology, called Ilm-al-Kalam (scholastic theology).

Extra credit: Submit one or more examples of “natural theology” in earth sciences from these or other religious traditions.

Francis Bacon1561 – 1626

Counsel to King Jameschampion of empirical/inductive method

fromThe Advancement of Learning

1605Let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an all-applied moderation think or maintain, that man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware… that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.

[emphases added; this is called the Baconian compromise, or the “two books” concept]

quoted in Moore, J.R., 1986. “Geologists and interpreters of Genesis in the nineteenth century,” in D.C. Lindberg and R. Numbers, eds. God and Nature, Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, Univ. of California Press, p. 322-350.

John Ray (1628 – 1705)Botanist and zoologist“father of natural history”“Aristotle of England”

The Wisdom of God Manifested in

the Works of Creation (1693)

1692 – Miscellaneous discourses concerning the dissolution and changes of the world

Can only understand world in terms of accepted religious principles of Judeo-Christian world, but

Criticized Woodward as fanciful noted that specific gravity did NOT match order of fossils in strata -- “simplest empirical test”

As in the Baconian “two books”

tradition, Nature is a revelation

of the Divine [the Creator]

William Paley1743 – 1806

Natural Theology orEvidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearance of Nature[1806]

Inferred existence of God from evidence of exquisite design in nature

Provided credible explanation for why organisms were so perfectly adapted to their environments

Made watch/watchmaker argument –design, e.g., of eye, hand

No historicism, no geology; argument based only on present things

1829 – Francis Henry, Earl of Bridgewater, leaves £8000 to the Royal Society of London to be paid to persons to write, print and publish 1000 copies each,

On the power, wisdom and goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation

Buckland writes one of these treatisesSee reading packet

William Buckland

1784 - 1856

1808 – ordained in ministry1813 – fellow, mineralogy and chemisty, Oxford; then Professor1818 – Royal Society, readership in Geology1820 – Vindicae Geologiae1823 – Reliquiae Diluvianae1825 – Canon of Christ Church1825 – married Mary Morland, illustrator and collector of fossils1836 – Bridgewater Treatise [see below]

Some doubts were once expressed about the FloodBuckland arose, and all was clear as mud

Shuttleworth*

*Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in nightGod said, Let Newton be, and all was light

A. Pope, 1730

reading packet excerpt from:

http://www.geology.19thcenturyscience.org/books/Bridgewater-Treatises/06-1837-Bridgewater-Buckland/text.htm/%20entry.htm

Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise is scanned and on the web!!!