George Bugg

Biographical sketch1

George Bugg was born probably in 1769, the year he was baptized at the Anglican church in Stathern, Leicestershire. When he was nine, his mother died, which was the first of several mournful experiences for Bugg. Beginning in 1786, he received a few years of private tutoring from Reverend Thomas Baxter, curate of Ufford, Northamptonshire. He was admitted to St John’s College, Cambridge in May 1791, and received the B.A. degree four years later.

In July 1795, he was ordained deacon in York and became curate of Dewsbury, near Leeds, where he was made priest the same year and served until 1801. Subsequent curacies included Welby with Stoke in Leicestershire (1802), Kettering in Northamptonshire (1803–1815), Lutterworth in Leicestershire (1817–1818), and Desborough near Kettering (1831–1845).2 By March 1846 he had moved to Hull where he lived with his unmarried daughter, Elizabeth, and two teenage house servants until his death at home on 15 August 1851, at the age of 82.3 After a lifetime of ecclesiastical setbacks, he was finally made rector of the parish of Wilsford in Lincolnshire in 1849, though he apparently never lived there.4

In 1804 he married Mary Ann Adams, daughter of a local prominent draper in Kettering. They had four daughters and one son (who died at 10 months old). Before Mary’s premature death in 1815 she served with George in expanding the Sunday school ministry and the work of the Church Missionary Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society. When she died, Bugg was left with the care of his daughters, who were all under the age of seven at the time.

He was converted to the Christian faith in his late teens or early twenties,5 at which time he also apparently became convinced that ‘the Scriptures are strictly and literally true’.6 Every indication is that Bugg was a fervent evangelical Anglican all his life. His lifelong friend, Reverend Thomas Jones of Creaton, was a leading evangelical Anglican. Bugg was noted for his effective preaching and had good relations with, and the respect of, many non-conformist (that is, non-Anglican) ministers. His two books on baptism and regeneration, written in 1816 and 1843, were refutations of the views of the Dr Richard Mant and Dr Edward Pusey, respectively.7 He considered the views on baptism of both Mant and Pusey to be virtually identical to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (that baptism is necessary for salvation), and therefore a serious threat to the doctrine of justification by faith, a concern expressed by many evangelicals in the 1830s and 1840s as the Anglo-catholic ‘Tractarian movement’ spread within the Anglican Church.8 In both treatises he was respectful toward his opponents, while strongly disagreeing with their views.9

Bugg’s life was chequered with difficulties and controversies. Besides the death of loved ones and frequent struggles with illness, he was dismissed by two bishops from three of his curacies: in 1802 after only 11 weeks at Welby, in 1815 (the same year his wife died) after twelve years of ministry at Kettering, and in 1818 at Lutterworth.10 In each case the dismissal appears to have been the result of a few prominent non-evangelical parishioners complaining to a liberal Bishop and involved vague charges with no opportunity for redress.11 Never was he accused of any particular doctrinal error, moral misconduct or ecclesiastical irresponsibility. In his last dismissal, in fact, 90 percent of the congregation (481 adults) signed a petition asking the Bishop to reinstate Bugg,12 and requested and paid for the publication of Bugg’s farewell sermon, which was on how to endure suffering in a Christlike manner.13 In this sermon, Bugg humbly offered himself as an example, explaining that in his dismissal he had suffered unjustly the loss of his beloved congregation, damage to his reputation and the loss of about £400,14 and yet maintained his Christian character with peace of mind and without animosity towards his enemies. Also, in defence of Bugg and other curates, who experienced similar unjustified dismissals, a number of clergymen together anonymously published a respectful appeal.15 In this they argued for a change to some recent Acts of Parliament, which empowered Anglican bishops arbitrarily to revoke the licence of any curate.

