NOTE: This document is for personal use only. It is not to be distributed in either print or electronic format.
Gary A. Nowlan, Ph.D.
U.S. Geological Survey (Retired)
FOR: Faith and Science Conference, Glacier View Ranch, CO — August 2003
Introduction
Any Seventh-day Adventist with more than a cursory knowledge of the earth sciences who is serious about both their faith and their science is bound to find conflicts between the two. This paper is about the journey I have made from a position of naive certainty to a position of greater knowledge, greater uncertainty, and a more settled faith. My perspective is from the standpoint of one who spent more than 30 years first as a chemist and then a geologist with one of the premier geological institutions of the world. The paper is not an attempt to persuade anyone to adopt a given position on issues of earth history or to lay out a coherent series of scientific, hermeneutical, or theological arguments. Rather, I will present what I see as important steps in the "evolution" of my thought processes from when I was a young student to where I am today. The steps will include the basis for my claim to an orthodox religious heritage, happenings that first planted questions in my mind about some aspects of my belief system, thought patterns as I was immersed in graduate studies in geology, events that resulted in my first serious questions about the correctness of my beliefs regarding earth history, and the resolution for me of the conflicts between science and religion.
Early Years
My childhood was spent on a ranch in the Pine Ridge country of northwestern
Nebraska, in distant view of the Black Hills of South Dakota. This scenic corner
of Nebraska is not a hotbed of liberalism. My parents were strong Republicans
who had no use for Franklin Roosevelt. Their conservative ideas rubbed off on me
and I remember my disappointment when Dewey was defeated by Roosevelt in the
1944 presidential election and again by Truman in 1948.
My mother had Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) roots but had never been baptized
because her parents were not practicing Adventists when she was young. We
attended the SDA church at times during my early childhood years. But our
religious life really revolved around the Bethel Church, a small and very active
community church sponsored by the American Sunday School Union, which was a mile
from our ranch It was at this little white rural church nestled near the base of
the Pine Ridge that I first learned the basic principles of Christianity. The
people who attended were good people who believed strongly in the Bible as the
basis for their lives and faith. Creation week was taught as a fact and I cannot
remember ever hearing the word evolution until much later in life. Even if it
was ever mentioned, it would have been dismissed without much discussion.
Once when I was a teenager, I was part of a carload of young people from the
Bethel Church who traveled for two hours to view a film of the young Billy
Graham preaching, much as young people now travel to live rock concerts. So even
though I was at that time on the fringes of Adventism, a conservative outlook on
issues of creation was certainly my heritage before I began attending SDA
schools in the tenth grade.
Off to Seventh-day Adventist Schools
My mother's parents had been active SDA's before her birth. One of her sisters
married into a quite prominent SDA family, her aunt served the church in the
mission field and in several homeland conferences, and other members of her
family and extended family were active church members. My father died suddenly
when I was 13. He had never actively opposed the family attending the SDA
Church, but neither did he make it convenient. After his death, my mother began
attending church regularly along with my younger sister and me. We were all
three soon baptized and the fall after our baptism my sister and I journeyed the
350 miles to Platte Valley Academy in central Nebraska for our first taste of
Adventist education.
Three years at Platte Valley Academy laid a strong foundation for a lifelong
walk as an active and committed Seventh-day Adventist. One of my mentors was
Milo Anderson, who taught science at PVA. His influence and the influence of
other Christian teachers were important in the conversion process that began
with the home in which I grew up, continued during the years of attending Bethel
Church, and took a major step when I made the decision to be baptized into the
Seventh-day Adventist Church at the age of 14.
Platte Valley Academy was not the place to learn liberal theological concepts.
Ideas about creation and the age of the earth were orthodox Seventh-day
Adventist ideas and I have no recollection that modern secular concepts about
earth history were mentioned.
After graduation from Platte Valley Academy I went back to the ranch to live
with my mother. My ambition was to ranch and raise registered Hereford cattle.
However, a few months after graduation, my mother had to leave the ranch where I
had lived since I was an infant and she moved to Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Though I
did not realize it at the time, this move was the end of a rural way of life for
me and set the stage for embarking on a path that would eventually lead to a
graduate education
Although Platte Valley Academy was not necessarily a college preparatory school,
the influence of Milo Anderson and others, together with the loss of the
opportunity to become a rancher and the fact that I was a good student, started
me thinking that I needed to get a college education.
