The Rocks Don't Lie / David R. Montgomery (Norton, 2012)

This book is primarily a refutation of the "flood geology" underlying young-earth creationism. I abandoned the young-earth view years ago as contradicting not only science but the clearest reading of the Bible (particularly Genesis 1:1-2). Most scientists would dismiss it as ridiculous. But Montgomery first takes young-earth claims seriously, and then solidly refutes them. By the time he is done, you realize just how fanciful it is to believe that the entire earth was reshaped by a global flood.

As a chemical engineer, I have always viewed geology with suspicion. Unlike chemistry or physics, you couldn't easily do experiments to verify theories. All we have are the existing rocks, and two people could look at the same thing yet come to different conclusions, with no easy way of settling the matter. Montgomery's lucid explanations did elevate my opinion of geology, demonstrating just how often we can see geologic history spelled out in rock formations.

The narrative structure makes the book compelling. Non-scientists forget that science is a human endeavor, carried out with human motivations and failings and sometimes by colorful personalities. And it is an ongoing quest for knowledge, a process by which we strive towards the truth, and not merely a settled body of facts. If a class were advertised on "The History of Geology," enrollment would probably be poor. But Montgomery makes it a fascinating story, enriched by his continued surprise at the rich and complex interplay between Christian faith and what was once termed natural philosophy. He makes it clear that the story he found was not what he expected, and runs counter to the revisionist narrative of "warfare between science and religion." It might have been simpler to stick to that narrative, but he instead tells it like it was.

The weakest link is the 9th chapter, "Recycled Tales," in which Montgomery tries to track down the origin of flood stories (and explain why some cultures have them and some don't). But when it comes to Noah's Flood, he trips over poor knowledge of the Bible: assuming that the Pentateuch was written 1000 years after Moses (based upon ideas in vogue in the 19th century), imagining contradictions where there are none, and deciding that flood stories with obvious political or social agendas are more trustworthy than the only one with no clear agenda (other than providing an intellectual foundation for human flourishing and freedom). Here is it is Montgomery who is 150 years behind modern scholarship, stuck in the old mode of "higher criticism." Higher criticism is driven by a three-fold presumption of guilt, that: 1) no book of the Bible could possibly have been written by the author to whom is it attributed; 2) whoever did write it must have been hopelessly biased, ignorant, or stupid; and 3) the texts we have today must have been so altered that there is no way we can know what was originally written by whoever it was that wrote it. The errors in this chapter may cause some readers to question other parts of the book, which would be truly unfortunate.

The final chapter, "The Nature of Faith," was poorly titled. It's fine if read as an attempt to put a personal touch on the questions examined throughout the book. It does make a nice epilogue to share how the researching of a book affected your own beliefs. But if Montgomery truly intends to lecture us on the nature of faith, he has much learning to do.

Additionally, these two chapters weaken the overall argument. It's as if Montgomery begins by saying, "Biblical interpretation and geology need not conflict," but then declares, "The Bible is bunk anyways" - in which case, who cares whether or not these two disciplines can be reconciled? Of course, if Montgomery doesn't find the Bible believable, he shouldn't pretend otherwise, but in that case he would have been wiser to skirt the question and stick to geology. He implies that while understanding the Bible is a hopeless endeavor, reading the rocks is simple and straightforward. But if rocks could interpret themselves, he (and other geologists) wouldn't have a job. It is possible to misread both the record of the rocks and the written record of God's activity, but it is also possible to progress in our understanding of either.

On the whole, The Rocks Don't Lie is an excellent overview of how the science of geology developed, and a surprisingly generous and open-minded recounting of its historical interaction with Christianity. Even the chapter recounting a visit to the infamous Creation Museum ends with a focus on how evangelical Christians instead strove to integrate the facts of geology with good Biblical interpretation!

Those wishing to understand Genesis better, or the overall relationship between science and faith, should see the work of Davis Young and Hugh Ross. The latter demonstrates how the most straightforward and literal reading of Genesis 1 actually concurs with everything modern science has told us from astronomy, biology and geology.