The anti-creationist Roberts asserted, without documentation, that some time after Bugg’s dismissal from Lutterworth, he became a unitarian.16 This was most definitely not the case, however. He was never accused of any doctrinal errors when he was dismissed from his curacies. Also, his close lifelong friendship with a leading evangelical Anglican, Reverend Thomas Jones, has already been noted. Certainly at the time Bugg wrote his Scriptural Geology (1826–1827), he was a thoroughgoing Trinitarian, evidenced by two statements he made against Socinians, a Unitarian sect.17 Also, he was equally Trinitarian in his two books on baptism and regeneration, in 1816 and 1843 respectively.

His other writings included a book of sermons (1817),18 an account of a legal squabble Bugg had with the husband of a woman who before her death had willed that Bugg distribute some of her money to certain charities (1835),19 and a pamphlet on the Anglican Prayer Book (1843).20 By far Bugg’s most significant work was his massive two-volume Scriptural Geology. Though the work appeared anonymously, a number of his readers knew he had written it, and Bugg freely identified himself with it in his correspondence with the Christian Observer, the leading evangelical magazine of the day.21 Volume I (361 pages) appeared in 1826, but due to Bugg’s poor health, volume II (356 pages) was delayed until the following year. The work had 200 prepublication subscribers, who included 85 clergymen, 15 members of the nobility and seven students at Cambridge University. Five of the clergymen were leading evangelical Anglicans: Charles Simeon (in Cambridge), Josiah Pratt (in London), William Marsh (in Colchester), Legh Richmond (in Turvey, and whose varied accomplishments included the study of mineralogy)22 and Thomas Jones (in Creaton).23

The relationship between Scripture and geology

Bugg held to the then dominant view of evangelicals and high churchmen regarding the infallibility of the Scriptures, not just in matters of religion and morality, but also of history. He also believed that, at least with respect to Genesis, the ‘plain’ and ‘obvious’ literal meaning is the correct one.24 He reasoned,

‘I allow, as I before allowed, that Sacred writers may be silent about science or even ignorant of it, without impeaching their infallibility as recorders of divine revelation. But whatever they do declare, and on whatever subject (as we before observed from Bishop Horsley) is certainly true. They were under divine and supernatural guidance, and therefore personal ignorance in the writer is no defect; and error is impossible’.25

Therefore when Bugg chose the title for his book, he was not asserting that the Bible teaches us the details of geology. Rather on the basis of Genesis, Bugg was cautious not to give ‘any thing more than bare suggestions’ about the geological effects of creation and the Flood, for ‘the scriptural data certainly afford a mere outline’ of the events of the past.26 It gives clues or the foundational principles for interpreting the geological phenomena.27^,28

‘Now, though we expect from the Bible, no detail of circumstances respecting what are the state and situation of the fossil strata, we have seen enough respecting the cause and operations of the Deluge to prove the real ground and principle upon which we account for the actually existing state of those strata’.29

Bugg was quite emphatic that the Scriptures do not ‘establish any peculiar system of philosophy’.30 To the objection that ‘the Bible is not given to us to teach us geology’, Bugg agreed, partially at least, depending on the meaning of the phrase. He contended that geology and the Bible both had legitimate and illegitimate provinces.

‘The Bible is certainly not given to teach us Geology, as a science. But it is given to teach us what nothing else can teach us—the time and manner of the world’s creation. It is, moreover, given to inform us that the world has since been destroyed, and why it was destroyed. These “two events or epochs” are, when received in the light of Revelation, of immense importance. The one, displays the Being and natural perfections of the Deity, or as the Psalmist and St Paul have recorded it: “The glory of God”, and “His eternal power and Godhead”. The other exhibits him in his moral character, as the just and righteous Governor of the world.

‘Geology, in its modern character, does not only fall short of both these grand objects, but in its obvious consequences, thwarts, if not destroys them both. For, as we have seen, it would merge our creation among the geological revolutions, even among the least of them, and thus annihilate its character. And as to the time and manner of the creation, it would make the “Word of God” to speak what is unintelligible or erroneous. With respect to the other, its obvious tendency is to diminish, if not subvert the moral causes which operated at the Deluge. For it bewilders and leads away the mind of the beholder from the awful import of that catastrophe, by presenting to him indefinite numbers of such events. And it blunts the edge of his moral feeling by familiarizing him with the misery and destruction of the earth’s inhabitants, so many times repeated, without any connexion of offence, with the suffering beings.

