Part 1 of Episode 3 explained that the Church Fathers unanimously held the Creation Providence
Framework.
Learning of this agreement among the Fathers is perhaps surprising to Catholic viewers
who may have been taught that some Fathers held views compatible with Evolution Theory.
Remarkably, St. Augustine is often portrayed as a Church Father who would have no qualms
about accepting Darwinism or that he objected to an historical interpretation of chapters
1 and 2 of Genesis.
This claim, however, is completely false and grossly misrepresents St. Augustine's actual
writings.
Part 2 of Episode 3 refutes four specific claims about St. Augustine's views on origins.
The first false claim asserts that St. Augustine did not regard Genesis 1 and 2 as a true historical
account of origins.
For example, evolutionary biologist Kenneth Miller of Brown University claims,
Here we see an attempt to discredit those holding to the historicity of Genesis, dismissing
them as a splinter group that has departed from the historical Church view.
Yet even a cursory examination of St. Augustine's writings exposes this claim as false.
For example, what title did St. Augustine select for his most extensive work on Genesis?
It was the literal meaning of Genesis.
The title alone suggests that he sought to understand Genesis according to the literal
historical sense.
Indeed, toward the end of his life, St. Augustine reflected upon the many works he had penned
and described the literal meaning of Genesis as a title of deliberate design, encompassing
the quest to understand Genesis not according to allegorical meanings but according to the
proper historical sense.
Compiled from 401 to 415 AD, the literal meaning of Genesis is a vast work divided
into 12 books that testify to St. Augustine's stance on the historicity of Genesis.
He observes, for example,
The account in Genesis is written in the style of history, not in that of allegory.
And reiterates,
The narrative is not written in a literary style proper to allegory, as in the Canticle
of Canticles.
But from beginning to end, in a style proper to history, as in the Books of Kings.
In Book 1, he declares,
I have started here to discuss sacred scripture according to the plain meaning of the historical
facts, not according to future events which they foreshadow.
Here, St. Augustine acknowledges that a scriptural text can include a spiritual or prophetic sense.
However, like St. Jerome and the other Church Fathers, he insists that such senses need
not eliminate the historical reality of a passage.
Referring to Adam, for example, he explains,
Adam of course signifies something else where St. Paul speaks of him as a type of the one
who was to come.
But he is understood here, in Genesis, as a man constituted in his own proper nature,
who lived a certain number of years, was the father of numerous children, and died
as other men die, although he was not born of parents as other men are, but made from
the earth, as was proper for the first man.
Consequently, paradise, in which God placed him, should be understood as simply a place,
that is, a land, where an earthly man would live.
St. Augustine maintained this perspective until his death.
His last word on Genesis is found in Book 8 of the City of God.
In this work, begun in 413, he declares,
The spiritual interpretation of the Paradise of Eden does not conflict with its historical truth.
It is very important to recognize that interpreting Genesis as an account of true history does
not result in a crude literalism.
For example, the Church Fathers understood that the sacred authors may sometimes describe
God by using a figure of speech, or through language familiar to readers.
In such instances, the text is not to be taken in the straightforward sense.
St. Augustine explains, for example, that when Scripture refers to the hand of God,
the inspired author is describing the power of God, and is not teaching that God has bodily
hands, as this, he writes, would constitute a childish interpretation.
He specifically warns that when interpreting Scripture,
We must first drive from our minds all anthropomorphic concepts that men might have.
Contrast this sensible method with Ken Miller's approach of asking those who view Genesis
as an historical narrative.
When the psalmist says, O Lord, thou art my rock and my fortress, what kind of rock is God?
Is he sedimentary, metamorphic, or igneous rock?
While St. Augustine tells us that chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis are true history, he also
explains that we are not compelled to take everything in sacred Scripture exactly as
written if there are sound reasons to depart from a straightforward interpretation.
In paragraph 15 of Providentissimus Deus, Pope Leo XIII references St. Augustine's
great principle, which holds that we are not to depart from the straightforward and obvious
sense of sacred Scripture unless reason dictates or necessity requires.
Now, due to the influence of Darwinism, many Catholics mistakenly assume that reason and
necessity require Genesis to be viewed as a myth or allegory.
However, subsequent episodes will show that it is evolution that is a myth, not God's
revealed word in the sacred history of Genesis.
