Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Pax Christi!
I recently received two anonymous letters in two separate envelopes without a return address, stamped in Sacramento, California. The author sought to put us in our place with multiple examples of trees that have been dated much older than the Biblical age of the Flood and with C-14 dating results for charcoalized roots found under lava flows produced by volcanic eruptions over an alleged period of tens of thousands of years. It is always revealing when critics do not want to identify themselves, so that in the extremely unlikely event they could be proven wrong, they will not be able to find this out!
In reality, the claims of our critic have been thoroughly answered by Kolbe advisors Fr. Victor Warkulwiz, Dr. Jean Pontcharra, Dr. Robert Bennett and by many other qualified scientists. In his ground-breaking defense of the traditional Catholic interpretation of Genesis 1-11, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11, Fr. Warkulwiz offers the following insightful commentary (minus the footnotes) on the efforts of scientists to challenge the Biblical chronology of the Earth through "dendrochronology" or "tree-ring dating:
The science of dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is also used in archaeology, both in its own right and to provide calibration for radiometric dating. It is based on the fact that each year a tree adds a ring to its growth, the size and composition of which depends on that year's weather and environmental conditions. Trees growing in the same area will have matching sequences, so scientists have been able gradually to construct an absolute chronology by overlapping sequences of successively older ring patterns. The ring patterns are those in pieces of wood taken from living trees and in old timbers found at various places. From these overlapping sequences a master chart can be drawn up. The composers of the master chart must take great care in matching the pieces together. They must be skilled at recognizing the distinguishing features of ring patterns so that correct matches are made. Correct matches are not as easy to make as one may suppose. M. Baillie writes:
It has to be remembered that there is only one correct pattern: each tree has grown only once and ultimately its ring pattern can only fit at one place in time. Simply because two pieces look alike does not necessarily mean that they fit together. An important part of dendrochronology is the formulation of techniques to ensure that the fit between pieces is real. So we have a jig-saw [puzzle] which may not be complete and for which the pieces are not acquired in any particular order. The result of this is that frequently the writer on dendrochronology is forced to distort the order in which things happened (in which samples were acquired and matched) to impose a logical sequence of events on a particular study. It is this distortion which leads to the excessively tidy nature of some reports and by extension to the mistaken belief that dendrochronology is easy. It is easy in concept, but it can be extremely difficult, time-consuming and frustrating in reality.
A sample from an ancient wooden beam from an archaeological site can be sent to a laboratory to be compared against the chart to establish its age. By studying the rings of many samples of timber from different sites and strata within a particular region, archaeologists build up a historical sequence. This technique is particularly well developed in the American Southwest. It is particularly useful for dating wood up to 2000 years old. In that range the ages it deduces can be compared with historical information.
The oldest known living thing is the California bristlecone pine. Microscopic study of its growth rings indicates that it is about 4500 years old. That would mean it sprouted shortly after the Flood according to biblical chronology. However, dendrochronologists try to extend the range of method by looking for matching tree-ring patterns in timbers they think to be older. In this way sequences derived from the California bristlecone pine have been extended to 6700 b.c., which corresponds to more than twice the age of the oldest known tree. It is needless to say, in light of the above quotation, that such extrapolation is difficult, subjective and uncertain. Even trees of the same kind living today do not always display the same ring pattern. Factors such as disease, temperature, insect infestation, frost damage, wind, available sunlight, amount of rainfall and ground water, and soil nutrients cause variations in the patterns from tree to tree, especially those removed from each other in place and time. All this makes comparisons very tricky. Scientists have been concerned about this:
Among the pines, {the bristlecone} is, if anything, even more undependable than the Junipers.... We have many cores from bristlecones growing in the White Mountains of California, east of the Sierra Nevadas, at altitudes of 10,000 feet, where the rainfall is low and erratic. There are also a number of cores from bristlecones growing at high altitudes in south-western Utah and on the San Francisco Peaks at Flagstaff, Arizona. Comparison of charts of measured rings show no similarity whatsoever.
