Wisdom from a Founding Father of Christianity

[Vance]

Some infinitely wise words from St. Augustine, who believed some of the creation story should be read non-literally:

"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 on facts which they themselves have learned from experience and the light of reason?"

(Confessions 1.19)

This is exactly what I have said on numerous occasions about the dangers of YEC’ism.


And on the issue of various interpretation of Genesis, and the dangers of believing your interpretation is the only possible one:

"I have heard and considered these theories as well as my weak apprehension allows, and I confess my weakness to Thee, O Lord, though already thou knowest it. Thus I see that two sorts of disagreements may arise when anything is related by signs, even by trustworthy reporters. There is one disagreement about the truth of the things involved; the other concerns the meaning of the one who reports them. It is one thing to inquire as to what is true about the formation of the Creation. It is another thing, however, to ask what that excellent servant of thy faith, Moses, would have wished for the reader and hearer to understand from these words. As for the first question, let all those depart from me who imagine that Moses spoke things that are false. But let me be united with them in thee, O Lord, and delight myself in thee with those who feed on thy truth in the bond of love. Let us approach together the words of thy book and make diligent inquiry in them for thy meaning through the meaning of thy servant by whose pen thou hast given them to us. But in the midst of so many truths which occur to the interpreters of these words (understood as they can be in different ways), which one of us can discover that single interpretation which warrants our saying confidently that Moses thought thus and that in this narrative he wishes this to be understood, as confidently as he would say that this is true, whether Moses thought the one or the other." (Confessions 12.18-24)

and

"Surely when he [Moses] was writing these words, he saw fully and understood all the truth we have been able to find in them, and also much besides that we have not been able to discern, or are not yet able to find out, though it is there in them still to be found." (12.31)


This last is very interesting. He is saying that we have this text, and can read it, but even still there is much he was not able to discern (thus, there is no "obvious" plain reading) and that there is still much truth about origins to be discerned. I think he was right, and we have definitely learned a LOT more than was known then.

 

[Vance]

Another thing this quote points out is that non-literal interpretations existed from the earliest times. YEC's, and Fundamentalists in general, would like for us to believe that the Bible was always read literally, with the plainest meaning, until the rise of modern secularism. They want to paint the non-literal reading of the Creation account as being a concession to evolution, "giving in to the World", whereas they are standing firm on the truth of God's Word. Not only insulting to the majority of Christians who read portions of the Bible (including the Creation account) non-literally, but an amazing example of hubris as well.

 

[Vance]

Bump, since the beliefs of Augustine have been raised again.

 

[artybloke]

It's interesting that he thought that Moses would have thought of all the possible meanings of the texts in question. I don't think he could do that; I mean, I'm a writer myself, and I'm often startled and intrigued by what people read into my poems. Sometimes they miss the point... but equally, I sometimes think, "Wow! I never thought of it that way. Interesting..."

I suspect that the authors of Genesis would probably feel alternately exasperated and amazed by the way we interpret their writings.

 

[Vance]

I always wondered what Paul would think of us now treating his letters as not him writing to teach his followers, but actually God speaking through him, turning his letters into inerrant and Holy Scripture.

At first I thought that he would be shocked and dismayed to think that his personal letters were being treated is coming direct and word for word from God, on par with Jesus' own teachings, or those of Moses and the prophets. But then I began to think about Paul's personality traits and now think that he would be pretty jazzed about the whole thing. :0)

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The idea of the preference for the literal interpretation is from Luther. Up to him the general hermeneutic was first one of the 3 types of allegorical then 1 of several competing types of literal.
One nice website essay on this is at:
http://www.gracenotes.info/documents/STUDIES_DOC/Hermeneutics.doc

 

[adam149]

Some infinitely wise words from St. Augustine, who believed some of the creation story should be read non-literally:

"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 on facts which they themselves have learned from experience and the light of reason?"

(Confessions 1.19)

This is exactly what I have said on numerous occasions about the dangers of YEC’ism.

