It should not surprise us when Christians who wish to defend a view that is contrary to the Bible appeal, instead, to extra-Biblical sources. A perfect example would be Old Earth Creationists. Old Earth Creationism, of course, is completely contrary to the Bible. One doesn't need to do much more than read it to determine as much, and although the actual age of the earth is not directly stated, a little bit of math is all one needs to piece together the genealogies from Adam, who is just 6 days younger than the earth itself, all the way to Jesus, who was born a little over 2,000 years ago. From this, we get a rough age of 6,000 years.
"Not so!" say Old Earth Creationists. "We believe the Earth is much older than that!" Well ok, bring forth your Biblical evidence, and I will change my view. But alas, no such evidence can be found. Enter Augustine, a favourite figure for Old Earth Creationists to cite in their defence. In The Literal Meaning Of Genesis, Augustine writes: "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 in 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 learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although "they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.""
This is a lot to unpack. As a matter of fact, when I initially wrote this article, I sat for quite some time wondering exactly where to begin. Ultimately, I have decided to go through and break it down quote by quote.
"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something..."
Not even half a sentence in, and already we hit a problem. Augustine says a non-Christian usually knows something, but what he should have said is that, as is the way of man, they usually think they know something. Having spent more time in education than I ever intended to, I can tell you that you can enter a variety of classes with pre-existing opinions that will quite swiftly be challenged. The most noteworthy example I can think of comes from when I studied law. I went into the class with the opinion that assault is a physical attack on the person. If you hit someone, that is assault. Not so. It turns out, at least in British law (other jurisdictions may vary), assault is defined as an intentional act that puts another person "in fear of immediate harm". An assault does not require physical contact, and it turns out, even a silent phone call can be classed as an assault if it was intended to cause fear of immediate harm.
So, when I started my course, I thought I knew what assault was. It turned out I was wrong. What would the logical response have been? By the logic of those who misquote Augustine, it's perfectly rational for me, as a student, to hear that my pre-existing beliefs on assault were wrong, and thus reject the entire course, and so to stop me from failing the course, my teachers should have just left out the entire concept of assault, or at the very least accommodated my belief that assault required physical contact. In reality, the logical response is for the teachers to teach what is true, however hard it was for me to accept, and for me, as a student, to change my pre-existing views in order to pass the class. In the same way, an unbeliever might think they know a thing or two about origins, but that doesn't give us an excuse to lie about what God says about origins.
"...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."
Going back to the previous point for a moment, Augustine says that they hold to these things as being certain "from reason and experience". This, again, goes back to what was said previously. Reason can sometimes lead us to the wrong conclusion. Even a flat earther can reason, and they can be quite stubborn about it, too. That doesn't mean we should try to cram a flat earth model into the Bible. But more importantly, this part of the extract shows that Augustine is not even talking about origins. Rather, he is talking about what is called "operational" or "observational" science. No one knows from experience how the heavens and the earth came to be (except, ironically, the God whom OECs refuse to listen to). I was not there. You were not there. Hugh Ross, William Lane Craig and Matt Walsh were not there. Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye and Sam Harris were not there. The only currently living beings that experienced the origins of the heavens and the earth were God (Genesis 1:1) and the angels (Job 38:4-7). Thus, no matter how much one may insist that we have reason to believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old, the reasoning of an Old Earth Creationist is not more valid than the reasoning of a consistent, faithful, Bible-believing Christian. Quite the opposite: It is very bad reasoning for a young creature to claim he understands a history that occurred long before he was born better than the very God who orchestrated that history.
"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."
Here, I would agree. It's extremely dangerous for Christians to misuse scripture to present a bad view. But here's a thing Old Earth Creationists won't consider: A time might come (and indeed, is already here) when their own views fall into this category, even in the eyes of the world. See, science and philosophy are both changing fields. Science replaces old theories with new ones, and destroys old myths, as new evidence is brought to light, and philosophies tend to go through phases of death and reincarnation as culture shifts. In other words, a time may very well come when Old Earth philosophies drop out of popularity, and the culture will remember the time half of the Church stood so firmly upon them. The evidence already screams against them, and a significant portion of scientists are expressing their scepticism. Evolution may not outlast the century. What's your plan for that scenario? It is always better to stand on scripture, which never changes, and let science, which constantly changes for better or for worse, catch up.
