Misquoting Augustine, Revisited

A number of months ago I posted several times on the misuse of Augustine by Theistic evolutionists.   The gist of the posts, here, here and here, was that Augustine's "Literal Meaning Of Genesis", often quoted in a way that implies Augustine would have approved of reading Genesis 1-11 in a non-historical manner.  I countered with extensive quotations from City of God that showed Augustine was very insistent that Genesis was true history, and more specifically, that if there is an allegorical meaning or spiritual meaning, that always is parellel to and not in opposition to the historical.

Australian Creationist organization Creation.com is one Young Earth Creation site that I frequent, along with certain ID and Theistic Evolution sites to keep myself up to speed on things. 

This article profiles Professor Benno Zuiddam who teaches theology at North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa.  He essentially makes the same point, that yes, some early church fathers believe there was an allegorical meaning in the Old Testament, but that allegorical meaning did not negate the historical truth of the events. 



Key quotes:

Some opponents of a straightforward understanding of Genesis have conceded that a majority believed this, but they assert there were a few who treated Genesis as allegory. Dr Zuiddam points out a vital fact that these critics miss: their allegorical interpretation was mostly in addition to the plain historical meaning, seldom a replacement. For example, when the Jewish scholar Philo “speaks about creation, he uses words like: ‘an account of events recorded in the history of the creation of the world’, ‘for the sacred historian’ and a ‘beautifully created’ world. When he speaks about the days of creation in his commentary on Exodus (e.g. Exodus 20:11 and 31:17), he takes Genesis 1 as normal history. Indeed, he excluded Genesis 1 from his two series of allegorical commentaries.”

Origen in particular is a favorite of TE critics of more conservative views.   Origen, however was not at all in the mainstream of what most church fathers taught - his allegorism was rather frowned upon until moderns found him useful, even so:

“Although he treats several events in early Genesis symbolically, he was convinced that Moses teaches that the world was not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that.” 

I do understand scholars have every right to ask questions and propose ideas.  But one would expect from Christian scholars a bit more honesty.   There is no precedent in church history for the Theistic Evolution viewpoint and using the church fathers to bolster a Darwinian orthodoxy borne of the assumptions of naturalism is not honest.