1. Augustine was influenced to a large extent by pagan greek philosophy, which is why he accepts the idea of the autonomous reasoning of man. In truth (and Scripture) the non-Christian can have no true knowledge of the world around them because they do not aknowledge the truth of the Bible in every area.

Though I really shouldn't be surprised: most of the church has had a problem separating themselves from the pagan philosophies of the unregenerate.

And on the issue of various interpretation of Genesis, and the dangers of believing your interpretation is the only possible one:

"I have heard and considered these theories as well as my weak apprehension allows, and I confess my weakness to Thee, O Lord, though already thou knowest it. Thus I see that two sorts of disagreements may arise when anything is related by signs, even by trustworthy reporters. There is one disagreement about the truth of the things involved; the other concerns the meaning of the one who reports them. It is one thing to inquire as to what is true about the formation of the Creation. It is another thing, however, to ask what that excellent servant of thy faith, Moses, would have wished for the reader and hearer to understand from these words. As for the first question, let all those depart from me who imagine that Moses spoke things that are false. But let me be united with them in thee, O Lord, and delight myself in thee with those who feed on thy truth in the bond of love. Let us approach together the words of thy book and make diligent inquiry in them for thy meaning through the meaning of thy servant by whose pen thou hast given them to us. But in the midst of so many truths which occur to the interpreters of these words (understood as they can be in different ways), which one of us can discover that single interpretation which warrants our saying confidently that Moses thought thus and that in this narrative he wishes this to be understood, as confidently as he would say that this is true, whether Moses thought the one or the other." (Confessions 12.18-24)

and

"Surely when he [Moses] was writing these words, he saw fully and understood all the truth we have been able to find in them, and also much besides that we have not been able to discern, or are not yet able to find out, though it is there in them still to be found." (12.31)


This last is very interesting. He is saying that we have this text, and can read it, but even still there is much he was not able to discern (thus, there is no "obvious" plain reading) and that there is still much truth about origins to be discerned. I think he was right, and we have definitely learned a LOT more than was known then.

Augustine could not read nor understand the original greek or Hebrew of the Scriptures, therefore there is little use in using his statements. Those who can actually read the Hebrew have aknowledged that Genesis teaches the historical, plain view for the days, the recency of the creation, the universality and global-reach of the flood, and the father-to-son geneologies.

 

[adam149]

The idea of the preference for the literal interpretation is from Luther. Up to him the general hermeneutic was first one of the 3 types of allegorical then 1 of several competing types of literal.
One nice website essay on this is at:
http://www.gracenotes.info/documents/STUDIES_DOC/Hermeneutics.doc

1. Nonsense. The idea for the preference of the literal interpretation dates back to the days of Moses. Jewish culture through the ages have believed this, Jesus and the Apostles taught it, the historian Josephus acknowledges 1) the recent creation, 2) the literal days, 3) the global flood, 4) the tower of Babel, 5) and the father-to-son geneologies of Genesis.

It is also a primary doctrine of Reformed theology, which you subscribe to, so I'm curious as to how you believe otherwise (you subscribe to the Framework Hypothesis, do you not?).

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The rise of the 'preference for the literal' with Luther is such an accepted idea in hermeneutics that i am surprised that you deny it.
check out:
from: http://www.kheper.net/topics/hermeneutics/PaRDeS-2.html

In the most common of the Christian fourfold systems of interpretation, the levels of meaning are: the literal [historical] level, the allegorical [typological or figural] level, the tropological [moral] level and the anagogical [eschatological] level.

The best known early example of this method is in the 'Letter to Can Grande' in the Preface to the PARADISO, but now generally believed not to have been written by Dante himself. Here the fourfold method is applied to the understanding of the Israelite exodus from Egypt. On the literal level, the Israelites celebrated Passover and left Egypt. Allegorically, members of the Church are redeemed through Jesus. Tropologically, Christians are transformed from sinfulness to grace. Anagogically, the soul passes from material bondage to eternal existence.

Christian hermeneutics has a simpler bipartite method of classification: the literal meaning and the 'plenior' [=fuller] meaning. Each hermeneutist subdivides each of the two parts in a variety of manners.

