Augustine on reading Genesis

From Confessions, Book XII, Chapter XVIII:

What harm is it to me, I ask again, if I think the writer had one meaning, someone else thinks he had another? All of us who read are trying to see and to grasp the meaning of the man we are reading: and given that we believe him a speaker of the truth, we should obviously not think that he was saying something that we know or think to be false. While therefore each one of us is trying to understand in the sacred writings what the writer meant by them, what harm if one accepts a meaning which You, Light of all true minds, show him to be in itself a true meaning, even if the author we are reading did not actually mean that by it: since his meaning also though different from mine, is true.

What's so fascinating to me about this quote is the kind of approach to scripture that it presents. Augustine was an educated man, and as he read scripture he wasn't about to throw all of that education aside as he read. On the contrary, it was precisely out of reverence for the scriptures that he read them against what he already knew or believed to be true.

I don't know if this means that if Augustine had lived in this era he would have found Darwinian evolution an acceptable theory. There are, after all, a number of philosophical issues to be worked out on that front. But it does suggest to me a general approach that ought to encourage more openness in the Church on the issue.

For a scientifically minded reader of Genesis, it would not be hard to see the pattern of seven days actually mirroring modern scientific theories: first light comes into existence (signifying an original burst of energy, a "big bang"), then stars and planets begin to form, then simple creatures and vegetation, then animals, and finally humans.

(One thing that's slightly off is that the sun doesn't appear until after the sky has formed and after plants have been placed on the ground. But this detail has been accounted for on numerous occasions: it is meant to inform surrounding pagan cultures that the Sun and stars are, in fact, no gods at all, but are completely subordinate to the true Creator God.)

Applying Augustine's point of view, this is perfectly legitimate. A scientist who wants to take both his own knowledge and the Bible seriously is free to do so. In fact, Augustine says, the question of what Moses actually thought is not strictly relevant (though it is helpful to try to figure out what exactly Moses meant). What matters is what's true, and what's true, Augustine says, should be counted as public property:

For what they say, they say not because they are godly men and have seen it in the mind of Your servant Moses, but because they are proud men: it is not that they know the opinion of Moses but that they love their own opinion, and this not because it is true but because it is their own. Otherwise they would have as much love for the truth uttered by another: just as I love what they say when they say truth--not because it is theirs but because it is truth: from the mere fact that it is true it ceases to be theirs. But if they love it because it is true, then it is not only theirs but mine too, it is the common property of all lovers of truth. (Book XII, Chapter XXV)

What's most fascinating to me about Augustine is how many different points of view he can entertain on just the first chapter of Genesis. Keep in mind that he was writing in the 4th century! Yet he deals with questions that most of us modern Christians don't even begin to ask, much less answer. I suspect there are both good and bad reasons for that, but my point is that things aren't nearly as simple with Genesis as they appear.

In modern dialogue about science and religion, Christians need a healthy way forward, and Augustine, writing 16 centuries ago, has already given it to us. Read scripture with reverence, but be open to different interpretations as we gain more understanding of the world around us. And always, always follow the rule of charity:

Let one be not puffed up against the other for another, above that which is written. Let us love the Lord our God with our whole heart and our whole soul and our whole mind and our neighbor as ourself. Whatever Moses meant in his books, he meant according to these two commandments of charity.... Now we see how foolish it is, in such a flood of true meanings which can come from those words, rashly to assert that Moses especially intended one or another of them, and in sinful contention to offend that charity by reason of which he, whose words we are seeking to explain, said all that he said. (Book XII, Chapter XXV)