"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."
The irony here is that people outside the household of faith are actually capable of reading. The Bible is not some mystical book that only the faithful are capable of unlocking. Unbelievers, assuming they are not willing to go out and purchase a physical copy, can now go online and get instant access to the Bible in any major language, completely free of charge. This is a triple edged sword. On the one hand, they can read it and see what it does say, and if they don't like it, they can deride its authors. On the other hand, they can twist what it says, and deride its authors on that basis. But the scariest possibility, and one which I have personally found myself in, is that an Old Earth Creationist might encounter an unbeliever who has read it, tell them "the Bible doesn't actually teach...", and be shown by said unbeliever exactly where the Bible teaches what he was just told it doesn't. In this scenario, we don't have a case of a Christian telling the unbeliever something they don't believe and having the Bible rejected because they think that's what the Bible teaches. No, we have the Christian telling the unbeliever what they do already believe, and having the Bible rejected because they now see that not even the Christian believes it. It is significantly harder to convince someone of what you, yourself, do not hold to be true. If an Evolutionist sees that you don't believe the Bible, you don't have much hope of convincing them that they should either.
"If they find a Christian mistaken in a field in which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books..."
It is significant that they, themselves, know the pertinent field well, because this goes even further than just science and history (origins is a historical issue, not a scientific one). I don't know many OECs who reject the Trinity, for example. But what if the field which the unbeliever knows well is his own version of theology? Muslims, for example, mock the Trinity. "So, you believe 1 + 1 + 1 = 1?" Should we therefore reject the doctrine of the Trinity, lest said Muslim finds a Christian "mistaken" in a field which they, themselves, know well, and hear him maintaining his "foolish" opinions about our books? You can't win, Old Earthers! If you reject one clear doctrine, you might as well reject the whole of scripture, because it is flooded with things only the faithful will readily accept.
"...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 learnt from experience and the light of reason?"
Scientifically speaking, do the dead rise? The same "science", which OECs insist proves the Earth is older than 6,000 years old, indisputably proves that death is permanent. If you lie in a tomb rotting for three days, you are not going to get up and walk with nothing but a few holes in your limbs and a scar on your side. Thus, ironically, the resurrection itself is one such thing that unbelievers find strange. So is the virgin birth. So is Jesus walking on water. Any time you find a miracle in the Bible, you have found something that atheists, in particular, are going to scoff at. So, effectively, OECs are telling us we should reject the parts of the Bible unbelievers find silly in the hope that they will accept other parts of the Bible that they also find silly. Does this make any kind of sense what so ever? It is using Augustine's logic to deny the very things Augustine is trying to defend!
"Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books."
Absolutely true. I remember a "discussion" I had with three atheists. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, and they were mocking Creationism, but here's where it gets frustrating: They sarcastically remarked "but of course, that's not literal, is it?" They not only automatically assumed I, too, am an Old Earth Creationist, but they mocked Old Earth Creationism because it's so clearly not what the Bible says. Did Old Earth Creationism convince them to become Christians? No, it absolutely did not. They are not bound by the authority of our sacred books, and so they can afford to let those books say what they say even when they think they can disprove it. Thus, all it did was harden them against Christianity because they believed not even Christians believed the Bible. Old Earth Creationism only gave them ammunition against Christianity.
Richard Dawkins agrees. He stated "I think the evangelical Christians have really sort of got it right in a way, in seeing evolution as the enemy. Whereas the more, what shall we say, sophisticated theologians are quite happy to live with Evolution, I think they’re deluded." Dawkins, of course, has very little respect for Biblical Creationists, but it's clear that he has even less respect for compromisers. And of course, who are his followers more likely to listen to?
"For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements..."
