Hugh Owen’s Response to Cardinal Ruffini
on the Days of Creation
Part
I: Introduction
An Explanation and a Defense of Cardinal Ruffini’s
Position
by Preserving Christian Publications
While
praising Cardinal Ruffini’s refutation of evolution
in The Theory of Evolution Judged by
Reason and Faith, Hugh Owen, one of the three authors opposing evolution in
the article in The Wanderer that we cited on March 23, wrote to us expressing his
disagreement with Cardinal Ruffini’s timetable for
the creation account in Genesis. The
question concerns whether a “day” in Genesis reveals a twenty-four-hour period,
or instead represents symbolically a longer period of time.
We
replied to Mr. Owen’s initial comments by asking him how he would respond to
two arguments that Cardinal Ruffini
had given, and he sent the lengthy reply that we are posting below. By way of this introduction to Mr. Owen’s
response, however, we wish to explain further how Cardinal Ruffini
arrived at his conclusions, while we address specific arguments that Mr. Owen
presents.
Mr.
Owen’s principal argument is based upon the sciences of hydraulics and
sedimentology and experiments conducted since the time when Cardinal Ruffini’s book first appeared. He reasons that the various layers on the earth’s
crust did not need long periods of time to be formed, but instead were laid
very rapidly and that this can be proved by scientific experiments made during
the last several decades. However, some
of the scientists whom he cites, Juergen Schieber, John Southard and Kevin Thaisen,
retain the terminology of the various geological periods even while presenting
data showing this rapid formation of deposits.
The implication is that longer periods in the formation of sediments are
not incompatible with more rapid geological events, such as floods, within the
broader context of geological history.
In other words, it is not simply a question of whether there were longer
geological epochs or twenty-four-hour periods, but of the length of such
geological epochs. The new geologically
related experiments cited by Mr. Owen are valuable in refuting the claims of
the evolutionists that these geological periods lasted hundreds of millions of
years, but they do not disprove the hypothesis that God may have used periods
of time that were longer than twenty-four hours.
Cardinal
Ruffini was not the only Catholic author who
recognized the possibility of longer geological epochs while at the same time
refuting the claims of the evolutionists.
Following him was Father Patrick O’Connell with his well known work Science Today and the Problems of Genesis (1959),
who cited Cardinal Ruffini at length in an appendix. Regarding the question currently under
discussion, Father O’Connell transcribes the statement of the Pontifical Biblical
Commission of June 30, 1909 in response to the question whether the word “Yom”
(day) in Genesis should be interpreted as a natural day or in a less strict
sense as a certain space of time. The Biblical Commission replied in the
affirmative, stating that “free discussion is permitted to interpreters.” The Magisterium therefore makes no definitive
judgment on this question, leaving it to the free investigation of both
theologians and scientists.
Cardinal
Ruffini himself cites other arguments from the
Doctors of the Church and the Magisterium.
Among them is
Finally,
Mr. Owen discusses Cardinal Ruffini’s argument about
the age of the universe from astronomy, in particular the length of time in
light years that it takes for the light of the stars to reach the earth. Addressing this question, Mr. Owen appeals
first to the Fathers and Doctors, stating that “they taught that the natural
laws which govern the world in the present order of providence did not apply
during the creation period,” and then to a scientific argument, namely, that
“careful measurements of the speed of light over many decades . . .indicate a steady decline in light-speed. . . .”
What
Mr. Owen’s argument in reality exemplifies is the limited and hypothetical nature
of scientific knowledge, as seen, for example, when St. Robert Bellarmine told Galileo
that he could teach his theory as a hypothesis rather than as an established
fact, a response which some have seen as confirmed by Einstein’s theory of
relativity, as applied to both motion and time.
In other words, man has only a limited knowledge of the laws of the
universe, and God did not reveal in Genesis a strictly scientific account of
the creation. Precisely for this reason
Cardinal Ruffini argued against an overstatement of
what Genesis taught about the age of the universe, while at the same time he
defended the teaching of Catholic Tradition, in opposition to evolution, by
upholding the direct creation by God of the bodies of our first parents.
Therefore it is our belief that while Mr. Owen provides important arguments against the claims of evolutionists – their argument that the geological record provides evidence of hundreds of millions of years, a timetable necessary to justify evolution – Mr. Owen’s arguments do not disprove the position, favored by Cardinal Ruffini, that the days of Genesis may represent periods of time longer than twenty-four hours. And the same can be said regarding arguments from astronomy. If it takes light years, for example, for the light of the stars to reach the earth, Mr. Owen does not sufficiently prove that God created the laws of nature in the beginning to allow the light of the stars to reach the earth almost instantaneously. Nor has the geological record been sufficiently examined to prove that there were not geological periods lasting longer than twenty-four hours. This in summary was the position of Cardinal Ruffini.
