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Theistic evolutionists often claim that paragraph IV allows them leeway for their belief in biological macroevolution because there was not a strict consensus of the Fathers in relation to the Creation period consisting of six, twenty four hour days. Whilst the overwhelming majority of the Fathers did believe in the distinction of six, natural days a minority of Fathers believed that the six days represented a certain space of time, or hierarchy, of instantaneous Creation as revealed to the angels. Theistic evolutionists are mistaken in this regard because none of the Fathers believed that the Creation period was of a duration any longer than six, natural days. The sought for consensus lay in that respect and constitutes the traditional belief of the Church throughout the ages; a belief proclaimed by Popes, Doctors, Scholastics and the humblest peasant.
Likewise, paragraph VIII is also claimed by theistic evolutionists to allow leeway for an unorthodox belief in billion year ages for the Earth, an absolutely necessary requirement for the evolutionary concept within the natural sciences. It is clearly the consensus of the Fathers that Creation took no longer than six, natural days and so the claim is without Patristic foundation and therefore invalid. Furthermore, Kolbe Center Advisory Council member Robert Sungenis, Ph.D, tells us that:
*…the word “day” is used in Num 20:15, but it is the Hebrew plural YOMIM (“days”), followed by the quantitative adjective RABBIM, which means “many.” In other words, the translation says “long time” because it IS a long time. It is “many days” in Hebrew. But that is not the word used in Genesis 1. Each reference to YOM in Genesis 1 is singular, referring to one day, with no adjectives.
As for the meaning of YOM in Genesis, the textual and grammatical evidence is quite overwhelming that it refers to one solar day of 24 hours. First, whenever YOM is used with an ordinal number in Scripture, it never refers to an indefinite or long period of time. In Genesis 1, there are six ordinal numbers enumerated: the first day…the second day…the third day…and so on to the sixth day. There is no instance in Hebrew grammar in which “day” preceded by an ordinal number is understood figuratively or as a long period of time. One of the most famous Hebrew grammars known to scholars, Gesenisus’ Hebrew Grammar, elaborates on this point (Editor E. Kautzsch, second English edition, revised by A. E. Crowley, 1980, pp. 287-292; 432-437).
The most conclusive evidence that the word “day” in Genesis 1 is to be interpreted literally as a 24-hour period is confirmed by the consistent use of the phrase “and there was evening and morning,” which appears in each of the days of Creation (cf., Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). The use of “evening and morning” in Scripture shows that it always refers to the sequence of darkness and light comprising a single period of a day, a 24 hour period. Outside of Genesis, there are only eight appearances of “evening and morning” in Scripture (cf., Ex 16:8-13; 27:21; 29:39; Lv 24:3; Nm 9:21; Dan 8:26).
There are some cases in which the words “morning” or “evening” appear separately with the word “day,” some of which refer to a literal solar day and some which are indefinite of time. But in Genesis, and the other aforementioned passages “evening and morning” are coupled together and are specified as one unit of time.
If the writer of Genesis intended to teach that YOM meant an indefinite period of time, such that he desired to convey long ages of process and change, he had numerous ways to convey such an idea. He could have used the plural YOMIM, as Mr. Young suggested of Num 20:15, or as Moses does in Genesis 1:14 (“let them be for days and for years”) or Genesis 3:14 (“dust shall you eat all the days of your life”). But even then we must interject that, of the 702 uses of the plural YOMIM in the Old Testament, literal days are always in view.
As an alternative, the writer could have connected YOM with other Hebrew words of indefiniteness, such as DOR, OLAM, NETSACH, TAMID, or any of a dozen similar words and concepts in Hebrew. But the writer of Genesis 1 chose none of these possibilities; rather, he chose the most specific phrase for a 24-hour day that one can find in the Hebrew Scriptures.* [4]
Although strictly speaking the Church has not issued a dogmatic statement specifically condemning the idea of biological macroevolution the entertaining of such an idea is implicitly ruled out by…
