Augustine also wrote:
"Perhaps we ought not to think of these creatures at the moment they were produced as subject to the processes of nature which we now observe in them, but rather as under the wonderful and unutterable power of the Wisdom of God, which reaches from end to end mightily and governs all graciously. For this power of Divine Wisdom does not reach by stages or arrive by steps. It was just as easy, then, for God to create everything as it is for Wisdom to exercise this mighty power. For through Wisdom all things were made, and the motion we now see in creatures, measured by the lapse of time, as each one fulfills its proper function, comes to creatures from those causal reasons implanted in them, which God scattered as seeds at the moment of creation when He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created. Creation, therefore, did not take place slowly in order that a slow development might be implanted in those things that are slow by nature; nor were the ages established at the plodding pace at which they now pass. Time brings about the development of these creatures according to the laws of their numbers, but there was no passage of time when they received these laws at creation." ~Augustine. The Literal Meaning of Genesis, translated by John Hammond Taylor (1982), Vol. 1, Book 4, Chapter 33, paragraph 51–52, p. 141, italics in the original. New York: Newman Press.
“Unbelievers are also deceived by false documents which ascribe to history many thousand years, although we can calculate from Sacred Scripture that not 6,000 years have passed since the creation of man.” ~Augustine. The City of God, translated by G. G. Walsh and G. Monahan (1952), Book 12, Chapter 11, p. 263. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
Benelchi said
(post #347 above):
Maybe many in the Church today, like those in the early church before them, recognize that while the Genesis account is true history (and not Allegory), the "days" in Genesis were something very different from the days we know today. Augustine of Hippo (4th century) noted that:
"What these days were like it is highly difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, let alone say ~BECAUSE~ the first three days of creation passed without any sun; the nature of that light, by what shift back and forth it cause morning and evening and what kind of thing evening and morning were are questions that are far beyond the reach of our perception."
And he was one of many in the first few centuries of the Church who rejected the idea of literal 24 hour days, centuries before questions about Darwinism ever arose. Augustine seems to have taken God's words to Job pretty seriously, maybe it is time for much of the rest of the church to do the same.
I see nothing in the quote of St. Augustine's that you posited for us above to indicate the "length" of the first three days of Creation, do you?
Here again, there is no indication of elapsed time during the first three days of the Creation, only that they could not have been "solar" days (since "
the sun was not made until the forth day"). The days could have been longer than 24 hrs, or they could have been shorter, we simply are not told (however, the Hebrew gives us no indication that the length of the first three days of Creation were different than any of the days that followed).
I do not disagree that St. Augustine had alternative scientific theories concerning the Creation to contend with in his day, but the thought that he was
not YEC is a myth.
BTW, please reference your quotes in the future so that we can read them in context.
Thanks!
Yours in Christ,
David