A second error concerning St. Augustine is that his writings allowed for the introduction
of new animal kinds after the six days of creation had passed or allowed secondary natural
causes to have a hand in the creation of animal kinds.
If this were the case, it would mean that St. Augustine departed from the creation-providence
framework that holds all animal kinds were specially created by God during the six-day
creation period.
Once again, however, this claim is directly refuted by St. Augustine's writings.
In the literal meaning of Genesis, he reflects repeatedly upon the fullness of creation at
the end of the six days and writes,
Let us therefore believe and, if possible, also understand that God is working even now,
so that if his actions should be withdrawn from his creatures, they would perish.
But if we should suppose that God now makes a creature without having implanted its kind,
genus, in his own original creation, we should flatly contradict sacred scripture, which
says that on the sixth day God finished all his works.
Likewise, it could also be said that God rested from creating because he did not create henceforward
any new kinds of creatures, and that even until now and beyond, he works by governing
the kinds that he then made.
Nonetheless, even on the seventh day his powers ceased not from ruling heaven and earth and
all that he had made, for otherwise they would have perished immediately.
Again, we understand that God rested from all the works that he made, in the sense that
from then on he did not produce any other new nature, not that he ceased to hold and
govern what he had made.
Hence it is true that God rested on the seventh day, and it is also true that he works even
until now.
And again, we ought not to think of these creatures at the moment they were produced
as subject to the processes of nature which we now observe in them, but rather as under
the wonderful and unutterable power of the wisdom of God.
In the City of God, this father and doctor writes,
We have nothing to do in this work with those who hold that the divine mind does not create
and has no interest in this world.
For it is out of question to hold and assert that any creature, however small and mortal,
has any other creator than God, even before anything can be known about him.
I attribute the creation and establishment of all natures, that which makes them exist
as natures at all, to God.
St. Augustine's teachings on the creation-providence framework and the creation of all animal kinds
during the six days of creation are abundant and unambiguous.
Why then do so many Catholics struggle to detect and accept the framework held by St.
Augustine and all church fathers and doctors?
St. Augustine gave us a simple but profound insight into why even truth-seekers sometimes
find it difficult to accept the historicity of the supernatural creative acts in Genesis.
He explains that it can be challenging to accept Genesis as a historical narrative simply
because having passed from the period of creation, we now reside in the period of providence.
In other words, Genesis 1 and 2 seem foreign to us because we do not now observe the direct,
immediate creation of man or animal kinds by God.
Even so, in the literal meaning of Genesis, St. Augustine provides the following sound
reason why we are not to reject the framework on this account.
I say that the creation of natures narrated here is something unfamiliar because it is
the creation of things for the first time.
But surely we are not to believe that God did not make the world because He does not
make worlds today, or that He did not make the sun because He does not make suns today.
And this response should be given not just to those who question the creation of paradise,
but also to those who question the creation of man.
St. Augustine carries this line of thought into the city of God where in book 12 he comments
on Adam's infilling with the breadth of life and the supernatural creation of Eve
from Adam's side.
This He did as God.
Some people use the standards of their own daily experience to measure the power and
wisdom of God, by which He has the knowledge and the ability to make seeds even without
seeds.
And so they regard the account of man's creation as fable, not fact.
And because the first created works are beyond their experience, they adopt a skeptical attitude.
Here some 1,200 years before philosopher Rene Descartes emerged on the scene, St. Augustine
is warning against the tendency to drift toward a type of rationalism that views supernatural
events as non-historical.
As explained further in episode 13, the fact that so many present-day scholars embrace
such an anti-supernatural bias is an indication that they have returned to an ancient tendency
and error, which they nevertheless claim to be the product of modern scholarship.
A third false claim concerning the writings of St. Augustine is that he opposed interpreting
Genesis in the straightforward, obvious sense due to the fear that conflicts with natural
science would result and prevent unbelievers from accepting the faith.
Proponents of this error often cite two passages from the literal meaning of Genesis to support
their position.
From Book 1
From Book 2
From Book 3
Looking at this excerpt more closely, we see that St. Augustine cautions against interpreting
scripture in a way that would contradict that which can be known from reason and experience.
In other words, that which is a legitimate subject for natural science.
But once we recognize that Darwinism is counter to reason and experience, that it is really
a disguised philosophical attack on the truth about origins, it becomes clear that St. Augustine
in no way implies that we must somehow reject the straightforward meaning of Genesis with
regard to the supernatural origin of the universe, mankind and the animal kinds.
