THE ROCKS DON'T LIE

Geology and history bring the relationship between science and religion into focus.

For MacArthur Fellow Montgomery (Geomorphology/Univ. of Washington; Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, 2007, etc.), the science of geology provides a way to understand the relation between the Bible and the conception of nature coherent with modern science. “No other story,” he writes, “has had as profound an influence on geology as that of Noah's Flood.” Further, theologians have always manipulated geologic records to support literal interpretations of scripture. The author presents his view that “geologic time” provides a frame for “an entirely new creation story,” which remains unfinished and ongoing, and he advocates the rebuilding of cooperation between science and faith. Examining a wide variety of flood and creation stories across centuries, Montgomery provides an enthusiastic and valuable recounting of the history of geology and how the advances in science have consistently faced opposition from the guardians of so-called religious authority, based on a literal reading of the Bible. The immense chronological spans and what is now known about the origins of the Earth and universe provoke the bitter opposition of the creationists. Montgomery insists that faith and science “can peacefully coexist,” and his extensive documentation shows that the revival of creationism, as it exists today, has nothing to do with either science or faith.

A forceful rallying cry for people of goodwill to join together to develop an alternative to the dangerous irrationalism that afflicts so many Americans.