Creationism, Part 2
Ξ June 26th, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Theology |
The intellectual heft of St. Augustine is absolutely amazing. He addresses, 1600 years ago, with the greatest of wisdom, questions that vex Christianity to this very day – how are we to interpret Genesis?
The argument about literal interpretations of Genesis are, in reality, a proxy argument that both sides frequently don’t see. Those who support literal interpretations of Genesis aren’t anti-science – in fact they desperately search for scientific proof for their arguments. If they were truly anti-science I doubt they would so trouble themselves with trying to find scientific proof for their position.
No, the problem is fundamentally a theological one. The plain-reading of the Bible indicates that the world was formed (or at least populated) in six days, and the the genealogical of the Bible indicates that it has only been some-odd six-thousand years since the first man and woman. The moral authority of the Bible is that it is the sanctified word of God – that it is a coherent message from God to man. You can’t simply ignore parts of it, because at that point it looses cohesion, as people pick and choose which parts to adhere to and which parts to ignore.
Now, you can say that is already the case – no one (or at least very few) adhere to Mosaic law after all. To which I respond, yes, but that is because of the theological framework created to rationally explain the change (a lot of the laws were rendered obsolete in the New Testament with the death of Jesus). That is why I find it perfectly acceptable for Christianity to have abandoned the animal sacrifices of the Old Testement (pure animals are no longer needed to stand in the place of men for their sins, as Jesus has done that for all mankind), but the Episcopal Church’s ordaining of gay priests outside of any theological rational isn’t.
Which is what most secularists don’t realize about Christianity is that it is a rational religion. It is a religion that went through the Enlightenment, and even the more fundamental aspects of it bear the imprint.
And so, going back to Genesis, the average Christian is faced with a dilemma where Creationism is concerned – do they adopt a position that supports the cohesion of the Bible, or do they abandon the Bible for scientific theories? For many, the choice is obvious – science can and has been wrong in the past. It is human, and therefore fundamentally open to error. The errors simply need to be found. Secularists argue in terms of science, and dismiss the creationists as irrational, which is flawed on both accounts – this is a theological argument, not a scientific one, and the creationists are being rational to a fault.
St. Augustine hit the problem on the head in his The Literal Meaning of Genesis. The correct answer to the problem is not that the Bible is wrong, or even that science is necessarily wrong, but that the human interpretation of the Bible can be wrong. Adherents of Creationism are missing the point. As St. Augustine said, “We should remember that Scripture, even in its obscure passages, has been written to nourish our souls.” The point of the Bible isn’t to teach us science, it’s to “nourish our souls”.
We can’t simply ignore what the Bible says, but we can take away the correct message. The Bible was written for all of mankind, over all the ages. It has need to appeal to a vast array of cultures and backgrounds, with all assortments of knowledge and ignorance. Some of the most brilliant and wise men in history have been devout Christians, as have many ignorant and wretched souls. The Bible was written to nourish all these souls, not just the intelligent or the simple. It is truly a miracle that it can do both. But it does mean that it needs to be comprehensible to a pauper in 4th-century Antioch, and I think it’s more reasonable to explain God’s creative majesty in the terms laid out in Genesis than attempt to explain modern evolutionary science. After all, what is the point of the Creation story? That God is all powerful, and He created the Earth and it’s inhabitants with much care and consideration. Sometimes simpler is better.
In truth, this argument weakens both sides. The Creationist blinds himself to a superior understanding of God’s word, instead descending into legalisms that make him and Christianity look foolish to the outside world. The secularist becomes dismissive of knowledge that goes beyond what science can tell him, and ignores the wisdom that can be found from Christianity. St. Augustine realized this, and implored both to be more humble sixteen hundred years ago.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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