The Relevance of Augustine's View of Creation Re-evaluated

Full text

The Relevance of
Augustine’s View of
Creation Re-evaluated
Andrew J. Brown
Davis Young’s 1988 article, “The Contemporary Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation,”
contributed to the debate over the interpretation of the days of creation in Genesis 1 by drawing
on Augustine’s most significant work on this biblical text, The Literal Meaning of Genesis.
The task left undone at that time was to more fully explore the basic interpretive approach
of Augustine as a way of providing a context for his specific outcomes. This article confirms
that Augustine is a figure worth studying among church thinkers, surveys his position on the
days of creation, then attempts to more carefully analyze the interpretive factors that drove
Augustine to his conclusions. Six categories of factors are identified: exegetical constraints,
theological factors, pastoral concern, apologetic motives, philosophical influences and
operating presuppositions. Without grasping these various influences on his interpretation,
Augustine’s conclusions may be cited for and against modern interpretive positions with little
real understanding of his reasoning or its validity. Augustine’s thinking, once understood,
is indeed relevant for contemporary study of creation in Genesis. It prompts us to consider
the influence of world view presuppositions on our own interpretation, encourages us to notice
and be deliberate about the role of our theological framework in our interpretation, heightens
our awareness of the apologetic ramifications of our positions, assists our reconciliation of
knowledge from biblical and natural sources, and reminds us of the ultimately pastoral
purpose of biblical interpretation.
The quest to understand the Bible,
including Genesis, and reconcile that
understanding with information from
outside the Bible can be greatly assisted by
reference to our Christian exegetical heri-
tage. This article takes up the unfinished
task of painting a fuller picture of Augus-
tine’s hermeneutic in order to thoroughly
understand how he arrived at his unique
and influential interpretation of the seven
days of creation in Gen. 1:1–2:3.
Davis Young’s 1988 article, “The Contem-
porary Relevance of Augustine’s View of
Creation,” sought to contribute to the debate
over the interpretation of the days of
creation in Genesis 1 by drawing on Augus-
tine’s important work, The Literal Meaning
of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram).1Young
endeavored to debunk the claim that the
days of creation had only been interpreted
literally throughout church history until the
pressures of modern science had their inter-
pretive impact. In the course of his analysis,
Young made one telling comment: “There is
no doubt that Augustine’s view is strange
and difficult to absorb.”2
This difficulty, however, has not pre-
vented other writers from making such
sweeping claims as, “Irenaeus, Origen, Basil,
Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, to name a
few, argued that the days of creation were
long periods of time.”3Admittedly, more
thorough attempts to understand the think-
ing of Augustine and other church fathers
have appeared since Young’s article.4The
increased reference to our exegetical heri-
134 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Student and Early Career Scientists Corner
The Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation Re-evaluated
Augustine
is perhaps
the most
important
thinker
amongst
church fathers
on creation in
Genesis.
Andrew J. Brown
After completing bachelors’ degrees in Arts (Bible), Theology, and Ministry,
Andrew Brown began as a cadet lecturer in 2000, at Queensland Baptist
College of Ministries, Brisbane, Australia. Subsequently he completed an honors
year and now is working on a PhD in Religious Studies (Old Testament)
at the University of Queensland. Andrew is currently serving as the pastor of
Murwillumbah Baptist Church in northern New South Wales. He and his wife
Naomi have two young sons, Gilchrist and Timothy. He can be reached by email
at ajnhbrown@optusnet.com.au.

tage is positive, yet the problem of misleading use of the
church fathers for polemical purposes still exists.5If the
authority of the Church fathers is to be enlisted,6their
thinking needs to be more clearly and fully understood.
Three specific things are needed.
1. We need a deeper appreciation of our spiritual and
exegetical heritage in the church fathers as well as medi-
eval and subsequent commentators. The modern sense
(myth?) of absolute progress sometimes causes us to
undervalue this heritage.
2. We must more closely scrutinize sources to properly
understand them on their own terms. We are at risk of
mining these thinkers’ writings for short statements that
support our opinion without being genuinely interested in
their governing thought systems that give sense to those
statements.
3. The insights achieved through such scrutiny demand
wider exposure. Few people combine thorough knowledge
of science and religion issues with broad exposure to the
history of biblical exegesis.7Those engaged in science/
religion discussions might gain fuller access to the riches
of ancient biblical exegesis through interdisciplinary
dialogue.
In pursuing a more sophisticated understanding of
Augustine’s interpretation of the days of creation, let us
first establish why Augustine’s work in particular war-
rants such attention.
The Peculiar Relevance of
Augustine’s Views
Augustine is perhaps the most important thinker amongst
church fathers on creation in Genesis. No other patristic
figure left such a store of writings on Genesis. His first
work of biblical commentary, which followed shortly
after his return to North Africa after his conversion,
was De Genesi contra Manichaeos (DGnM)8in about 389.9
He worked on the abortive De Genesi Ad Litteram liber
imperfectibus10 around 393–394, by which time he was a
priest at Hippo. Chapters 11–13 of his Confessions (written
397–400) and chapter 11 of De Civitate Dei11 (dating from
about 417–418) also concern Genesis.12 But between 401
and 415, Augustine completed one of his major exegetical
works, De Genesi ad litteram,13 our best source for his
mature thinking about the early chapters of Genesis.14
Augustine commands widespread respect as one of the
pre-eminent minds of the patristic church.15 Jerome sur-
passed him for philological expertise, and perhaps Origen
for intellectual ability, but Augustine was an able philo-
sophical thinker and theological synthesist.16
Augustine’s thought was highly influential on Chris-
tian theology throughout the medieval period and contin-
ued to prompt debate in the time of the Reformation.17
Calvin’s rebuttal of instantaneous creation in his
discussion of Gen. 1:5 is witness to the durability of
Augustine’s ideas.18
Augustine’s “literal” commentaries on Genesis feature
what might appear to us to be a nonliteral interpretation
of the days. This sets his approach in contrast to both
the overtly allegorical version of the days in Origen and
Clement of the Alexandrian school19 and his own work in
DGnM and Confessions, and to a more obviously literal
line such as Basil’s or, later, Calvin’s.
Augustine’s hermeneutic is self-conscious and candid.
“Augustine is often remarkably explicit about the princi-
ples determining his exegesis.”20 This assists the modern
reader to understand, critique and, where appropriate, uti-
lize his approach. De Doctrina Christiana21 is Augustine’s
most direct treatment on biblical hermeneutics, but he
also comments on hermeneutical issues throughout his
Genesis commentaries.
Augustine is indeed a pivotal thinker where the history
of interpretation of the days of creation is concerned.
Before analyzing the factors that influence his interpreta-
tion, we must revisit his approach to the days.
