Abstract In the 1930s, Alfred Bentz, August Moos and Karl Krejci-Graf were among the most noteworthy petroleum geologists in Germany. Being scientific modernists, they systematized the search for oil, introducing modern exploration methods. All three, at some stage, worked for the German state on providing the petroleum needed by the German military during World War II. The three colleagues seem to have had an amicable relationship. They were, however, very different. Bentz was not a member of the National Socialist party but obviously lent his expertise to the regime; as did Krejci-Graf, who, although also was not a party member, was a member of the SS, whereas Moos, due to his Jewish background, was murdered in January 1945 in the concentration camp of Buchenwald. This paper endeavours to sketch the lives of the three colleagues, highlighting their relationship and the interconnectedness of contemporary moral issues with professional and scientific demands.

Abstract At some stage in their past, all advanced civilizations have developed some sort of mining industry and a mythical approach to the explanation of various geological phenomena. Nevertheless, the geosciences per se developed in Europe, as part of natural philosophy and from there spread throughout the globe. Why Europe was the cradle of this type of natural philosophy, which led to modern science, can only be understood if we take into account not only the history of science, but a more general history of human intellectual accomplishments, including a history of theology and philosophy. This paper endeavours to trace the philosophical/religious settings that either furthered or hampered science. Historically, geology and palaeontology have been fashionable sciences from their first tentative beginnings in Renaissance times to the late nineteenth century. They were popular and of public interest as long as they bore not only scientific fruits, but also had a certain feedback on the contemporary world view. This paper outlines these interdependencies between the two magisteria of science and religion and gives an insight into the contemporary relationship between geology and religion.

Abstract George Bellas Greenough, co-founder and first President of the Geological Society of London, became interested in geology when he went to study law in Göttingen. There he attended lectures given by Professor Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, an admirer of Jean-André de Luc, who greatly influenced Greenough’s geological ideas. Greenough himself was not an original researcher, but saw his scientific task as a most diligent gatherer of information and as a critical and – as he felt – impartial reviewer of his fellows’ research. In 1819 he published a book entitled A Critical Examination of the First Principles of Geology in a Series of Essays . In this book, as well as in many of his numerous private notes, he struggled with the question of how to develop a proper scientific method for the new science of geology, striving for firm principles and definitions as a basis for geological observations. Although he despised theorizing on general principles, especially when it concerned those whom he called the Huttonians or Plutonists, he himself was not free of a theoretical concept in which he judged the validity of data. This bias sometimes became a drag on scientific ‘progress’ because his preoccupation with his own Theory led him to dismiss important developments such as William Smith’s biostratigraphy when they did not fall within his horizon of interest. Thus Greenough, and with him the new Society, was slow to recognize their importance and value.

Abstract Today, when referring to the relationship between geology and religion, people usually think immediately of Christian (and other) fundamentalists and their chronic palaeontological illiteracy leading to creationism, to intelligent design, and to a distrust of science in general and especially geology, palaeontology and evolutionary biology. 1 Thus the relationship of geology and religion is usually considered to be under strain. However, outside this very specific field of conflict, there does not seem to be a relationship at all. Among geologists, as well as among other scientists, it is not customary to talk about one's faith, and so it is hard to tell whether a colleague is practising a religious faith or at least adhering to it in private, or whether he or she wishes to be counted among atheists or agnostics. Such knowledge does not seem to be relevant to our joint scientific efforts. Geology as well as other sciences operates from a methodological naturalism, regardless of whether one is an atheist, theist, or something else. Centuries of observation, collection and experiment have taught us to trust these methods. We no longer expect disruptive miracles to upset the chain of natural causes and consequences. This is not because of any system of belief or disbelief, it is simply from experience, and we certainly have come a long way on this basis.

