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.
“In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture. “
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.”
“If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”
“We should remember that Scripture, even in its obscure passages, has been written to nourish our souls. With these facts in mind, I have worked out and presented the statements of the Book of Genesis in a variety of ways according to my ability; and, in interpreting words that have been written obscurely for the purpose of stimulating our thought, I have not rashly taken my stand on one side against a rival interpretation which might possibly be better. I have thought that each one, in keeping with his powers of under-standing, should choose the interpretation that he can grasp. Where he cannot understand Holy Scripture, let him glorify God and fear for himself. “
“But since the words of Scripture that I have treated are explained in so many senses, 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. Such critics are like wingless creatures that crawl upon the earth and, while soaring no higher than the leap of a frog, mock the birds in their nests above.”
“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 which were written for the good of their souls; and, although they ought to drink from these books with relish, they can scarcely bear to take them up. Turning away in disgust from the unattractive wheat field, they long for the blossoms on the thorn. For they are not free to see how sweet is the Lord, and they have no hunger on the Sabbath. And thus they are idle, though they have permission from the Lord to pluck the ears of grain and to work them in their hands and grind them and win-now them until they arrive at the nourishing kernel.”
Excerpt From:
The Literal Meaning of Genesis
St. Augustine
Circa 415 AD
In Christianity, there is a theological division amongst Protestants that roughly breaks down into two camps – those that believe in John Calvin’s Predestination and those that believe in Jacob Arminius‘ Free Will. Having been raised in the tradition of the latter, it always struck me as the most obvious thing in the world – that is through our actions and decisions we are saved or condemned. The concept of Predestination – that God has already assigned to us our salvation or damnation – was completely odd to me. What does it matter, then, if we do good or evil if the outcome will not change?
The sheer peculiarity of it has always struck me, so I’ve thought about it quite a bit, to try and understand it. People accept and believe in it for a reason, obviously, even if that reason aludes me. So I began to think of the origins of Calvinism.
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This was spawned in a thread about EU policies regarding stem-cells. I’m rather proud as I think it’s one of my more coherent efforts. (more…)
