Romans 1:22 NIV
"Charles Lyell was born into a wealthy family on November 14, 1797. His father was a translator and scholar of the works of the famous Italian poet Dante and also a recognized expert on botany, who introduced Charles to the study of nature.
In 1816, Lyell entered Oxford University, and in 1817–1819, he attended the eight spring-term geology lectures of William Buckland, who at the time offered the only lectures on geology in Britain. Buckland wrote two books (in 1820 and 1823) defending the global catastrophic flood of Noah. But he held to the gap theory, attributing most of the sedimentary rock record to multiple catastrophes over ages long before Adam.
Lyell graduated with a BA in classics (ancient Greek and Roman
studies) in 1819 and received an honorary MA in 1821. After graduation, he studied law at Lincoln’s Inn and became a practicing lawyer in London. In 1823, he was elected joint secretary of the Geological Society of London (which was a wealthy “gentlemen’s club” of amateur geologists formed in 1807—there were no professional, vocational geologists at this time).
"Charles Lyell was born into a wealthy family on November 14, 1797. His father was a translator and scholar of the works of the famous Italian poet Dante and also a recognized expert on botany, who introduced Charles to the study of nature.
In 1816, Lyell entered Oxford University, and in 1817–1819, he attended the eight spring-term geology lectures of William Buckland, who at the time offered the only lectures on geology in Britain. Buckland wrote two books (in 1820 and 1823) defending the global catastrophic flood of Noah. But he held to the gap theory, attributing most of the sedimentary rock record to multiple catastrophes over ages long before Adam.
Lyell graduated with a BA in classics (ancient Greek and Roman
He traveled in rural England to study geological formations and presented his first geological paper in 1826. By 1827, he had abandoned law to focus full-time on geology (funded by his father’s wealth) as he applied and refined the ideas he had gained from James Hutton’s old-earth Theory of the Earth (1795), which Lyell was exposed to as a teenager. So before he knew much about the geology of Britain and Europe and when geology was in its infancy as a science, Lyell was already committed to long ages of earth history under the influence of Buckland, Hutton and other old-earth proponents.
James Hutton, a medical doctor turned farmer turned geologist from Scotland, is considered by evolutionists to be the “Father of Modern Geology.” Historians of geology conclude from his writings that he was deist or secret atheist. Two statements Hutton made (reflecting such a worldview) have dominated old-earth thinking ever since his death in 1797.
In 1785, he wrote, “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.” So here, Hutton lays down his law of geological reasoning. If we are going to reconstruct the history of the earth, it must be explained by presently observable, natural processes. He thereby ruled out the supernatural creation of the world and the global flood—when he knew almost nothing about the rocks of Scotland much less anywhere else.
In 1795, Hutton added, “But, surely, general deluges form no part of the theory of the earth; for, the purpose of this earth is evidently to maintain vegetable and animal life, and not to destroy them.” This too was a clear rejection of Noah’s flood.
Lyell embraced Hutton’s deistic/atheistic thinking and skillfully articulated them (in a way that Hutton could not) in his three-volume Principles of Geology (1830–1833). Lyell expressed his view succinctly this way:
As a result of Hutton and Lyell’s work, three assumptions took control of geology....uniformitarian naturalism. They are not derived from scientific research but are philosophical and religious in nature:
James Hutton, a medical doctor turned farmer turned geologist from Scotland, is considered by evolutionists to be the “Father of Modern Geology.” Historians of geology conclude from his writings that he was deist or secret atheist. Two statements Hutton made (reflecting such a worldview) have dominated old-earth thinking ever since his death in 1797.
In 1785, he wrote, “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.” So here, Hutton lays down his law of geological reasoning. If we are going to reconstruct the history of the earth, it must be explained by presently observable, natural processes. He thereby ruled out the supernatural creation of the world and the global flood—when he knew almost nothing about the rocks of Scotland much less anywhere else.
In 1795, Hutton added, “But, surely, general deluges form no part of the theory of the earth; for, the purpose of this earth is evidently to maintain vegetable and animal life, and not to destroy them.” This too was a clear rejection of Noah’s flood.