Also, two or more rings may grow in a single year, but those are usually recognizably different from normal rings.
The tree-ring method is used to calibrate radiocarbon dating. The carbon-14/carbon-12 ratios are measured for individual tree rings. From this data, a "calibration curve" is drawn, which supposedly enables the user to compensate for variations in carbon ratio in the atmospheric carbon reservoir over time. This at best could increase the reliability of the method only to the age of the oldest living tree, namely 4500 years. Even then there are problems. R. H. Brown writes:
Attempts to derive historical age from radiocarbon age yield increasingly uncertain conjectures for samples older than 2000 years. Tree-ring chronology has been extended from 59 b.c. to approximately 2400 b.c. using the Bristlecone Pine. The growth characteristics of this tree make it unsatisfactory for the establishment of a precise long-term growth-ring sequence. Attempts to correlate Bristlecone Pine growth-rings with radiocarbon ages indicate that either ring counting has over-estimated the age of the oldest Bristlecone Pine by 500 to 1000 years, or the relative amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere around 2000 b.c. was in the order of ten percent greater than in a.d.1850 [the standard year].
In short, there is no convincing evidence that any tree on Earth is older than the number of years that have elapsed since the Deluge roughly 4500 years ago. And yet there is no reason why Bristlecone Pines and other long-lived trees should not have attained much greater ages--if the Deluge were merely a local flood and the Earth billions of years old, as most Catholic young people are taught in schools all over the world. The fact that the oldest trees on Earth date from the Deluge is a striking confirmation of the truth of the Biblical chronology as understood in the Church from the beginning.
In his foreword to Fr. Victor's treatise on The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11, Bishop Robert A. Vasa wrote the following commendation:
The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11: A Compendium and Defense of Traditional Catholic Theology on Origins, by Reverend Victor P. Warkulwiz, M.S.S., is a wonderfully researched and thoroughly stimulating work. Father Warkulwiz, drawing on his very substantial scientific background, walks us through the early chapters of Genesis showing and giving testimony to the essential compatibility between the literal account of Genesis, the understanding of the Fathers of the Church and the modern day observations of natural science. He very cogently points out that many of the accepted scientific conclusions which contradict the days of creation and the great flood are based on a variety of unproven premises which are pillars set firmly on sand. Father very adeptly tackles the complex issues of cosmogony, astronomy, astrophysics, mathematics, nuclear science, evolutionary theory, geological uniformitarianism, radiocarbon dating, big bang theory, and others to show that the observed phenomena which they try to explain are just as readily, properly and easily explained by such Genesis factors as direct creation by God and the Genesis Flood. In doing so he opens a clear path for dedicated Christians to read the Book of Genesis with a renewed and, to a certain extent, unencumbered faith. Saint Peter writing to the dispersed people says: "No one can hurt you if you are determined to do only what is right; if you do have to suffer for being good, you will count it a blessing. There is no need to be afraid or to worry about them. Simply reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have" (1 Peter 3:13-15). Father Warkulwiz provides ready answers for those who ask for the reasons which underlie a deep Biblical faith, a faith which is too readily branded as fundamental or naive. The work is not, necessarily, easy reading; but it is an important work which needs to be studiously read, prayerfully considered and kept on the shelf with Biblical commentaries for future reference.
We are delighted to announce that Fr. Victor has graciously decided to make The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11 available for the first time as an e-book through the Kolbe website, so you can now obtain this wonderful resource as a pdf file through the Kolbe web store at this link. With the help of resources of this kind, you, too, will be able to provide "ready answers" to those who are skeptical of the sacred history of Genesis--even the very learned ones, like our anonymous critic from Sacramento, California.
Through the prayers of the Mother of God, may the Holy Spirit lead us all into all the Truth!
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata,
Hugh Owen
