“It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.”
St. Augustine is often appealed to by many who either because they engage in a selective reading of his writings or just know a few bits of his teaching think that he supported their beliefs. The above, for example, is a quote of St. Augustine commonly used by theistic evolutionists to try and find support for their position in his writings. Yet, the Doctor never affirmed that, as is commonly said today, “the Bible is not a science book”, in that it is merely a religious book. Granted, the Scriptures do not give an exhaustive scientific explanation of every detail in creation, but what they affirm is clearly certain. Many often seek to allegorize the creation account in Genesis, in particular the creation of Adam and Eve, when they think that what the Scriptures say is contrary to science and they give a certain primacy to the conclusions of science over the Scriptures in that they make the Scriptures subservient to science. So, they think that since the Scriptures are not a science book, then we are to allegorize everything in them that does not conforms to the findings of science. Yet, something like the formation of man from the earth and the woman from his side by God, is not a statement about science but an explicit supernatural act from God along the same lines of the virgin birth, of which St. Augustine says On The Literal Meaning of Genesis (Book IX:16.30):
“Both things are incredible to unbelievers, but why should believers find what happened in the case of Christ {the virgin birth} quite credible when taken in the literal, historical sense, and what is written about Eve only acceptable in its figurative signification?”
Despite how much theistic evolutionists would like to appeal to St. Augustine in support of their position, the Doctor affirmed that God made Adam from the dust of the earth (and was not born of other parents) and Eve from a rib taken from his side. He did hold to a non-literal view of the days of creation but to him it was a single day, not a series of long ages represented by each day. And he held to a literal view of the works done on each day. He did not believe that the works done on each day were allegories. Nor did he admit, but in fact excluded, the ascendancy of species from one to another. He is quite clearly a creationist by today’s standards as is St. Thomas Aquinas, another saint that theistic evolutionists like to appeal to. St. Augustine did propose that what science proves cannot be at odds with the Scriptures but must be shown to be consistent with it. However, unlike the modern mindset of many theistic evolutionists, he did not think that the Scriptures were to be made subservient to science in the sense that we have to allegorize even it’s plainest declarations just because science “appears to say so”. The Scriptures to him hold a certain primacy and their inspiration and inerrancy cannot be limited to purely religious truths. As St. Augustine puts it in The Literal Meaning of Genesis (Book II:5.9) when talking about the waters above the heavens, after considering many scientific objections:
“In whatever form, however, waters may be there, and of whatever kind they are; the authority of this text of scripture, surely, overrides anything that human ingenuity is capable of thinking up.”
And in another place (Book V:9.24):
“If what we have already said about it {he is talking about the spring which watered the whole earth} should seem to people to be impossible, let them look for another explanation themselves, but still one which will demonstrate the truthfulness of this statement of Scripture -which certainly is truthful, beyond any shadow of doubt, even if it were not demonstrated.”
Here is also what he says of Adam in paradise in another place (Book VIII:1.1):
“Adam is to be taken as a human being set before us in his own proper nature, who lived a definite number of years and after producing numerous progeny died just as other human beings die, though he was not born of parents like others but was made from the earth, as was required at the beginning of the line.”
That Adam was not born of other parents but made from the dust of the earth and Eve from his side is something St. Augustine affirms several times in the Literal Meaning of Genesis. Of note is also this paragraph from the same work (Book I:21.41):
“I have learned that we should not hesitate to give the answers that have to be given, in line with the faith, to people who make every effort to discredit the books our salvation depends on. So we should show that whatever they have been able to demonstrate from reliable sources about the world of nature is not contrary to our literature, while whatever they may have produced from any of their volumes that is contrary to this literature of ours, that is, to the Catholic faith, we must either show with some ease, or else believe without any hesitation, to be entirely false. And we should so hold onto our mediator, that we are neither seduced by the chatter of false philosophy, nor frightened out of our wits by the superstitions of false religion.”
Keeping in mind the quotes above and his overall approach, for St. Augustine showing that scientific theories are not contrary to the Scriptures did not consist in allegorizing away their plain declarations but in expanding upon what the Scriptures actually affirmed. Note that despite the claim of the “scientists” of his day, he scoffed at their idea that the earth was millions of years old and appealing to the Scriptures upheld that it was no yet 6000 years old during his time (City of God XII:10). For St. Augustine the Scriptures hold a primacy and their affirmations are to be held as certain over and above scientific theories that contradict them even if what the Scriptures state cannot be definitely proved or the scientific theory that contradicts them cannot be shown to be false.
His idea of the seminal reasons is certainly developmental but it is a form of spontaneous generation, the very opposite of evolution and it does not proposes an evolution of species from one into the other but their formation from the earth or the sea as is described in Genesis 1. To extrapolate from his idea to a modern theory of evolution is unwarranted and is clearly something St. Augustine never envisioned or even considered on his teaching on Genesis.
If someone is going to appeal to St. Augustine to support their position in any subject, as in the case of the creation/evolution debate, then it is only fair that such person adheres to what the Doctor in fact affirmed and believed and avoids quote mining him. It is clear from his own writings that St. Augustine did not even consider anything like the theory of evolution, much less that the body of the first man came from existing living matter. For him the account of the creation of man in Genesis was a truly literal and faithful historical account with a real tree of life and tree of knowledge and a real talking snake used by the devil to deceive the woman who was really taken and formed from the rib of the man who was formed from the dust of the earth. The theory of evolution, if it is to be reconciled with the Scriptures, entails the denial or allegorization of these clear affirmations of Scripture which St. Augustine, along with all the Fathers before him and theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas, took and interpreted in a literal sense.