Lyell embraced Hutton’s deistic/atheistic thinking and skillfully articulated them (in a way that Hutton could not) in his three-volume Principles of Geology (1830–1833). Lyell expressed his view succinctly this way:
"I have always been strongly impressed with the weight of an
observation of an excellent writer and skillful geologist who said that “for the sake of revelation [i.e., the Bible] as well as of science—of truth in every form—the physical part of Geological inquiry ought to be conducted as if the Scriptures were not in existence."
In a private letter to a friend, he said he wanted to “free the science [of geology] from Moses.”
As a result of Hutton and Lyell’s work, three assumptions took control of geology....uniformitarian naturalism. They are not derived from scientific research but are philosophical and religious in nature:
1) Nature is all that exists.
2) Everything can, and indeed must, be explained by time plus chance plus the laws of nature working on matter.
3) The processes of geological change (erosion, sedimentation, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.) have always been operating in the past at the same rate, frequency, and power as we observe today.
In 1831, when Charles Darwin launched his five-year voyage to study the world, he took a copy of the first volume of Lyell’s Principles on the boat.
2) Everything can, and indeed must, be explained by time plus chance plus the laws of nature working on matter.
3) The processes of geological change (erosion, sedimentation, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.) have always been operating in the past at the same rate, frequency, and power as we observe today.
In 1831, when Charles Darwin launched his five-year voyage to study the world, he took a copy of the first volume of Lyell’s Principles on the boat.
And he thoroughly absorbed Lyell’s thinking:
So Lyell’s writings and influence advocating geological evolution in the early 1800s paved the way for the general acceptance of Darwin’s theory of biological evolution (including human evolution and the rejection of a literal Adam) in the late 1800s and eventually the acceptance of the big bang theory of cosmological evolution in the twentieth century.
Unexpectedly in the 1970s, some evolutionary geologists began to reject Lyell’s uniformitarian dogma of slow, gradual geological change and return to the ideas of some of the catastrophists of the early 1800s. They began to see evidence of catastrophism in the rocks and to expose the truth of what Lyell said in 1827: “It is almost superfluous to remind the reader that they who have a theory to establish, may easily overlook facts which bear against them, and, unconscious of their own partiality, dwell exclusively on what tends to support their opinions.” Lyell was guilty of doing exactly that.
One of the leading “neocatastrophists” was Dr. Derek Ager (1923–1993), a well-known, British geology professor at Swansea University in Wales. Referring to geology in the early nineteenth century, Ager says,
Gould said,
Lyell’s uniformitarianism was wrong, and the world has been brainwashed with a lie."
"I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell’s brains and that.webp)
I never acknowledge this sufficiently, nor do I know how I can, without saying so in so many words—for I have always thought that the great merit of the Principles, was that it altered the whole tone of one’s mind and therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes."
.webp)
So Lyell’s writings and influence advocating geological evolution in the early 1800s paved the way for the general acceptance of Darwin’s theory of biological evolution (including human evolution and the rejection of a literal Adam) in the late 1800s and eventually the acceptance of the big bang theory of cosmological evolution in the twentieth century.
Unexpectedly in the 1970s, some evolutionary geologists began to reject Lyell’s uniformitarian dogma of slow, gradual geological change and return to the ideas of some of the catastrophists of the early 1800s. They began to see evidence of catastrophism in the rocks and to expose the truth of what Lyell said in 1827: “It is almost superfluous to remind the reader that they who have a theory to establish, may easily overlook facts which bear against them, and, unconscious of their own partiality, dwell exclusively on what tends to support their opinions.” Lyell was guilty of doing exactly that.
One of the leading “neocatastrophists” was Dr. Derek Ager (1923–1993), a well-known, British geology professor at Swansea University in Wales. Referring to geology in the early nineteenth century, Ager says,
"My excuse for this lengthy and amateur digression into history is that I have been trying to show how I think geology got into the hands of the theoreticians [i.e., uniformitarians] who were conditioned by the social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field. . . . In other words, we have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed “catastrophic” processes."
Gould said,
"Gradualism was never “proved from the rocks” by Lyell and Darwin, but was rather imposed as a bias upon nature. . . . [It] has had a profoundly negative impact by stifling hypotheses and by closing the minds of a profession toward reasonable empirical alternatives to the dogma of gradualism. . . . Lyell won with rhetoric what he could not carry with data."
Lyell’s uniformitarianism was wrong, and the world has been brainwashed with a lie."
AIG