The basic claim in the [so-called] New Testament for the genuineness of the divinity of Jesus is based on the notion of a deeper meaning in the [so-called] Old Testament which in the fullness of time will be discovered.

These scholars believed that allegorization preserved the currency of a given text. This approach derives from the midrashic principle in Rabbinic commentaries which related text to contemporary law and values. This was consonant with the practice of the Hellenistic Alexandrians in their reading of Homer in order to keep the epics up to date. The Homeric Alexandrian School, linked to Rabbinic methodology and the practices of Philo of Alexandria in his exegesis produced a lively school of interpretation which was eventually Christianized by Origen [d. 254].

The Alexandrian school came to emphasize the spiritual or allegorical sense. The school of Antioch, however, stressed philologically determined meaning. Time and space do not permit here a discussion of the interpretive methods of Joseph, Daniel and of the Dead Sea sectarians, all of which came to influence the hermeneutics under discussion. Similarly, the question of Christian typological analysis deserves its own treatment.

from: http://www.biblical-solutions.org/resources/Hermeneutics.htm

Christian Allegorisms is a system begun by the pagans and copied by the Jews, and now crept into the Church. This method of interpretation dominated the church until the time of the reformation. Clement and Origen both were of this group. It is said by them that the “literal sense is the milk, the allegorical sense is the meat.” Mixed in this method was an exaggerated typical system of interpretation.

from: http://www.thirdmill.org/files/english/texts/calvin/commentaries/comm_vol08.html

In this, as in his other Commentaries, his first and great object is to ascertain the mind of the Holy Spirit. To ascertain this, he proceeds on the principle laid down by Melancthon, "that Scripture cannot be understood theologically, unless it be first understood grammatically." Before his time the mystical and allegorical method of explaining the Scriptures was very prevalent; according to which, the interpreter, dwelling very little or not at all upon the literal sense, sought for hidden and allegorical meanings. But rejecting this mode of interpretation, which contributed little to the right understanding of the word of God, and according to which the meaning was made to depend entirely upon the fancy of the interpreter, Calvin set himself to the investigation of the grammatical and literal sense, by a careful examination of the Hebrew test, and by a diligent attention to the drift and intention of the writer's discourse.

There is lots more on the web, plus at least a half a dozen hermeneutics books on my desk saying exactly the same thing, but if you can not be convinced by these, then the weight of evidence is not going to matter.

 

[seebs]

Given how many of the early Christians and Jews believed in a flat earth with a dish over it with lights placed in it... I'm not sure I care much what they speculated about the physical structure of the universe. It's a non-issue.

But they did explore analogies, metaphors, and other layers of meaning.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Given how many of the early Christians and Jews believed in a flat earth with a dish over it with lights placed in it... I'm not sure I care much what they speculated about the physical structure of the universe. It's a non-issue.

But they did explore analogies, metaphors, and other layers of meaning.

actually there is a significant book that rebuttals the flat earth
Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians.

JEFFREY BURTON RUSSELL. New York: Praeger 1991. Pp. xiv, 118, illus. $12.95


the diameter of the earth was determined 4th C BC.
http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~monier/Ast161/Unit2/sizeshape.html

basically all educated people from 100BC on knew the earth was round. The story that they did not dates from the late 19thC not from original documents. It is a myth.
A much better example of holding to bad science in the name of religion is geocentricism.

....

 

[seebs]

I didn't say "everyone anywhere". I was talking about the Jews in particular, and the entire Old Testament is written from the perspective of a flat earth resting upon the waters.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I didn't say "everyone anywhere". I was talking about the Jews in particular, and the entire Old Testament is written from the perspective of a flat earth resting upon the waters.

as it ought to be. a spherical earth was discovered in about 400BC. after the OT was completed.

i saw

Given how many of the early Christians

these people are 1000 years plus after Genesis. and they are aware of:
A round earth appears at least as early as the sixth century BC with Pythagoras, who was followed by Aristotle, Euclid, and Aristarchus, among others in observing that the earth was a sphere. Although there were a few dissenters--Leukippos and Demokritos for example--by the time of Eratosthenes (3 c. BC), followed by Crates(2 c. BC), Strabo (3 c. BC), and Ptolemy (first c. AD), the sphericity of the earth was accepted by all educated Greeks and Romans.

and in general believe and understand the world is round despite the language of the OT.
The big point is does the OT teach a flat earth as something to be believed or as an accommodation to the science of it's time in order to teach something else more important?

see:
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/RUSSELL/FlatEarth.html
for another nice short essay on the myth of the flat earth believed in middle ages Europe.

