This discussion between the viewpoint of Science and the viewpoint of Scripture was credited to \u201cBeth\u201d when it was published in 1874. \u201cBeth\u201d was really Joseph Lindsay Barfoot (1816-1882). His positions as curator of the Deseret Museum and menagerie and as territorial fish commissioner, together with his mentoring of the young scientist\/apostle James E. Talmage, suggest his interest in natural history, while missionary service in his native England, his membership on the Salt Lake High Council, and the frequent references to him as \u201cElder Barfoot\u201d in the writings of men like George Reynolds (Barfoot\u2019s boyhood friend) speak for his faith loyalties.<\/p>\n
It was inevitable that he consider the apparent conflicts between what he read in the Bible and what he read in the rocks. He reconciled those seeming conflicts to his own satisfaction, chiefly by assigning distinct purposes to the scriptural and scientific accounts. The cooperation between religion and science was so clear in his own mind that he could explain his ideas to children, for whom this dialogue was intended.<\/p>\n
GENESIS AND GEOLOGY: A DIALOGUE<\/p>\n
GENESIS. \u2013 \u201cIn the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. and \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
GEOLOGY. \u2013 I object to God being introduced as an operator in the works of creation; and as to the beginning, I know nothing about it; I recognize natural forces as the only factors in the formation of the earth that we can know anything about with certainty. In these days we must know! \u2013 scio<\/em>.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Well, then, \u201cthe earth was without form, and void.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 \u201cVoid!\u201d \u2013 empty. Yes; I can agree with you. Of course it was without form; it was, in fact, a shapeless, nebulous mass.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Stop! That is mere conjecture. You said just now we must know.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 Well, I admit this is hypothesis. Go on.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 \u201cAnd darkness was upon the face of the deep.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 No doubt of it. You allude, of course, to our \u201cazoic\u201d period, during which the globe was probably surrounded with dense vapors, through which the sun\u2019s rays could not penetrate, at which time the waters would be enshrouded in darkness.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 \u201cAnd the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 What do you mean by this expression? I admit that light began to dawn upon the liquid mass as the vapors were gradually removed \u2013 light is a primary cause of activity in matter. But I do not admit the necessity of God having produced the phenomenon.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 \u201c… Let there be light, and there was light.\u201d This you admit. \u201c… Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide the waters from the waters.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 By \u201cfirmament\u201d I suppose you mean the atmosphere, of which, in your early times, little was known; no doubt this became distinct from the watery mass when the ocean-covered globe would certainly be \u201cunder the firmament,\u201d or atmospheric fluids, But you have forgotten to say anything about your chronology.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 \u201cThe evening and the morning were the first day.\u201d Again, \u201cthe evening and the morning were the second day.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 If by this you mean that the events you describe occurred in periods of twenty-four hours, your knowledge of the structure of the rocks that compose the earth\u2019s crust must be small indeed. Why, the azoic era, which you are describing must have been thousands of centuries!<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Mine is not a geological account; I have stated generally the order of the creation. The leading events I have grouped together. In one account I arrange them into a work of six days, and a cessation or Sabbath on the seventh day. In my second account I speak of \u201cthe day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.\u201d You surely do not suppose that a working day of twenty-four hours is intended. You also divide the work of creation into periods.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 Yes; but I allow them to be of infinite duration.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 The periods I allude to are of indefinite duration, as they do not deal with time as mortals define it. My object was to show that God was the author of these visible creations and, so far as He revealed to me His methods, and so far as they could be comprehended in early times, I made them known.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 The earth itself proves its own history by its structure. It has been brought to its present condition through a series of changes or progressive formations, from a state as utterly featureless as a germ. Azoic seas existed, beneath which the earliest known rocks were formed; they were the floor of those primitive seas. Gradually lands were elevated, and \u2013<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Here you agree with me: \u201cLet the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 You speak of a very early geological epoch; from the shallow seas of the azoic time, lands were gradually elevated. Go on.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 \u201c… Let the earth bring forth grass, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 Life began at the bottom of the seas \u2013 life in its lowest forms.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Of course you notice details. I was showing broadly that the vegetable kingdom existed before the animal, as a period, or day in the creation. I will continue the history: \u201cLet there be lights in the firmament of the heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 You surely do not mean the sun! You are very unphilosophical, not to say absurd. You represent a period that culminated in fruit trees, and then another period in which the sun is created! The fact that the higher forms of vegetation existed proves that the sun existed also.<\/p>\n GENESIS \u2013 Had I represented the sun and other luminaries first in order, with their uses, one of my objects in explaining the creations, among other things \u201cfor signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years,\u201d objections might also have been raised. You admit that cosmical light existed long before solar light shone upon the earth, for which you assign scientific reasons, viz.<\/em> the density of the atmosphere; I advance theological reasons for the same phenomena.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 That which I ascribe to nature you ascribe to God!<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Precisely so. I was not a student in your school. I speak of the author, you of His works; I describe the finished work as seen naturally, you as you read the history of that work in the rocks.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 Consequently I must have the advantage in point of accuracy. I show that life existed on this planet long before you do, and prove it by the fossil remains of each period.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Whence do you derive this life?<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 That is not my province to investigate; from pre-existing types we have life from its lowest to its highest forms.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 I think it is now my turn to say \u201cscio\u201d (I know): I teach that God is the author of life \u2013 pardon my digression.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 Your ideas are very old-fashioned1 When does your animal life begin?<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 Immediately after the organization of the solar system: \u201cLet the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth.\u201d I show that \u201cgreat whales,\u201d among other creatures, were created. I mention no other mammals during this period.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 You pass over the most interesting events in the progress of life. I would show you that your system is correct as far as it goes; but it is imperfect. You appear to leap from the Azoic period to the Carboniferous, leaving out the Silurian, the age of algae or sea-weed, the earliest vegetable, and radiates and mollusks the first animal life, and the Devonian, the age of fishes. I admit that your age of vegetables is philosophically placed in relation to your first animal creation, and that it is certainly sublime in its conception, considering your limited knowledge. What is your next period?<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 \u201cLet the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind.\u201d<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 This is decidedly the age of mammals; you have passed into the period I call \u201ccenozoic,\u201d or recent time. Does your period end with the creation of mammals?<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 By no means. Man is created. \u201cLet us make man in our own image, after our likeness.\u201d Here I allude to the origin of man as made in the image of his Creator.<\/p>\n GEOLOGY. \u2013 There is not time now to tell of the ages that have passed as I teach: of the azoic time, lifeless and desolate; the palaeozoic or ancient-life time; silurian, devonian and carboniferous; the mesozoic, or middle-life time, the age of reptiles; of the cenozoic, or recent-life time, the age of mammals; and of the age which may be pre-eminently termed the age of man.<\/p>\n GENESIS. \u2013 I have sketched the outlines, you are filling in the figures; I have given the key to the harmonies that you cannot but see and admire, and without which you cannot enter into the secret recesses of the rocks and unfold the mysteries of their creations. You may read the book of Nature, but you cannot unriddle it; every character when rightly interpreted, every chapter when understood, bears witness to my testimony: \u201cIn the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n