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Originally Posted by ColdSilverMoon  Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivanhoe Quote:
Originally Posted by greenbaggins
But Augustine did not believe in an old earth. He actually believed that God created it all in a single moment. Old earthers cannot use Augustine as a handle to say "old earth views predate evolution."
| Indeed. Augustine is the most extreme YECer. My view of creation is actually 5 days older than his! | I think you're missing the point. I never said Augustine had an old earth view. I said he viewed the Genesis 1 chronology as metaphorical rather than literal. My post was in response to Bob V, who claimed that the only reason not to believe in 6 24 hr days is to accomodate evolutionary theory. My point in bringing up Augstine is that the exact chronology of Genesis 1 has always been debated. Other pre-Darwin theologians have also questioned the literal 24 hr period. William Perkins, a 16th century Puritan, argued that creation took place in "six distinct spaces of time" rather than 6 actual day-night rotations. And as I mentioned in my first post, Calvin at least acknowledged there was room for debate on the issue, though he believed the literal 24-hr period view. So the debate over the Genesis 1 has indeed raged for centuries, well before Darwin and evolution. |
Augustine still illustrates the problem that mdoern OECers have to deal with: Augustine was imposing anti-biblical presuppositions on the text. Augustine, given his neo-platonism, really couldn't see how God could get involved in something as messy as time and creaiton. But he knew that Biblical theology forced him to affirm that God did get involved in time and creation. So he compromised.
My point is not that Augustine is an extreme YECer, but like non-YECers, he is imposing unbibiblical systems onto the text.