How Has Natural History Influenced Evangelicals | Edward Davis

Lecture Title - Historical Roots of the American Evangelical Encounter with Natural History American evangelicals began seriously to engage natural history in the early nineteenth century, when Benjamin Silliman became the first professor of natural history at Yale. He and his pupil, Amherst geologist Edward Hitchcock, embraced “deep time” in geology and defended its consistency with Genesis. Hitchcock went further, exploring in depth the implications of this popular new science for theodicy and natural theology. Regardless of whether subsequent authors knowingly accepted or rejected their conclusions, these two antebellum natural historians have substantially influenced evangelicals down to our own time. This paper presents some of their most important attitudes and ideas, with an eye on the modern evangelical conversation about origins. Edward B. Davis (PhD Indiana University) is Professor of History of Science at Messiah College. He is author of numerous articles and essays, and is the editor of the 14-volume The Works of Robert Boyle (Pickering & Chatto, 1999–2000). The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world. Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/  Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5 Watch the HCTU on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HenryCenter Connect with us! https://twitter.com/henry_center https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/ https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter