I’m questioning if St. Augustine of Hippo of Fifth-century fame ever learn Charles Darwin of nineteenth century fame. In Scientific Creationism, Henry Morris argues that the seven days of creation are actually literal 24-hour intervals. Echoing different creationists, he states that the distinctive phrase in Genesis 1 for day (yom within the Hebrew) remembers a 24-hour interval in contrast to different phrases in Hebrew that may be traced to imply epochs or eras. Those that refuse to take every day as a literal 24-hour interval are teetering on apostasy, using a “biblical exegesis” that’s “out of the query for any actual believer within the Bible” (p. 244). Worse, those that take every day as an period are utilizing language “synonymous with evolution” (p. 228, emphasis authentic).

St. Augustine wrote that the seven days of creation in Genesis 1 weren’t literal days in any respect however eras that include the wonders and work of God’s inventive majesty. However did that imply that Augustine had a prophetic perception to the work of Charles Darwin?

With the entire debate, theories, and books over the previous three centuries regarding God’s creation in Genesis 1 and a couple of, it appears all one may do is decide, plant your flag, and skim joyfully in utter abandon and obedience to God, which is the likeliest method we’re speculated to learn God’s Phrase within the first place.

The issue with Morris’ arguments — and different creationists of his camp — is that they deal with the studying of scripture that conforms to their understanding of creation as each the one biblical choice and biblically historic. But, such literalism isn’t a product of hundreds of years of deciphering scripture, however of the rise of scientific methodology ensuing from the Enlightenment period solely within the final 400 years. Whereas Morris disregards Darwinism as a lens via which students and scientists should view geology and the Bible, he fails to quote modernity (with all of its scientific idea) because the very lens via which he subjugates the Bible. Walter Brueggemann, in his Interpretation commentary on Genesis, states,

As a lot as any a part of the Bible, this textual content has been caught within the unlucky battle of ‘modernism,’ in order that the ‘literalists’ and ‘rationalists’ have acted like the 2 moms of 1 Kings 3:16-28, almost able to have the textual content destroyed with a view to management it” (p. 25).

Studying the creation narrative with out forcing every day right into a 24-hour marvel was not distinctive to St. Augustine; even rabbis of the day argued that the creation narrative was extra liturgical and theological than literal. But when Augustine didn’t learn Darwin and nonetheless had room for a long-earth understanding of God’s creation in Genesis 1, and Morris is using a extra novel strategy to the interpretation of scripture that implicitly coerces the textual content to our (very human) understanding, than how would possibly we redeem the gorgeous motion of God’s creation to carry not debate however doxology and reward? Is there a method to sift via the science and scholarship and perceive creation in a method that doesn’t divorce the Bible from what we all know of science, the origins of the universe, and our world? Should we implicate a long-creation view as a view that “inevitably leads finally to finish apostasy” (Morris, 247), or would possibly we perceive the Bible with scientific remark that’s trustworthy to God our Creator as we’re co-stewards of creation with God that revisits the long-earth view of creation in its historic, theological context inherited from church fathers and moms corresponding to Augustine?

By now, I acquired phrase that I didn’t win a grant that may have offered a 12-week sabbatical deeper into the world of cosmology. As an alternative, I’ve deliberate an eight-week retreat in 2026 to focus by myself self-studies of cosmology. Between at times, nevertheless, I’m aspiring to dig deeper on this fantastic poetic textual content, maybe one of many biggest items of literature and theological treatises in all human historical past – Genesis 1 and a couple of – as I present stepping stones for readers as to the way to free definitively the textual content from its divisive, modern moorings.

With the entire debate, theories, and books over the previous three centuries regarding God’s creation in Genesis, it appears all one may do is to decide, plant your flag, and skim joyfully in utter abandon and obedience to God, which is the likeliest method we’re speculated to learn God’s Phrase within the first place. On the finish of the day, we’d like solely acknowledge that, of all of the issues we will say of Genesis 1, it’s that interpretations of creation gained’t be on any theological check to enter eternity. Actually, I’m positive that after we attain God, the entire debate could have pale like a protracted forgotten reminiscence.