Volume 57, Number 2, June 2005 135
Andrew J. Brown
St. Augustine (354–430 AD)

Augustine’s
Understanding of the
Days of Creation
Augustine’s exegesis developed throughout
his life, trending from a primarily allegorical
approach toward one that he regarded as
literal. Allegorical interpretation dominates
the early presentation of the days of creation
in DGnM. Augustine seeks to bypass Mani-
chean objections to the literal sense of
Genesis 122 by presenting the seven days
with their creative details as an allegory of
human history laid out in seven stages.23 To
expound the prophetic significance of the
Genesis text in this way is only appropriate,
since “words can in no sense express how
God made and created heaven and earth and
every creature …”24 DGnM I.25 goes on to
utilize the seven days as an allegory of the
Christian’s spiritual journey, given as a call
to moral excellence and progress in spiritual
understanding.25 The Confessions, Book XIII,
written about ten years later than DGnM,
contain a similar treatment of Gen. 1:1–2:3,
yet with a new defensiveness; Augustine
protests that it would be “unthinkable” for a
particular statement of Genesis to “have no
special meaning.”26 Allegory for Augustine
unlocks a richness of meaning that God
wants to communicate through the text,
transcending literal reference.
However, Augustine’s earlier De Genesi
ad litteram liber imperfectibus already reveals a
growing desire to uncover the literal sense,
although he later reflected, “my inexperience
collapsed under the weight of so heavy a
load,”27 explaining why he abandoned the
work at Gen. 1:26. One of the aspects of the
literal sense of Genesis that created this
heavy interpretive load was the difficulty of
reading the days straightforwardly, for rea-
sons explored below. Passing years brought
greater confidence in interpreting Scripture,
so that Augustine later returned to the task
of a literal exposition of the early chapters
of Genesis in De Genesi ad litteram and com-
pleted it to his satisfaction.
In the latter two works, Augustine flirts
with a literal understanding of the days as
we might consider it—creation in six of the
days we are used to.28 He considers the pos-
sibility of the production of the first three
days of creation in the sun’s absence by
means of an intermittent or orbiting light
source.29 The difficulties that remove this
straightforwardly literal option are the same
in both works.
First, he finds it rationally implausible:
“As for material light, it is not clear by what
circular motion or going forth and returning
it could have produced the succession of day
and night before the making of the heaven
called firmament, in which the heavenly
bodies were made.”30 “I find no way that
[days and nights] could be before the lights
of the heaven were made.”31
Second, he meets exegetical difficulties.
In Augustine’s Old Latin version, Sirach 18:1
reads: “He who remains for eternity created
all things at once.”32 And Ps. 32:933 and
Gen. 2:4ff together raise the problem that
God’s creative command could not be said
to be fulfilled suddenly if the vegetation had
arisen according to normal processes,
for which even the third day would not
have been sufficient.34 As Lavallee points
out, Augustine’s exegetical challenges here
are amplified by the Old Latin translation of
Gen. 2:4, which states: “When day was
made, God made heaven and earth and
every green thing of the field before it
appeared above the earth …”35
Third, he has theological difficulty with
the suggestion that God in his perfection
and power might require time to create any-
thing.36 Regarding the creation of light, he
protests: “It would be strange if this could
have taken as much time to be done by God
as it takes us to say it.”37 Most importantly,
God’s rest on Day Seven must not be taken
too literally. Augustine writes:
Whatever evening and morning were
in those days of creation, it is quite
impossible to suppose that on the
morning following the evening of the
sixth day God’s rest began. We cannot
be so foolish or rash as to imagine that
any such temporal good would accrue
to the Eternal and Unchangeable.38
The seventh day has no evening, because
God’s rest (or the rest he gives to creatures)
is unending.39
Seeking an alternative but still literal
understanding of the days of creation,
Augustine in DGnM and initially in De
Genesi ad litteram interprets the evening-
morning pattern to represent first matter
awaiting form and then having received
136 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Student and Early Career Scientists Corner
The Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation Re-evaluated
Augustine’s
exegesis
developed
throughout
his life,
trending
from
a primarily
allegorical
approach
toward one
that
he regarded
as literal.

form.40 This might be termed a metaphysical explanation,
and although Augustine abandons it,41 it could be the
ancestor to his final metaphysical solution, which runs as
follows.
To arrive at an instantaneous creation,42 which he sees
as necessary for the three reasons listed above, he argues
that in reality the days were divided differently than solar
days and really constitute the one day recurring seven
times.43 The chronological aspect of the sequence fades
away to leave a rational or ideal or what Augustine calls
a “causal connection.”44
These seven days of our time, although like the seven
days of creation in name and in numbering, follow
one another in succession and mark off the division
of time, but those first six days occurred in a form
unfamiliar to us as intrinsic principles within things
created. Hence evening and morning … did not
produce the changes that they do for us with the
motion of the sun. This we are certainly forced to
admit with regard to the first three days, which are
recorded and numbered before the creation of the
heavenly bodies.45
To be consistent we must apply this implication to all
seven days.46
As a rational sequence, Augustine locates the seven
days within angelic intellect(s). This seems inscrutable to
the modern reader when angels are not even mentioned
in Genesis 1–2. But in Augustine’s Neo-Platonically influ-
enced thinking, angels occupy the highest levels in the
intellectual and metaphysical hierarchy and could not pos-
sibly be omitted from the Genesis account, “as if they were
not among the works of God.” By a process of elimination
Augustine concludes that the angels “are that light which
was called, ‘Day.’”47 The six days of creation embrace
the angels’ own formation, under the name “Light” or
“Day,” along with their comprehension of all of God’s
(instantaneous) works of creation. He explains:
The minds of angels, united to the Word of God in
pure charity, created before the other works of cre-
ation, first saw in the Word of God those works to be
made before they were actually made; and thus those
works were first made in the angels’ knowledge
when God decreed that they should come into being,
before they were made in their own proper natures.
The angels also knew those works in their own
natures as things already made, with a knowledge
admittedly of a lower order called evening.48
The angels’ knowledge of created things “in the Word
of God”49 (= “morning”) and “in themselves”50 (= “eve-
ning”) might roughly equate to our “rational” and “empir-
ical” epistemological categories respectively. This fits the
Platonic cast of Augustine’s mind, for whom innate knowl-
edge, especially as including divine revelation, is superior
to but does not exclude knowledge gained through the
senses.51 God’s intended creation was innately compre-
hended by the angels, provoking their praise to him, (logi-
cally) before it was produced as material reality.52
The seven-day scheme provided in the
Bible pertains not to creation’s perfor-
mance so much as to its revelation
to humans.
So creation actually occurred instantaneously, more as
a series of events in the rational world rather than the
material world, although it produced material creation.
The seven-day scheme provided in the Bible pertains not
to creation’s performance so much as to its revelation to
humans. The scheme is heuristic, an example of accommo-
dation in divine communication. “Why, then, was there
any need for six distinct days to be set forth in the narra-
tive …? The reason is that those who cannot understand
the meaning of the text, He created all things together,53 can-
not arrive at the meaning of Scripture unless the narrative
proceeds slowly step by step.”54 The “framework of the six
days of creation,” seeming “to imply intervals of time,”
is an instance of the customary way in which Scripture
speaks “with the limitations of human language in
addressing men of limited understanding, while at the
same time teaching a lesson to be understood by the reader
who is able.”55 Our solar days “indeed recall the days of
creation, but without in any way being really similar to
them.”56 The sophistication and unfamiliarity of this treat-
ment of the days of creation should prompt us to more
thoroughly examine Augustine’s interpretive principles.
