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Natural Knowledge and Textual Meaning in Augustine’S Interpretation of Genesis: the Three Functions of Natural Philosophy

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Natural Knowledge and Textual Meaning in Augustine’S Interpretation of Genesis: the Three Functions of Natural Philosophy CHAPTER FOUR NATURAL KNOWLEDGE AND TEXTUAL MEANING IN AUGUSTINE’S INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS: THE THREE FUNCTIONS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY Kenneth J. Howell Lurking in the shadows of an untold number of debates in the history of western science stands a man whose interest in all things natural was at best marginal. This pastoral fi gure never wrote a treatise on nature comparable to Aristotle’s Physics or Seneca’s Natural Questions. Never did he systematically deliver on issues of cosmology or natural philosophy, and in all probability he never read Ptolemy’s Almagest or Galen’s Natural Faculties. Yet, whenever the specifi c doctrines of the Christian faith encounter the claims of empirical science, this fi gure’s infl uence stands unavoidably in the background. So, when Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino received a letter in 1615 from a Carmelite friar by the name of Paolo Foscarini defending the scriptural compatibility of Copernicanism, the learned Cardinal found himself thrown back on the resources of this fi fth-century bishop whose name had been invoked by Galileo Galilei to justify the independence of astronomy from the Church’s judgment.1 In one sense, this dependence on the greatest of the Latin church fathers is not surprising because it is not too much of an overstatement to say that all of western theology is Augustinian. And the context into which modern science was born in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was formed by the theological discourse that Augustine was central in shaping. Aurelius Augustine (354–430), the bishop of Hippo in north Africa in the early fi fth century, was forced by his pastoral work and his intel- lectual curiosity to address questions on the relationship of faith and science that reverberate down to today. When the range of theologies expanded greatly as a result of the Protestant Reformation, almost all sides of the theological debate in the sixteenth century attempted to 1 On Foscarini see Finocchiaro 2008. My own views of Foscarini’s and Bellarmine’s exchange are discussed in Howell 2002, 196–199. 118 kenneth j. howell claim Augustine as their forerunner. And when these theologies met with new questions posed by the emerging natural sciences in the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries, Augustine’s infl uence was still discernible. Considering his extensive infl uence in western intellectual history, it seems valuable to have a clearer understanding of Augustine’s thought regarding the interface of scriptural authority and natural philosophy in the context of his own times and writings.2 The Augustinian corpus is one of the largest to have survived Christian antiquity and none other has exercised such an extensive infl uence on all subsequent philosophy and theology.3 In this paper, I explore Augustine’s commentaries on Genesis to elucidate the fundamental structures of his thought in interpreting the creation story. By returning to the sources of his hermeneutical endeav- ors, we may be in a better position to discern why his infl uence on matters of faith and science became so pervasive. My focus here is on Augustine in the fi fth century rather than on how he was interpreted later, but such a historical limitation may nevertheless afford a sharper picture of his hermeneutics for future comparison with the use made of him in the context of scientifi c debate. No use of Augustine would have been possible had he not attempted in his largest commentary, A Literal Commentary on Genesis, to interpret literally the Genesis creation narrative. However, we shall see that what Augustine meant by ‘literal’ was in fact far from what is usually meant by that term today. With ad litteram interpretation Augustine shows a greater fl exibility and open- ness than we might be inclined to attribute to the term literal. At times, we might be surprised by how unliteral Augustine’s literal interpreta- tion can be.4 2 Evidence of how easy it is to misconstrue Augustine’s views on the interaction of scriptural authority and scientifi c inquiry can be found in Jaki 1992. Jaki claims that Augustine saw the Bible as a “scientifi c textbook” (88) because he imprudently occupied himself with the “how” of creation. For Jaki, such an approach falls prey to literalist concordism which he roundly condemns elsewhere in his book. Jaki’s preconception as to what a proper exegesis of Genesis 1 ought to be prevents him from seeing the subtleties and complexities in Augustine’s approach. This is especially egregious when he ascribes the view Augustine is promoting to his opponents (89). 3 In terms of size, the only other patristic literary corpus comparable to Augustine’s to have survived antiquity are Jerome’s biblical commentaries and John Chrysostom’s extensive writings. Neither of them, however, addressed questions relevant to natural philosophy like Augustine. 4 The most recent translator of De Genesi ad litteram into English notes the wide meaning of ad litteram as used by Augustine (Hill 2002, 202, note 24). .
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