Denis Alexander and St. Augustine of Hippo

In a recent interview aired by BBC on Friday the sixth on the show Belief, a Christian biochemist, Denis Alexander, talked about the compatibility of science and faith.  He made what I think was a misleading statement about Augustine.

His statement was that Augustine was using figurative language when he talked about referred to Old Testament stories of the creation.  While this is technically true, Augustine made it clear that figurative interpretation didn't contradict literal interpretation.  Hence Augustine's figurative interpretation tells us nothing about whether or not he believed that the stories were literally true.  See City of God book 15 chapter 27.

In fact in book 12 chapter 10 of the same work, Augustine states that the world was not more than 6,000 years old during his lifetime.  In this he seems to be off by five or six zeros.  This would definitely classify Augustine as a young earth creationist.

Augustine seems to have believed that the biblical stories of the creation, Adam and Eve and the Flood were all historical events that really happened.  If a contemporary Christian wants to say that in his or her interpretation of the Bible that these stories are not to be taken as literal fact, they are free to do so, but it if someone is going to claim that Christians never believed anything different, then they are either mistaken or dishonest.  Augustine clearly did.

If you would like to listen to an audio version of St. Augustine's City of God, there is one available at Librivox here.