While the most straight forward interpretation of Genesis 1 is that there were six twenty four hour days in which God created the heavens and the earth, St Augustine (through careful study of both Genesis 1 and 2) believed that we do not need to think that the world was literally created in six days. St Thomas Aquinas follows St Augustine in this theory - which, reflected against modern scientific investigation, would allow for an initial creation of matter with the gradual development of galaxies and planets, and even the gradual emergence of life and plant/animal species through billions of years.
There is nothing in Genesis or in the Catholic Understanding of Creation which is contradicted by modern scientific theories.
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High School Youth Group – Fall 2020 – The Catholic
Response to Atheism
December 13th - Session 7 – The Catholic Understanding of
the Creation Account
“The fool hath said in his heart: There is no
God.” -Psalm 13:1
I. Calendar: December 20th,
Last Class of Fall, resuming January 10th and continuing until May 2nd.
II. The Creation Account(s)
Genesis 1:1-2:3, “In the
beginning God created heaven and earth, and the earth was void and empty, and
darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the
waters.”
Day 1: Light; Day 2: Firmament, division of waters above
and below; Day 3: Dry land “earth” and “seas” and every sort of plant; Day 4:
Day and night, sun and moon and stars; Day 5: fish and fowl; Day 6: beast and
man and woman; Day 7: Rest “sabbath”.
“There was evening and morning,
one day”
Genesis 2:4-25, “These are the
generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day
that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth.”
“Every plant of the field before
it sprung up in the earth … but a spring rose out of the earth, watering all
the surface of the earth … and the Lord God formed man of the slime of the
earth … and the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees … and
the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone … and the Lord God formed
out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air …”
III. Various Interpretations
Related to Time
A. The story of the “six days” of
Creation: 1 Light, 2 Firmament, 3 Land and plants, 4 Sun and moon, 5 Fish and
birds, 6 beasts and man. But Genesis 2
says “in the day” that God created the world, not six days. And makes the seeds
of all plants, but nothing buds forth until after man is created, and only then
are the animals created. And then, finally, woman.
B. Nearly every Church Father
interprets the “days” of Genesis 1 as referring to a passage of time – either
of 24hrs or of thousands of years.
C. However, there is a
difficulty: If we take the more common approach and say that a day is a
thousand years or a billion years, then it is all the more difficult to explain
how plants were created and lived on day 3 but the sun was not created till day
4! Do we want to claim that plans lived
a billion years, or even 1,000 years without the sun?! Or again, must we affirm that every type of
fish and every bird existed before any sort of land animal began to exist, and
even existed 1,000 or 1,000,000,000 years before any land animal existed?! Some Catholics say that we have to believe
that the universe was literally created in six days, but I am not so sure – and
neither are St Augustine or St Thomas Aquinas.
IV. St Augustine and St Thomas
Aquinas
A. St Augustine seems to be
entirely original and unique in his interpretation of the “six days” – every
other Father of the Church, and nearly every other theologian tries to
interpret the “days” as measurements of time (whether 24 hrs or millions of
years). St Augustine sees them as “literally” being metaphors for how the
angels came to understand creation. The “evening” is natural angelic knowledge;
the “morning” is divine beatific knowledge.
B. Explanation of how this
interpretation is not allegorical or spiritual, but truly literal. St Augustine doesn’t see this as a metaphor
or a parable, much less as a spiritual interpretation of the text – rather,
this is a literal description of the ordering of all creation according to type
and category; but not according to historical chronology.
C. How St Augustine comes to this
from the study of the Biblical text (reference his commentary on Genesis), and
how this also solves all the modern “scientific” objections to Genesis 1. Notice that Genesis 2 speaks of “the day”
while Genesis 1 speaks of 7 days in which the Earth was created. Also, notice
the differences in the order of creation.
D. St Thomas seems to agree with
St Augustine, even though every other Father says otherwise – and again, St
Thomas is not responding to science, but recognizing the nuances of Scripture.
E. Brief note on the creation of
the angels: “Let there be light,” St
Augustine speculates that this could reference the creation of the angels, or
“when God created the heavens” could refer to all the angelic spirits. The angels were all created in the state of
grace, but did not enjoy the beatific vision. The angels were given a choice,
either to serve God in the mystery of the incarnation or to rebel – Satan and
his angels decided that it was better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven,
and so they fell. But the good angels accepted God’s plan for the salvation of
men, and so entered into eternal glory.
V. St Augustine and Evolution
A. While St Augustine would not
support modern ideas of evolution developed from Darwin (and neither would I),
he does have a basic understanding of species of creatures slowly emerging in
the world.
B. St Augustine believed that God had planted “seeds” in the Earth which would
develop into all the various species of creatures throughout the [billions of]
years of existence. And, before any
laugh at the idea that all the species are “seeds” in the Earth, St Augustine
is using the word “seed” or “semina” in a metaphysical sense, not to mean a
physical plant seed but referring to the causal principal of a nature or
species. It was not until Darwin that
people actually entertained the outrageous belief that plant seeds could become
fish and that fish could become monkeys and that monkeys could become human
beings – St Augustine was never as foolishly imaginative as modern
“scientists.”