Indeed, using St. Augustine's own words, one can argue that the real danger and the true
disgrace occur when Christians presume to reinterpret the meaning of Holy Scripture
and talk nonsense about origins due to false evolutionary claims that violate both reason
and experience.
It is also obvious that St. Augustine does not apply this text to the origin of man and
the animal kinds.
We know this because he continually discusses the special creation of man and the animal
kinds in the literal meaning of Genesis.
If it is reasonable to assume that he would not violate his own principle, then it is
clear that he did not intend for the paragraph under discussion to mean that origins of man
and the universe are a proper subject for natural science or that special creation should
not be found in the Genesis narrative.
In fact, in the literal meaning of Genesis, St. Augustine declares,
The one characteristic that distinguishes Adam from other men is that he was not born
of parents but made from the earth.
Man, like all other creatures, was made by the word of God.
There is, of course, no doubt about the kinds of animals that the earth produced at God's word.
St. Augustine's understanding carries over to his last word on origins contained in the
city of God where he insists that God willed to create the first man as a new act of creation
and notes that from the evidence of the Holy Scriptures, fewer than 6,000 years have passed
since man's first origin.
I believe that the most important insight regarding the paragraph from Book 1 under
discussion is that the paragraph is followed by a discussion of even more serious dangers
that spring from attacks on truth from irreligious critics in the domain of science.
Indeed, St. Augustine warns,
Critics full of worldly learning should restrain themselves from attacking as ignorant and
uncultured these utterances that have been made to nourish all devout souls.
But more dangerous is the error of certain weak brethren who faint away when they hear
these irreligious critics learnedly and eloquently discoursing on the theories of astronomy or
on any of the questions relating to the elements of this universe.
With a sigh, they esteem these teachers as superior to themselves, looking upon them
as great men, and they return with disdain to the books, written for the good of their
souls, turning away in disgust from the unattractive wheat field they long for the blossoms on
the thorn.
This description anticipates the reaction to evolutionary biologists in modern times
remarkably well.
It was almost as if St. Augustine foresaw the myriad of Catholics who would be swayed
by the eloquent discourses of evolutionists, who are often viewed as the supreme authority
about origins, while Genesis is looked upon with disdain and even embarrassment.
But here is the most important point.
After discussing all of these potential errors, St. Augustine forms his conclusion as to how
the faithful should properly approach apparent conflicts between sacred scripture and the
claims of critics who would misuse science.
In wording that would be adopted by Leo XIII in paragraph 18 of Providisimus Teus, St.
Augustine explains,
A man is not in any difficulty in making a reply according to his faith which he ought
to make to those who try to defame our holy scripture.
When the irreligious critics are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical
science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our scripture.
But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to scripture, and therefore
contrary to the Catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that
it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt,
and we will so cling to our mediator, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge, that we will not be led astray by the glib talk of false philosophy.
When we read the inspired books, let us choose that one interpretation which appears as certainly
the meaning intended by the author.
But if this is not clear, then at least we should choose an interpretation in keeping
with the context of scripture, and in harmony with our faith.
Since St. Augustine clearly believed that Genesis was intended to convey the special
creation of man and the animal kinds, it is safe to conclude that he would have sided
with those who defend the account of special creation against those who try to reduce Genesis
to a myth or allegory through the use of evolution theory, which is the product not
of reason and observation, but of the glib talk of false philosophy.
A second quote from St. Augustine used by those who would fence off the study of origins
for natural science alone is from Book 2 of the literal meaning of Genesis, where he writes
It is also frequently asked what our belief must be about the form and shape of heaven
according to sacred scripture.
Such subjects are of no profit for those who seek beatitude, and they take up very precious
time that ought to be given to what is spiritually beneficial.
What concern of mine whether heaven is like a sphere and the earth is enclosed by it,
or whether heaven like a disk above the earth?
Here St. Augustine explains that we are not to draw more out of sacred scripture than
what the sacred author intends.
But he is not inferring that topics such as the origin of mankind are exclusively subjects
for natural science.
In fact, it is very clear from the quotations already given in this episode that St. Augustine
considered the origin of mankind and of the animal kinds to be from God's supernatural
activity during the six-day creation period, and this puts origins squarely in the realm
of historical theology, not natural science.
