Augustine, accommodation and caution in interpretation

Program / Course 17: Defending Scripture / Lesson 7.3

What you will learn

• Summarize Augustine’s warning about speaking foolishly on matters of nature and its context.
• Explain the idea of accommodation in Chrysostom, Augustine and Calvin.
• Describe the principles for relating Scripture and natural knowledge that follow from this tradition.
• Apply the principles both to claims that Scripture contradicts science and to claims that science has settled the matter.

The big idea

Early in the fifth century, Augustine warned Christians not to speak nonsense about the natural world while claiming the authority of Scripture, because unbelievers who know better will laugh and conclude that the Bible cannot be trusted on anything. He also taught that God adapts his speech to human understanding. These two ideas, caution and accommodation, became a tradition shared by Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants. They do not tell a reader what to conclude about any particular scientific theory, but they offer principles for humility in both directions.

Key terms

Accommodation

The teaching that God speaks in forms suited to the understanding of his hearers, as a parent speaks to a child. Chrysostom called it synkatabasis, a coming down.

Two books

The image of God as author of two books, Scripture and nature, which should not contradict each other if both are rightly read.

Literal sense

In Augustine’s usage, the sense the author intended, which may be figurative.

Concordism

The attempt to match the words of Scripture closely with the findings of science, as when each day of Genesis is paired with a geological era.

God of the gaps

An argument that treats what science cannot yet explain as proof of God’s action. Critics say it makes faith depend on ignorance.

Scientism

The view that only the methods of the natural sciences give real knowledge. Critics say that this claim is itself not scientific.

Background

Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa, wrote The Literal Meaning of Genesis over many years around 400. He was educated in the learning of his day and had been a teacher of rhetoric. He knew that pagan philosophers had learned many things about the sky and earth, the elements, the stars and seasons. He had also met Christians who defended wrong claims about nature as if the Bible taught them.

A passage in the first book of the commentary expresses his concern. A non-Christian knows something about the earth and the heavens from reason and experience. When he hears a Christian talking nonsense about these matters and claiming to base it on Scripture, how will he believe the Bible about the resurrection of the dead and the kingdom of heaven? The shame is not only that the Christian is mistaken, but that those outside think the authors of Scripture are mistaken too. This lesson looks at the tradition that Augustine’s concern started.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Augustine’s two cautions

Augustine’s first caution is against defending a claim about nature as biblical when reason and experience show it to be false. He advises that if a person with real knowledge shows that something is certainly true, a Christian should not insist that Scripture teaches the opposite. Instead, the Christian should consider that his reading of Scripture may be wrong. He says elsewhere that when there are several possible meanings of a passage, one should not hold so firmly to one that, if it is shown to be false, the faith suffers.

His second caution points the other way. He did not want Christians to give up Scripture whenever a philosopher asserted something. He distinguished what is demonstrated from what is merely claimed, and noted that many philosophical claims about nature were not demonstrated. He applied the same test to both sides: a reading of Scripture and a claim about nature are each to be held with the confidence the evidence allows.

Step 2: Accommodation

John Chrysostom, a contemporary of Augustine in the East, preached on Genesis and said that Moses spoke in a way suited to the weakness of his hearers. Language about God having hands or walking in the garden is a condescension, a coming down to human ways of speaking. Augustine held a related view: Scripture speaks to the simple and to the learned alike, and its words are fitted to the capacity of readers.

Calvin used the same idea. He wrote that God lisps with us as nurses do with infants, and he applied it to the language of Genesis about the sun and moon. In his commentary he says that Moses wrote for the common people and did not set out to teach astronomy to the learned. He held that Christians should not use the Bible to deny what astronomers have shown. This approach does not say that Scripture is mistaken. It says that Scripture communicates its main purpose in ordinary language.

Step 3: The Galileo letter and the saying about heaven

In 1615, Galileo wrote a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, drawing heavily on Augustine, in which he argued that Scripture and nature both come from God and cannot contradict each other. He repeated a saying that he attributed to a cardinal: the intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes. The Church leadership was not persuaded, and the matter ended in his condemnation, though many Catholics and Protestants continued to use the principle.

