1957 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 205

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PETER G. BERKHOUT

who still wants to defend that view. The geologists, by studying the igneous and sedimentary rocks, come to the conclusion that the earth is at least 4,000,000,000 years old i). This is based mainly upon Sir Charles Lyell's miiformitarian law. I do not see why this principle cannot be accepted by the Christian, perhaps with some modifications. Paleontologists calculate that the most primitive forms of life, Protozoa and Protophyta, found in these layers, go back to 1 to 2,000,000,000 years. When one is up in the Alps, 10,000 feet above sealevel, as we were this past summer, and views the sedimentary rocks at that great height -with, shells, especially of ammonites in them, any unbiased person gets the impression that these rocks and the fossils in them must be very old. The chemists, basing their views upon the disintegration of radio-active elements, arrive at a similar age for the earth. The same is true of the astronomers, who believe in an expansion of the universe that began billions of years ago. Other interesting methods of calculating, not so much the age the earth as such, but, of organic beings, particularly man, is by the carbon-14 method and the fluorine-dating of fossil bones. It seems that our people in the Netherlands do not find much difficulty in accepting these views. De Ouderdom der Aarde (The Age of the Earth), published by the „Christelijke Vereniging van Natuur- en Geneeskundigen in Nederland", and which upholds these views, has run through several editions. This past summer we spent two successive Sundays in the Netherlands and heard as many preachers. We made it a point to meet them. When asked what they thought of these recent views and also especially those of Dr. Lever, they both told us the same thing : „We do not know enough about the subject. We first want to find out for sure what is being said. But we realize that we will have to make quite an adjustment to the new knowledge". That is a sane attitude. All these attempts to arrive at truth cannot help but make a profound impression upon the mind of the Christian scholar who thinks that he should accept these results of scientific investigation, even though critically. He may not discredit what God, the Holy Spirit, may be revealing to our age. It is rather interesting to note what Pope Pius XII says in his encyclical Humani Generis, 1950; section 36 : ^) Cf. e.g. Harrison Brown, ,,The Age of the Solar System", Scientific American, p. 81, april 1957.

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