Interpretive Principles at Work
in Augustine’s Understanding
It is little use knowing what Augustine made of the days of
creation if we do not grasp why he interpreted Genesis in
this way.57 Recent hermeneutical theory has made us more
aware that there are other factors in a person’s interpreta-
tion of a text besides grammatical content. I list the
contributing factors in Augustine’s exegesis of the creation
days in order of their relationship to the biblical text, mov-
ing from immediate internal (exegetical) constraints to
theological constraints, then constraints rising from Chris-
tian spirituality (pastoral and apologetic factors), and
finally completely external (philosophical) constraints,
along with methodological factors.
Volume 57, Number 2, June 2005 137
Andrew J. Brown

Exegetical Constraints
The literal meaning of the Genesis text
remains a significant factor in Augustine’s
interpretation. Kathryn Greene-McCreight is
aware of the recent hermeneutical perspec-
tive that locates meaning largely in the
reader/reading community,58 but her in-
depth study of Augustine’s hermeneutic
found that in his Genesis work “the verbal
sense … wields its own impact on interpre-
tation and … places limits on the text’s
polysemy.”59 The text’s meaning is not limit-
less or purely subjective; Augustine clearly
deals with the lexical, grammatical, and syn-
tactical features of the text. For instance, he
finds confirmation of his instantaneous cre-
ation position in Gen. 2:4, whose syntax and
punctuation he analyses closely, arriving at
the arrangement, “When day was made,
God made heaven and earth and every
green thing of the field.” He states: “Hence,
I do not now appeal to another book of Holy
Scripture to prove that God created all things
together.”60
Furthermore, the theological principle of
inspiration causes Augustine to accept the
whole of Scripture as the Word of God,
meaning that it should speak with one
voice.61 Therefore texts from elsewhere in
Scripture (i.e. New Testament and Apocry-
pha) help to establish the meaning of a given
text. Greene-McCreight cites Augustine’s
interpretation of the days of creation as a
specific instance of this practice, the influ-
ence of Sir. 18:1 being evident despite his
claim that he does not need to appeal to it.62
Augustine must attempt to reconcile all bib-
lical statements regarding creation, includ-
ing Sir. 18:1, Ps. 32:9 and even John 5:17.63
Theological Factors
The prime controlling interpretive factor
here is the “Rule of Faith.” Karla Pollmann
explains that clear biblical statements pro-
vide the “extrapolated core of the biblical
message,” which “forms the normative hori-
zon to which all attempts to interpret the
Bible must refer.”64 The Church’s teaching is
assumed to coincide with that of Scripture as
a whole, and in turn a traditional systematic
theology sets the parameters for the message
a given text may be understood to contain.65
Augustine explicitly employs this princi-
ple by laying out the Apostles’ Creed as his
interpretive boundary as he begins his
exegesis in De Genesi Ad Litteram liber
imperfectibus.66 Notice also the theological
pressure in Augustine’s difficulty with the
concept that God could require rest on the
seventh day.67 The “Rule of Faith” operates
in a kind of tension with the verbal meaning,
not indicating the right interpretation of a
text, but prohibiting wrong ones, thus defin-
ing “an array of allowable interpretations.”68
Belief in inspiration is an aspect of this
“Ruled reading” and meant that in every
biblical text Augustine sought the true voice
of God.69
Pastoral Concern
Augustine may have been a reluctant recruit
to the priesthood in 391 AD,70 but “care for
souls” came to be a prime motivation for his
exegetical work.71 Alongside the “Rule of
Faith” operated a “Rule of Charity” that
asked of each proposed interpretation what
its spiritual benefit would be for those who
would be taught; would it lead to love for
God and neighbor?72 The goal of edification
could be met even where different readers
deduced a different meaning from the same
text; any interpretation that yielded truth
and profit and did not depart from the “Rule
of Faith” was permissible.73 Augustine writes:
From the words of Moses … there gush
clear streams of truth from which each
of us … may derive a true explanation
of the creation as best he is able, some
choosing one and some another inter-
pretation.74
In fact, God had designed Scripture to
address its readers according to their differ-
ing abilities, according to the much discussed
principle of “accommodation.”75 A person
who cannot understand that the six days
were repeated “without lapse of time,”
should leave that higher understanding to
those equipped to grasp it, knowing that
“Scripture does not abandon you in your
infirmity, but with a mother’s love accompa-
nies you in your slower steps.”76 Such state-
ments sound condescending, but they also
preserve every believer’s right and ability to
derive some degree of truth from Scripture,
no matter what the person’s intellectual
level. Scripture is meant for the believer’s
“progress.”77
When facing the findings of natural phi-
losophy, Augustine thinks first of the
welfare of those within the Church who in
138 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Student and Early Career Scientists Corner
The Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation Re-evaluated
The “Rule of
Faith” operates
in a kind of
tension with
the verbal
meaning, not
indicating the
right
interpretation
of a text, but
prohibiting
wrong ones,
thus defining
“an array of
allowable
interpre-
tations.” …
A “Rule of
Charity” …
asked of each
proposed
interpretation
what its
spiritual
benefit would
be for those
who would be
taught …

their weakness are easily swayed by outside criticism of
Scripture. He attacks the critics for the damage they do
to these souls, and then reproves the weak believers for
paying too much attention to such opponents and so allow
the benefits of Scripture to be denied to them as they cease
to respect it.78
Apologetic Motives
Augustine considers the reputation of Christianity in the
eyes of its doubters and detractors. When he refers to
aspects of astronomy or cosmology, he does not seem pri-
marily interested in them for their own sake.79 He states:
What concern is it of mine whether heaven is like a
sphere and the earth is enclosed by it and suspended
in the middle of the universe, or whether heaven
like a disk above the earth covers it over on one side?
But the credibility of Scripture is at stake …80
Both Young and Lavallee place too much weight on
Augustine’s regard for “science,”81 Young because he
seeks support for taking notice of science, Lavallee
because he is nervous about this very thing.82 Augustine’s
concern here is again for the spiritual welfare of hearers,
in this case those outside the faith.83 He writes:
It is disgraceful and dangerous for an infidel to hear
a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of
Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics, …
[exposing the writers of Scripture to derision] … to
the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil.84
It was important to him to demonstrate in every instance
the consistency of Scripture with external facts established
by “proofs that cannot be denied.”85 If the heavens were
spherical, he would have to show that Ps. 104:286 did not
contradict this.87 If anything thought to be a teaching of
Scripture is plainly disproved, “this teaching was never in
Holy Scripture!”88
However, Augustine does interpret according to what
is rationally plausible to him. As we saw above, he cannot
conceive of literal days preceding the sun. This is more an
issue of personal reasoning than of empirical data, and
may recall an objection he had to the Christian Bible while
a Manichean adherent. Even while he recognizes that
legitimate and true conclusions can arise from observing
the natural world, his own view of the world seems much
more theologically and intuitively than empirically or
experientially produced.89
Philosophical Influences
The influence of Augustine’s metaphysical inheritance is
clear. In the time leading up to his conversion in Italy,
Augustine came under the influence of Christian
Neo-Platonists, and Chadwick sees Augustine’s conver-
sion as a marrying of Neo-Platonism and Christianity, the
latter transforming elements of the former, such as its
a-temporality, replacing the quest for God with his
self-revelation, re-personalizing God, and incorporating
salvation.90 Augustine will speak of the world’s order and
beauty witnessing to its Creator, but quickly moves on to
heavenly things.91 The physical world is good, but in a
rather derivative way.