His writings on Genesis consistently convey the reality that God wished to chronicle and
communicate the supernatural creation of man that is the intent of the inspired author,
and this information is profitable for our belief and for our salvation.
You must also understand that the quotation from St. Augustine under discussion is addressing
a very specific question posed in chapter 9 of book 2.
This chapter is entitled, The Shape of the Material Heaven.
To extrapolate his response to this specific issue and conclude that anything related to
origins is a matter of natural science and not theology must be rejected.
Such an extrapolation must be rejected because it would violate St. Augustine's own writings,
namely that the origin of mankind and the animal kinds were the result of God's direct
creative action and were not the result of natural processes.
A fourth misrepresentation of St. Augustine's writings is the assertion that because he
did not adhere to the view that the days of Genesis were 24-hour days or short periods
of time, he did not subscribe to the straightforward and obvious meaning of Genesis and that his
concept of the seminal reasons is compatible with evolution theory.
We have repeatedly established in this episode that St. Augustine was a firm believer in
the creation providence framework, in other words, that he believed supernatural processes
accounted for the origins of the universe, man and the animal kinds.
This is clearly incompatible with evolution theory, which extrapolates theoretical but
unobserved natural processes back to the beginning of creation.
Questions surrounding St. Augustine's views on the straightforward and obvious meaning
of Genesis do not adhere, however.
One particular area of debate concerns his perspective on the time frame of creation.
The basic question to be resolved is why St. Augustine did not interpret the days of Genesis
to mean days of normal length or short periods of time as did the other fathers.
Instead, while viewing Genesis in the historical sense and avoiding allegorical interpretations,
he believed that the Genesis mention of light referred to the angels while the Genesis references
to the day, morning and evening described various stages of the angels' contemplation
of the word of God about their knowledge of creatures.
To solve this question, some background is required.
As explained in the Ancient Christian Writers series, which includes a translation of the
literal meaning of Genesis, St. Augustine did not know Hebrew, the original language
of Genesis.
Moreover, his command of Greek was less than fluent, and by the time he began work on the
literal meaning of Genesis, he remained unable to read the Greek fathers in the original.
In examining the puzzle before us, we must be mindful of this limitation and recognize
that this does not take away from the accomplishment of this church father, doctor, and saint.
Added to this fundamental difficulty, in chapter 33, book 4 of the literal meaning of Genesis,
St. Augustine writes of an apparent conflict in sacred scripture involving chapters 1 and
2 of Genesis that he seeks to resolve.
He states,
In this narrative of creation, Holy Scripture has said of the Creator that He completed
His works in six days.
And elsewhere, without contradicting this, it has been written of the same Creator that
He created all things together.
St. Augustine's allusion to God creating all things together is a reference to Sirach 18.1.
This book is also called Ecclesiasticus.
This text declares that, quote,
He who lives forever created all things together, unquote.
However, St. Augustine, in this instance, drew his interpretation from the Vetus Latina
translation of the Bible.
And here, it seems, lies the root of the difficulty.
The term simul, which means at one time or all together in the Latin version, is an ambiguous
translation of the Greek word koine, which means in common or without exception.
Scholars suggest that a more accurate translation would read, quote,
He who lives forever created the whole universe, unquote.
In the theory of evolution, judged by reason and faith, Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini expounds
upon the significance of this mistranslation.
The text on which St. Augustine appears to base his opinion,
He who lives forever created all things together, does not mean that God created all things
at the same time, but rather that He has created all things equally, namely, without any exception.
Such is the sense of the Greek term koine, rendered in Latin in the ambiguous manner, simul.
It cannot be denied that this great genius, St. Augustine, who studied the beginning of
Genesis for thirty and more years, preferred to adapt the Genesis text to the first sense
of the text of Ecclesiasticus, that God created all things at the same time.
Once St. Augustine accepted the translation that all things were created together or simultaneously,
difficulties with the Genesis text emerged.
Not only was an alternative interpretation of the Genesis day required, but he had to
explain the apparent time lapse regarding the appearance of various animal kinds.
This dilemma led, in turn, to the creation of St. Augustine's concept of seminal reasons
or causal reasons.
According to this concept, God created all animal kinds at the same time, during the
creation period, though some kinds would emerge from the earth and pass from potential into
actual existence at a future time.
