Today the intermural debate rages between evangelicals over the creation of the earth (did God create the earth in six twenty-four hour days or did God employ evolution and take hundreds of thousands of years). This debate is closely tied to the age of the planet (is the earth young because God created it in six twenty-four days or is the earth old because God utilized evolution). It will be helpful to examine what the early church fathers believed and argued for.
Alister E. McGrath dated the Patristic period from 100-451 A.D. and basically equated the terms patristic and church fathers. McGrath wrote, “The term ‘patristic’ comes from the Latin word pater, ‘father,’ and designates both the period of the church fathers and the distinctive ideas which came to develop within this period.”[1]
Scholars have noted a marked difference between the church fathers from the east and west. McGrath wrote that the Church fathers from the east “are often philosophically inclined and given to theological speculation, whereas the latter [church fathers from the west] are often hostile to the intrusion of philosophy into theology, and regard theology as the exploration of the doctrines set out in Scripture. The famous rhetorical question of the western theologian Tertullian (c.160–c.225), ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? or the Academy with the church?’ illustrates this point.”[2]
The church fathers did not express their views about creation and the age of the earth in a vacuum. The church fathers especially from the west were contending with the pagan philosophies of their day very much like contemporary evangelicals are contending with the popularity of evolution. The early church fathers were teaching their views in opposition to Greek cosmogonies and Greek philosophies. For example, “Anaximander (611-547 B.C.) believed man descended from fishes; and Empedocles (490-435 B.C.) has been called ‘the father of evolution.’”[3]
Latin church father Hippolytus (A.D. 170-225) who was a presbyter in Rome exposed “Hippasus of Metapontum and Heraclitus the Ephesian [who] declared the origins of things to be from fire, whereas Anaximander from air, but Thales from water, and Xenophanes from earth.”[4]
Many church fathers taught a young earth view which was created in six twenty-four days. Lactantius (A.D. 250-325) was an advisor to Roman emperor, Constantine I refuted “Plato and many others of the philosophers, since they were ignorant of the origin of all things, and of that primal period at which the world was made, [who] said that many thousands of ages had passed since this beautiful arrangement of the world was completed .... Cicero has related in his first book respecting divination, foolishly say that they possess comprised in their memorial four hundred and seventy thousand years .... Let the philosophers, who enumerate thousand ages from the beginning of the world, know that six thousandth year is not yet completed.... [and] God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days.”[5] As noted earlier, Lactantius polemically defended his views by opposing old earth philosophers: “let him perceive that the philosophers have erred, who thought either that this world was eternal, or that there would be numberless thousands of years from the time when it was prepared. For six thousand years have not yet been completed, and when this number shall be made up, then at length all evil will be taken away, that justice alone may reign.”[6]
Basil of Caesarea, one of the Cappadocian Fathers also expressed his view of six twenty-four days of creation when he wrote, “And the evening and the morning were one day .... Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day mean of a day and of a night .... God who made the nature of time measured it out and determined it by the week to revolve from period to period upon itself, to count the movement of time, forming the week of one day revolving seven times upon itself.”[7]
Augustine believed based on Genesis 2:4 that God created everything in one day or “even in one moment of time.”[8] He also advocated a young earth: “They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6,000 years have yet passed.”[9] Augustine argued against an old earth view: “In vain, then do some babble with most empty presumption, say that Egypt has understood the reckoning of the stars for more than a hundred thousand years. For in what books have they collected that number .... For as it is not yet six thousand years since the first man, who called Adam, are not those to be ridiculed that than refuted who try to persuade us of anything regarding a space of time so different from, and contrary to, the ascertained truth?[10] James R. Mook observed that “Augustine was the climax of the mainstream majority young-earth creationist patristic tradition.”[11]
The early church fathers also adhered to a premillennial view based on the typological interpretation of the six days of creation which was founded on Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8: “with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” Mook states “that each day of creation typified a period of one thousand years in the future history of the earth.”[12] Lactantius advocated a thousand-year reign following the six thousand years based on God resting on the seventh day: “And again, since God, having finished His works, rested the seventh day and blessed it, at the end of the six thousandth year all wickedness must be abolished from the earth and righteousness reign for a thousand years.”[13]
What the early church fathers wrote and defended is important. It is part of what is referred to as “The Great Tradition.” What is more important than what the church fathers expounded on is what the apostolic fathers wrote in the New Testament and the authors of the Old Testament. For example, Todd S. Beall reminds us that “In Matthew 19:4-6, Jesus referred to creation found in Genesis 1 and 2. Paul referenced Adam, Eve, and the fall in 1 Timothy 2:13-14. Peter also referred to Genesis 6-8 and the flood in 2 Peter 3:5-6.[14] I will expand on this in the next post.
[1] Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology (p. 17). Wiley. Kindle Edition.
[2] Ibid., 18.
[3] James R. Mook, “The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth,” in Coming to Grips with Genesis (Green Forest: Mater Books, 2008), 26. This article is basically a review of the chapter just cited written by James R. Mook.
[4] Hippolytus, Refuation of all Heresies 10.2, in Alexamder Roberts, James Donaldson, Philip Schall, Henry Wace, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 19 vols (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994 reprint ed.), vol 5.
[5]Lactantius, Institutes 7.14, in ANF, vol. 7.
[6] Lactantius, Epitome of the Divine Institutes, 70, in ANF, VOL. 7.
[7] Basil, Hexaemeron 9.1, in NPNF2, vol. 8.
[8] Augustine, The Catechizing of the Uninstructed 17.28, in NPNFI, vol. 3.
[9] Augustine, The City of God 12.10, in NPNF1, vol. 2.
[10] Ibid., 18.40.
[11] James R. Mook, “The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth” in Coming to Grips with Genesis, 48.
[12] James R. Mook, “The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth,” 39.
[13] Lactantius, The Divine Institutes 7.14 in ANF, vol. 7.
[14] Todd S. Beall, Coming to Grips with Genesis, 162.