I attended Union College for a semester, worked and attended a junior college,
and then went back to Union College to obtain a bachelor's degree. The seed of a
Christian experience was planted during my early years at home and in the Bethel
Church, grew as a plant during the years at Platte Valley Academy, and bloomed
at Union College.
My ambition to be a cattle rancher was impossible and I had difficulty deciding
what was second best. I changed majors several times during college. A constant
during those changes was that I enjoyed religion classes. At Union College I was
privileged to take classes from C. Mervyn Maxwell, Leif Kr.Tobiasson, and other
religion teachers, all who taught us to think. I received a minor in religion.
Unorthodox ideas about earth history did not find fertile ground at Union
College. Modern secular ideas about earth history were openly discussed, but
overwhelmingly from the orthodox position. I graduated from Union College with
my beliefs about creation week, a short age for the earth, and Noah's Flood
intact.
Sometime late in my college career, I made the decision to apply for medical
school at Loma Linda University. Because I had changed my major course of study
so many times and in order to meet the requirements for medical school in the
shortest possible time, I ended up with a major in chemistry.
After College
After five years in Scottsbluff, my mother moved to Boulder, Colorado, to work
at the Boulder Sanitarium and I went to live with her after I completed studies
at Union College. I was accepted at Loma Linda Medical School and was scheduled
to start the fall of 1961. Uncertainty about being a medical doctor together
with lack of finances led me to turn down the acceptance to medical school and I
determined to find a part time job and begin graduate studies in chemistry at
the University of Colorado.
Through a series of open and closed doors of opportunity, which I felt to be
providential, I found a part time position as an analytical chemist at the
United States Geological Survey (USGS) located in the western suburbs of Denver.
The position was scheduled to last for one year and because the position was
part time and I could work flexible hours, I was able to take some chemistry
classes at the University of Colorado. I knew nothing about the USGS when I
began working there. I also knew nothing about geology although I had pretty
definite ideas about earth history.
The position involved performing trace analyses for metals under the direction
of a well known geologist/geochemist. He, along with others, was doing research
into methods of exploring for metallic ore deposits using chemistry. Many of the
personnel were pioneers in the new science of exploration geochemistry. I found
the group to be amicable, the studies interesting, and the personnel
knowledgeable and helpful. I also found a lot of committed Christians, some of
whom were acquainted with Seventh-day Adventists and with SDA churches and
medical institutions around the world.
As the year passed, the opportunity arose for me to equip a mobile analytical
laboratory and take it to Maine as support for geologists working on a project
there. Also, I became a permanent, full time employee with the intention that I
would eventually go back to school.
We were in Maine for several months and mostly I performed analyses in the
mobile laboratory. But toward the end of the field season, I was able to go into
the field and do some of the work the geologists were doing. The project chief
was a good teacher. Often, we would be sitting in a restaurant and I would ask
him a question. He would grab a napkin and begin drawing diagrams. My questions
were usually about structural geology or other physical aspects of geology and
not about issues of earth history. The idea that it would be more fun to be a
geologist than a chemist started forming in my mind. My views on earth history
did not change but I began to detect problems.
Life-Changing Choices
After several years performing analyses, doing research in methods of analysis,
manning field laboratories, and increasingly doing the work of a geologist, I
decided it was time to think about graduate school again. I had also married a
wonderful Christian girl, Connie Wells. She was from northwestern Nebraska, as I
was. I knew her at Platte Valley Academy and Union College. She was girl's dean
and taught at Enterprise Academy in Kansas and Shenandoah Valley Academy in
Virginia after graduation from Union College. I proposed to her in Virginia on
the way back to Colorado after one of the long field trips in Maine. After we
married and settled down in Boulder, she was immediately asked to teach at
Boulder Junior Academy. My field work at that time was usually during the summer
and Connie was able to travel with me.
During the early years with the USGS, my work involved trace-metal analysis,
development of analytical methods, collection of geologic samples, and some
interpretation of trace-element geochemical data. Issues of earth history did
not fit naturally into my work and discussions of creation issues only
occasionally took place. Our primary goal was to develop methods of finding ore
deposits, not decipher earth history. In general when there were discussions of
creation or flood issues, my younger less experienced colleagues were more
inclined to discuss the issues while the more experienced colleagues passed the
issues off as not worthy of much attention.
