People cite the great church father, Augustine, in defense of the view that the earth is only thousands (rather than billions) of years old. Indeed, I believe this was (more or less) Augustine’s view, based on the science and knowledge that was available to him in the 5th Century when he lived. Augustine believed the earth was young.
That isn’t the end of our understanding of Augustine, though. To understand Augustine, we might be aided by a basic review of the mythological, philosophical and scientific views that were prevalent in his world at the time.
According to my inquiry on Bing Co-Pilot, the mythology of the time didn’t attempt to date the age of the earth. Science (such as it was) also had not established a position. Philosophy, however, provided two opposing views.
The philosophical camps were led by Aristotle and Lucretius. Aristotle argued that the earth was eternal, and Lucretius argued that the earth formed relatively recently (based on a lack of records prior to the Trojan War). (The Trojan War dates to the 11th or 12th Century BCE.) Thus, the two competing views in Augustine’s day were 1) eternal earth or 2) young earth. Thus, no one in Augustine’s time had any inkling the earth might be billions of years old.
Interestingly, Aristotle’s view of an eternal earth shifted to an eternal universe and became the accepted, scientific view that lasted well into the 20th Century. This was Einstein’s view when he developed the Theory of Relativity. The past eternal view of the universe was only debunked and rejected by the scientific consensus in the second half of the 20th Century, and then only very reluctantly. (Even now, some scientists demonstrate a desire to find support for a past eternal universe, but support for that view gets thinner and thinner as time goes on.)
In this uncertain stew of mythology, philosophy, and science in the 5th Century, Augustine acknowledged that a literal, 6-day reading of the creation story in Genesis is not an irrational interpretation. He didn’t endorse that view, however. He thought the better is that the “days” in Genesis 1 do not correspond to earthly (24 hour) days.
Even in his exploration of a “literal” reading of Genesis, Augustine incorporated allegorical nuance. Augustine did not believe that “literal” and “allegorical” meanings were mutually exclusive, and neither did most of the early church fathers. What Augustine and the early church fathers meant by the “literal” meaning of Scripture was what the original words meant by the people who wrote them and the audiences to whom they were communicating.
In this effort, they understood that the original meanings included metaphor, symbolism, and literary devices. No one (that I am aware of) argued for a strict literalism in the interpretation of Scripture. Though most early Christians believed literally in the historicity of the biblical accounts (to use a modern term), they also accepted the richness of allegorical meaning at the same time.
Augustine (along with Clement of Alexandria and Origen) ultimately rejected the calendar-day view of the Genesis creation story in favor of instantaneous creation. The great Jewish theologians, Philo and Hilary of Poitiers also took this view.
We should recognize that the day-age view that Augustine and others preferred was probably not the consensus, but it also wasn’t considered heresy. The theology and the philosophy were unsettled, and the science had not yet weighed in yet. The Church allowed for robust disagreement in this area of inquiry, which was not considered essential doctrine.
I should stop here, at the risk of pointing out something you already know, and look at the meaning of the Hebrew word, יוֹם (yom), which is translated into the English word, day, in Genesis 1. As with most Hebrew words, yom has many nuanced meanings and applications, both literal and figurative. Among the various meanings are:
- Day, as opposed to night
- Day as a division of time
- Day as defined by evening and morning
- Day as in a time (like harvest)
- Day as in an age or epoch of time
In addition to the definitions, most Hebrew words have both literal and figurative meanings and applications. Thus, Augustine’s position that the days in Genesis can be read to mean an “earthly” or “ordinary” day did not exclude the idea of applying them more figuratively. That duality is consistent with the way Hebrew words and the Hebrew language works.
Augustine is famous, in fact, for preferring allegorical readings and applications of Scripture. In his early two-volume work on Genesis, in which he took issue with the Manichees, Augustine explored the position that the days in Genesis are seven epochs of redemptive history corresponding with seven stages of the Christian life. (See Did Augustine Read Genesis 1 Literally? by Gavin Ortlund citing De Genesis contra Manichaeos 1.23.35-1.25.43, in Augustine, On Genesis, 62-68.)
When Augustine set out to write a “literal” interpretation of Genesis, however, he didn’t mean what people today might think he meant. Even his “literal” reading of Scripture was not strictly literalist. It was an attempt to understand what the original writers and audiences (literally) meant and what they understood it to mean.
Science in St. Augustine’s day was not advanced enough to weigh in on the age of the earth, but Augustine was a strong proponent of understanding science. The science of his day, for instance, had settled the spherical shape and circumference of the earth. That the earth was round and even the size of the perimeter of the earth was well established and understood among academics since before the time of Christ. (It is purely a myth, for instance, that Columbus had to convince people the earth was not flat.) Augustine’s view of scientific knowledge and its relationship to Scripture is what I want to highlight here.
On the subject of literal and allegorical understandings of Scripture and the place of science in the process of understanding Scripture, this is what St. Augustine had to say:
“Let us suppose that in explaining the words, And God said, “Let there be light,” and light was made, one man thinks that it was material light that was made, and another that it was spiritual. As to the actual existence of spiritual light in a spiritual creature, our faith leaves no doubt; as to the existence of material light, celestial or supercelestial, even existing before the heavens, a light which could have been followed by night, there will be nothing in such a supposition contrary to the faith until unerring truth gives the lie to it. And if that should happen, this teaching was never in Holy Scripture but was an opinion proposed by man in his ignorance. On the other hand, if reason should prove that this opinion is unquestionably true, it will still be uncertain whether this sense was intended by the sacred writer when he used the words quoted above, or whether he meant something else no less true. And if the general drift of the passage shows that the sacred writer did not intend this teaching, the other, which he did intend, will not thereby be false; indeed, it will be true and more worth knowing. On the other hand, if the tenor of the words of Scripture does not militate against our taking this teaching as the mind of the writer, we shall still have to enquire whether he could not have meant something else besides. And if we find that he could have meant something else also, it will not be clear which of the two meanings he intended. And there is no difficulty if he is thought to have wished both interpretations if both are supported by clear indications in the context.
St. Augustine; The Literal Meaning of Genesis; Ancient Christian Writers, No. 41-42 (New York Newman Press), pg. 42-43; tr. J.H.Taylor, S.J., N.Y., Newman Press, 1982
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 the 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 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.”
As we can see clearly from the thoughtful discourse by St. Augustine on the subject of knowledge obtained from “experience and the light of reason”, St. Augustine was willing to “follow the science” as we might say today. He was not dogmatic in his view, and he didn’t insist on reading Genesis exclusively one way or the other.
Augustine was very clear, however, that Christians should acknowledge truth, even if it is discovered by the experience and reason of non-Christians, even infidels. He says it is “disgraceful and dangerous” that non-Christians might hear Christians “talking nonsense on these topics” that are informed by common reason and experience known to all men – supposing that Scripture should require a view that is contrary to the facts that are known to people whose experience and reason have shown them to be true.
On the subject of the age of the earth and the age of the universe, the “experience and reason” of human beings has advanced far beyond what it was in Augustine’s time. I have little doubt, given Augustine’s views on these things, that he would acknowledge today that the earth and the universe are “old” if Augustine was alive.
If [non-Christians] 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 on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?
The Literal Meaning of Genesis
Navigating by Faith 