 

[seebs]

The early Christians rejected a lot of knowledge the Greeks had had for centuries. It's like the thing where Christian doctors rejected hand-washing as "pagan vanity", and killed millions of people with infections because they didn't want to be seen as vain.

 

[adam149]

I didn't say "everyone anywhere". I was talking about the Jews in particular, and the entire Old Testament is written from the perspective of a flat earth resting upon the waters.

This isn't true either. See:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c015.html
http://id-www.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/RUSSELL/FlatEarth.html
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c017.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/TJv14n3flat_earth.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v15n2_seely.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i2/flatearth.asp
http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/97/cm9711.html

 

[Micaiah]

1. Augustine was influenced to a large extent by pagan greek philosophy, which is why he accepts the idea of the autonomous reasoning of man. In truth (and Scripture) the non-Christian can have no true knowledge of the world around them because they do not aknowledge the truth of the Bible in every area.

Though I really shouldn't be surprised: most of the church has had a problem separating themselves from the pagan philosophies of the unregenerate.

Augustine could not read nor understand the original greek or Hebrew of the Scriptures, therefore there is little use in using his statements. Those who can actually read the Hebrew have aknowledged that Genesis teaches the historical, plain view for the days, the recency of the creation, the universality and global-reach of the flood, and the father-to-son geneologies.

Some interesting posts here. Didn't know about Augustines lack of training in thr original languages. That explains a thing or two.

 

[artybloke]

Though I really shouldn't be surprised: most of the church has had a problem separating themselves from the pagan philosophies of the unregenerate.

True enough, as most YECism is basically nothing more than a rationalistic view of truth (that truth = fact) with a religious overlay (therefore God can only speak facts.)

 

[Vance]

True enough, as most YECism is basically nothing more than a rationalistic view of truth (that truth = fact) with a religious overlay (therefore God can only speak facts.)

Interesting point.

What is also interesting about St. Augustine is that he is also the one that truly solidified the doctrine of original sin within Church doctrine, but did so without a need to read Genesis 1 and 2 literally.

 

[artybloke]

Interesting point.

What is also interesting about St. Augustine is that he is also the one that truly solidified the doctrine of original sin within Church doctrine, but did so without a need to read Genesis 1 and 2 literally.

Thing is, Vance, that YEC was basically a knne-jerk reaction to modernism that didn't really challenge the fundamental basis of - actually, I think it's strictly speaking postivist thinking - that says that the only "true" truth is factual. Therefore they always have a suspicion that a myth or a legend is basically a lie. It may come too from the suspicion of images that come from a Puritanical approach to art - the idea that "images" are somehow blasphemous in and of themselves and that, combined with the idea that "facts" are the only reliable truths (positivism), makes them think that poetry is a form of lying, or deception, because art and poetry include an attention to the "form" of the writing as well as the "subject", amd this is a form of "adornment". It's interesting that an awful lot of the great Christian imaginative writers of the last century have been Catholic in theology not Protestant (Grahame Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Tolkein, CS Lewis, Flannery O'Conner etc etc.), as Catholics have a much more pictorial, image-rich view of Christian truth.

I don't think most YEC's could articulate this for a moment, by the way; they probably think they have the Gospel neat. But I'm not even convinced that's possible, and an unacknowledged influence from the secular world is still an influence.

 

[artybloke]

after the OT was completed.

To be fair, it wasn't completed. Daniel (2nd century) and Maccabees weren't writen, and some of the other Deuterocanonical works that exist only in Greek.