Historians remind us that Galileo’s opponents also appealed to Augustine, and to the scientific consensus of the time, since the evidence for the sun-centered system was not yet decisive by modern standards. The case shows that appeals to caution do not settle disputes by themselves. Both parties claimed it, and the question was which reading of nature was actually demonstrated.

Step 4: Applying the principles

From the tradition, a number of principles can be drawn. First, learn what the text is saying and for what purpose before asking about science. Second, hold readings of Scripture with humility, remembering that earlier Christians were sometimes wrong, as with the older view that the sun goes around the earth. Third, hold scientific claims with attention to how well they are established, since theories change and some claims go beyond the evidence. Fourth, do not assume that every conflict will be resolved in favor of one side.

These principles cut in both directions. They warn a believer against clinging to a reading that may not be part of the faith. They also warn those who say that science has made faith obsolete, since the natural sciences do not address the questions of why anything exists and what makes a human life good. A student who has absorbed the tradition can speak to both groups, and may be more willing to say, I do not know.

1. What do you think Augustine meant by saying that mistaken claims about nature harm the faith?
2. Does accommodation mean that Scripture can be mistaken about nature? What would Calvin and Augustine say?
3. Which of Augustine’s two cautions do you find it harder to follow, and why?
4. How does the history of the Galileo case illustrate the limits of the principles?
5. What is the danger of concordism, which fits each day of Genesis to a geological age?
6. What does it mean to hold a reading of Scripture with the confidence the evidence allows?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching adopts Augustine and Aquinas on the harmony of faith and reason. The First Vatican Council taught that there can be no real disagreement between faith and reason because the same God gives both. Leo XIII’s Providentissimus Deus quotes Augustine at length on the Bible and natural science.

Orthodox

The Orthodox churches honor Chrysostom and Basil, who both taught that Scripture is not a textbook of natural philosophy and that God condescends to human speech. Orthodox theologians today vary in how they apply this, with some stressing the spiritual meaning of creation and others the importance of the traditional reading.

Protestant (Reformed and evangelical)

Calvin’s use of accommodation is cited by many Reformed writers who accept an old earth and by some who do not. Warfield and others used the idea to reconcile the authority of Scripture with the findings of science, while some young earth writers say that accommodation should not be used to reinterpret the clear meaning of the text.

Protestant (liberal)

Liberal Protestants have used accommodation more broadly, holding that the biblical authors shared the false views of their time and that revelation came through them without correcting such views. Critics say this carries accommodation beyond what Calvin intended.

Secular and scientific

Many scientists admire Augustine’s warning, and some use it to criticize modern creationism. Some of them, though, hold that science alone gives reliable knowledge and see accommodation as a way of rescuing a text from conflict. Others, such as Gould, hold that science and religion are separate domains of authority.

Why it matters

The tradition of Augustine and accommodation is the most useful single resource for Christians who want to think about science without panic or surrender. It also gives a common ground among Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants who differ about many other things. The principles of caution and humility apply to anyone who relates a text to knowledge from outside it, and the habit of not claiming more than one knows is valuable in every discussion of faith and reason.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Has a belief you held about nature and the Bible ever been changed by evidence? How did that feel?
2. How can you tell the difference between a claim of science and a philosophical addition to it?
3. What is the benefit of being willing to say I do not know on questions that lie between faith and science?

Independent assignment

A letter in the spirit of Augustine

In your own notebook, write a letter of 400 to 500 words to a Christian friend who is worried by the conflict between Genesis and science. Use at least two ideas from this lesson, state one position fairly that differs from your own, and say one thing you are uncertain about. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.

Further study

• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Read Books 11 to 13 for Augustine’s reflection on creation, time and Scripture.
• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Read Book 1 on God’s speech adapted to our capacity.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read selectively the questions on the work of the six days.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Religion and Science Read for the models of the relation between religion and science.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Augustine of Hippo Read for an overview of Augustine’s thought.
• Joshua 10:12 The sun stands still.
• Psalm 8:3 When I consider thy heavens.