Dr. Mortenson demonstrates that the tactics of ‘playing the man instead of the ball’ was the same then as it is now. In other words, rather than debate the ‘science,’ many seek to discredit Christians because of their own ideological ideas. The attitude toward these early Bible-believers was one of outright ridicule. In this extract from his new book, Dr. Mortenson writes that these nineteenth-century ‘scriptural geologists’ (opponents of old-earth geology) have been
‘[G]enerally misunderstood and often mischaracterized, both by their contemporaries and by later historians. Typical is Charles Lyell, the leading uniformitarian geologist of their day, who described them in 1827 as “wholly destitute of geological knowledge” and unacquainted “with the elements of any one branch of natural history which bears on the science.”’
‘He said that they were “incapable of appreciating the force of objections, or of discerning the weight of inductions from numerous physical facts.” Instead he complained that “they endeavour to point out the accordance of the Mosaic history with phenomena which they have never studied” and “every page of their writings proves their consummate incompetence.”’
AsThe Great Turning Pointshows, nothing could be farther from the truth regarding these early Christian opponents of old-earth geology.