Augustine’s account of creation elevates
the angelic/transcendent realm, impacting
his exegesis of the six days of creation.
Augustine’s account of creation elevates the angelic/
transcendent realm, impacting his exegesis of the six days
of creation.92 Timeless ideals are prized, being for the
Christian Platonist connected to the eternal “Word of
God,” and the universe consists of an ontological hierar-
chy. Thus an instantaneous creation pivoting on angelic
reason and conceptualized in terms of the weekly cycle,
along with Augustine’s profound interest in the number
six, begins to make sense.93 Exegetical and theological
factors may have forced Augustine to look for a more
sophisticated interpretation of the days of creation, but
his Neo-Platonist metaphysic provides the basis for his
particular solution.
Methodological Presuppositions
Plurality of Meaning: We saw previously that Augustine
allows for plurality of meaning in the biblical text, even
though Scripture as God’s Word communicates coher-
ently.94 This plurality operates firstly on the level of the
reader. In the Confessions, Augustine seems frustrated by
the diversity of interpretations of Genesis 1, but responds:
“How can it harm me that it should be possible to interpret
these words in several ways, all of which may yet be
true?” Moses’ intended meaning is the quest of every
reader of Genesis, Augustine says, but with so many inter-
pretations and no way to verify “what Moses had in
mind,” the reader should accept whatever he believes to
be the true meaning, whether or not it is the intended
one.95 In De Genesi ad litteram, Augustine outlines a three-
stage hermeneutical process when reading “the inspired
books”:96
1. In the light of “Catholic belief,” choose the meaning
“which appears as certainly the meaning intended by the
author.” This remains the ideal for Augustine.97
2. “If this is not clear, then at least we should choose an
interpretation in keeping with the context of Scripture and
in harmony with our faith.”
3. If the context is no help, “at least we should choose
only that which our faith demands.”
Volume 57, Number 2, June 2005 139
Andrew J. Brown

So a reading which abandons certainty
about author intention or even textual mean-
ing is permissible if it satisfies the “Rule of
Faith.”98 Augustine even countenances plu-
rality in author intention, stating that Moses
was aware of the various meanings that
could be drawn from the words he commu-
nicated, and immediately speculating99 that
if he was not, the Holy Spirit certainly was
aware of all the true meanings that were
embodied in the given words. Ultimately it
is this inspired status that makes possible an
abundance of meanings in the text, extend-
ing beyond the human author’s conscious
intention. Greene-McCreight explains: “Multi-
ple interpretations are allowable if they are
all supported in the context of the passage’s
plain sense as a whole, for the ultimate
authorship of the text is Divine.”100
Literal v. Allegorical Meaning: While
Augustine defends the place of allegorical
meaning,101 he decides at the beginning of
De Genesi ad litteram that he will attempt to
explain Genesis 1–3 as “a faithful record of
what happened,” since this is the more
challenging task for this text.102 When he
catches himself offering “an allegorical and
prophetical interpretation,” he returns to
his purpose of discussing “Sacred Scripture
according to the plain meaning of the histor-
ical facts, not according to future events
which they foreshadow.”103 Later he opposes
the belief that actual history begins with
Gen. 4:1, confirming the historicity of events
narrated in Genesis 1–3, which he labels his-
torical narrative.104
How can we reconcile his location of the
creation days within angelic intelligence
with this claim? Augustine himself answers
this potential objection by distinguishing lit-
eral light from material light, and defending
the angelic comprehension of created things
and their resulting praise of the Creator as “a
truer evening and a truer morning.”105 In
Augustine’s metaphysic, the immaterial was
not less real than the material but more real.
But though he takes “day” as (in effect, but
not by admission) a metaphor, this for
Augustine remains literal exegesis. “He is
reading the creation story as a creation
story,” rather than as the story of the Church
or the individual believer’s experience,
explains Williams.106 Lewis’s claim that
Augustine allegorizes the days of Genesis
misses this point.107 The narrated creation
events really occurred, though figurative
expressions occur in the telling, and some
events took place on a transcendent plane.
However, literal meaning does overflow
the bounds of verbal meaning in Augustine’s
usage.108 Augustine betrays some doubts
about the literality of his own treatment
in moments of defensiveness.109 While the
product of the six creative days is the visible
universe we know,110 yet as a sequence in
angelic awareness they move away from his-
torical reality. For Augustine, the days exist
as a moment on the boundary of the Ideal
(God’s intention to create and perfect knowl-
edge of how he will) and the Corporeal, the
material world we see.
Tentativeness in Exegesis: Augustine advo-
cates humility and tentativeness about one’s
interpretations.111 Following his defense of
his treatment of the days as being genuinely
literal, he continues:
Whoever, then, does not accept the
meaning that my limited powers have
been able to discover or conjecture but
seeks in the enumeration of the days
of creation a different meaning, which
might be understood not in a propheti-
cal or figurative sense, but literally and
more aptly … let him search and find
a solution with God’s help.112
Augustine’s cautious and questioning
style of writing in his commentaries main-
tains the impression. In the Confessions,
he castigates those who are dogmatic about
understanding Moses’ intended meaning:
They have no knowledge of the
thoughts in his mind, but they are in
love with their own opinions … Even if
their explanation is the right one, the
arbitrary assurance with which they
insist upon it springs from presump-
tion, not from knowledge.113
Any alternatives that do not violate the
“Rule of Faith” are permissible: “If our con-
clusions seem impossible to anyone, let him
seek another by which he can show the truth
of Scripture.”114
His tentative attitude allows him room
for progress in interpretation. His commen-
taries reveal interpretive mobility as he
considers an interpretive option for a time
before eventually abandoning it, for exam-
140 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Student and Early Career Scientists Corner
The Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation Re-evaluated
In Augustine’s
metaphysic,
the immaterial
was not less
real than the
material but
more real.
But though he
takes “day” as
(in effect, but
not by
admission) a
metaphor, this
for Augustine
remains literal
exegesis. …
The narrated
creation events
really occurred,
though
figurative
expressions
occur in the
telling, and
some events
took place on
a transcendent
plane.

ple, the possibility that “day” might refer “to the form of
a thing created” while “night” would refer “to the priva-
tion … of this form.”115 Thus Augustine remains conscious
of the limited capacity of humans to receive God’s truth
and the resulting diversity of interpretive opinion, while
retaining his faith in the interpretive quest for that truth.
Perhaps we can now better understand why Augustine
interpreted Genesis 1 as he did, but how much weight
should we give his interpretation, eccentric as it still seems
compared to the approaches of some of his contemporar-
ies116 and from our modern standpoint?
