economic ecology
Economic Ecology
06/May/2009 09:31 Filed in: Weekly
Column
I am currently reading a biography on the life of J
Harlen Bretz, who in the 1920s was the
geologist that discovered that massive floods,
completely beyond the scope of human
understanding, determined the unique scabland
topography of much of Eastern Washington
State. Those floods were cause by the release
of melt waters from glacial lakes, primarily
Glacial Lake Missoula, resulting from the
melting of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during
the geological Pleistocene era.
Bretz was able to come to this revolutionary conclusion, by an unusual process for geologists of his era; he spent time in the real field trying to make some sense of what he saw in nature. This was contrasted with the preponderance of geologists who spent their time doing geology in their government or university offices.
Two notes of importance relating to Bretz’s life and work as they relate to a biblical creation worldview. First Bretz was raised in a very legalistic Christian home, which interpreted all of life as moral requirements. Bretz did not see this legalism in nature and hence rejected his parent’s religious views.
Creation is filled with Natural Law as well as Common Grace, as such it establishes the reality of absolutes, but that absolute reality is beyond the scope of human moral capacity and hence either leads to atheism, as in the case of Bretz, or a search for specific grace beyond Christian legalism so prevalent in much of historical and contemporary American evangelicalism. That specific grace is found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ and his propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of humanity and his resurrection from death three days hence.
In the geological time scale these floods happened eight to ten thousand years ago. If that were true, the empirical question arises, “Where is the dirt?” As a general rule topsoil is believed to be created at a rate of about 0.01 inches per century. If that rule is anywhere close to reality then the scablands and the lands to the north under the glaciation should be covered with eight – to – ten inches of topsoil. In reality that depth is two to three inches, much more in line with a young earth and an ice age following a Genesis Flood.
Now as unenlightened as this young earth concept sounds, the Institute for Creation Research (icr.org) has found radioactive carbon fourteen in diamonds. This peer-reviewed research dates these diamonds at about forty thousand years, where as evolutionary geology dates diamonds as one of the earth’s oldest gems. Perhaps the earth age has more to do with your religious presuppositions than it does to natural observational science.
Bishop Ussher’s well-known “biblical” six thousand year creation account was created in the seventeenth century, long before the existence of and ice age with continental ice sheets were known to exist. In Ussher’s light, the Biblical Exodus would have to take place somewhat benignly in the Sinai while all of the temperate Northern Hemisphere was frozen in ice, raped by ravaging winds, and inundated by gargantuan floods. Rather than sticking to a literal six thousand year biblical chronology, creation science points specifically to an young earth history of thousands, rather than millions and billions of years, with a biblical ice age requiring a minimum of at least five hundred years, more likely a longer time period.
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Bretz was able to come to this revolutionary conclusion, by an unusual process for geologists of his era; he spent time in the real field trying to make some sense of what he saw in nature. This was contrasted with the preponderance of geologists who spent their time doing geology in their government or university offices.
Two notes of importance relating to Bretz’s life and work as they relate to a biblical creation worldview. First Bretz was raised in a very legalistic Christian home, which interpreted all of life as moral requirements. Bretz did not see this legalism in nature and hence rejected his parent’s religious views.
Creation is filled with Natural Law as well as Common Grace, as such it establishes the reality of absolutes, but that absolute reality is beyond the scope of human moral capacity and hence either leads to atheism, as in the case of Bretz, or a search for specific grace beyond Christian legalism so prevalent in much of historical and contemporary American evangelicalism. That specific grace is found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ and his propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of humanity and his resurrection from death three days hence.
In the geological time scale these floods happened eight to ten thousand years ago. If that were true, the empirical question arises, “Where is the dirt?” As a general rule topsoil is believed to be created at a rate of about 0.01 inches per century. If that rule is anywhere close to reality then the scablands and the lands to the north under the glaciation should be covered with eight – to – ten inches of topsoil. In reality that depth is two to three inches, much more in line with a young earth and an ice age following a Genesis Flood.
Now as unenlightened as this young earth concept sounds, the Institute for Creation Research (icr.org) has found radioactive carbon fourteen in diamonds. This peer-reviewed research dates these diamonds at about forty thousand years, where as evolutionary geology dates diamonds as one of the earth’s oldest gems. Perhaps the earth age has more to do with your religious presuppositions than it does to natural observational science.
Bishop Ussher’s well-known “biblical” six thousand year creation account was created in the seventeenth century, long before the existence of and ice age with continental ice sheets were known to exist. In Ussher’s light, the Biblical Exodus would have to take place somewhat benignly in the Sinai while all of the temperate Northern Hemisphere was frozen in ice, raped by ravaging winds, and inundated by gargantuan floods. Rather than sticking to a literal six thousand year biblical chronology, creation science points specifically to an young earth history of thousands, rather than millions and billions of years, with a biblical ice age requiring a minimum of at least five hundred years, more likely a longer time period.
Read More...