Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy

by Gavin Ortlund

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2020

How might premodern exegesis of Genesis inform Christian debates about creation today?

Imagine a table with three people in dialogue: a young-earth creationist, an old-earth creationist, and an evolutionary creationist. Into the room walks Augustine of Hippo, one of the most significant theologians in the history of the church. In what ways will his reading of Scripture and his doctrine of creation inform, deepen, and shape the conversation?

Pastor and theologian Gavin Ortlund explores just such a scenario by retrieving Augustine’s reading of Genesis 1-3 and considering how his premodern understanding of creation can help Christians today. Ortlund contends that while Augustine’s hermeneutical approach and theological questions might differ from those of today, this church father’s humility before Scripture and his theological conclusions can shed light on matters such as evolution, animal death, and the historical Adam and Eve.

Have a seat. Join the conversation.

Key Features

• Explores Augustine’s reading of Genesis 1-3
• Considers how his premodern understanding of creation can help Christians today
• Presents a dialogue between multiple perspectives

Contents

• Introduction: Can Creation Debates Find Their Rest in Augustine?
• What We Forget About Creation: How Augustine Can Broaden Our Horizon of Concerns
• The Missing Virtue in Science-Faith Dialogue: Augustine on the Importance of Humility
• Settling an Age-Old Debate: Augustine on the Literal Meaning of Genesis 1
• “In Praise of Ashes and Dung”: Augustine on Animal Death
• Can You Evolve on Evolution Without Falling from the Fall? Augustine on Adam and Eve
• Conclusion: How Augustine Might Influence the Creation Debate

Top Highlights

“Augustine stacks up paradoxes implicit in the God-world relation to emphasize the dilemma of his situation: God is the essence of creaturely happiness, and simultaneously beyond creaturely capacity. We were made for God, but cannot hold him. He alone can fill us, but we cannot contain him. Thus, as Augustine sees it, creatureliness has an inherent unsettledness to it: the very thing for which we have been created is beyond our grasp, and nothing else can fill its void. Moreover, this unsettledness is equally characteristic of every particular creature as it is for the entire creation. Hence Augustine will revert back and forth throughout these passages between the ‘restlessness’ of his own soul and that of all heaven and earth.” (Page 23)

“But eventually ex nihilo held sway. One of the reasons Christians fought for this truth is that it marked off a Christian way of construing the nature of the God-world relationship that preserved divine transcendence, in opposition to various gnostic and heterodox alternatives. Thus, for the early Christians, creation was less concerned with how long God took to create, and more concerned with whether you had the right kind of God doing the creating.” (Page 60)

“Augustine holds that human death came into existence as a consequence of the fall of Adam and Eve. But he does not regard this event as the origin of death as such. Thus, when Augustine describes the effects of the human fall, he does not envision that Adam and Eve through their act of sin spread death and corruption to the animal kingdom, spoiling an unspotted, deathless, herbivorous environment.” (Page 154)

Praise for the Print Edition

Like almost all the church fathers, Augustine was fixated on Genesis 1–3, which he rightly saw as the key to the Christian worldview. Dr. Ortlund takes us back to the man and his beliefs, at once so distant from and yet so near to our own concerns. Modern readers will be challenged by Augustine’s insights, and by entering into dialogue with him, they may find answers to the dilemmas they confront. An exciting book on a key topic for our times.

—Gerald Bray, Research Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School at Samford University

We need pastors like Gavin Ortlund, and we need books written by pastors like Gavin Ortlund! His opening chapter on humility sets the stage for a book that is contextually responsible, academically sound, and pastorally motivated. I highly recommend this book as a rewarding and promising retrieval of Augustine’s doctrine of creation for the good of the church.

—Craig D. Allert, professor of religious studies, Trinity Western University

As debates about creation, evolution, and the historical Adam come to a crucial new juncture among evangelicals today, I can hardly imagine a better discussion partner from the church’s tradition than Augustine, with his unwavering commitment to the truth of Scripture, his fearless willingness to pursue difficult questions, and his humble refusal to give rash and hasty answers. Gavin Ortlund gives us a well-rounded account of what Augustine’s exegesis of Genesis brings to the table.

—Phillip Cary, professor of philosophy at Eastern University

Product Details

• Title: Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy
• Author: Gavin Ortlund
• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2020
• Logos Release Date: 2020
• Pages: 249
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430
• ISBNs: 9780830853250, 9780830853243, 0830853251, 0830853243
• Resource ID: LLS:RTRVNGGSTNSCRTN
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:50:00Z

About Gavin Ortlund

Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Ojai in Ojai, California. He was previously a research fellow for the Creation Project at the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is the author of Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals and Anselm’s Pursuit of Joy.