Augustine: young earth creationist1
—theistic evolutionists take Church Father out of context
by Prof. Benno Zuiddam
Wikipedia.org
As his theology matured, Augustine abandoned his earlier allegorizations of Genesis that old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists have latched onto in an attempt to justify adding deep time to the Bible. Furthermore, he always believed in a young earth (painting by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1480).
Published: 8 October 2009(GMT+10)
1) How did St. Augustine read the first chapters of Genesis and why?
Augustine read the first eleven chapters of Genesis as God’s revelation. For
that reason he took what is described there quite literally.
2) Was he ambiguous, to such extent that both sides in the evolution debate
might refer to him for support?
Augustine was not vague about the age of the earth, the historicity of Adam and
Eve as our first ancestors, or the events in the Garden of Eden and the worldwide
flood later in Genesis. However, his doctrine of creation was complex. All matter,
according to him, was created on the first day. Subsequently God created pregnant
ideas that Augustine called rationes seminales, which were imbedded in
creation. Some only came to fruition afterwards, even, it might be argued, after
the Fall. Augustine thought that God could even have catered for the eventuality
of the Fall of man into sin and the subsequent curse. But, all speculations set
aside, Augustine did not teach a process of one kind changing into another. As a
result of his rather philosophic view of creation he took the word “day”
in Genesis as symbolic. “Hooray”, cry those who hold the day-age view
of Genesis one. This optimism is unwarranted. Augustine’s symbolic use did
the very opposite. He wanted a period that was actually shorter than six
earth days. In Augustine’s mind, God would have created all matter as well
as the seminal ideas in the blink of an eye. The material expression of those ideas
followed later. We have to combine his instant creation theory with his literal
reading of other events in Genesis. Adding his belief that the world is about 8000
years old makes it extremely hard to call on him to support Darwinian evolution
of any kind or deep time.
3) Isn’t it obvious from his City of God (De Civitate Dei) that
Augustine believed that God created Man 6000 years ago?
His belief that the world is about 8000 years old makes it extremely hard to call
on him to support Darwinian evolution of any kind or deep time
Not quite, but a young earth definitely. Augustine wrote in De Civitate Dei
that his view of the chronology of the world and the Bible led him to believe that
Creation took place around 5600 BC [Ed. note: he used
the somewhat inflated Septuagint chronology—see
Biblical chronogenealogies for more information.]. One of the chapters in
his City of God bears the title “On the mistaken view of history
that ascribes many thousands of years to the age of the earth.” Would you
like it clearer? Several pagan philosophers at the time believed that the earth
was more or less eternal. Countless ages had preceded us, with many more to come.
Augustine said they were wrong. This goes to show that theistic evolutionists who
call in Augustine’s support do so totally out of context. All they allow themselves
to see is his symbolic use of “day” in Genesis, and a very difficult
philosophical doctrine of creation with ideas that develop. “Wonderful!”
they think, “Augustine really supports our post-Darwinian theories!”
It takes a superficial view of Genesis and Augustine to arrive at such conclusions.
His instant creation, his young earth and immediate formation of Adam and Eve rule
out Augustine’s application for this purpose.
4) Is there a development in Augustine’s view of the days of creation?
In this later work of his [On the necessity of taking Genesis literally], Augustine
says farewell to his earlier allegorical and typological exegesis of parts of Genesis
and calls his readers back to the Bible.
As Augustine became older, he gave greater emphasis to the underlying historicity
and necessity of a literal interpretation of Scripture. His most important work
is De Genesi ad litteram. The title says it: On the necessity of taking
Genesis literally. In this later work of his, Augustine says farewell to
his earlier allegorical and typological exegesis of parts of Genesis and calls his
readers back to the Bible. He even rejected allegory when he deals with the historicity
and geographic locality of Paradise on earth.
5) Some say that one of the reasons for Augustine taking the days of creation
less literally is that he did not have a great command of the Hebrew language. They
also question his knowledge of Greek. He would have been misled by a bad Latin translation
of Genesis 2:4 that suggested that Creation took place instantly,
giving rise to his particular theory. Is this correct?
Augustine was not a Hebrew scholar, nor exactly an expert in Greek. I would be inclined
to say the basis for his theory was in one of the deutero-canonical books. He used
an old Latin version when he quoted from Jesus Sirach 18:1 (“He who lives
eternally has made omnia simul”). Augustine interpreted the Latin
words omnia simul as “everything at the same time”. He consequently
thought that God would have created everything instantaneously. That is why he came
up with the theory that Creation should have been shorter than six earth days. He
was comparing Scripture with what he saw as Scripture, not editing the Bible with
Darwinism. There is a profound difference. His conclusion, however, was based on
a wrong interpretation of the Latin, which doesn’t do justice to the Greek
original. The Greek says that God made all things together (panta koinee),
or “the whole world”. The New Revised Standard Version translates it
that way, for instance. This history contains a warning for today’s theologians:
know your Greek! It might help you to avoid speculative theories that people take
seriously because you are a well known church leader.
6) What was Augustine’s view on the relation of faith and science? Is
there a conflict?
There is no conflict between faith and science on the data, or the facts. Sometimes
faith and science clash on the level of interpretation and theorizing. We see this
particularly in our time, now science in the post-Christian West has embraced worldview
presuppositions that are incompatible with Christianity. Augustine’s main
aim in writing his Commentary on Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram) was to
show that there needn’t be any conflict between the Genesis account, even
if this was to be taken literally, and science and philosophy. If one cannot come
up with a scientific explanation that supports the Scriptures, one should still
accept that God’s Word is true and trust that we will find out later. Augustine
takes this attitude, for instance, when he writes on the waters above the earth
(Gen 1:7).
7) Would you give a short overview of the doctrine of Creation over the last
two thousand years?
Early Church leaders like
Origen, Augustine and
Basil were young earth creationists. This view was commonly held within
the Church until the 19th century (including
Aquinas, Bede, the fourth Lateran council in AD
1215 and Pius X). The Catholic2
Church of all times and places embraced the traditional doctrine of Creation from
the day of Pentecost until the Enlightenment. In the Roman Catholic Church this
even continued until the Great War. But after the Enlightenment, darkness reigned.
Miracles disappeared. Divinity became part of the humanities. Divine revelation
was doubted or outright denied. Human religiosity was the new object. Theology became
a science that explained the Bible as if there never was Divine intervention in
history. Mythology, comparative religion and egalitarianism were the new keys of
interpretation. There was no revelation, but a democratic process where earliest
Christianity produced ideas about Jesus and decided what to think about God, creating
a god after our likeness. The seeds were sown in 17th century philosophy
and the political changes of the French revolution. The implications become fully
visible in the 19th century. Especially from the early part of that century
onward the natural sciences started to filter out God as a relevant factor. We observe
a similar move in continental theology around the same time.
Related articles
Further reading
References
- The full text of an interview of which a summary in Dutch
appeared in
Reformatorisch Dagblad (Reformed Daily), 15 April 2009.
Return to text.
- “Catholic” in the sense of universal, not Roman
Catholic. Return to text.
| Evolution is supported and endorsed by governments, the media, our major educational institutions and many big businesses. But look at this site and see how much can be achieved with a little effort from God’s people.  | | |
|