I had made the decision to go to graduate school to study some area of earth
science that involved geochemistry but I then had to decide whether to approach
geochemistry from the standpoint of chemistry or of geology. It was late one
evening as Connie and I drove our Jeep along a woods road in Maine after
completing a day of collecting geological samples. I had been struggling for
some time about which direction to go with graduate studies. As we bounced
through the woods the answer suddenly seemed very clear and I decided to go the
geology route. As had happened when I first got the job at the USGS, I looked
back at a series of events and felt that I was being led in the direction of
becoming a geologist.
My primary goal in pursuing graduate studies was to become a working geologist.
Such a goal would fulfill those old desires I had as a youth to be a cattle
rancher. I enjoyed the outdoors. I liked the idea of dealing with the weather. I
loved observing the natural world. Working with vehicles and equipment appealed
to me. My creative and adaptive instincts responded to the need for problem
solving. And my scientific curiosities that were awakened at Platte Valley
Academy would be satisfied.
A secondary goal was to become knowledgeable enough in the field of earth
science to more intelligently deal with the earth-history issues resulting from
my upbringing and education in a conservative Christian environment. I might
even discover the "silver bullet" that would settle the creation-evolution
controversy once and for all in favor of creation!
Immersed In Graduate Studies
Because I had never taken any courses in earth science, my first year would be
taken up with undergraduate courses. Requirements for physical and historical
geology could be satisfied by taking qualifying exams. I was on a field trip,
living in a tent in southwestern Colorado the summer of 1966. To prepare for the
exams, I spent each evening in the tent studying beginning geology texts with a
lantern on the table for light and a heater underneath the table for warmth. I
passed the exams and began the first year of courses that fall at the University
of Colorado.
The Department of Geological Sciences required its entering graduate students to
qualify in two out three possible general fields of study in addition to
physical and historical geology. Those general fields were field/structural
geology, mineralogy, and paleontology. Because I was headed toward a career in
mineral exploration and ore deposits, my major professor strongly recommended I
bypass paleontology and qualify in field/structural geology and mineralogy. In
some ways I regret that decision, but my primary goal was to become a working
geologist, not solve issues of evolution. Also, from the standpoint of an SDA, I
was trying to avoid the more controversial aspects of studies in geology. After
all, this was new ground for all but a handful of committed SDA's.
For the next several years I attended classes at the university and continued
working at the USGS part time during the school year and full time during
summers. The program was rigorous, but enjoyable. I have nothing but good to say
about the teaching staff. For purposes of earning a degree, they put emphasis on
how well the student knew and understood the principles of what they were
teaching. Issues of creation/evolution seldom came up and when they did, the
professors made it clear that, as far as the graduate program was concerned,
what students knew was important and their belief system was not. From the
beginning I determined that I would go to school as a learner and not an
expositor.
As I took classes in petrology and structural geology, I learned of experiments
that produced faults and folds in small samples of rock and changed rocks from
one crystalline state to another. We studied stress fields in gelatinous
material as pressures were applied in different orientations and intensities and
then used the principles to learn what earth movements did to solid rock. We
learned the succession of minerals that formed as a mass of molten rock cooled
and the textures that resulted from varying rates of cooling. I was always
wondering if the earth we see today resulted from all of these processes
happening in a short time throughout the whole earth.
I learned about the geology of the Boulder area, including the sequence of
sedimentary strata, the ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks under the
sedimentary sequence, and the evidences of various episodes of glaciation that
took place after the sedimentary sequence was tilted when the Rocky Mountains
were uplifted. These lessons came from being on the ground, measuring the
thickness of sequences of strata, examining the rocks in outcrop, and preparing
geologic maps.
Before the graduate program began, I determined that I would not attend classes
or field trips on Sabbath. The professors honored that decision and I was able
to either make up work or substitute another activity for the one that took
place on Sabbath.
Interestingly, after over four years of studies of geology, I still had no
doubts about my beliefs in creation week, my rejection of macro evolution, or
any concerns about the orthodox SDA position I had always held. Although I
avoided paleontology early in my graduate program, I did take courses in
stratigraphy, sedimentation, and others where paleontology was a component of
the course. But I felt I was in the camp of the opposition and so I should not
expect any outlook other than from the standpoint of classic geology. There were
various views about principles of earth science and, indeed, there were debates
about the validity of Darwinian theories. But these discussions were always in
the context of classic geology.
