EVOLUTION OF CREATION: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER'S RECOGNITION OF A CHANGING EARTH THROUGH TIME

Athanasius Kircher’s (1602-1680), approach to studying the Earth has often been described as encyclopedic and his interpretation of the Earth as one that is largely static through time and space. This Jesuit scholar's natural history certainly conformed to biblical chronology. He was heavily involved in the discipline of chronology (e.g. “Arca Noe” and “Oedipus Aegyptiacus”) and the majority of his geologic writings limit their examinations to modern Earth processes. However, his view of the Earth was not one of a fixed object through time. There are a number of examples within his writings and collections that point to a view that the Earth was evolving since the time of Creation and the biblical Flood.

Kircher’s evidence for an evolving Earth were drawn from observation, collection, experimentation, and received testimony of others including Plato, Aristotle, and contemporary natural philosophers and Jesuits missionaries. Kircher argued that the Earth in ancient times was of a wholly different character from today, even different from many centuries after the Flood. He states that nothing is perpetual, but all things are fleeting and subject to the fates of fortune. He substantiates his claim of an evolving Earth by citing (1) global sea level changes, (2) rising and falling of mountains, and (3) occurrence of fossils. Kircher noted that countries may recede into the sea in one location and yet rise up from the ocean in other places creating islands and dry land. Through maps, he represented the effects of changing sea level on the evolving geography of the Earth. Kircher maintained that the ultimate natural forces behind these changes are a perpetual heat engine within the Earth and the external opposing forces of the Sun and Moon.

Kircher’s observation and interpretation of nature can be seen as entwined with a spiritual pursuit of perfection. For Kircher, these two studies were one in the same, much in line with the Hermetic concept of correspondence. He uses Renaissance Platonic and Hermetic ideas to address many physical workings of nature while simultaneously attaining a parallel spiritual metaphor. As such, his understanding of a changing Earth through time had an inherent philosophical purpose. Kircher viewed the world as moving towards perfection for the purpose of inspiring awe and raising the soul and intellect.