Those who wish to support old-earth creationism and have a concern about historical theology typically use Augustine as a straw man to support their view. However, this is a distortion of Augustine actual view. Because of Augustine’s philosophical orientation, in the early part of his life he wanted to take the word day symbolically. Later in life he would change. However, “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,” according to Prof. Benno Zuiddam. To read more check out his fascinating “Augustine young earth creationist.”
Dr. McCabe,
I read the article you linked to, and I have some serious questions about its accuracy in a number of points. Particulary when the author says: “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.” This statement fails to take into account the fact that Augustine always believed in both a literal and allegorical interpretation of the biblical text. To cite the work Professor Zuiddam refers to in making his case, De Genesi ad litteram (which the author mistranslates as “On the Necessity of Taking Genesis Literally,”–the proper translation is simply “On the Literal Meaning of Genesis”), Augustine says: “No Christian will dare say that the narrative must not be taken in a figurative sense” (Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, in Ancient Christian Writers [Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982], 1:19). What Augustine is doing in “The Literal Meaning of Genesis is giving the historical-grammatical meaning, but this fact does not mean that he has denied the allegorical meaning. In this case, he is simply giving the “literal” meaning here not the allegorical (which he believes is a proper interpretive method as well, cf. his treatment of Genesis in the Confessions). It is also questionable just how literal Augustine understood the word “day” in Genesis 1 and 2. The editor of “On the Literal Meaning of Genesis” of has written this about Augustine’s work on Genesis: “A reader unfamiliar with Augustine’s thought cannot progress very far in this work without being puzzled by the fact that he has called it a literal commentary. The days of creation, he suggests, are not periods of time but rather categories in which creatures are arranged by the author for didactic reasons to describe all the works of creation, which in reality were created simultaneously. Light is not the visible light of this world but the illumination of intellectual creatures (the angels). Morning refers to the angels’ knowledge of creatures which they enjoy in the vision of God; evening refers to the angels’ knowledge of creatures as they exist in their own created natures. Can this sort of exegesis be literal interpretation?” (Ibid, p. 9). So I ask, has Augustine really abandoned allegorical interpretation later in life? Does he really take “day” literally? It is true that Augustine believed in the historicity of the events of Genesis, but I hardly think that he has forsaken allegorical interpretation in favor of literal interpretation, as we would understand literal interpretation. I think professor Zuiddam has misrepresented Augustine to some degree in this area. That being said, I think that it is clear from the City of God that Augustine did believe in a young earth, which is perhaps the point he is trying to prove.
Tim,
I must concede to you that Professor Zuiddam’s point about Augustine abandoning an allegorical understanding of the creation days in the later part of his life for a literal interpretation has never been my understanding, though I am not an Augustine scholar. Further, I would concede that you know Latin better than I do. Whatever little I had in high school, I have completely forgotten.
As you acknowledge, however, the strength of the article and the primary reason why I did a link to this article is that whatever else may be said about Augustine, he clearly held to a young-earth model. I have understood that Augustine believe that the typology of the “six days” of creation were typological to speak about the entire history of earth only to last 6,000 years. For a helpful and balanced discussion of the Church Fathers on Genesis and the age of the earth, see Jim Mook’s “The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth,” In Coming to Grips with Genesis, pp. 23-51, especially pp. 32-40, 50-51.
I searched the SBTS library catalogue today, and we apparently do not have that book. Maybe I’ll do an ILL or something. Honestly, using the church fathers in this debate is a little perplexing to me since they wrote long before the scientific revolution. They operated from a completely different metaphysical perspective, and it was much “easier” to be young earth creationists back then. It’s also interesting that both young earth creationists and old earth evolutionists (of whatever theistic variety) appeal to the fathers in this regard. I suppose the old earth types focus on the allegorical interpretations; whereas the young earth folks pay attention to the literal. This phenonmenon is why Augustine is perhaps a very important person in illustrating that the fathers saw various levels of meaning in the biblical text. Those of us who live after the Reformation tend to see hermeneutics in mutually exclusive categories. We think that a person holds either to the allegorical method or the historical-grammatical method. The fact is that the fathers employed both, seeing them as various ways to look at the same text. They do not deny the literal interpretation (if I can use a later example from the allegorical camp–the Roman Catholics took “This is my blood” quite literally), though they often spend more time with the allegorical. Both sides should factor this reality into their appeals to the fathers for their creation views. And by the way, the only reason I brought up the translation of the Latin there was that Professor Zuiddam actually makes a point based on the title of the work, and I think a wrong point.
You make a good point about Professor Zuiddam’s translation of the Latin. Thorough academic work needs to be precise in every detail.
On the surface, it is perplexing that the church fathers are used in the debate since they go either way. Further, from my research, I have understood that Augustine took it that what is recorded about the creation week took place in a “nanosecond.” What I object to is that some use the church fathers to question the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1, as the Westminster Confession of Faith clearly affirms. In the final analysis, I agree that Augustine interpreted Genesis 1 allegorically; however, it was not on his radar screen to allow for an old-earth creation (see Gerhard Hasel, ???The ???Days??? of Creation in Genesis 1: Literal ???Days??? or Figurative ???Periods/Epochs??? of Time???? Origins 21 [1994]: 5???38, especially pp. 6???7).