James Hutton
James Hutton was a Scottish geologist, physician, chemical manufacturer, naturalist, and experimental agriculturist. He’s considered the Founder of Modern Geology. It appears that he was a deist, but it’s also possible that he entertained the notion of atheism. He believed, at best, that God was distant from earth and did not intervene in creation.
Before he ever began to examine the rocks, he proclaimed “the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now…No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.”
In his writings he claims that geology can be explained by a series of slow and gradual processes. He wrote that the present day processes of erosion, sedimentation, volcanism, and other geologic occurrences can explain the past. He believed that sediment was slowly eroded off the continents, where it was eventually transformed into rock, which was then eroded away again. He taught that there was “no vestige of a beginning or prospect of an end” to this cycle.
Now, he wasn’t following the evidence when he proposed his theories. He had already rejected God’s Word and was trying to explain the world without the eyewitness account of the Creator. The ideas of uniformitarianism don’t come from the rock layers—they come from a rejection of God’s word!
Hutton’s ideas were later to be revived by lawyer and geologist, Charles Lyell. It was Lyell who greatly influenced Charles Darwin, laying the groundwork for Darwin’s evolutionary theories about biology.
But when we examine geology, we don’t find evidence of slow and gradual processes for untold periods of time. What we do see is evidence of a global catastrophe that radically changed the Earth. This event IS described in the Bible—the global Flood of Noah’s Day. If Hutton, and others like him, hadn’t rejected God’s Word before they studied the rocks, they would have seen that geology confirms the Bible.
This was simply one more chapter in the history of evolution’s rise to popularity. I call it: “The Evolution of Evolution.” These archaic philosophies have seen far too many pseudoscientific complications added – in an effort to salvage the theory. It’s about time for a fresh approach.
I’m David Rives. Truly…the heavens declare the glory of God.