> The action of a comet rather than straightforward miracle was an attempt by the materialists and deists to reduce God’s direct influence over the world and attribute everything to the secondary causes of natural law.
There is a lot to unpack there.
There seems to be an understanding that if second causes are involved, then no miracle (or, at least, a lesser one) is occurring. But is not the existence and continued functioning of second causes miraculous? Or, why do the laws of physics remain constant (apparently)? There can be no physical reason for that without creating an infinite regress.
The deist position that God is uninvolved in the clockwork universe he created is incompatible with omniscience. If its entire unfolding is contained within his thought, then his continued involvement is contained within the initial creative act. (Beware, also, of discussing time too literally in a context external to the universe.)
Here is a relevant teaching from the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), a document which is still in use, with some ammendments, by many denomnations today:
> 5.2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
> 5.3. God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.
As much as I like poetry, why do we attribute to a poet that which we owe to a most observant and introspective canal digger who felt free to question dogma and received wisdom?
William Smith deserves so much of our respect. Cf, e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_that_Changed_the_Wor..., which summarizes the most excellent book.
Slightly OT, but Cowper street in Palo Alto is named after William Cowper. So a fun shibboleth (and as OP points out) is that the name is pronounced KOO-per.
Why did people assume that strata were deposited over eons and represent different ages? Many of these layers can be viewed in the Grand Canyon, and there is a notable lack of erosion between them. As I see it, these paraconformities are a strong evidence that there were not large gaps of time between the strata - they must have been laid down rapidly over a relatively short period (e.g. by a great flood).
My uncle believed in bible chronology. He believed it so much that he learned to program computers (to calculate and explore patterns in dates) and then built a series of web sites culminating in https://www.biblechronology.com/
When he died he had assembled a team of people who worked on it. The site is now suffering from a bit of rot (the videos don't serve anymore) but he has been dead for six years so I suppose that's no surprise. I don't know if his "gang" still maintain it, but someone must be paying for the domain and hosting I suppose.
The time and energy he committed to this are astonishing to me, he was a talented man - he had the option to be a partner at Arthur Anderson (progenitor of Accenture) before becoming a CFO at a series of small banks and building societies. His career was firmly on the up, he worked for one of the precursors of what became RBS in the 1980's. If things had gone differently perhaps he would have muzzled "Fred the Shred" and we'd all be the richer, especially his kids. But, at some point a conviction and faith gripped him and he gave up everything for his bible project. He died penniless.
I wonder, because I don't understand, because I just see numerology and over interpretation, does it mean he was wrong? I think so, but perhaps that's just my faith talking.