Dissertation and Debate
During the years of working in Maine I had become intrigued by the abundant
concretionary deposits of manganese/iron oxides in many brooks. These deposits
were of interest because they were very effective scavengers of a number of
metals. The formation of these deposits in streams of Maine became the subject
of my dissertation. Course work was completed after several years and I resumed
a fulltime career at the USGS where I would be doing research for the Ph.D.
dissertation. The USGS felt that after several years of letting me put emphasis
on course work, it was time for me to put more time into other priority
projects. Also, two boys had entered the lives of Connie and me so I was not
able to work on the dissertation full time.
The studies involved the analysis of water, stream sediment, and other materials
associated with the oxide deposits and the application of phase equilibrium
theory to the study. Many of the analyses were performed right at the brooks I
was studying. The studies were very enjoyable. At times I could say "There is
nothing I would rather be doing at this moment." By December, 1976, I had
completed the dissertation and other requirements for a Ph.D. in geology and
took part in graduation in May, 1977.
About this time events were beginning to happen that would shake the naive
certainty I had held since my youth about the age of the earth, creation, and a
world wide flood. Also, these events caused the resurfacing in my mind of issues
from the past about the nature of inspiration.
As I became more knowledgeable about the science of geology and questions about
the nature of inspiration started to take center stage within the SDA church, I
felt great need to be able to discuss the issues in a setting with Biblically
informed and articulate church members who were confident enough in their faith
that posing hard questions would not be viewed as an attack on the church or
traditional beliefs.
One of our pastors who is now a prominent church administrator called me into
his office to discuss issues of earth history and to hear what I had to say
about some of the immense problems I was beginning to see. He was a good friend
then and still is. He listened very intently and seemed to appreciate the
problems. But in his farewell sermon, one of his points was that we as members
should hold to the Biblical accounts of creation and earth history. I felt those
words were directed toward me.
I thought the best forum for airing some of my questions was Sabbath School
Teachers' meeting. It took only one Teachers' Meeting for me to realize it was
not going to be possible. A prominent member and long-time Sabbath School
teacher who I respected and considered a friend was very upset. My respect for
him did not diminish and we have continued to be friends, but I realized that
the types of discussions I needed were going to be impossible in that setting. I
stopped attending Teachers' Meeting, thinking to myself, "If I cannot discuss
these issues in Teachers' Meeting, where can I discuss them?" I was going to
have to find a comfort zone pretty much on my own.
In the Wilderness
There were times when I felt I was in an intellectual wilderness when it came to
issues of earth history. Boulder is the home of many entities with a scientific
or engineering focus. Consequently, the Boulder SDA Church has had quite a few
scientists and engineers as active members. The presence of an SDA hospital next
to the church meant that medical professionals were very active in the church.
In spite of the high level of education, members with education in geological
sciences have been largely non-existent in Boulder. Maurice Carlisle and I have
been the only geology professionals for most of the more than 40 years I have
been a part of the Boulder church. It seems evident that the relative lack of
geology professionals in Boulder and throughout the SDA church is due, in part,
to historic SDA attitudes toward earth history.
From the standpoint of being able to discuss issues of earth history from an SDA
perspective with someone who was trained in geology, Boulder was a wilderness. I
suspect the same could be said for most of Adventist congregations. I am
grateful for the years that I was able to share ideas with Maurice Carlisle who
died much too young a few years ago.
I am also grateful for those years in the 1980's and 1990's when my good friends
Ben Clausen and Bob Cushman were members of the Boulder church. During that
time, [a friend] would occasionally drive down from Laramie where he was
doing graduate work. And we received visits from Ariel Roth, Robert Brown, Clyde
Webster, Ed Hare, and others. I was extremely blessed by the open discussions we
were able to have, even though the views about earth history were quite
divergent. I pray this kind of openness toward discussion of issues of earth
history will be encouraged within the world-wide Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Shaking the Foundations
As I noted earlier, graduate school did not really shake my faith in the
Biblical record of creation week and a world wide flood or of an elapsed time
since creation of thousands of years. I was willing to accept that the mass of
the earth had been in existence for much longer. Certainly, the courses and the
field work during the graduate education started raising questions in my mind,
but I was not ready to discard traditional beliefs that I had accepted for so
long. I probably believed that the "silver bullet" that would disprove evolution
and prove creation and a world wide flood would come along eventually. Robert
Gentry had lectured in Boulder about pleochroic halos and seemed to present a
good case for instantaneous creation of some rock types. I thank him for
dispelling in his lectures the notion that human and dinosaur footprints were
found in the same strata in bedrock in a Texas river. Building a case on
contrived data is bound to hurt any cause.