Part
II
Disagreement with Cardinal Ruffuni’s
Position
Based on Geology and Astronomy
by Hugh Owen
Cardinal
Ruffini's critique of transformism
(reptile-to-bird or land-mammal-to-whale evolution) in The Theory of
Evolution Judged by Reason and Faith is masterful, and he concludes his
detailed consideration of the patristic teaching on the origin of the variety
of living things with these words:
we are
bound to ask ourselves if it is at all lawful to cite the Fathers of the Church
in support of transformism (The Theory of
Evolution Judged by Reason and Faith, p. 202).
However,
Cardinal Ruffini believed that geology had provided
convincing proof for long ages of time of which there is no hint in "the
sacred history of Genesis." Indeed, he went so far as to write that:
To
explain by means of a flood that lasted at most a year – as was the Deluge –
the formation of the earth strata and the petrification of innumerable
organisms . . . is to disregard geology
completely (The Theory of Evolution Judged by Reason and Faith, p.
76).
This statement explains why, in
spite of the fact that – as Cardinal Ruffini himself
demonstrates – the obvious, straightforward interpretation of "yom" or "day" in Genesis 1 is a 24-hour day,
he believed that natural science had made it unreasonable
to adhere to the literal and obvious sense of the word. Now it is hardly
surprising that Cardinal Ruffini, as a theologian,
deferred to the consensus view in geology in the middle of the twentieth
century. Our paper Creation and Time www.catholicorigins.com demonstrates that long before Cardinal Ruffini's day, at the end of the nineteenth century, the
widespread belief among Catholic scholars that Lyellian
geology had been proven true beyond a reasonable doubt was the primary reason
for the abandonment of the interpretation of the Firmiter
of Lateran IV that had been held by all of the greatest commentators on
that Council for 600 years, from 1215 until the advent of Lyellian
geology. However, Catholics of the twenty-first century need to
understand how that consensus view
developed and how completely it has been overthrown by the advancement of
science, especially in the field of sedimentology.
As long ago as 1956, Edmund M. Speiker, in the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists reflected, "I wonder how many of us realize that the time scale was frozen in essentially its present form by 1840," after the publication of Lyell’s Principles of Geology.[1] Writing in Science in 1983, Stephen Rowland noted that "The basic time scale has remained unchanged since 1879, when the Ordovician period was inserted between the Cambrian and Silurian."[2] Indeed, in 1893, three years before the discovery of radioactivity, an age of 600 million years was assigned to the beginning of the Cambrian era, based on a slow and steady rate of sedimentation over millions of years.[3]
Nowadays the geological time scale is said to be based on radiometric dating, which is believed to offer an objective method for determining the ages of sedimentary rocks, by dating the rocks above or below the sedimentary rocks. But T.C. Chamberlain who pioneered the practice of radiometric dating at the end of the nineteenth century based his estimated ages of rock samples on “biological requirements.” By this he meant the time required for the slow and gradual transformation of biological species—such as reptiles into birds and land mammals into whales.[4] These “biological requirements” were, in turn, based on Lyell’s principles of slow and steady sedimentation, which meant that nineteenth century sedimentology provided the interpretative framework for radiometric dating and continues to do so at the dawn of the third millennium.
Lyellian geology not only provides the framework for the interpretation of radiometric dating of earth’s rocks. It also provides the framework for interpreting astronomical data used to determine the age of the solar system and of the whole cosmos. For example, in the early twentieth century most astronomers believed that the sun was gradually contracting and converting gravitational energy into heat. The famous astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington challenged this hypothesis, not on empirical grounds, but because “it is not much use extending the age of the earth without extending the age of the sun.”[5] According to Eddington, astronomers ought not to put their trust in astronomical arguments alone but must “turn to the sister sciences for other and perhaps more conclusive evidence. …The age of the older rocks [of the earth] is found to be about 1,200 million years. …The sun, of course, must be very much older than the earth and its rocks.”[6] Thus, Lyellian geology was even used to determine the age of the sun!
