Augustine and creation?

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St. Augustine says that creation was all at once.

The division of days is for teaching reasons.

What are the Biblical passages that would help explain this?

I hope that there are some. I am not sure if Augustine gives them, sorry.

Thanks!
 
Jim_Baur said:
Any help?
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keep well away from his weird notions on creation or else be reminded that he also wrote the following “but as to the fable that there are Antipodes,that is to say ,men on the opposite side of the earth,when the sun rises when it sets to us,men who walk with their feet opposite ours,that is on no ground credible”.This view, he claimed,was condemned by reason and Scripture[Daylight No.6] - twinc
 
The topic of antipodes that twinc mentioned above can be found in the catholic encyclopedia at newadvent.org/cathen/01581a.htm

Augustine’s opinion on this was commonly held at that time.

As for creation happening all at once, I wouldn’t say that it is out of the realm of possibility since God would definitely be capable of doing that if he willed. But I am not familiar with any biblical sources that would support that line of thought.

Which work of Augustine does he argue creation happened all at once?
 
praise_Jesus said:
The topic of antipodes that twinc mentioned above can be found in the catholic encyclopedia at newadvent.org/cathen/01581a.htm

Augustine’s opinion on this was commonly held at that time.

As for creation happening all at once, I wouldn’t say that it is out of the realm of possibility since God would definitely be capable of doing that if he willed. But I am not familiar with any biblical sources that would support that line of thought.

Which work of Augustine does he argue creation happened all at once?
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It could well be he got it from the Bible and his conclusions are as per the Bible for with God all things would have been created ex nihilo and in an instant but on different days exactly as stated in Genesis - twinc
 
I believe Augustine holds the position that all was created in the Word and thus all at once.

Any help?

Thanks
 
Jim_Baur said:
I believe Augustine holds the position that all was created in the Word and thus all at once.

Any help?

Thanks
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He was advancing the position that every potential was created immediately.

Which in light of the DNA code could make some sense. God created the language of DNA and set it forth in the kinds and voila we now have diversity of life.
 
Wouldn’t it be easier just to go get St. Augustine’s books on Genesis, and read the parts that are about the Creation story? If you go to a good library, or if you have inter-library loan, you can probably get his books in translation without even giving all your bucks to a bookstore. If you still have questions after that, I’m sure you can read the man’s sermons and such, and the Quaestiones, and so on and so forth.

I mean, asking about Augie’s views on Creation is like asking people to explain all Stephen King’s writings about monsters in one sentence. There’s no way of giving you the Cliff Notes version. He’s prolific.

Re: antipodes

Yeah, that was a science/natural philosophy argument, and Augustine was actually broader-minded about it than most of the secular and pagan folks involved. Pretty much nobody thought there was anybody alive south of the Sahara. This is because Romans didn’t ever go around the Horn – or if they did, the sailors involved kept their mouths shut about their great trade route to India and points east. (The inland Silk Road was the usual way to go.) If there ever was such a route, Muslim pirates on the Indian Ocean side surely blocked it good and hard after the 6th or 7th century. So no point using anything but the Silk Road, if you could manage that.

Of course, this didn’t stop St. Albert the Great from thoroughly enjoying the fact that he could prove that St. Augustine was wrong in parts of this antipodes theory. Medieval scholars were just a tad competitive. 🙂

The Antipodes question wasn’t really thoroughly thrashed out until South America and Australia were discovered, though. So enjoyable as it is to point out where St. Augie made mistakes, this one isn’t his fault.
 
Thanks for all of the help and ideas.

I am not a scholar, but do study a great deal. I am a student, but not a scholar.

I have read his books at least two times.

Part of his book I have read, outlined,studied and reviewed the note several times.

It is a very difficult book for me.
 
Merry Christmas, Jim Baur!

In his, , 7:28The Literal Meaning of Genesis: An Unfinished Book, Augustine quotes from Sirach 18:1, “He Who lives forever created all things simultaneously” (Latin: “Qui manet in aeternum creavit omnia simul”), and this understanding of this verse becomes one of his interpretive keys to Genesis 1. Likewise, in, , Bk. 5, 3:6On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, he quotes from this verse in Sirach again as he is working out the meaning of Genesis 2:4.

