The Creationist W Welch believed that many planets
throughout the Universe are colonised by intelligent beings and that they lived
on cool parts of our sun [1]. Philip Henry Gosse, also a Creationist, thought
differently [2]:
I venture to suggest that not only
the Planets and Satellites of this system, but the Sun itself,- nay, the millions
of Suns, that, to our eyes are but specks in space,- (yet each one, perhaps,
with its system of planets and satellites) are none of them habitable as yet,
but are being prepared by God for habitation; each in succession to be got
ready for Colonization from Earth by Adam’s race. That God is, we may say,
furnishing his great House of many mansions, of which one small apartment alone
is occupied.
If I be asked how living,
breathing human bodies can possibly be transferred from world to world, I
reply, I have no conception, how. But if man himself has invented means of
travelling across oceans; of floating in the air; of living for hours under
water; of conversing audibly across hundreds of miles; of conveying written
messages thousands of miles in a minute,- I am quite sure the Omnipotent God
will find no difficulty in conveying men through stellar space, when He
pleases.
Certainly a contrast in views, with one writer letting his
imagination run wild and the other taking a much more measured approach,
believing colonisation would be from the Earth, the site of God’s initial
Creation.
In addition to their consideration of the colonisation of
planets, Welch and Gosse both published theories about the origin of the Earth: Welch
in his book Religiosa Philosophia [3]
and Gosse in Omphalos: an attempt to
untie the geological knot [4]. Both men felt that their theories did not
contradict the account in Genesis in the Bible, that they held to be sacrosanct.
Welch suggested
that some part of the water from the firmament formed a large globular mass
from which particles condensed and then sedimented to form a solid core [3].
Over thirty years later, Gosse also tackled the conflict between the then
contemporary knowledge of geology and the Biblical account of Creation with his
theory of prochronism: the act of Creation included rock strata, and their
associated fossils, that thus bore evidence of “life before time”.
Little is known about Welch, but Henry Gosse was a very
well-known figure in the world of Natural History and I have a great admiration
for his descriptive and observational powers, his industry and his skills as an
illustrator. Until recently, I have steered away from his religious books, as I
feel little empathy with his rigid beliefs.
Given the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species two years after Omphalos, and the extraordinary effect that Darwin’s book had, it
is remarkable that Gosse held so firmly to his theory. This is what he wrote in
The Mysteries of God about scientific
thought in the Nineteenth Century:
The vast accession made to the
knowledge of natural things, during the past century, by the observations of
innumerable students, and by the conclusions deduced therefrom, has been, by
the Arch Enemy, turned into a most potent weapon against the faith, used with
marvellous skill for insidiously discrediting, first, and then arrogantly
denying, the teachings of Holy Scripture.
It is startling to mark how
fatally successful have been his tactics. A very large number of professed
Christians,- perhaps even the majority
of such as are competent to think about the matter,- are, more or less, tainted
with the prevalent unbelief; conscious of, at least, a lurking suspicion that
some of the Bible statements are not absolutely trustworthy; but must be, if
not rejected, explained away, in some non-natural exegesis. Even in those who
read Papers, or deliver Lectures, professedly to defend Revelation against
sceptical Science, this unworthy trimming is sometimes painfully manifest.. ..
Various subterfuges and shifts are used to evade the verbal accuracy of the
Sacred Word; needless concessions here, and admissions there, allow the truth
of God to pass by default. One makes a distinction between the veracity of
different parts, ignoring, or denying its integral unity. There is often an
underlying assumption that, at whatever cost, the teachings of the Bible must
be subject to the accepted conclusions of Science: and, in general, the tone of the Lecturer is one of frowning
severity toward the simple believer, and of tolerant sympathy toward the
scientific infidel.
I sympathise with Gosse’s position on deciding what is, and
what is not, factual in accounts in the Bible and it is something that must be
difficult for many contemporary Christians. Not for Gosse though. He was
unbending in his belief in the literal truth of the Bible and preached this to
the small group of fellow believers he led in St Marychurch in Torquay. The Mysteries of God is based on his
sermons, but it was not well received, even by fellow members of the Brethren
and it had few reviews [5]. In the book, Gosse again propounds the theory
of prochronism, stating that it had not been refuted in the 27 years since the
publication of Omphalos. Unfortunately,
this was probably because no-one bothered much about Gosse’s ideas, especially
as he rarely ventured far in the later part of his life (he died in 1888). He spent
much time at “Sandhurst”, his home in St Marychurch (see below – picture from [6]),
save for many visits to the shore, the local countryside, and to the Brethren
chapel he founded.
Another characteristic shared by Gosse and some contemporary
Christian Creationists, is their ability to see Satan (the “Arch Enemy”) everywhere
– as is so clear in the passage quoted above. Henry’s son, Edmund, found this,
and the religious fervour that drove it, unbearable, as we know from his
well-known book Father and Son. In
it, Edmund wrote [7]:
He who was so tender-hearted that
he could not bear to witness the pain and distress of any person, however
disagreeable or undeserving, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would
punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of
comprehension. My Father’s inconsistencies of perception seem to me to have
been the result of a curious irregularity of equipment. Taking for granted, as
he did, the absolute integrity of the Scriptures, and applying to them his
trained scientific spirit, he contrived to stifle, with a deplorable success,
alike the function of the imagination, the sense of moral justice, and his own
deep and instinctive tenderness of heart.
Isn’t that sad?
[2] Philip Henry
Gosse (1884) The Mysteries of God: A
series of expositions of Holy Scripture. London, Hodder and
Stoughton.
[3] W Welch (1821) Religiosa
Philosophia. Plymouth, W. Byers.
[4] Philip Henry Gosse (1857) Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot. London, John Van
Voorst.
[5] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses
of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber
and Faber.
[6] R.B.Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer (1980) Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography.
Folkestone, Wm Dawson & Sons.
[7] Edmund Gosse (1907) Father
and Son: A study of two temperaments. London, William Heinemann.
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