He writes,
For through wisdom all things were made, and the motion we now see in creatures measured
by the lapse of time, as each one fulfills its proper function, comes to creatures from
those causal reasons implanted in them, which God scattered as seeds at the moment of creation
when he spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created.
As noted in the Ancient Christian Writers series, a number of factors led St. Augustine
to this concept, including his interpretation of Sirach chapter 18 verse 1 as meaning that
God created all things simultaneously, simul.
These considerations led him to conclude that when God created, he did indeed create all
things simultaneously, but that living things made in that original creative act were not
made in actuality in their own proper substances, but only potentially in their causal reasons
placed in the earth by the Creator.
Given the appropriate conditions of earth and moisture, these powers would produce the
living creatures intended by God, which would come into being in time according to the plan
of his providence.
Thus, God rests from all his works in the sense that he does not create any new kinds
of creatures that were not in the original creation, either actually or potentially.
And at the same time, he is working by reason of the fact that he governs the world he has
made, according to the words of Christ who says,
My Father works even until now, and I work.
John 5.17
Not surprisingly, with the rise of Darwinism, many Catholics latched on to St. Augustine's
seminal reasons to show that there was no conflict between scripture and evolution.
However, St. Augustine's concept, which involved both the instant creation of all animal kinds
and the later introduction or actualization of some animal kinds over time through the
divine will, not natural processes, was made necessary precisely because of his belief
in the six-day creation period and the order of creation, order of providence framework.
His approach was an attempt to reconcile the framework with a mistranslation of Sirach
chapter 18 verse 1.
But understanding that God alone supernaturally created all animal kinds during the period
of creation, St. Augustine's views were clearly incompatible with naturalistic evolution.
As he stated, outside of the period of creation, we cannot believe that God establishes a new
kind since he finished all his work on the sixth day.
Commenting on this incompatibility, Cardinal Ruffini observes,
The evolutionists maintain, one, that the differentiation of the species is the product
of successive generation, two, that God's activity in regard to the world is restricted
to the initial creative act.
St. Augustine's doctrine is diametrically opposed.
One, corresponding to every species or different nature is a particular ratio seminalis, placed
in the world by God the Creator as a scheme or invisible image, but capable of actuality
in the course of time by his omnipotent word.
Two, in the beginning, God created all organisms together in a quasi-seminal state, but it
is he and he alone who causes them to arise in the course of the centuries.
That is, he causes them to pass from the seminal state into the actual state according to a
fixed plan, by means of that providential government to which Jesus refers in the gospel,
The Father works even until now, and I work.
Finally, we note that St. Augustine was extremely cautious about his interpretation of Genesis.
In his confessions, he discusses the criticism he received for his early writings on Genesis
and in the literal meaning of Genesis, he encourages alternative views as long as they
are literal and do not contravene the scriptures.
Whoever then does not accept the meaning that my limited powers have been able to discover
or conjecture, but seeks in the enumeration of the days of creation a different meaning,
which might be understood not in a prophetical or figurative sense, but literally and more
aptly in interpreting the works of creation, let him search and find a solution with God's help.
I myself may possibly discover some other meaning more in harmony with the words of scripture.
I certainly do not advance the interpretation given above in such a way as to imply that
no better one can ever be found.
When we look more closely at the details, the claims that St. Augustine was an evolutionist
or that he did not view Genesis as a historical narrative are revealed as baseless, and these
claims come no closer to the truth when tabled by Ph.D. evolutionary biologists or theology
professors at Catholic universities.
Why then are such claims so commonly made and accepted?
Because many Catholics, having accepted evolutionary hypothesis as the source of truth about origins,
even treating evolution as a first principle to which everything else must conform, are
in such a rush to reconcile Darwinism with Catholic teaching that they fail to study
the original writings in the domains of theology, science, and philosophy, and they fail to think
critically on this issue.
Ignoring sound principles of scriptural interpretation and starting with the false premises of naturalism,
many have departed from what God has clearly communicated in sacred scripture and through
sacred tradition.
This is a doomed approach that leads not to the harmony of truth, but to a synthesis of
philosophical, theological, and scientific falsehood.
Sadly, it is not difficult to envision the father of lies who fully understands the leverage
to be gained from the doubts about God's word, standing in the corner nodding his approval
and mouthing the words, did God really say, as the false synthesis about origins is taught
to trusting students in seminaries and Catholic institutions.
Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas pray for us.
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