During the early years of my career as a chemist with the USGS, when I was
operating a mobile chemical laboratory for mineral-resource projects in
Colorado, Idaho, and New Mexico as well as in Maine, I was exposed to increasing
amounts of field geology in a variety of geologic environments. I came to
understand and appreciate the great complexity of the earth's crust as I
listened to my geologist colleagues discuss their findings. Geologic mapping was
a component of my dissertation. I increasingly realized that whether the earth
was very old (hundreds of millions or billions of years) or only a few thousand
years old, it looked very old.
About that time Glenn Coon was lecturing around the country about "The ABC's of
Prayer" and stating that the Bible contained thousands of promises. He presented
a series of meetings in Boulder and told how we should "ask, believe, and claim"
the promises in the Bible. So, I did just that. Issues of earth history were
becoming more important as the time approached when I would be writing my
dissertation. I would also be responsible for making interpretations and writing
geologic reports as part of my work with the USGS. My exposure to so much
geology had moved me from naive certainty to unresolved uncertainty.
I found a promise that seemed to fit my situation exactly and I claimed it in my
prayers. It is found in Jeremiah 33:2, 3. In the Revised Standard Version it
says "Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish
it--the LORD is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you
great and hidden things which you have not known."
That promise was part of my prayers for weeks if not months. I was hoping for
something that would resolve the growing conflict between my long held beliefs
and the overwhelming evidence that the earth I had come to know was very old. An
answer came, but not the one I was expecting. Or perhaps it was not an answer
but rather a startling coincidence. It came in the form of a 1974 article by
Richard and Stephen Ritland about fossil forests (Ritland, Richard M., and
Ritland, Stephen L., 1974, The Fossil Forests of the Yellowstone Region:
Spectrum, v. 6, nos.1/2, p.19-66).
The interpretations they presented would have been no surprise if the study had
been from one of my colleagues in the USGS. But here were scientists with
conservative SDA backgrounds reporting evidence of a long period of repeated
deposition and tree growth. With my experience and exposure to volcanic regimes
I found their conclusions to be compelling.
Long before this time I had concluded that if the Bible story of creation and a
later world-wide flood was literal, the surface of the earth as we see it today
would reflect the flood or events related to the upheaval of the earth around
that time and not pre-flood conditions except for fossil remains. I was also
aware of studies by SDA archeologists that presented evidence of the existence
of civilization for considerably longer periods than the traditional 4,500 years
or so between Noah's Flood and the present. I realized that competent SDA
scholars had concluded that the Bible text did not necessarily limit the time
since creation week to about 6,000 years. But statements by Ellen White
certainly did.
In the hallway of the USGS building where I worked was a display of photographs
taken by the Powell expedition through Grand Canyon in the middle 1800's. Beside
each picture was a photo of the same scene taken 100 years later. I marveled at
the lack of change in most of the photos, even to the placement of individual
boulders. Of course, changes do occur in the Grand Canyon and elsewhere very
quickly at times. But I thought of how a time of 4,500 years since the flood was
only 45 times as long as the 100 years between photos of those boulders.
Scientists are accustomed to thinking in orders of magnitude and the difference
between 100 and 4,500 is only one and one-half orders of magnitude. "If the
changes in 100 years were so small," I thought, "multiplying those changes by 45
would still mean rather small changes."
In 1976 I began working on projects in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. I was
involved in numerous projects in Arizona for the next ten years and so became
well acquainted with what geologists call the Basin and Range Province, which
includes much of Arizona and Nevada and parts of California, Utah, and New
Mexico. The geologic history of the Basin and Range involves extremely complex
processes of sedimentation, volcanism, intruding by large bodies of molten rock,
mineralization, uplift of mountain ranges, faulting, folding, tilting, rotating,
and finally the erosion of mountain ranges that is still going on today.
The basins between the mountain ranges are now underlain by 10's of thousands of
feet of gravel, sand, and silt that is unconsolidated or poorly consolidated.
Most of this sediment came from nearby mountain ranges. I found it extremely
difficult to visualize the deposition of that much sediment from nearby mountain
ranges in 4,500 or even 10,000 years. The evidence is that the sediment
accumulated cobble by cobble, grain by grain, as particles eroded from the
uplifted mountains and were transported down slope by water. There was probably
movement of sediment from basin to basin as there is today. But the predominant
process today, and probably for a long time, is the shedding of rock material
from the mountains and its deposition as miles-long aprons (known as bajadas)
around the mountains.