Abstract During the 17th century, in a new contested tradition known as Theories of the Earth, conventions for the visual representation of the Earth as a whole developed alongside the expression of biblical idiom. Global depictions carried embedded biblical idiom that shaped the formulation of questions, the development of theories, and the exchange of discoveries and ideas. In several examples I contrast the varying ways in which biblical idiom was expressed within global depictions, particularly hexameral idiom (i.e. the language of the six day creation in Genesis 1). I discuss the Jesuit mathematician Gabriele Beati and meteorological and cosmic sections; the cosmogonic sections and hexameral idiom of Robert Fludd; the geogonic sections and hexameral idiom of René Descartes; the apocalyptic idiom of Thomas Burnet; and the global depictions and hexameral idiom of William Whiston in the controversy over Burnet. Biblical and particularly hexameral idiom proved durable and versatile for more than a century after Fludd, and facilitated the development of a directionalist sense of Earth history. The continuities of visual conventions, the durability of hexameral idiom, and the contrasts of disciplinary perspectives and local contexts observed in the examples considered here conform well to the characterization of Theories of the Earth as a contested print tradition.

Abstract In his book De Civitate Dei (published about 424), Saint Augustine reported the discovery, on the shore of Utica (now Tunisia), of an enormous tooth, which he attributed to a giant. In Europe, this finding reinforced the myth of the past existence of giants on Earth, mentioned in the Bible. In 1630, new relicts of a so-called giant were found at Utica. Thomas d'Arcos, who lived in Tunis, described them and sent a tooth to the French scholar Peiresc, who demonstrated that it belonged to an elephant instead. Peiresc knew that he was contradicting Saint Augustine, but, while Galileo was under trial in Rome, he remained silent on this matter. Based on a sketch, the tooth can be attributed to an African elephant close to the present species Loxodonta africana or to the Pleistocene L. africanava . Peiresc also investigated other similar finds, particularly that of the so-called giant Theutobochus, discovered in 1613 at Montrigaud in France (in reality, a Miocene Deinotherium giganteum ), and that of ‘giants’ in Sicily and Puglia (Italy). In each case, Peiresc attributed the relicts to the ‘grave of an elephant’ instead of a giant. However, his studies did not dispel the myth of giants, which persisted until the 18th century.

Abstract The scientific studies of the Italian physician and naturalist Antonio Vallisneri (1661–1730) were concerned with the cultural and religious implications of the debate on fossils in the early decades of the eighteenth century. In De' Corpi Marini he summarized the main diluvial theories but declined to support them. He explained the presence of fossils in strata in mountainous regions as the result of localized multiple flood and emersion sequences, and restricted the direct action of God to the biblical Deluge. This theory clearly contradicted the biblical interpretation provided by Catholic orthodoxy, which affirmed the existence of a single global Deluge. Vallisneri therefore had to gloss over its real meaning and use a careful self-censorship system, a strategy that he frequently used in his books. The comparison with the work of several Italian and European authors had great relevance to Vallisneri's theories. He continually exchanged correspondence and natural objects with some of the most outstanding of the eighteenth century natural philosophers. This involvement with other scholars deeply influenced his thought, and helped him to reach a pre-eminent status in the Italian scientific community of the time.

Abstract In 1779 a paper in Portuguese was published in Jornal Enciclopedico , Lisbon, on the age of the Earth. ‘Defending the Chronology of the Holy Scripture’ was written by A. F. Castrioto, who published in the same issue an essay on philosophy and religion attacking the French Encyclopaedists. The paper was mainly a translation of sections from two books, by Edward Gibbon and Richard Watson, the former supporting the idea of an age of 14 000 years for the Earth and the latter defending an age of some 6000 years. Castrioto possibly published the paper and the essay because in 1778 he had been subject to religious censorship and he wanted to reassure the authorities that he was not impious. The idea of a young Earth prevailed in Portugal in the 1700s. Castrioto's paper presented arguments that are not original; he omitted ideas of naturalists that were not in accordance with his own ideas; and he apparently used his periodical to redeem himself of past ‘sins’. However, the paper had merits: it was about a geological subject not commonly discussed in Portugal at the time and was possibly the first on that topic to be published there; the author was aware of the discussion on science and religion that was going on abroad; he defended ideas that were accepted at the time by many naturalists; and he produced a paper of interest for the history of geology in Portugal and for the history of creationism.