The Authority and Value of
Augustine’s Legacy
His Authority
Young underlines the importance of “the views of Augus-
tine, the church’s greatest theologian between Paul and
Aquinas,” feeling his own position vindicated by Augus-
tine’s, while Lavallee warns that this “illustrious” figure
presents a flawed example of exegesis.117 The Protestant
community has probably under-recognized the impor-
tance of pre-Reformation tradition and failed to access its
riches, fearful of human authorities displacing “Christ
alone.” Yet figures such as Augustine are validated by the
acknowledgment of the whole church spectrum and have
stood the test of centuries of Christian scrutiny, a test that
modern Christian teachers and commentators have yet to
face. That all sides of the debate over the days of creation
in Genesis appeal to Augustine and other church fathers
constitutes a common acknowledgment of their authority.
As a leader in historical Christian theology and exegesis,
then, Augustine’s ideas warrant the effort required to
properly understand them.
His Interpretation of the Days of Creation
Augustine’s instantaneous creation may appeal to some as
the right way to understand creation, although it is a
minority position.118 Even medieval interpreters who were
influenced by Augustine’s work showed a tendency to
revert to a more concrete and literal understanding of the
Genesis days.119 Recourse to the Hebrew bypasses many of
the textual issues Augustine struggled with (notably the
Old Latin of Sir. 18:1 and Gen. 2:4–5) and in any case side-
lines the Sirach reference,120 reducing the exegetical pres-
sure to interpret the days instantaneously, although
reconciling Gen. 1:3–2:3 and 2:4–25 continues to offer chal-
lenges.121 Pressure against a “plain sense” or “literal”
understanding of the days of creation now comes primar-
ily from a different, scientific quarter—geology, paleontol-
ogy and astronomy—offering evidence of the earth’s great
age.122 Augustine’s interpretation is significant in that it
sets an example of interpretive innovation that is both rev-
erent toward Scripture and satisfies the requirements of
Christian theology.
The centrality of angels or angelic knowledge and the
metaphysic underlying it is quite foreign to the modern
Western mind, so that close adherence to Augustine’s pro-
posal about the days of creation must now be very rare.
Yet Augustine’s mitigated Platonism finds some common-
ality with the metaphysical dualism in Christian thinking,
which commonly distinguishes heavenly and earthly
spheres. The “two-register cosmogony” explanation of
Genesis 1–2 by Meredith Kline is a striking partial resur-
rection of an Augustinian viewpoint, particularly as it
pertains to Gen. 1:1–2.123 In any case, Augustine’s Neo-
Platonic solution helps us to be aware of our own inevita-
ble but usually unconscious integration of biblical and
prevailing cultural world-pictures.
Augustine’s Neo-Platonic solution helps
us to be aware of our own inevitable
but usually unconscious integration of
biblical and prevailing cultural world-
pictures.
Augustine’s definition of the genre of Genesis 1–3 as
history did not deny that figurative or metaphorical
elements, e.g., the expression “their eyes were opened,”
could be embedded within a historical text.124 He certainly
understands anthropomorphic statements as embedded
metaphor in this sense125 providing a precedent for a posi-
tion like Collins’s, who treats the seven days of creation
themselves as one of the text’s anthropomorphisms.126
Augustine’s statement, “God made everything together,
although the subsequent framework of the six days of cre-
ation might seem to imply intervals of time,” also seems to
justify the claim by modern day Framework Hypothesis
advocates of a “historic precedent” for their position in
Augustine.127 Perhaps it was Calvin, though, who applied
more consistently than Augustine himself the implications
of the assertion that Genesis 1–3 is history. Free of many
of Augustine’s exegetical constraints, Calvin arrived at
an outcome much more amenable to literal interpreters of
the Genesis days.128
His Interpretive Approach
I agree with Young in advocating Augustine’s caution and
humility in exegesis. It is always possible that “a rival
interpretation which might possibly be better” than our
own exists out there.129 Claiming or behaving otherwise
Volume 57, Number 2, June 2005 141
Andrew J. Brown

risks presumption and may betray a love for
one’s own opinion rather than for the truth,
which one might not yet have fully discov-
ered.130 Yet Augustine’s “generosity towards
other interpretations” only applies to views
that satisfy the “Rule of Faith.”131
Defenders of some modern positions
argue passionately about the creation days
because they see opposing views as falling
outside of Christian orthodoxy. Perhaps the
fact that Augustine is particularly careful not
to transgress the boundaries of Christian
orthodoxy should alert us to the relative
breadth of those boundaries where the days
of creation are concerned.
We do well to admit that the “Rule of
Faith” is a real and, within limits, legitimate
constraint on our interpretation. Greene-
McCreight effectively shows how verbal
meaning and the framework of Christian
doctrine interact to produce Augustine’s
interpretation of Genesis,132 and adopts this
duality herself. She writes: “Within our tra-
jectory, it is the very substance of the gospel
and the identity of the God who created and
redeemed the world which directs and
guides reading the Scriptures according to
the plain sense.”133 Augustine displays no
fear that “Ruled Reading” will distort the
verbal sense of the text at hand, since for him
the text expresses a part of the message of
which established Christian teaching defines
the whole.134 Scripture is the vehicle for
God’s truth, “an instrument of God’s self-
revelation.”135 Greene-McCreight sees this
as the primary consideration in Augustine’s
exegesis of Genesis.136 Augustine’s confi-
dence in the “Rule of Faith” is cast in doubt
by the subsequent course of church history,
but that element of it that seeks God’s mes-
sage in every biblical text is vital to the
coherence and viability of contemporary
Christianity.
Is there then any other legitimate source
of truth besides Scripture? We saw that for
Augustine, data about the natural world
may be well enough established that it may
modify biblical interpretation. He states:
“When they [opponents of the faith] are
able, from reliable evidence, to prove some
fact of physical science, we shall show that it
is not contrary to our Scripture.” However,
any external claim that cannot be reconciled
with Scriptural teaching or Catholic faith
must be either proven false or at least
assumed to be so.137 The “Book of Scripture”
and the “Book of Nature” have one author,
and so cannot contradict one another.138
Augustine’s example would leave room
for the scientific enterprise and even permit
scientific knowledge to alter interpretation
of Scripture in certain circumstances. Young
celebrates this while Lavallee finds it a dan-
gerous loophole for illegitimate harmoniza-
tion.139 I think that, like Augustine, most of
us—for reasons either of apologetic account-
ability or personal worldview integrity—
must take some notice of the information
derived from human experience and attempt
to reconcile it with the biblical story.140
Augustine reminds us of the pastoral
factor in interpretation. Scripture was given
for human benefit, and so the interpreter of
Scripture has to consider the impact of his
or her efforts on their potential recipients.
