The Religion of Geology

Antecedents to the Conflict between Psychology and Religion in America

“…Geology, once conceived as the most effective tool for the disclosure of divine purposes in the natural order, was now challenging religion on several fronts: Whereas Christianity imagined the earth to be 6 thousand years old, Lyell understood it to be more like several million years; and where the former conceived of the original creation as taking place over a period of 6 days, the latter substituted an indefinite period of time (Dillenberger, 1960;Haber, 1959;Millhauser, 1959). To be sure, this shift points to a significant difference in outlook between those modern men of science, known for their sedulous preoccupation for natural processes, and their devout predecessors, who, like Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) and Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), traditionally gave the transcendent the determining role in their interpretations (Gillispie, 1951;Millhauser, 1959;Wright, 1941). But though it would be inaccurate to depict uniformitarianism as singly responsible for the decline in the plausibility of a Mosaic geology, it is clear that, despite attempts by conservatives to preserve a literal reading of Genesis, and notwithstanding the efforts of progressivists to accommodate a naturalistic interpretation with divine superintendence, the general thrust of Lyell's theory attenuated a traditional religious cosmology (Brooke, 1991;Conser, 1993;Gillispie, 1951;Greene, 1974;Millhauser, 1959).…”