The earth is flat. This is a foolish and obviously untrue statement. The sun sets in a pool of murky water. This is a foolish and obviously untrue statement. The sky is solid. This is a foolish and obviously untrue statement. All of these foolish and obviously untrue statements can be easily refuted by observation, and are thankfully not taught in the Bible. But the earth was created in 6 days, roughly 6,000 years ago, is neither a foolish statement, nor is it obviously untrue. It is a statement of history, a statement that has been believed by many Jews and Christians (including Augustine himself, as we'll see in a moment) for at least 3,400 years, and it can neither be proven nor disproven without a time machine, which at this point in time, no one seems to have access to. Thus, this whole extract is wholly inadequate as a defence of Old Earth Creationism.
"...they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although "they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.""
Let us consider the words of Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." And the words of Solomon in Proverbs 30:5 "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him." And the words of Christ Himself in Matthew 4:4: "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Scripture is not a trivial thing in the Christian faith. That which the scriptures say, that is what God intends for the reader to believe.
Now, can they be taken out of context? Absolutely. Old Earthers are living proof of this. But can it be said that Creationists are somehow abusing the scriptures when we cite it in defence of our views? Absolutely not. See, when correcting an error, it's usually not difficult, and is certainly not impossible, to correct that error. If someone says, for example, that the Bible teaches that the Earth is flat because it says Satan took Jesus to a high mountain and showed Him "all the kingdoms of the world", we can put this back into context by pointing out that there are multiple different definitions of the word "world", not all of which pertain to the entire planet. Rather, "world" can also mean a specific region. We talk about the "Western world" and the "third world" and "the insect world" etc. We don't mean there's an entire planet hovering above America, we don't mean there are three planets, and we don't mean there's an entire planet populated by ants. In the same way, when Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of the "world", He was shown a specific region that could easily be seen from the top of the mountain, Lion King style.
In the same way, if OECs want us to believe that Genesis 1-11, and every reference to it in the rest of the scriptures, are not historical narrative, there must be some kind of alternative interpretation that was available to its original audience. Alas, to this day, not a single valid interpretation has been provided. Old Earth Creationism remains more about telling us what the Bible supposedly does not say, in order to cater to atheists, than about telling us what it does say in order to reach the lost or feed the flock.
Although I have written the above as if I were responding to Augustine as an Old Earth Creationist, the fact is I'm not. Whereas Augustine is a popular figurehead for Old Earth Creationists, He would throw a fit if we could resurrect him and tell him that today. In De Civitate Dei, Augustine wrote "They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed". (emphasis mine). We see, then, that Augustine would oppose anyone today who claims the earth is older than 7,500 years (keeping in mind he died in 430 A.D.). He actually went as far as to call any document that professed a history of many thousands of years "mendacious". Clearly he didn't see these as holding a candle to the Holy scriptures.
But most importantly, Augustine did not see his own works as Holy scriptures. Far from it, Augustine submitted himself to God, but recognised that he, like any man, was capable of sin and error. He would never advocate attempting to change them just to please unbelievers. And for good reason: It doesn't work. Those who believe the scriptures are foolish will always believe the scriptures are foolish. 1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Will you convince them otherwise by changing it? Far from it! To quote WWUTT, "What you win them with is what you win them to." If you win converts by watering down Christianity, you win them to a watered down version of Christianity.
Now, the Doctrine of Creation is not an essential doctrine. God isn't going to look at someone who has professed belief in the death, resurrection and Lordship of Jesus and say "that's cool and all, but you believed Lyell more than Moses, so burn in Hell." However, though it is not an essential issue, it is an important issue. It is an issue upon which the Gospel is founded, it is an issue on which other doctrines are founded, it is an issue pertinent to the inerrancy of scripture, it is an issue on which the faith of some people stands or falls. Old Earth Creationism is an abominable heresy that needs to die. Augustine cannot rescue it, nor would he even want to. Those who use the extract we have examined today in order to undermine Creationism are dishonoring the man who wrote it, and standing in open rebellion to the God who both created the heavens and the earth, and told us how.