Whether carried out for one’s own benefit or
for the benefit of others, interpretation is as
much a moral and spiritual enterprise as an
intellectual one. The desired outcome of bib-
lical interpretation is the same as the desired
outcome of the angels’ contemplation of the
works of God in creation in Augustine’s
scheme of the creation days: that interpreters
might “direct to the praise of their Creator
the gift of their creation.”141
Conclusion
If we take the time to thoroughly investigate
the hermeneutical perspective of rightly
recognized ancient Christian thinkers like
Augustine, or at least consult those who
have, we may avoid superficial mining of
their statements for polemical ammunition
or other purposes, and begin to access the
insights of time-tested approaches to Gene-
sis and other texts. Their findings and their
interpretive reasoning will not always win
or even deserve our emulation, but they
certainly warrant our consideration and can
only deepen our own exegesis of biblical texts.
Augustine’s view of creation is relevant
today, but it takes effort to access, otherwise
we simply make him say what we wish
to hear. Í
142 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Student and Early Career Scientists Corner
The Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation Re-evaluated
Augustine
reminds us
of the
pastoral factor
in interpreta-
tion. … [It] is
as much
a moral and
spiritual
enterprise as
an intellectual
one. The
desired
outcome of
biblical
interpretation
is … that
interpreters
might “direct
to the praise of
their Creator
the gift
of their
creation.”

Notes
1Davis A. Young, “The Contemporary Relevance of Augustine’s
View of Creation,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 40,
no. 1 (1988): 42–5.
2Ibid.
3Dick Fischer, “The Days of Creation: Hours or Eons?” Perspectives
on Science and Christian Faith 42 (1990): 15–6. He cites only an
unpublished paper of Hugh Ross for support. Ross himself has
done more research, e.g. Hugh Ross, Creation and Time (Colorado
Springs: Navpress, 1994), 16–24. Yet he still claims that the Ante-
Nicene fathers generally “accepted that yôm could mean “a long
time period,” in David Hagopian, ed., The Genesis Debate: Three
Views on the Days of Creation (Mission Viejo, CA: Crux, 2001), 125.
4Louis Lavallee, “Augustine on the Creation Days,” Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society 32 (1989): 457–64; Robert Letham, “‘In
the Space of Six Days’: The Days of Creation from Origen to the
Westminster Assembly,” Westminster Theological Journal 61, no. 2
(1999): 149–74; Jack P. Lewis, “The Days of Creation: An Historical
Survey of Interpretation,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Soci-
ety 32 (1989): 433–55. Compare C. J. Collins, “How Old Is the Earth?
Anthropomorphic Days in Genesis 1:1–2:3,” Presbyterion 20 (1994):
124–5; and Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1–2.4 in
the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms (Fearn, Ross-shire: Mentor,
1997), 126–9.
5Duncan and Hall quote Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram 4.33.52
(despite citing a different reference in their endnotes) as denying
that creation took place slowly or that the ages were established “at
the plodding pace at which they now pass.” This intended refuta-
tion of the day-age view fails to acknowledge that in that context
Augustine is denying that any time was involved, and that Augus-
tine explicitly discounts a literal interpretation of the days nearby,
stating that “those creatures that shoot forth roots and clothe the
earth would need not one day but many to germinate … and … to
come forth,” in Hagopian, ed., The Genesis Debate, 175–6. Karla
Pollmann regards it as characteristic of reception of Augustine his-
torically that “rather than the whole theory of Augustine’s herme-
neutics, parts of it are quoted out of context” to justify readers’ own
positions. Karla Pollmann, “Hermeneutical Presuppositions,” in
Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald,
O.S.A. (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1999), 429.
6Augustine’s name alone appears on forty-two out of the 307 pages
of The Genesis Debate, counting endnotes, and the exponents of
each of the three positions represented (“the 24-hour view,” “the
day-age view,” and “the framework view”) are keen either to claim
his authority or to deny it to their opponents. The major statements
concerning Augustine occur on pp. 47–8, 69, 90, 110–1, 171, 175–6,
205, 219–20, 224, 266, and 291.
7Two individuals who have combined theological and science/
religion specializations are Alister McGrath and Thomas Torrance,
but well-qualified biblical exegetes or analysts of historical exege-
sis who are competent in science/religion are rarer.
8I am using the abbreviation used in Teske’s introduction, Saint
Augustine, On Genesis: Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees
and on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book, trans.
S. J. Roland J. Teske, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 84
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991).
9Henry Chadwick, Augustine, ed. Keith Thomas, Past Masters (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 27; and C. Kannengiesser,
“Augustine of Hippo,” in Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Inter-
preters, ed. Donald K. McKim (Downers Grove, IN: InterVarsity,
1998), 22.
10Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis: An Incomplete Book.
11Augustine, The City of God.
12Roland J. Teske, “The Genesis Accounts of Creation,” in Augustine
through the Ages, 381.
13Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis.
14For summaries of these works, Augustine through the Ages.
15Henry Chadwick, “Augustine,” in A Dictionary of Biblical Interpre-
tation, ed. R. J. Coggins and J. L. Houlden (Philadelphia: Trinity
International Press, 1990), 65.
16G. Bonner, “Augustine as Biblical Scholar,” in From the Beginnings
to Jerome, ed. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans, Cambridge History of
the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 561.
17F. Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature: A Study of the Greek and Latin
Commentaries in Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1912; reprint, 1988), 64, 66, 78, and 81.
18J. Calvin, Genesis,The Geneva Series of Commentaries (London:
Banner of Truth, 1965), 78.
19Letham, “In the Space of Six Days,”150–1; Lewis, “The Days of
Creation,” 437–40.
20David F. Wright, “Augustine: His Exegesis and Hermeneutics,” in
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, ed.
Magna Saebo (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 716.
21On Christian Teaching. See the summary of Pollmann, “Herme-
neutical Presuppositions,” 426–9.
22Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, I.14.20 (p. 68). Page
numbers are added to citations from this combined edition to assist
location.
23Ibid., I.23 (pp. 82–8).
24Ibid., I.23.41 (p. 88).
25The Hexaemera of Ambrose and Basil, while literal in approach
rather than allegorical, also display this hortatory motivation.
Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain
and Abel, trans. John J. Savage, Fathers of the Church 42 (New York:
Catholic University of America Press, 1961; reprint, Ann Arbor,
MI: UMI, 1997); Basil, “Hexaemeron,” in Basil,A Select Library of the
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark, 1989).
26Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin, Penguin Classics
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961), 13.24 (p. 335).
27Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, 42.
28His later treatment of the days of creation in The City of God (XI.7)
is virtually a synopsis of the much longer De Genesi ad litteram:
Augustine, The City of God, ed. Philip Schaff, vol. 2, A Select Library
of the Christian Church: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1887).
29Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, trans. John Hammond
Taylor, 2 vols. (New York: Newman Press, 1982), 1.16.31, 4.21.38.
30Ibid., 4.21.29. See also 1.12.24–5, 1.16.31, 2.14.28, the latter reading:
“No one could conceive how the three days passed by before the
beginning of the time that is reported as commencing on the fourth
day.”
31Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, 6.27 (p. 162).
32Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.33.52; Augustine, On Genesis … An
Unfinished Book, 7.28 (p. 164). Augustine accepted the Septuagint
behind the Old Latin as inspired, and therefore accepted the apoc-
ryphal books as Scripture. See Bonner, “Augustine as Biblical
Scholar,” 544–6; Wright, “Augustine: His Exegesis and Hermeneu-
tics,” 719.