The
reliance on the Lyellian geological framework as the
ultimate basis for assigning dates to prehistoric objects has continued to the
present day. East African fossils of
alleged human ancestors are still “dated” by radiometric dating of lava flows
whose ages were in turn determined with reference to the standard stratigraphic
scale. According to physicist Dr. Jean Pontcharra:
In theory, dating fossils with the
K40/Ar40 method, is only possible if they are buried
above or under a solidified lava flow. In reality, fossil deposits are far away
from magmatic flows. The stratigraphic scale is used to match the depth of
fossil occurrence with the depth of lavas flows located several miles away. The
lava flows are dated by radiometric Ar and an age is
given to their strata depth. In fact the radiometric results are calibrated
with the stratigraphic scale. The excess argon demonstrated in contemporary
deposits also alters the results on supposed old rocks and prevents any
consistent age to be attributed to the fossils. In addition, the necessity to
match with the standard stratigraphic scale destroys the credibility of the
entire process.[7]
It is
ironic that the foundations of evolutionary theory were laid by amateur
scientists who did not do experimental research and that all of the
experimental research that has been done by evolutionary scientists since then
has been shoehorned into a framework constructed without experimental
verification. Even when geologists like
Harlan Bretz challenged the conventional Lyellian, uniformitarian interpretation of major geological
formations, like those found in the Missoula scablands, and proved that massive
formations could be—and had been—produced rapidly by catastrophic forces, no
attempt was made to reconstruct the geological time scale that had been erected
by Lyell and his disciples. Instead,
mainstream geologists defended the Lyellian time
scale on the grounds that they had taken catastrophism into account, but
without explaining how the same geological framework that had been erected on
the assumption of slow and gradual formation of sedimentary rocks could
accommodate catastrophism without being overhauled! Such a situation could not endure forever, of
course, and in the second half of the twentieth century, a number of scientists
began to do experiments in sedimentology and developed laboratories where
experimental research could be performed.
In the
1980s, French researcher Guy Berthault demonstrated
that sediments suspended in a liquid are sorted by physical characteristics and
deposited in strata simultaneously. The
two principal stages of his research program dwelt upon research in lamination
and stratification. In 1986, Berthault conducted sedimentation experiments in still
water with a continuous supply of heterogranular
material. A deposit was obtained, giving
the illusion of successive beds of laminae. These laminae were the result of a spontaneous periodic and
continuous grading process, which took place immediately, following the
deposition of the heterogranular mixture. The thickness of the laminae
appeared to be independent of the sedimentation rate but increased with extreme
differences in the particle size in the mixture. Where a horizontal current was involved, thin
laminated layers developed laterally in the direction of the current. A second series of experiments was performed
at the Marseilles Institute of Fluid Mechanics which demonstrated that in still
water, continuous deposition of heterogranular
sediments gives rise to laminae, which disappear
progressively as the height of the fall of particles into water (and apparently
their size) increases. Laminae follow the slope of the upper part of the
deposit. In running water, many closely
related superposed types of lamination appear in the deposit.
Berthault then
conducted experiments in stratification at the
The flume experiments showed that
in the presence of a variable current, stratified superposed beds form
simultaneously in the direction of the current. The result, on the scale of
strata, also conformed, on the scale of facies, to
the findings of Golovkinskii, Inostrantzev
and to Walther's law (Walther, 1894; Middleton, 1973; Romanovskii,
1988), according to which the extension of facies of
a specific sequence is the same in both a lateral and vertical direction.
Laboratory experiments on the desiccation of natural sands also showed
preferential fracturing (or joints) of crusty deposits at the interface between
strata of coarse and fine particles. Rather than successive sedimentary layers,
these experiments demonstrated that stratification under a continuous supply of
heterogeneous sandy mixtures results from segregation for lamination,
non-uniform flow for graded beds,
and desiccation for joints. Superposed strata are not, therefore, necessarily
identical to successive sedimentary layers.
During the first decade of the
twenty-first century, Berthault worked intensively
with a team of Russian sedimentologists directed by
Alexander Lalomov (
In the conclusion to
a paper presented by Berthault at a conference
devoted to a scientific critique of evolutionary theory at Gustav Siewerth Akademie in
Paleohydraulic
analysis determines the time of sedimentation of a sequence, which is shown to
be much shorter than the stratigraphic time. Evidently, this short time period
does not support the evolutionary hypothesis that life arose from non-life and
that life-forms developed from a common ancestor through innumerable genetic
mutations over hundreds of millions of years (see: www.sedimentology.fr)
. .
