Genesis and Geology: A Study in the Relations of Scientific Thought, Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850 (Harvard Historical Studies, V. 58.)

Rating:
Summary: Searching for God in the details.
Review: The subtitle on the cover of my 1959, Harper & Row paperback edition of reads, "The Impact of Scientific Discoveries Upon Religious Beliefs in the Decades Before Darwin." Since the title page bears an altogether different subtitle--the one printed above in the Amazon catalogue--it seems probable that this alternate description was the choice of the publisher, and did not reflect the intentions of the author. Bringing a work of scholarship to a mass-market audience always involves some kind of compromise, so the change no doubt is understandable. After all, the vague suggestion of scandal in "The Impact of Scientific Discoveries Upon Religious Beliefs" promises to attract more readers than Gillispie's stodgy and academic-sounding "A Study in the Relations of . . . etc." The problem, of course, is that the "sexier" (for 1959!) subtitle is wildly inaccurate. Harper & Row's editors got it precisely backwards: Gillispie's book is about the impact of religious beliefs on science, and not the other way round. Unfortunately, in reinstating the book's original subtitle, Harvard University Press promotes truth in advertising in more ways than one, for indeed is a dry, scholarly and at times tedious work. And that ultimately is the greatest misfortune of all, since the academic deadwood obscures an important and highly instructive thesis. One of the prevailing myths of modern Christian fundamentalism is that of the "atheist scientist" presumptuously attacking the revealed truths of the Biblical world view and thereby undermining the foundations of faith and morality. While this myth occasionally leads to an outright rejection of science (a la "flat-earthers"), it more frequently results in the strained distortions of Christian pseudoscience ("scientific" creationism, "mind-of-God" cosmologies, prayer-as-medicine, etc.), a more sophisticated response whereby science is coopted to the service of religion and the "glorification of God." The teleological argument leads naturally to an interest in the universe, and science provides a rich store of data to reflect upon in this connection. To appreciate the Watchmaker fully, we must first study the Watch. That this reconciliation of scientific discovery with religious "revelation" frequently requires the distortion and suppression of the empirical evidence at hand ultimately is a small point, easily finessed away in the footnotes. Science, we are told, has proven the existence of God. The great value of Gillispie's study lies in the historical light it throws on this age-old yet perennially "new" problem. What Gillispie shows in page after carefully documented page of excerpts from contemporary scientific journals is that, far from a presumption of atheism, the geologists and paleontologists of the early nineteenth century predicated their studies on a very traditional religious faith and a keen desire to use science to verify and justify the Mosaic account of creation. The irony, of course, is that the more these scientists discovered, the harder it became for them to reconcile their newfound knowledge with the revealed traditions of Scripture. At no point, however, was this recognition a welcome or foreseen conclusion. The geologists took to their work with gusto, confident that exploring the history of the physical world around them could only tend to the greater glory of God by revealing the workings of His particular Providence. As it gradually dawned on them that their studies pointed to quite contrary conclusions, they reacted not with atheistic glee but with dismay and sometimes denial. Such observations are not original to Gillispie, nor is the pattern of pious scientists finding their faith shaken by the very facts they had worked to reveal unique to nineteenth-century geologists. In its detailed focus on the development of one branch of science in the period of its first flowering, however, nonetheless makes for a convincing, thought-provoking study of the uneasy relationship between science and religion. Although Gillispie avoids drawing any theological conclusions, it is not difficult to see the significance of the nineteenth-century experience in geology for the future of the teleological argument and "providential empiricism." As long as religion continues to turn to science for support, it will go on receiving problematic answers. Fundamentalist Christians would do well to consider that the science they so deplore was developed, to a great extent, by researchers whose motivation involved a very pious and orthodox desire to glorify the works of God. Atheists and other skeptics, on the other hand, no doubt can benefit from considering the reverse of the coin--the way in which the religious hypothesis, however limiting at times, has served as a genuine source of inspiration to seekers of the truth. The teleological argument, through science, proves to be self-refuting; but we need not let that blind us to the very human struggle which that process historically has involved. Gillispie offers valuable insights for each perspective. As noted at the beginning of this review, is a slow-going read. In his natural, historian's desire to be thorough, Gillispie often seems to lose the forest for the trees, tiring the reader with seemingly interminable details about publication dates, scientific allegiances and academic eccentricities. As the popular saying has it, however, God is in the details. The reader willing to slog through the great mass of quotation and documentation in will be rewarded with a broad yet vivid picture of the science-religion debate of an earlier era, and with much to ponder regarding the ongoing debate in our own.

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