Allen posted citations from Basil's _Hexaemeron_ in order to
show that he was a YEC. One would hardly be surprised that he and
others of the fathers thought that the earth was young since there was
no scientific evidence at all that it wasn't. To assume that they would
have said the same things today, with the wealth of scientific evidence
that exists for the great age of the earth and the universe, is an
insult to them. It is of a piece with thinking that Newton would still
insist on absolute space & time today, or that Jefferson, if alive in
21st century America, would be willing to tolerate slavery.
What is of greater interest is the fact that many of the fathers
saw clearly that Genesis teaches a mediated creation of life, with the
waters and the earth "bringing forth" living things when God willed it.
This is not biological evolution but the fundamental idea is crucial for
an evolutionary understanding of creation. & it contradicts the notion
that there must be something miraculous about the origin of living
things.
The views of the fathers (especially Ephrem, Gregory of Nyssa,
Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose & Augustine) was dealt with in detail in the
RC theologian Ernest C. Messenger's _Evolution and Theology_ (Macmillan,
NY, 1932). Unfortunately this book is very difficult to find. (I have
a copy xeroxed from the one at the U. of Iowa.)
Messenger argues, from a careful study of the writings of
Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa, that he came very close to an
evolutionary understanding of humanity: That it was necessary for the
human to pass succesively through stages of mere "vegetative" soul
through one with an "animate" soul before reaching the stage of the
rational soul and full humanity. Of course this is not modern
evolutionary theory but it suggests that Gregory might have been open to
evolutionary theories made convincing by science.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
Allen Roy wrote:
.........................
> Genesis means what it says according to
> great Church Father, Basil of Caesarea (AD 329–379)
>
> ...........................
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