‘It is the province, then, of Geology, and not of the Bible, to afford us “any curious information as to the structure of the earth”. But it is not the province of Geology, as Mr Sumner seems to think it is, to “speculate on the formation of the globe”. The Bible does not “interfere with philosophical inquiry”, or “repress the researches of mankind”. But it does forbid us to interfere with “the literal interpretations of terms in Scripture”, when such interference would change the character of the thing revealed, and fritter down the creation of the Bible into “that creation which Moses records, and of which Adam and Eve were the first inhabitants”; and so make “the Mosaic account of creation” a mere epoch in the progress of Geology from the “primitive formations” to the present times’.31

Buckland, Sumner and other old-earth proponents argued that the geological structure of the earth displayed God’s wisdom and benevolence in preparing the earth for man. Again Bugg agreed. But it was not the structure (that is, the geological facts) of the earth that was his concern. He objected that the old-earth geological theory about the time and processes of the formation of that structure was inconsistent with the nature of God. He asked, where is the wisdom, kindness and justice of many revolutions on the earth before man sinned, which destroyed myriads of creatures? The Bible, on the other hand, taught that God had originally made a perfect, mature, productive and fertile creation, and that there was a holy and wise reason for the one destructive catastrophe, the Flood.

‘Thus we see that, when compared with the Scriptures, the modern Geological Theory makes every thing unwise, unkind, and perhaps, unjust. It finds no original creation: And it cannot prove a first creation, from “wise design”. For “primitive” rocks remaining thousands of years alone is unwise, because useless. And, dashing these to pieces, in order to mend them and make fresh ones, designates either a want of wisdom in the primitive “design”, or a failure in the attempt, and a want of experience and power to execute a wise one. But whoever predicates either of these on the Most High, “charges God foolishly”. … That the location and adaptation of the strata to the use of man are wise and good, is fully admitted. But these are facts. That the time and manner of these formations, however, which the modern Geology Theory professes to develop, shew “wise foresight and benevolent intention”, and exhibit “proofs of the most exalted attributes of the Creator”, is, I believe, what few will have boldness enough to assert. Yet, if Geologists would recommend their science (which involves their “theory” of formations), they must not only shew that there is wisdom and goodness manifested in the formation of the strata, but in their Theory of that formation’.32

On the basis of the scriptural account of creation and the Flood then, Bugg explicitly disavowed ‘all pretensions to a system of operations and causes, as well as classification and arrangement in the stratification.’33 He did believe, however, that the character of the Flood as described by the Bible would correspond with the leading features of the geological phenomena of the earth.34 This correspondence he attempted to demonstrate, and we will consider it later.

Bugg was mindful that his critics would object that the insistence of binding geology to the Scriptures was a repetition of the mistakes of the church at the time of Galileo. He replied that there was a significant difference: whereas Copernicus found no difficulty reconciling his theory with Scripture, modern geologists could not harmonise the Bible with their theories, without taking away from the Scriptures all legitimate meaning.35 However, Bugg did not explain how he came to this conclusion about Copernicus.36 To the charge that he was attempting, like the Catholic authorities of Galileo’s day, to prevent all enquiry, Bugg countered that his two volume work was a ‘most minute inquiry into every part of the subject in dispute’.37

Respecting the accommodation of the language of Scripture, Bugg contended that ‘the history of creation has one plain, obvious, and consistent meaning, throughout all the Word of God’. The rest of Scripture offers no hint or key to any other meaning, so that if the obvious meaning is not the true one, then the biblical authors have misled their readers and the creation narrative has no meaning or a false one. Furthermore, argued Bugg, the phenomenological language that the Bible uses to describe the movement of the heavenly bodies is the common language used then as now. Otherwise it would be intelligible to no-one but astronomers. Also, it was foreign to the ‘office of the sacred writers’ to teach the science of astronomy. However, although the Bible also was not intended to teach the science of geology, it did give detailed narratives of the creation and the Flood, which were critically relevant to the discussion of geological theories about earth history.38