With regard to geology of the Boulder area, I came to find it difficult to see
how the upheaval and chaos created by events related to a world-wide flood could
at the same time produce definable geologic strata over huge areas of the middle
of the North American continent. Examples are the Dakota Group of formations and
the Morrison Formation, each containing both tracks and fossils of dinosaurs.
Formation of the deep canyons through crystalline rocks along the Front Range of
Colorado was difficult to visualize happening in a few thousand years no matter
how much water flowed through them. The Big Thompson Flood of 1976 between Estes
Park and Loveland, Colorado moved huge boulders but eroded little, if any,
bedrock.
These are a few specific geologic examples of many that seemed impossible to
explain on the basis of a few thousands of years. These examples and many others
increasingly convinced me from about the late 1970's and on into the 1980's that
the earth as we see it is very old or at least it looks very old. I am certain I
shared those convictions with individuals and small groups of individuals in
addition to the pastor I mentioned earlier. But I do not believe I voiced those
convictions in a public way or with passion until the late 1980's. After all,
most of my fellow church members wanted evidence that the Biblical accounts are
literal rather than statements that would cast doubt on those accounts.
As time passed, I felt more and more that to be scientifically honest I must go
on record and express the unequivocal conclusion "The evidence overwhelmingly
supports the thesis that the earth we see is very old." The opportunity came at
a meeting of the local chapter of the Association of Adventist Forums held at
Denver First SDA Church in the late 1980's. I was one member of a panel that was
convened to discuss issues of science and faith. I believe Bob Cushman and Ben
Clausen were also on that panel. I was able to plainly and openly express the
conviction quoted above. Being able to publicly express a conviction that had
been strengthening for some time released a great deal of psychological
pressure.
Resolution of the conflict between my long held traditional SDA beliefs about
earth history and the overwhelming evidence I now saw supporting the idea of a
very old earth was yet to come.
Struggles with the Nature of Inspiration
Inspiration is not an issue for most geologists. As a committed Seventh-day
Adventist, it is an issue for me. On the first day of class in beginning
mineralogy, the professor made the statement, somewhat light heartedly, that
this was a course in science, not a course in revelation. Issues about
inspiration and revelation have been part of Adventism for a long time. The
publication in 1976 of Ronald Numbers' book on Ellen White (Numbers, Ronald L.,
1976, Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White: Harper & Row) again
brought the issues to the forefront right during the time when I was beginning
to more seriously wonder about the conflicts between some traditional parts of
my faith and the principles of earth science I was increasingly comprehending.
An event almost ten years earlier in 1967 took on added importance in my change
from a naive and confident believer to an informed but less confident believer
with respect to issues of earth history. I had read and studied Ellen White's
writings regularly, made note cards, put notes or cross references in the
margins, and underlined important passages.
I had read a passage in the book, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 686, where Ellen
White quoted 2 Thessalonians 2:9 from the King James Version of the Bible as a
basis for establishing the sequence of events to take place at the second coming
of Jesus. At a later time, while the first passage was still fresh in my mind, I
read a passage in Testimonies for the Church, volume 8, page 226, which quoted
from the same verse as part of a larger quotation, but used the American Revised
Version.
The point that jumped out at me was that in the passage from Patriarchs and
Prophets, she used the King James text to show that Christ was coming after a
certain event. Of course the word "after" can mean "according to" in some
contexts, but she used the text in the passage to establish a sequence of
events. The American Revised Version uses "according to" instead of "after" in
the Bible passage quoted in Testimonies. In Testimonies the one who is coming is
not Christ but "he, whose coming is according to the working of Satan." The "he"
is "the lawless one." Not only did she quote the Bible passage but she said "I
am instructed" to.
"How can this be?" I thought. "How can she use the same
phrase in one place to say that the coming one is Christ and in another place
state that she had been instructed to say that the coming one is the lawless
one?"
I had no inclination to reject her writings. They had changed my life. Through
reading the first few chapters of the book Steps to Christ my Christian
experience had changed from one of almost constantly feeling that God was
frowning down on me to a feeling of His love and forgiveness. The concept of
following Christian principles changed in my mind from being a requirement in
order not to be lost to one of being the natural path of a sinner who felt
forgiven. I came to regard God as a trusted friend with whom I could share hopes
and even concerns about Him.