33Ps. 33:9 (Latin; English). In the NRSV, this verse reads: “For he
spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” Ver-
sion chosen not critical.
34Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.33.52. The particular problem in
Gen. 2:4–5 is that Augustine’s Latin version suggests that vegeta-
tion was made by God before it appeared above the earth. When
this is put alongside Gen 1:11–13, it seems impossible to Augustine
to fit the creation of vegetation in seed form and its growth to
maturity into the space of one creation day.
35Ibid., 5.4.8; and Lavallee, “Augustine on the Creation Days,” 459.
36Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, 11.34 (p. 170). Cf. 7.28
(p. 164).
37Augustine, Literal Meaning, 1.10.19.
38Ibid., 4.18.34.
39Ibid., 4.18.31.
Volume 57, Number 2, June 2005 143
Andrew J. Brown

40Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, 12.37, 15.51ff
(pp. 173, 81). Also 10.32 (p. 169): “We should understand that the
corporeal work followed after the rational and incorporeal work.”
Cf. Augustine, Literal Meaning, 2.14.28, 4.1.1.
41Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.26.43. See Taylor’s comment in
endnote #2, p. 247.
42Ibid., 4.33.52, 4.35.56. This is a slight shiftfrom the apparent admis-
sion of a chronological element to the days in the Confessions, where
Augustine sees the material forming of creation occurring in the
six days, since only material creation can change and thus show
the effects of time. Without change, time does not pass (Augustine,
Confessions, 12.12, p. 289). Even in De Genesi ad litteram 4.31.48,
Augustine appears momentarily to concede that the days represent
a chronological sequence: “Day, therefore, and evening and morn-
ing did not all occur simultaneously at the time of creation, but
separately and in the order set forth in Sacred Scripture.” However,
he shortly follows this by reiterating: “There are no periods of time
between the steps in this process” (Augustine, Literal Meaning,
4.32.50). This is an example of his vacillating way of reaching con-
clusions—he briefly adopts certain positions only to abandon them
later in the commentary.
43Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.26.43, 4.33.52, 5.3.6, etc.
44Ibid., 4.33.51.
45Ibid., 4.18.33.
46Compare Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, I.12.43
(p. 175), where Augustine allows that days four to six might be our
familiar solar days.
47Augustine, The City of God, XI.9.
48Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.32.49.
49Ibid.
50Ibid., 4.23.40.
51Augustine treats this knowledge of things in themselves as legiti-
mate, although as inferior as evening is to morning, so long as those
who contemplate created things “rise up from a knowledge of
a creature to the praise of the Creator” (Ibid., 4.28.45). This seems
a worthy principle for Christian scientific study.
52Ibid., 4.26–34. Augustine also shared the contemporary belief that
mathematics revealed the inherent order of creation in a very direct
way, such that creation had to “occur in six days” because of the
perfection of the number six. This claim does not seem to form an
integral part of Augustine’s scheme of the days as just described,
although it is certainly consistent with his Neo-Platonic sympa-
thies (Augustine, The City of God, XI.30; Augustine, Literal Meaning,
4.2–7).
53Here Augustine quotes Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 18:1. Taylor points
out that in the Old Latin, qui vivit in aeternum creavit omnia simul,
“simul … seems to be a mistranslation of the Greek ko inh|/,”
meaning “commonly” or “without exception” (Augustine, Literal
Meaning, 254).
54Ibid., 4.33.52.
55Ibid., 5.6.19, Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, 1.14.20
(p. 69), 3.8 (p. 149), 7.28 (p. 64).
56Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.27.44.
57Davis Young acknowledges this point by reserving a separate
section for Augustine’s interpretive principles (Young, “The Con-
temporary Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation,” 42–3).
58For instance, see Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The
Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1980).
59K. E. Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and
Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, vol. 5, Issues in Systematic
Theology (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1999), 80. She uses the term
“verbal meaning” or “verbal sense” for what we mightcall the lit-
eral meaning, made up of lexical meaning, grammar and syntax,
p. 107.
60Augustine, Literal Meaning, 5.3.6, Lavallee, “Augustine on the Cre-
ation Days,” 460. Lavallee here inadvertently misquotes Augustine
as saying: “I do now appeal to another book of Holy Scripture
to prove that God ‘created all things together.’” So although
Augustine depends on the Sirach quote earlier, he claims here
that he does not need to, which partly negates Lavallee’s criticism
of Augustine for his dependence upon an Apocryphal book
as Scripture.
61Chadwick, “Augustine,” 68; Pollmann, “Hermeneutical Presup-
positions,” 426; and Wright, “Augustine: His Exegesis and Herme-
neutics,” 726.
62Greene-McCreight, 59. Lavallee shares the Protestant disdain for
the Apocrypha and so criticizes Augustine for depending on it.
I share this view of canon but recognize that Augustine’s practice
was in keeping with the Western Church generally on this point.
63Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.33.51, 4.11.21. Lavallee shares the
Protestant disdain for the Apocrypha and so criticizes Augustine
for depending on it. I sympathize with this view of canon but rec-
ognize that Augustine’s practice was in keeping with the Western
Church generally on this point.
64Pollmann is discussing Augustine’s hermeneutical treatise,
De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Instruction) (Pollmann, “Her-
meneutical Presuppositions,” 427).
65Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth
Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, 35–36, 50.
66Augustine, On Genesis … An Unfinished Book, 1.2 (pp. 145–6).
67Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.8.15, etc.
68Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth
Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, 36.
69Fitzgerald, 426. Belief in inspiration has ramifications for
Augustine’s hermeneutic, such as his willingness to countenance
polyvalence in meaning. See below.
70Frederick Copleston, S.J., Augustine to Scotus, vol. II, A History of
Philosophy (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1950), 44.
71The last of four chapters in his hermeneutical work, De Doctrina
Christiana, covered how the Bible was to be preached to believers.
72Bonner, “Augustine as Biblical Scholar,” 557; Greene-McCreight,
Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense”
of Genesis 1–3, 36; Thomas Williams, “Biblical Interpretation,” in
The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), 67–8.
73Augustine, The City of God, XI.32; Augustine, Confessions, XII.30
(p. 308).
74Augustine, Confessions, XII.27 (p. 304).
75The term itself is used by Augustine in Taylor’s translation in De
Genesi ad litteram, 1.14.28. See also Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram:
How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis
1–3, 60–1.
76Augustine, Literal Meaning, 5.3.6. The following context is also
relevant. See also last paragraph under “Augustine’s Understand-
ing of the Days of Creation.”
77Ibid.
78Ibid., 1.20.40.
79Robbins says: “Throughout his Hexaemeral works, Augustine
expresses great impatience with physical science and a feeling that
it is useless to discuss such questions” (Robbins, The Hexaemeral
Literature,” 69). See also Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How
Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, 76.
80Augustine, Literal Meaning, 2.9.20.
81Peter Harrison warns that this term is really anachronistic when
applied to a time before the nineteenth century (Peter Harrison,
“‘Science and Religion’: Constructing the Boundaries,” Journal of
Religion, forthcoming).