The historicity of the Genesis account and the historical nature of geological theories were what Bugg repeatedly emphasised. He quoted with approval the words of the Quarterly Review of Buckland’s Reliquiae Diluvianae:

‘That in an inquiry into the history of the world to reject the evidence of written records as wholly irrelevant and undeserving of attention, is in itself, illogical and unphilosophical. It is true that to assume these records to be infallible and above all criticism is to prejudge the question and to supersede all inquiry: but when the case is one of remote concern and full of difficulty, when we are compelled to compass sea and land for presumptive and circumstantial evidence, to turn a deaf ear to that Volume which professes to give a direct and detailed account of the whole transaction “is a great” violation of the laws of sound reasoning’.39

He considered it to be most unphilosophical for the old-earth geologists and clergymen ‘to reason from the operations of nature to the origin of nature, for which they have no data.’40 At best, he argued in chapter one of Volume II, they theorised that the primitive mountains were formed out of a fluid. But they never explained the creation of the fluid. In fact, he contended, as they attempted to explain first formations solely by natural causes they were implying, sometimes no doubt unconsciously, an infinite series, which amounted to atheism.

‘Thus then, we see with perfect certainty, that the operations of nature afford us no data for a theory on first formations; and that it is not the province of philosophy, which is concerned only with the operations of nature, to speculate about the time or manner of the world’s first existence’.41

The questions of origins (how? and when?) could only be answered by revelation, said Bugg.

‘Its Divine Author alone, knows how he made the world; and His Word therefore in this matter, is our only guide’.42

Geological competence

Bugg did not have (or claim) geological competence, but neither was he totally ignorant of geological facts and theories. At the end of his book Bugg declared that he ‘sought no instruction (in theory or argument), but that of his Bible’.43 But this did not mean that he had read only the Bible. He admitted that he had little firsthand knowledge of geological phenomena and no skill as a practical geologist, but that he accepted the facts as described by the leading geologists, many of whose writings he had read.43^,44 His work, representing three to four years of study,45 contains many long quotations from Buckland’s Vindiciae Geologicae (1820) and Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823), Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth (1822, fourth English edition), Faber’s Treatise on the Dispensations (1823), Sumner’s Records of Creation (1816), Phillips’ Geology of England and Wales (1818), and relevant recent journal articles from the Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, Philosophical Transactions, and the Quarterly Review. Generally the quotations are fully documented. He also indicated that he had read at least some of the geological writings of continental geologists such as Deluc, Von Buch, Pallas and Saussure, as well as the theories of the earth written by Buffon and Demaillet.

As far as other scriptural geologists are concerned, Bugg responded to several of Granville Penn’s minor arguments (usually rejecting Penn’s conclusions), and also referred positively to Alexander Catcott’s Treatise on the Deluge (1768), and Thomas Gisborne’s Testimony of Natural Theology (1818).46 He respected them all, but felt that Penn and Catcott particularly had not adhered to Scripture closely enough, and so had ‘neither afforded assistance to Geology nor defence to the Sacred Records.’47 This was one way in which Bugg expressed overconfidence about his own handling of the subject.

