The Samsara of Rocks
Samsara is a concept in Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and others. It basically means the endless cycle of birth, life, death, and reincarnation. In uniformitarian geology, the rock cycle was that rocks endlessly change through various forms. Advances in observable geology and thermodynamics caused the rock samsara (although geologists did not use this term as far as I can recollect) to be left behind somewhat.
Various things in nature have a cycle, such as the water cycle, life cycle of animals, nitrogen cycle, motorcycle — no, not the last one. Using present geological processes, scientists extrapolate backward in time for long ages, which requires a whole heap of assumptions. Although creationists agree that rocks do change, they have a better explanation for what we see today: the catastrophic processes of the Genesis Flood, and also creation week.
Like other things in nature that have a cycle, there is supposedly a "rock cycle" as well. While creationists and uniformitarian geologists have some amount of agreement on this, the processes that cause rock changes are best explained by the catastrophic Genesis Flood.
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| Graphic composed of images from Wikimedia Commons and Clker clipart |
Today’s feedback comes from Dan B. of the UK, who asked for help about the geological rock cycle in his daughter’s school curriculum.To read the rest, click on "The rock cycle — How do we handle it?"
We’ve just received the science curriculum my daughter will be following as she moves into Year 8 (i.e. when students turn 13 in the UK school system). It includes the topic of the “rock cycle” to which a few CMI articles make passing references but none appear to give explicit treatment. It seems to be a key concept in long-age historical geology. How should Christians think biblically about it, and how might parents best handle it with their children as they are taught it at school? Is it one to which we can give qualified limited assent, except that it involves excessive extrapolation into the past? I was never taught any geology in school science, including A-level physics and chemistry. Yet here is this concept introduced at an earlier stage, before any curricular discussion of biological evolution.CMI geologist Tasman Walker responds:
Like other things in nature that have a cycle, there is supposedly a "rock cycle" as well. While creationists and uniformitarian geologists have some amount of agreement on this, the processes that cause rock changes are best explained by the catastrophic Genesis Flood.