https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=361
Matthew Fontaine Maury
| by |
Trevor Major, M.Sc., M.A. |
Many people have the impression that the nineteenth century was a bad
time for Christianity. It witnessed the spread of uniformitarian
geology, higher criticism, and evolution. However, it was by no means a
victory for skepticism. What we often forget is that most people outside
academia rejected these new ideas. In England, for example, Charles
Darwin’s
Origin of Species appeared in 1859, and
Essays and Reviews,
which appeared in 1860, catapulted German higher criticism into
Anglican theology. Yet according to Gregory, “the years following 1860
were a time of great religious revival in England” (1986, p. 373).
Also, many prominent teachers and researchers remained committed to
their belief in God and His inspired Word. One outstanding example is
Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873). He was born in Virginia, and joined
the U.S. Navy at age nineteen. Although an accomplished sailor, Maury
always leaned toward the academic side of his profession. Following a
serious coach accident, which confined him to duty on land, Maury’s
scholarly reputation earned him a position in 1842 as Superintendent of
the Depot of Charts and Instruments.
Almost immediately, Maury began the greatest task of his career. He was
determined that captains should have charts that would enable them to
sail as quickly and as safely as possible around the world. He used old
log books and thousands of new observations to produce his famous wind
and current charts of the world’s major oceans. These achievements
earned him the epithet, “pathfinder of the seas.” Maury also wrote
directions to accompany his charts, and he combined these with other
observations about the ocean to produce
The Physical Geography of the Sea, which first appeared in 1855. This was an immensely popular book, and marked the beginning of the science of oceanography.
Throughout all this success, Maury never forgot his belief in Scripture.
Physical Geography
is filled with references to the Bible. He could not help but be
fascinated by passages that mention the sea, such as Psalm 8:8, Psalm
107:23-24, and Ecclesiastes 1:7. Whoever studies the sea, Maury
contended, “must look upon it as a part of that exquisite machinery by
which the harmonies of nature are preserved, and then will begin to
perceive the developments of order and the evidences of design” (1859,
p. 57).
Maury knew full well that these views clashed with those of his
colleagues. Before five thousand people at the founding of the
University of the South in 1860, he proclaimed the following:
I have been blamed by men of science, both in this country and in
England, for quoting the Bible in confirmation of the doctrines of
physical geography. The Bible, they say, was not written for scientific
purposes, and is therefore no authority in matters of science. I beg
pardon! The Bible is authority for everything it touches. What
would you think of an historian who should refuse to consult historical
records of the Bible, because the Bible was not written for the purposes
of history? The Bible is true and science is true (as quoted in Lewis,
1927, p. 99, emp. in orig.).
Such convictions have earned Maury a well-deserved place in
Bible-science literature. He is honored as a man who took God at His
Word. However, readers may want to treat one claim with a little
suspicion (see Major, 1995). Several accounts suggest that Maury was so
confident about God’s Word that his mapping of ocean currents resulted
directly from reading or hearing about the “paths of the seas” in Psalm
8:8. Some go on to suggest that ocean currents would have remained
hidden unless Maury had read this passage in the Bible. Some set this
crucial event in Maury’s childhood, and others set it during the
recovery from his accident. One popular account by Virginia Lee Cox has a
son reading to Maury during an illness (Lewis, 1927, p. 252), but Maury
began his mapping project when the oldest son was only two years old.
Another problem is that some currents, such as the Gulf Stream, were
well-studied by the 1840s. Maury’s feat was to bring his scientific
knowledge to bear on a vast array of nautical information, but he was
not the first to discover ocean currents.
There is little doubt that Maury held a special fascination for Psalm
8:8 and other passages that mention the sea and the sky. They confirmed
to him that revelation in nature and revelation in Scripture were in
harmony because they have One Author. These convictions, and Maury’s
character, make him worthy of emulation by Bible-believing scientists
today.
REFERENCES
Gregory, Frederick (1986), “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,”
God & Nature, ed. D.C. Lindberg and R.L. Numbers (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), pp. 369-390.
Lewis, Charles Lee (1927),
Matthew Fontaine Maury: The Pathfinder of the Seas (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1969 reprint by AMS Press, New York).
Major, Trevor (1995), “Honor to Whom Honor...Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873),”
Creation Research Society Quarterly, 32[2]:82-87, September.
Maury, Matthew F. (1859),
The Physical Geography of the Sea (New York: Harper & Brothers, sixth edition).