Augustine understands “the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens” of 2:4 to be the only “day,” and to be repeated over the course of the six “days” of Genesis 1. After quoting Genesis 2:4, he says, “[n]ow surely gains more influence the view that God created a single day, from which six or seven days could be enumerated because of the repetition of that single day” (Bk. 5, 1:1). In Book 4, 33:52 of the same work he suggests that the Scriptures break down the simultaneity of creation over the course of a six day narrative in consideration of our slowness of mind, to bring us to comprehend this unspeakable event over the course of manageable steps.

However, in Book 6 (see 5:7 and 6:10) he explains that the events taking place in Genesis 2 – the planting of the garden, the naming of the animals, etc. – do not belong to the creative activity described in the six days of Genesis 1 because, in the second narration, the events described require a passage of time. And so he refers these things to the Father’s work that continues even to this day (cf. John 5:17), and he understands any double narratives of overlapping subjects (such as the creation of male and female on the sixth day of Chapter 1, and then again at the planting of the garden in Chapter 2) to be in some way their creation in potentiality and causality during the primordial “days” of Genesis 1, and in another way their creation in actuality during the normal course of history narrated in Genesis 2.

So the answer to your question about why Augustine understood creation as being all at once is, for the most part, Genesis 2:4 and Sirach 18:1. He seems to have supplied additional reasons (such as the relationship that exists between the creative “words” of Genesis 1 and the Eternal Creator-Word), but I am afraid to add them here lest I misrepresent Augustine even more than I may have already done. My warning to you is that I am working with languages that I do not know, and with works of Augustine that I have not read in their entirety. If I am wrong even in what I have presented here, I am sorry to have misled anyone and to have misrepresented this great Saint, and I hope that someone will come behind me and correct my errors. 🙂

May the LORD be with you!
Pete
 
Merry Christmas, Jim Baur!

In his, , 7:28The Literal Meaning of Genesis: An Unfinished Book, Augustine quotes from Sirach 18:1, “He Who lives forever created all things simultaneously” (Latin: “Qui manet in aeternum creavit omnia simul”), and this understanding of this verse becomes one of his interpretive keys to Genesis 1. Likewise, in, , Bk. 5, 3:6On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, he quotes from this verse in Sirach again as he is working out the meaning of Genesis 2:4.

Augustine understands “the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens” of 2:4 to be the only “day,” and to be repeated over the course of the six “days” of Genesis 1. After quoting Genesis 2:4, he says, “[n]ow surely gains more influence the view that God created a single day, from which six or seven days could be enumerated because of the repetition of that single day” (Bk. 5, 1:1). In Book 4, 33:52 of the same work he suggests that the Scriptures break down the simultaneity of creation over the course of a six day narrative in consideration of our slowness of mind, to bring us to comprehend this unspeakable event over the course of manageable steps.

However, in Book 6 (see 5:7 and 6:10) he explains that the events taking place in Genesis 2 – the planting of the garden, the naming of the animals, etc. – do not belong to the creative activity described in the six days of Genesis 1 because, in the second narration, the events described require a passage of time. And so he refers these things to the Father’s work that continues even to this day (cf. John 5:17), and he understands the double narratives of overlapping subjects (such as the creation of male and female on the sixth day of Chapter 1, and then again at the planting of the garden in Chapter 2) to be indicators that the things created during the primordial “days” of Genesis 1 were created in some way in potentiality and causality. And during the normal course of history narrated in Genesis 2, this created potential unfolds into a greater actuality. However, in dividing things in this way, it must be appreciated that the seed-like reality of everything that exists, existed from the first moment of creation.

So the answer to your question about why Augustine understood creation as being all at once is, for the most part, Genesis 2:4 and Sirach 18:1. He seems to have supplied additional reasons, such as (1) the relationship that exists between the creative “words” of Genesis 1 and the Eternal Creator-Word, and (2) the fact that the first day of creation is not referred to as the “first day,” but as “one day” (Genesis 1:5); but I am afraid to elaborate on them here lest I misrepresent Augustine even more than I may have already done. My warning to you is that I am working with languages that I do not know, and with works of Augustine that I have not read in their entirety. If I am wrong even in what I have presented here, I am sorry to have misled anyone and to have misrepresented this great Saint, and I hope that someone will come behind me and correct my errors. 🙂

May the LORD be with you!
Pete
 
Pete

Thank you so much for the great help.

I will have to read your post several times. The first reading really helped. I am sure with further study it will help even more.

Thanks!
 
Pete

The NAB does not translate Sirach 18: 1 the way that the Latin does.

Any help?

Thanks!

Again, thanks for your help!
 
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