. By calling into question the principles and methods, upon which
geological dates are founded, and in proposing the new approach of paleohydrology, I hope to open a dialogue with specialists
in the disciplines concerned, who are able to appreciate the implications, and
propose a geological chronology in conformity with experimental observation
based upon time of sedimentation—time which is insufficient for the evolution
of species, as conceived by the proponents of the evolutionary hypothesis.[9]
Defenders
of the Lyellian framework have criticized the new
experimentally-driven sedimentology, but the critics are having an increasingly
difficult time defending the Lyellian framework. For example, noted critic Alan Hayward
articulates the conventional wisdom that:
shale is made of compacted clay. As most readers will have noticed, clay consists of exceedingly fine particles which take a long time to settle in water. Turbulence keeps them in suspension and consequently clay will only settle in calm water.[10]
However, recent experimental studies in mudstone formation have shattered that conventional wisdom. In a recent report in Science by Schieber et al, the authors conclude:
Our observations do not support the notion that muds can only be
deposited in quiet environments with only intermittent weak currents.
Instead, bedload transport of flocculated mud and
deposition occurs at current velocities that would also transport and deposit
sand. Clay beds can accrete from migrating floccule ripples under swiftly
moving currents in the 10 cm/s to 26 cm/s velocity range, a range likely to
expand as flows with larger sediment concentrations are explored . . . In the
course of two decades of detailed studies of shales
and mudstones, one of us has seen comparable low-amplitude bedforms in shale units that were deposited in
a wide variety of environments. Examples can be found in the Mid-Proterozoic
Belt Supergroup, the Devonian of the eastern
As Schieber notes in his report, “Mudstones constitute up to two-thirds of the sedimentary record and are
arguably the most poorly understood type of sedimentary rocks.” Moreover,
it is important to note that the mudstone formations mentioned by Schieber in his Science
report are massive. The Belt Supergroup shales near
The
importance of Berthault’s research has been
underscored by recent research in paleontology, radiometric dating and genetics
which strongly supports his contention that the geological time scale ought to
be reconstructed. Meticulous carbon-14
dating of material from virtually every part of the geological column has
produced results in the same range as fossils of mammoths and other megafauna that are known to have lived contemporaneously
with man.[16] Soft tissue and DNA have been found in
dinosaur bones and other megafauna, and collagen from
dinosaur bones has been dated using accelerated mass spectrometry in the same
carbon-14 age range as modern mammals.[17] In the field of genetics, researchers Kimura
and Kondrashov have shown that the vast majority of
mutations have a slightly-harmful effect on an organism. These slightly-harmful mutations accumulate,
producing a steady degradation of the genome, and imposing a time limit “on the
existence of vertebrate lineages”—a time limit much lower than the millions of years evolution requires.[18] The research of Berthault,
Lalomov, and Schieber
demonstrates that fossilized organisms entrapped in many massive sedimentary
rock formations lived simultaneously and therefore provide no evidence of
evolution.
Of
course, geology was not the only field of natural science in Cardinal Ruffini’s day wherein the consensus view appeared to rule
out the Biblical time-scale that had been accepted by all of the Fathers,
Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers of previous centuries. In Cardinal Ruffini’s
words:
the
science of astronomy, to confine ourselves to it, today offers insoluble
objections to the strict literal interpretation. The stars . . . could
not have shed their light on the earth in the same day without a miracle (The
Theory of Evolution Judged by Reason and Faith, p. 76).
In reality, the belief that our ability to see stars billions of light years away “proves” that the universe is billions of years old flows from the unfounded assumption of Rene’ Descartes, Immanuel Kant and the philosophers of the Enlightenment that “things have always been the same from the beginning of creation.” In contrast, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church understood and taught that the natural laws which govern the world in the present order of providence did not apply during the creation period when God was fashioning the universe. Moreover, the Scriptures refer many times to the “stretching out of the heavens” by God during the creation period, an action which could well mean that the stars and galaxies were created much closer to the earth and then spread apart, thus greatly reducing the original distance between them and the earth in the beginning. Even today, scientists have no way to make direct measurements of the speed of light in deep space, and careful measurements of the speed of light over many decades where it can be measured indicate a steady decline in light-speed, which may explain why light from the newly-created stars and galaxies could have reached the earth almost instantaneously at the beginning of creation. Recent experiments on earth have shown that the speed of light is not a constant in space or time. “Blue glow” Cherenkov radiation in swimming pool nuclear reactors results from electrons moving faster than 186,000 miles per second. In other experiments, the speed of light has been slowed down,[19] brought to a stop and then accelerated[20], while “another experiment showed light pulses that exceeded the speed of light by a factor of 300!”[21] Thus, it is wrong to claim that the distant starlight problem falsifies the sacred history of Genesis.