82Lavallee, “Augustine on the Creation Days,” 461–4; Young, “The
Contemporary Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation,” 42–5.
83Wright, “Augustine: His Exegesis and Hermeneutics,” 708.
84Augustine, Literal Meaning, 1.19.39.
85Williams, “Biblical Interpretation,” 60.
86Ps. 103:2 (English; Latin).
87Augustine, Literal Meaning, 2.9.21.
88Ibid., 1.19.38.
89He does, however, accept the popular conception of the four ele-
ments seen to constitute the world in his day: earth, water, air and
144 Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Student and Early Career Scientists Corner
The Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation Re-evaluated

fire (Ibid., 2.1–5). He avoids taking Ps. 135:6 (Latin; Ps. 136:6
English) literally when it speaks of the earth being founded on the
waters, but affirms with Genesis against the common understand-
ing that there could be waters above the air.
90Chadwick, Augustine, 25, 28–9.
91A. H. Armstrong, “Augustine and Christian Platonism,” in
Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. R. A. Markus (Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), 14.
92City of God witnesses the importance of “principalities and pow-
ers,” including angels, in Augustine’s thinking (Augustine, The
City of God, XI.9,19).
93Augustine, Literal Meaning, pp. 248–9, notes 8 and 9.
94Gerald Bray, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity, 1996), 126; Manlio Simonetti, Biblical Interpre-
tation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic
Exegesis, trans. J. A. Hughes (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994), 108.
Chadwick writes: “Like most ancient writers, Augustine assumes
that even matter-of-fact narratives are polyvalent.” That is, plural-
ity of meaning is not just present in the literal/allegorical duality
but even within the literal sense (Chadwick, “Augustine,” 67).
95Augustine, Confessions, XII.18,24.
96Augustine, Literal Meaning, 1.21.41.
97Augustine, Confessions, XII.32.
98This is really a concession rather than a desirable outcome for
Augustine, and probably has pastoral care motives in mind.
99In a rhetorical question expecting a positive answer.
100Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth
Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, 71.
101“No Christian will dare say that the narrative must not be taken in
a figurative sense” (Augustine, Literal Meaning, 1.1.1).
102Ibid. Simonetti points out that for his less technical treatments,
Augustine continued to permit himself a more allegorical approach.
This might have facilitated more immediate pastoral application.
Confessions XIII with its allegorical treatment of Genesis 1 might
be such an example (Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early
Church, 107).
103Augustine, Literal Meaning, 1.17.34.
104Ibid., 8.1.1–3.
105Ibid., 4.28.45.
106Williams, “Biblical Interpretation,” 62.
107Lewis, “The Days of Creation,” 443.
108Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.28.45; and Greene-McCreight, Ad
Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of
Genesis 1–3, 49. See also Collins, “How Old Is the Earth?” 125;
Letham, “In the Space of Six Days,” 156; and Young, “The Contem-
porary Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation,” 42.
109Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.28.45. Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram:
How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis
1–3, 45, refers to “slippage” of the term “literal” in Augustine’s
usage.
110So that they have not been removed to the realm of prophetic
symbolism or moral instruction, as in DGnM I.23, 25.
111Young picks up on this, displaying a scientist’s commitment to the
principle of tentativeness in findings (Young, “The Contemporary
Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation,” 42, 45).
112Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.28.45, also 1.20.40, etc.
113Augustine, Confessions, XII.25 (pp. 301–2).
114Augustine, Literal Meaning, 5.9.24.
115Ibid., 4.1.1. He takes up this possibility (also found in DGnM)
as early as 1.17.35 and does not finally abandon it until 4.26.43.
See Taylor’s note #2 on p. 247.
116Such as the tradition of Basil.
117Lavallee, “Augustine on the Creation Days,” 464; and Young, “The
Contemporary Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation,” 42.
118Patristic precedents do exist for a nonliteral treatment of the days
in Origen, but Augustine again is seeking to be true to the literal
sense and not fall back on allegory (Letham, “In the Space of Six
Days,” 150–1).
119Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature,” 77.
120Thus I agree with Lavallee that Augustine’s exegesis was troubled
by his dependence on Old Latin and his use of the Apocrypha
(Lavallee, “Augustine on the Creation Days,” 459–60).
121See Taylor’s explanation, note #67 (Augustine, Literal Meaning,
252–4). Meredith G. Kline, “Because It Had Not Rained,” Westmin-
ster Theological Journal 20 (1958): 146–57, is one attempt to offer
a solution.
122I do not intend to discuss this evidence in the present article, nor
to imply its unquestioned validity. But see below on consideration
of outside data in the course of interpretation.
123Meredith Kline suggests that the “formless and void” earth of
Gen. 1:2 is in 1:6–8 itself divided into heavens and earth, making the
“heavens” of Gen. 1:1 a different metaphysical plane. This sounds
very much like Augustine in De Genesi ad litteram 1.9.15 and
esp. Confessions book XII (Meredith G. Kline, “Space and Time in
the Genesis Cosmogony,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
48, no. 1 [1996]: 2–15).
124Augustine, Literal Meaning, 10; and Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram:
How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis
1–3, 47.
125E.g., God’s forming Adam from the dust in Gen. 2:7 (Augustine,
Literal Meaning, 6.12.20).
126Collins, “How Old Is the Earth?” 120.
127Hagopian, ed., 291. See also their argument on pp. 219–20.
128Calvin, Genesis, 78.
129Augustine, Literal Meaning, 1.20.40.
130Augustine, Confessions, XII.25 (pp. 301–2). Such principles sound
like truisms but are not evident in all interpreters’ attitudes to their
work and to that of others.
131Ibid. The phrase, “generosity towards other interpretations,”
comes from Williams, “Biblical Interpretation,” 63. Note the call
for “equal respect for the opinions of others, provided that they
were consistent with the truth,” by which Augustine means the
body of truth established in Christian tradition.
132Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth
Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, 54.
133Ibid., 250.
134Many modern commentators do not believe that it is possible to
derive a unified message from the Christian Bible, which would
make derivation of a “Rule of Faith” from the Bible difficult or
impossible.
135Henry Chadwick, “Augustine,” in Dictionary of Biblical Interpreta-
tion, ed. John H. Hayes (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 86.
136Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth
Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, 35.
137Augustine, Literal Meaning, 1.21.41.
138Though it is the former book that captures Augustine’s interest.
139Lavallee, “Augustine on the Creation Days,” 463–4; and Young,
“The Contemporary Relevance of Augustine’s View of Creation,”
43. Young’s case is somewhat hampered by the fact that the partic-
ular example he cites of Augustine’s use of the knowledge of the
natural world of his day, the four elements, is clearly obsolete to the
modern reader, lending apparent credibility to Lavallee’s assertion
that we should “refrain from harmonizing Scripture with transi-
tory scientific theories.”
140Collins, “How Old Is the Earth?” p. 114, makes a good case that
“Bible writers assume we bring our empirically-gained knowledge
with us when we read their works.”
141Augustine, Literal Meaning, 4.22.39.
Volume 57, Number 2, June 2005 145
Andrew J. Brown
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