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At the beginning of the 19th century there were two main schools of geology.To read the rest of the article in context, click on "Charles Lyell: the man who tried to rewrite history". You may also want to see "Interpreting Earth History".
Most leading geologists were catastrophists, i.e. they believed that the earth’s geology was best explained as the result of cataclysms. Many of these believed in long ages and multiple catastrophes; however, there were also many ‘scriptural geologists’ who believed that Noah’s Flood, as recorded in Genesis, being worldwide, was the principal such catastrophic event.
The other view was that everything in geology was solely the result of processes now operating in the earth. This belief rejected the Bible, and hence the accounts of Creation and the Flood as recorded by Moses in Genesis. Advocates were either secret atheists or deists, who conceded that the earth must have had a cause, but were not prepared to attribute that cause to the God of the Bible. Charles Lyell was one such deist. In his Principles of Geology, he alluded to “a Creative Intelligence” having “foresight, wisdom and power”, but he did not allow that this “Infinite and Eternal Being” had actually communicated with mankind.
Lyell argued against catastrophic events in the history of the earth—not by citing contrary evidence, but by holding that any such events were not accessible to inquiry. But the same inaccessibility to inquiry also applied to his own view of a tranquil past. What is needed to establish past events is eye-witness testimony. However, Lyell refused to accept the Flood testimony of Noah, recorded in Genesis by Moses.
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