Abstract The Jesuits' dedication to seismology forms one of their most important scientific contributions. Its history can be divided into two periods. In the first, from the 16th to the 18th century, they studied single earthquakes, some in the newly discovered lands of America, and speculated on the causes of these phenomena. In the second period, beginning in the 19th century, Jesuits established a large number of seismographic stations throughout the world. In North America they founded in 1909 the Jesuit Seismological Association, which ran the first seismographic network of continental scale with uniform instrumentation. Jesuit seismographic stations in Africa, Asia and South America were, in many instances, the first installed and, in some cases, were for years the only ones there. Jesuit seismologists have made important contributions to a variety of aspects of this science. Among them J. B. Macelwane is widely recognized as an important figure in the history of seismology.

Abstract Despite the wide diversity of beliefs, personalities and geological expertise of 10 ‘clerical geologists’ of varying Christian denominations who worked in Australia, mainly during the nineteenth century, there is little indication that they saw any contradiction between a belief in a divine being and the pursuit of geology. There was a continuity of these attitudes throughout the century, within the changing social and professional geological environment as Australia moved from being a set of independent colonies to a federation. Four of the ‘clerical geologists’, Johannes Menge, W. B. Clarke, J. E. Tenison Woods and Walter Howchin, made significant contributions to geological science, which deserve to be better known internationally.

Abstract The Reverend Charles Wilton arrived in the colony of New South Wales, Australia, in 1827 to take up an appointment as chaplain in an outer Sydney parish. His interest in the natural sciences, particularly in geology, led him to undertake many excursions to study and describe the largely unknown natural features of his adopted country. A transfer to the then small town of Newcastle to the north of Sydney gave him the opportunity to carry out more detailed and scientifically well-reasoned studies of such geological curiosities as the ‘Burning Mountain’, initially thought to be a volcano, the giant concretions along the Hunter River, and also of the coal measure sequence cropping out along the nearby coast. Wilton felt a strong need to communicate his discoveries, both for the benefit of science and the enlightenment of the general public. He achieved this by contributing to a short-lived journal he had founded and through many scientific publications and newspaper articles. His main purpose, however, was to demonstrate that there was agreement between science and religion. This conviction led him to criticize other naturalists who explained natural features and processes by accepting some latitude in the literal interpretation of the biblical account of the creation and of Noah's Flood. Some of his actions and behaviour, following his arrival in the colony, met with disapproval and censure from his superiors. However, he atoned for his early errors by the subsequent conscientious fulfilment of his clerical duties and by the communication of his work in the natural sciences.

Abstract Franz X. Mayr (1887–1974) was the spiritual father of the Jura-Museum. After studying science and completing a doctorate in botany he worked as a secondary school teacher. In 1921 he decided to become a priest. After a shortened study of theology he was ordained in 1923 and subsequently appointed professor of natural history at the College of Philosophy and Theology in Eichstätt. In this function he made an important contribution to the research into the Solnhofen lithographic limestone. By his collecting activities he created the basis of the Jura-Museum. Mayr was also a teacher of the general public through popular articles, lectures and field trips, and was a committed conservationist. The source of all his activities was his spirituality. Strongly influenced by scholasticism and idealistic morphology, Mayr was a moderate creationist assuming the direct intervention of God at least twice: at the genesis of life and of man. This very conservative belief does not correspond to the view of modern Catholic theology and is outdated especially considering the reflections of Karl Rahner.

Abstract Abich and Barth came from a North German bourgeois background and received a strict religious education. Later, when studying at the University of Berlin, both came under the strong influence of the geographer Carl Ritter and of his Pietist family. Abich became the doyen of Caucasus geology, and engaged in intensive and often perilous fieldwork in the region between 1842 and 1876. The help he received during his first two years in the field convinced him that it was God's will for him to bring this work to completion. His trust in the Bible was so firm that, after setting foot on the summit of Mount Ararat, he asked himself where exactly Noah's ark might have landed. Barth's most outstanding achievement was the exploration of the central Sahara and southern Sudan between 1849 and 1855. Here he worked mostly alone. In relationship to Muslims, he demonstrated an uncompromising and therefore convincing Christian faith. He survived the dangers of the desert and various illnesses with resilience, which he attributed to his unshakable faith.