Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Critics were quick to point out that since there could be no ocean on Burnet's smooth pre-
Flood Earth, there should be no marine fossils in rocks that formed before Noah's Flood.
Marine fossils should only be found in younger post-Flood deposits. Yet such fossils were
widely distributed through the rocks that Burnet claimed formed as part of Earth's original
shell, and only later fell into the subterranean sea. Were Burnet right, this could not be.
And how did sea creatures come to exist without a second round of Creation if the oceans
formed during the Deluge? Could Adam have been given dominion over the fish in the sea
in an oceanless world? Herbert Croft, the aging Bishop of Hereford, labeled Burnet's the-
ory a work of “extravagant fancies and vain fopperies” and speculated that perhaps “his
Brain is crakt with over-love of his own Invention.”
6
Although he saw his theory as consistent with biblical teaching, Burnet was not simply
trying to reconcile faith and reason. He was trying to prove that reason offered an inde-
pendent source of revelation coequal to and compatible with scripture.
'Tis a dangerous thing to ingage the authority of Scripture in disputes about the Natural World, in opposition to
Reason; lest Time, which brings all things to light, should discover that to be evidently false which we had made
Scripture to assert.
7
Burnet's grand theory did not fare well among natural philosophers, but it did spawn nu-
merous alternative theories.
Notable among these was John Woodward's influential
Essay Toward a Natural History
of the Earth
, published in 1695. In contrast to the saintly Steno, Woodward was by all ac-
counts a self-promoting prima donna. Widely despised, but a genius in his own opinion,
he was paranoid and uncharitable toward competitors and dismissive and unforgiving of
critics. Famously vain, he reportedly had mirrors placed throughout his house so as to max-
imize opportunities to gaze upon himself.
Born in a Derbyshire village, Woodward apprenticed to a London linen draper. The
king's physician noticed him there and virtually adopted the bright young man, eventually
supporting his education and medical training. After receiving a doctorate from Cambridge,
Woodward was appointed professor of medicine at London's Gresham College at the age
of twenty-seven.