Geologists and geology

One of Bugg’s critics, ‘Oxoniensis Alter’, complained that Bugg’s whole book was an ad hominem argument.48 The editor of the Christian Observer said that Bugg ‘had deviated from simple argument into criminations’, and that he had accused Faber, Buckland, Sumner and others of being perverters of Scripture and abettors of infidelity.49 As Bugg focused his criticisms on the theories of Cuvier and Buckland it is true that, because he concluded that their theories were unphilosophical, illogical, and contradicted by their own description of the facts, this reflected quite negatively on these two men and the clergymen and other geologists who followed their theory. However, Bugg repeatedly and explicitly stated50^,51^,52 that he was not accusing Cuvier, Buckland, Sumner, Faber, Conybeare and Phillips, etc., of evil motives (that is, of intentionally trying to undermine Scripture by their theories).53 He did, however, believe that many of the continental geologists did consciously intend to attack Scripture. He said that he had ‘the highest opinion of Mr Buckland’s integrity, and of Mr Faber’s and the Christian Observer’s sincerity.’54 But while their motives may have been commendable (that is, to vindicate Scripture), Bugg was certain that the actual effect of the old-earth theory was nevertheless very detrimental to the Christian faith.

‘I have been particularly cautious not to charge individuals (not even Baron Cuvier) with hostile designs against the Scriptures; but that he has propagated, and others have adopted, a system which is hostile to the Scriptures is the subject for discussion, and is not to be silenced by rebuke or censure’.55^,56

Several statements that Bugg made, if lifted out of the context of his whole argument, might lead us to think that he was opposed to the study of geology or denied the geological facts. For example, he said that the ‘modern inquiries into Geology may justly lie under the imputation of being dangerous to religion’, and he called geology an ‘insidious science’.57 But generally Bugg was most explicit in saying that what he opposed was the old-earth ‘theory’, ‘scheme’ or ‘system’ of geology, because he believed it was contrary to reason, the geological facts, and the plain meaning of Scripture. Contrary to the charge of his critics,58 he emphatically stated that he did not deny the ‘physical facts’ of geology, but opposed the old-earth theoretical interpretations of those facts.

‘From an attentive consideration of their writings, it will be seen that Dr Buckland and Mr Faber, do much more than admit that the “physical” facts are true which geologists allege. They embrace the theories by which geologists account for the formation of those “physical phenomena”, and from which they endeavour to prove, that numerous races of animals lived and died “on our globe during myriads of years before the formation of man”. These theories are “inferences”, or deductions, which geologists have drawn from their “physical facts”. But these theories, inferences, or deductions, are not facts. They are conclusions which geologists assert to arise out of those facts. It is a fact that the “strata” are deposited in a certain form; it is a fact that “animal remains” are found embedded in the strata. These are facts, and, generally speaking, we may say these facts are true’.59

Bugg went on to say that facts do not speak for themselves,60 but must be interpreted, and that often the old-earth geologists were guilty of using language which ignored this distinction and therefore clouded the philosophical debate. He remarked,

‘The subject now before us is, whether the Scriptures and the modern theory of geology agree. Not “geological phenomena”, as your correspondent has put it; but the geological theory … It is an artifice unworthy of philosophy, to say nothing of divinity, to make, as writers on geology very often make, and as Oxoniensis Alter has made, geological theories synonymous with geological phenomena; thus bewildering the reader, and involving in the premises what remains to be proved in the process’.61

This might be interpreted to mean that Bugg objected to all theorising and saw description and classification of phenomena as the only legitimate activities of geology. But Bugg was not opposed to drawing inferences about the physical causes and associated timescale of geological effects, for he made such inferences in arguing for a young earth.62

Bugg wrote with strong conviction about many things: for example, the historicity of Genesis, the infallible authority of Scripture, the global and violent nature of the Flood, and the literal meaning of the days of creation. But in his own theoretical attempts to harmonise the geological phenomena with the literal interpretation of the scriptural accounts of creation and the Flood, he explicitly expressed great caution. Examples included such matters as how the breaking of the fountains of the deep during the initial phase of the Flood would have caused faults, dips and inclinations, how whirlpools in the tumultuous Flood collecting floating animal debris could have formed highly concentrated fossil graveyards, why tropical creatures are found buried in the strata of the northern latitudes, and how the vast pebble and gravel beds were formed.63 In ending one such discussion he stated that the explanation he offered