In conclusion, I hope that your
readers will read the paper Creation and Time with an open mind,
especially in the light of two fundamental truths: In the first place,
that the First Vatican Council and St. Pius X (in Lamentabili
in 1907) condemned the proposition that "the progress of the
sciences" required that the Catholic doctrine of creation be
"recast" or altered. Since it is impossible to reconcile the
long ages of evolution with the traditional doctrine of creation as set forth,
for example, in the Roman Catechism, without "recasting" it,
this charitable anathema effectively rules out any possibility that theistic
evolution could be deemed acceptable for Catholics by the Magisterium. In
the second place, as partially demonstrated above, in the last few decades
cutting-edge sedimentology, genetics and paleontology, as well as other
scientific disciplines, have provided abundant evidence that the long ages of Lyellian geology never existed. Had Cardinal Ruffini been presented with this evidence, there is no
doubt that he would have upheld the traditional interpretation of the Firmiter that St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Cornelius a Lapide and
the greatest Catholic commentators of the pre-evolutionary era believed and
proclaimed.
[1]
Edmund M. Speiker, “Mountain-building and the Nature
of the Geologic Time-scale,” Bulletin of the American Association of
Petroleum Geologists, (1956)
40(8):1769_.
[2] Stephen Rowland, “A New Shirt for Carl,” Science (1983) 4(5):80_82.
[3] Cf. C. Schuchert,
Geochronology. Bulletin of the National Research Council.
(1931) 80:10_64.
[4] Stephen G. Brush,. “The Age of the Earth in the Twentieth Century,” Earth Sciences History (1989) 8(2):170_182.
[5] A.S. Eddington,. The Internal Constitution of the Stars. (New York: Dover, 1926; reprinted 1959), p. 295.
[6] Ibid, p. 96.
[7] Jean Pontcharra,
“Are Radioactive Dating Methods Reliable?” (Bierbronnen:
Gustav Siewerth Akademie,
2010).
[8] Guy Berthault,
“Experiments in Stratification Do Not Support the Theory of Evolution,” (
[9]
Guy Berthault, “Time Required for
Sedimentation Contradicts the Evolutionary Hypothesis,” (Bierbronnen:
Gustav Siewerth Akademie,
2010).
[10] Alan Hayward, Creation and Evolution: The Facts and Fallacies (London: Triangle, 1985), pp. 123–125.
[11] Juergen Schieber, John Southard, and Kevin Thaisen, “Accretion of Mudstone Beds from Migrating Floccule Ripples,” Science 14 December 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5857, pp. 1760 – 1763.
[12]
http://www.nature.nps.gov/GEOLOGY/paleontology/pub/fossil_conference_7/7%20Hunt%201.pdf
[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_shale
[14] http://www.uky.edu/KGS/emsweb/devsh/final_report.pdf
[15]
http://www.halliburton.com/public/solutions/contents/Shale/related_docs/Mancos.pdf
[16] Josef Holzschuh
et al, “Recent C-14 Dating of Dinosaur Fossil Bone Collagen,” (Bierbronnen: Gustav Siewerth Akademie, 2010).
[17] Ibid.
[18] Alexey Kondrashov,
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1995,
175:583.
[19] Lene Vestergaard Hau, et al, “Light
Speed Reduction to 17 Metres per Second in an Ultracold Atomic Gas,” Nature,
Volume 397, 18 February 1999, pages 594-598, quoted in http://www.4thdayalliance.com/articles/distant-starlight/does-distant-starlight-prove-the-bible-wrong/
(accessed 1-29-15)
[20] “Observation of Coherent Optical
Information Storage in an Atomic Medium Using Halted Light Pulses,” Nature, Volume 409, 25 January 2001,
quoted in http://www.4thdayalliance.com/articles/distant-starlight/does-distant-starlight-prove-the-bible-wrong/
(accessed 1-29-15)
[21] L.J. Wang, et al “Laser Smashes
Light Speed Record” Nature, Volume
406, 2000 page 277, quoted in http://www.4thdayalliance.com/articles/distant-starlight/does-distant-starlight-prove-the-bible-wrong/
(accessed 1-29-15)