I’ll agree with the global flood, there is too much evidence of one.
Since the beginnings of modern geology as a science around 1830, the work of many Catholic geologists can aid honest seekers in collecting and evaluating relevant scientific evidence.
One such geologist is Gerald Molloy who, as this
biography concludes, serves as “another striking contradiction of the theory that a Catholic clergyman must necessarily be an opponent of scientific progress.”
Here is a passage from pages 293-294 of his book published in 1870,
Geology and Revelation:
“Thus it was generally taken for granted, almost without discussion, that when God had created the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning, He at once set about the work of arranging and furnishing the universe, and fitting it up for the use of man; that He distributed this work over a period of six ordinary days, and at the close of the sixth day, introduced our First Parents upon the scene: and that, therefore, the beginning of the Human Race was but six days later than the beginning of the World. These notions about the history of the Creation continued to prevail almost down to our own time. It is to be observed, however, that they were not founded on a close and scientific examination of the Sacred Text. The hypothesis of a long and eventful state of existence prior to the Creation of Man may be said rather to have been overlooked, than to have been rejected, by our Commentators. There was no good reasons for entertaining such a speculation, and so they said nothing about it. But now that the world is ringing with the wonderful discoveries of Geology, which seem to point more and more clearly every day to the extreme Antiquity of the Earth, it becomes an imperative duty to examine once again with all diligence and care the Inspired narrative of the Creation, and to consider well the relation in which it stands with this new dogma of Physical Science. We are not the first to enter upon the inquiry. Already it has engaged the attention and stimulated the industry of Theological writers for more than half a century. Many eminent men, distinguished alike for their extensive acquirements and for their religious zeal, have protested warmly against the opinion of Geologists, concerning the Antiquity of the Earth, as one that cannot be reconciled with the historical accuracy of the Bible. But, on the other hand, there are writers no less illustrious, and no less sincerely attached to the cause of religion, who contend that there is nothing in the Sacred Text to exclude the supposition of a long and indefinite interval-an interval if necessary of many millions of years-between the first creation of matter and the creation of man. Thirty years ago this opinion was defended by Cardinal Wiseman with great learning, and with great felicity of illustration, in his famous
Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion. The eminent Roman Jesuit, Father Perrone, has followed the same line of argument in his
Prelectiones Theologicoe, which, as every one knows, has long since become a classic work in schools of Theology. It has been yet more fully discussed, and supported by more elaborate reasoning, in a work entitled
Cosmogonia Naturale Comparata col Genesi, lately published in Rome at the press of the
Civilta Cattolica, by another distinguished Jesuit, John Baptist Pianciani.”