‘is only suggested as a probable circumstance from the analogy of cases. On subjects where data are so imperfect, it were arrogant, not to say impious, to assume airs of importance and confident dictation. The whole of these suggestions may one day prove to be nothing more than mere speculations. However, as the whole seems natural, and, from present data, not improbable, I have thought I might be allowed to throw out the foregoing hints on points on which Geologists speak with the fullest confidence’.64

Creation and the age of the earth

Bugg believed in a literal six-day creation and a global Noachian Flood that produced most of the fossiliferous strata. He clearly believed the earth was only about 6,000 years old, but he did not discuss the genealogies or the exact age of the earth.65 There is no indication that he was a strict Ussherite.

Though he was absolutely convinced of a recent creation and global Flood, he was not dogmatic about every point within this view. Besides the cautious geological speculations mentioned above, he was not dogmatic on each of his interpretations of Scripture. For example, he was undecided whether all the matter of the Universe was created at once on the first day of creation and then formed and organised during the six days, or successively created over the course of the first six days.66

In defence of this young-earth view, he gave refutations of the day-age theory of Faber and the gap theory favoured by Buckland and Sumner. Bugg argued that the day-age theory is proven false on several counts. First, in the period prior to the Flood, Cuvier’s theory postulated many physical revolutions on the earth after the creation of plants and animals, whereas the Bible declares only one physical pre-Flood revolution on Day 2 before the creation of plants. Second, the number and arrangement of the fossil remains of the supposed geological revolutions is inconsistent with the order of creation in Genesis. Bugg quoted Faber correctly as saying that the succession of organised fossils in the strata agree with ‘the precise order of the Mosaic narrative’. But Bugg replied that a careful enquirer would see that this was obviously false.67 That the order of Genesis 1 did not fit the order of the fossil record was a conclusion also embraced by most old-earth geologists in the late 1820s.

Bugg believed that the matter of the sun, moon and stars was created at the beginning of Day 1, but that they only became endowed with luminosity on Day 4. ‘Day’ is clearly literal in Genesis 1:14, where the heavenly bodies are said to be for the purpose of telling time. But there is no reason to think that ‘day’ has any other meaning in the rest of the chapter, so the days of creation must be literal.68 To the objection that light from distant stars could not have reached earth in only a few thousand years, Bugg replied that the distance to stars and the nature of the transmission of light were too imperfectly known to overthrow the clear statements of Scripture.69 The day-age theory must also be rejected because it makes an absurdity of the biblical statements about the origin of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1–3 and Exodus 20:8–11).70 To the objection that too much happened on Day 6 for it to be a literal day, Bugg replied that we are too ignorant of how many animals Adam named to say that he could not have done it in a few hours, which, if he did, would have left sufficient time for the other events assigned to that day.71

Bugg rejected the gap theory because, first, its notion of a long series of creation-revolution-creation-revolution-etc. reduced the biblical account of creation to virtually nothing. His opponents considered the biblical creation account to be a description only of the preparation of the earth’s surface for the creation of man,72 and as such only related to a thin section of the total geological record, which itself was only a tiny fraction of the whole globe. Furthermore, the sedimentary rock formation which Cuvier attributed to the creation (which was just below the loam, clay, sand and gravel attributed to the Flood) was not in any way a suitable preparation for man. In fact, contended Bugg, on the old-earth interpretation of the strata, the Flood would have a greater claim to being called a creation than the creation itself, because the geological results of the Flood were more suitable to plants, animals and man than the geological effects with old-earth proponents attributed to Creation Week.73

More general objections to both old-earth interpretations of Genesis included the following. Bugg frequently referred to Exodus 20:11.74^,75 He argued that since this verse says that ‘For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and the sea and all that is in them’, it must, especially when taken in conjunction with the second commandment and Moses’ commentary on this passage in Deuteronomy 4:15–19, refer to the creation of the whole universe and all it contained (including man), at the end of Day 6, and could not refer only to the refurbishing of the surface of the earth after thousands of ages before man. Also, since in the commandment the six days of God’s Creation Week are linked to a week of literal days, the days of Genesis 1 must be literal. And since they were written directly by the hand of God they come with an added stamp of truth.

