ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the reasons why the study of geology convinced men of the great antiquity of the Earth long before good quantitative methods of calculating its age were available. It examines the nuclear physical data and geologic relationships upon which geochronology is based, and provides the degree of respect which theologians should give to geologic data when setting forth their interpretations of Biblical data. Careful study of the rocks at many localities around the earth, using all methods of investigation available, has permitted the construction of a geologic history of the earth in general and of more detailed histories for multitudes of particular regions. The phenomenon of radioactivity has been known and studied for almost 60 years but it has only been efficiently applied to geologic dating rather. Geologic age determinations and even geology itself have been attacked by many of the hyperorthodox as invalid because they fail to uphold one or another interpretation of scripture.