After a period of time that I remember as being months, I had not yet resolved
what I saw as a contradiction in her writings. Finally I wrote to Don Neufeld,
who was one of the editors of Adventist Review at the time, and described my
confusion about how to understand these contradictory passages from Ellen White.
He responded and pointed out a similar situation in Hebrews 10:6, where the
author quoted from the Septuagint rather than from the Hebrew Old Testament,
which gave quite a different rendering of a passage from Psalm 40.
Elder Neufeld explained that an inspired writer may use a particular translation
to make a point, but is not necessarily endorsing the translation. His answer
gave me new insights into how inspired writings come about but did not answer
questions about the nature of inspiration.
Resolution
Coming to terms with the nature of inspiration would be an important key to my
later finding resolution to the conflict between earth history and faith. I
followed quite closely the published debates in the 1970's and 1980's about
literary indebtedness and other issues. One conclusion I came to that I believed
applicable to faith/science issues was that inspired writers should be allowed
to speak for themselves, a conclusion that was probably borrowed from one or
more of the writers on the subject of inspiration. One logical consequence of
this conclusion, I believed, was that if I allowed Ellen White to tell me what
the scriptures said, I was making her a greater authority than the Bible. I also
came to believe that, while inspired and the recipient of insights not available
to the rest of us, she was still a product of her times, meaning her
understanding of scripture would reflect those times to a greater or lesser
extent.
Therefore, being constrained to a span of 6,000 years since creation or 4,500
years since the flood was no longer necessary. However, stretching those time
spans to 10,000 or 50,000 or even 1,000,000 years would not solve the problems
of harmonizing scripture with the evidences I had observed of a very old world.
I was still dealing with the conflict in my mind. My faith means too much to me
to discard it. The Sabbath had become very precious to me, as a result of time
spent in the field in Maine carrying out geological projects for the USGS and
working on my dissertation
Resolution came in a moment when I was with a group of geologists on a field
trip in Maine, New Hampshire, and adjacent Quebec. We were standing at an
outcrop of bedrock deep in the woods and one of my colleagues was explaining the
scene. He was an excellent Harvard-trained field and structural geologist who
had been mapping the geology of Maine and New Hampshire for many years. He told
us the story he believed the rocks revealed. This was the site of a spreading
sea floor almost 500 million years ago. The evidence was the rock type, the
regional geologic setting, and especially the sheeted dikes. The sheeted dikes
formed as the sea floor spread, forming parallel cracks in solid rock. The
cracks, ranging from a few to many inches in thickness, had then filled with
molten rock which solidified into a dike as it came into contact with the
adjacent, cooler, solid rock. Each of the dikes exhibited a chill zone along
both edges that formed when the molten rock came into contact with the solid
rock on either side of the crack. As the molten rock that filled the cracks
cooled, the molten rock along the edges of the crack cooled too quickly for
crystals to form, resulting in the chill zone. The molten rock toward the center
of the dike cooled more slowly, allowing mineral crystals to form and resulting
in a more coarse rock texture. The texture graded from very fine to coarse and
then back to very fine across each dike.
As I stood listening to the story, the thought suddenly came to me. "What a
great God to worship! If He did this in an instant, He is worthy of worship. If
it really did take place 500 million years ago, He was here and is also worthy
of worship." From that time on I have been content to live without a definite
answer as to how or when creation took place or whether or not there was a
world-wide flood in the time of Noah.
Accepting the possibility that the Bible stories of creation and the flood may
not be literal brings its own set of problems. One of these is what it says
about God. I find it difficult to see God allowing death and destruction to rule
for millions or maybe even 100's of millions of years. The bottom line for me is
however God accomplished the creation of earth He did it as a God of love.
Regarding faith and science as two separate realms that may overlap in some
unknown way is a philosophy I strongly opposed in the past. Now I am content to
keep them largely separate until I am convinced of a better way. I retired from
the USGS in 1995, a few years after Alden Thompson's book about inspiration was
published (Thompson, Alden, 1991, Inspiration:
Review and Herald Publishing Association, 332 pages). He organized, put into
words, and dealt with many of the issues I had been grappling with for some
time.
As much as the natural world is marred by sin, it is a beautiful place. I am
still trying to see as much of it as I can and in as much detail as possible
within the constraints of time, money, and family. My goals are to observe,
record, and stay at the top of the food chain, but not necessarily in that
order.