Also, several verses expressly connect man with the beginning of creation, not long ages after the beginning (II Peter 3:4, Matthew 24:21, Mark 13:19, Isaiah 45:5, 12, 18).76 Buckland said that ‘the declaration of Scripture is positive and decisive in asserting the low antiquity of the human race’ in comparison to the rest of the creation.77 To this Bugg replied,

‘There is not a word or an intimation given which implies that man is more modern than the animals. If therefore this narrative does not deny a previous state of the earth, and previous races of animals, it does not deny the previous existence of other races of human beings … If then the Scriptures are positive and decisive, and therefore correct in what they assert respecting the “low antiquity of the human race”, they are equally decisive and correct in asserting the low antiquity of animals and fishes of “every race”. And, therefore, the vast antiquity of the objects of Geology are fabulous and visionary’.78

Furthermore, wrote Bugg, in Scripture the creation and the destruction of the heavens and the earth are always presented as occurring synchronously (Psalm 102:25–26, Isaiah 51:6, Revelation 20:11 and Revelation 21:1, Matthew 24:31, Hebrews 1:10–11, and II Peter 3:5–7). Hebrews 11:3 clearly states that the earth was created out of nothing, not out of the wreck and ruins of a more ancient world, as Buckland asserted.79 Bugg argued that the whole notion of a long series of revolutions causing animal extinctions before the creation and Fall of man was contrary to the original perfection of creation as described in Genesis 1:31. He believed on the basis of Genesis 1:29–30 that all the animals and man were originally herbivorous. Some animals became solely carnivores after the Fall and man was permitted to eat meat only after the Flood (Genesis 9:3). Whether the degeneration of animals into carnivorous habits was a result of physical change or simply a change in dietary tastes, he was unsure.80

Bugg expressed his conviction many times that the old-earth theories denigrated the character of God, especially His wisdom, kindness and justice.81^,82 To the idea of many creations and revolutions before the creation of man, who was to be the lord of creation under God, Bugg objected,

‘Where is the philosophy, the wisdom, yea the common sense in building, destroying, and rebuilding the mansion many times over, before its Lord is made to occupy it?’83

To Bugg, such an idea was consistent with a Hindu, rather than Christian, concept of God:

‘Hence then, we have arrived at the wanton and wicked notion of the Hindoos, viz, that God has “created and destroyed worlds as if in sport, again and again”!! But will any Christian Divine who regards his Bible, or will any Philosopher who believes that the Almighty works no “superfluous miracles”, and does nothing in vain, advocate the absurdity that a wise, just and benevolent Deity has, “numerous” times, wrought miracles, and gone out of his usual way for the sole purpose of destroying whole generations of animals, that he might create others very like them, but yet differing a little from their predecessors!!’84

Bugg also complained that professing Christian old-earth geologists exhibited a very careless or superficial handling of Scripture, especially Genesis.85^,86

Finally, Bugg objected to the old-earth theories (day-age and gap) because they involved creation by secondary causes, which was really no creation at all. This was because Buckland believed that the successive formations of geological record on the surface of the earth (that is, from the primary to tertiary) were the result of many violent convulsions subsequent to the original creation, and that these convulsions were produced by secondary causes, superintended by God.87 Bugg responded that, since in this old-earth theory the six-day creation only related to the penultimate revolution, our creation was only part of a series resulting from secondary causes, which philosophers and theologians had always agreed were created causes.

‘But to speak of “created causes” producing “creation”, is a solecism in language’, which ‘reduces that creation to the class of second cause productions, and destroys the nature of creation’.

Such a view of creation, he said, was a revisitation of heathen atheistic notions of an infinite series.88 Bugg wrote elsewhere about the initial creation of the earth,