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by Robert Sungenis

In the January 2003 issue of This Rock magazine, senior apologist for Catholic Answers in California, James Akin, makes the assertion that the symbolic view of the creation story in Genesis 1 is now the "official" interpretation of the Catholic Church. According to Akin, the Catholic Church, through the 1992 Catechism, has finally relinquished the long-held traditional view that the days of Genesis are 24-hour periods. He further says that although the literal view is still tolerated, the Church is systematically trying to ease that interpretation out of the Catholic's mind.

If you are a fair-minded and rational thinking traditional Catholic, you are probably wondering how Akin came up with this rather bold assertion. To my knowledge, Akin is the first person in Catholic apologetics to declare that a symbolic view of Genesis 1 is the "official" interpretation of the Catholic Church. Mind you, this is in the face of absolutely no word from the current Vatican that it has issued an "official" interpretation. Not surprisingly then, Akin marshals little facts, except a lot of personal opinions and innuendos, to support his claims. There is no kind way to say this, but nevertheless I must tell my readers that Akin's essay is filled with poor scriptural exegesis, shoddy historical research, convoluted logic, not to mention a total misconstruing of what the Catechism stated.

Akin writes:

Though the majority of the Church Fathers took the six days of creation as being six literal days, there was not moral unanimity among them on this question. (1)

Knowing that what the Fathers believed on this subject is vitally important in deciding the issue, in the above paragraph Akin attempts to put doubt in the reader's mind as to their relevance on this particular issue. He does this by drawing a distinction (albeit a false one) between the "majority of the Church Fathers" as opposed to their "moral unanimity." Unfortunately, Akin doesn't tell us what the difference is, while at the same time he argues that "moral unanimity" is stronger than a "majority."

Nevertheless, by emphasizing the category of "moral unanimity" Akin is acknowledging a difference between "total unanimity" as opposed to agreement in principle but with minor exceptions. It is the latter that Akin is seeing as a "moral unanimity" - a term employed by canonists who are quite aware that even on the most crucial subjects the Fathers invariably had a few voices who questioned or objected to what was being proposed. Obviously, between "total unanimity" and "moral unanimity" the latter is certainly less restrictive, since it doesn't require 100% agreement.

With that in view, we wonder, then, what Akin sees as the difference between "moral unanimity" and "the majority of the Church Fathers"? Perhaps the "majority of the Church Fathers" refers to something just over 50%, since a majority can be anything from 51% to 100%. Or perhaps it is 60, 70 or 80%? Whatever Akin envisions as the numerical equivalent, we are left wondering what percentage would have to be reached in order to qualify as a "moral unanimity." Akin never tell us.

Allow me to answer the question for you. It makes little difference, simply because, on this particular subject, Mr. Akin has created an artificial distinction between "the majority of the Church Fathers" and the "moral unanimity" of the Fathers. The facts are these: Of the thirty or so Church Fathers that gave at least some interpretation to Genesis 1, all of them, with the exception of one (Origen), and possibly two (Augustine), believed that the days of Genesis 1 were six literal days of twenty-four hours each. Many of them even use the words "twenty-four hours" or its equivalent.(2) We don't possess many defined dogmas in Catholicism that have as much patristic evidence behind them as we do for a literal six-day creation (e.g., doctrines of Mary, purgatory, indulgences, etc).

Moreover, when we examine the reasons for Origen's denial of literal days, his departure from the Fathers is not something about which Akin should take much satisfaction. The fact is that Origen did not see the days of Genesis as literal because practically his whole methodology in interpreting Scripture was allegorization. There is hardly a Scriptural text that Origen did not impose his allegory - a method he learned from the school of Philo, the Greek philosopher bent on assigning his Platonic ideals to holy writ. There is a reason why we don't call him "St. Origen," and that is because many of his ideas were heterodox, and a few of his beliefs were actually declared heretical (e.g., the transmigration of souls).

As for Augustine, far from rejecting a literal six-day period, he did not for a moment suggest that the days of Genesis 1 could be billions of years long, and he never, in fact, rejected that the days of Genesis were 24 hours long. Rather, in one of his interpretations, Augustine suggested that perhaps God created everything instantaneously, and that the six days were the means by which the angels could comprehend, in stages, what God had made all at once.(3) In short, Augustine offered what he thought was a viable alternative to remedy what he believed were exegetical difficulties in interpreting Genesis 1 as six literal days, not to mention the fact that Augustine also had a penchant for spiritual interpretation.

The main reason Augustine had these difficulties is due to his self-imposed desire to find some place in Genesis 1 for the creation of the angels. Seeing no other place to put them, Augustine suggested that the creation of light in Genesis 1:3 served this purpose. This, of course, would force the other days to be representations of what the angels contemplated, but not necessarily in 24-hour segments. Since none of the other Fathers of the Church shared his concern about when the angels were created, Augustine acknowledged that his interpretation was only a possibility, and that he would gladly concede it if someone could harmonize the rest of the Genesis 1 text. In The Literal Meaning of Genesis he writes:

Whoever, then, does not accept the meaning that my limited powers have been able to discover of conjecture but seeks in the enumeration of the days of creation a different meaning, which might be understood not in a prophetical or figurative sense, but literally and more aptly, in interpreting the works of creation, let him search and find a solution with God's help. I myself may possibly discover some other meaning more in harmony with the words of Scripture. I certainly do not advance the interpretation given above in such a way as to imply that no better one can ever be found, although I do maintain that Sacred Scripture does not tell us that God rested after feeling weariness and fatigue (Bk 4, Ch 28, No 45).

Another reason Augustine struggled with Genesis 1 was due to his unique interpretation of Ecclesiasticus 18:1. The Greek of the Septuagint translates it as: "He who lives forever has created all things in common." The word in question is "common," which is from the Greek koine, and normally means "in common" or "without exception." But the Latin Vulgate, from which Augustine read, translated koine with the words omnia simul,(4) which in Latin means "at one time" or "altogether." But the Vulgate's translation is at best questionable and at worst erroneous. Ecclesiasticus 18:1, at least in the original Greek, does not, in its primary meaning, say that the creation was made "at one time," but of what was made, the Lord created it all, with no exceptions. The context of the passage bears this meaning out,(5) and it is certainly the way the rest of the creation passages in Scripture describe God's work in Genesis, in addition to the fact that there is no other verse in Scripture which specifically indicates that God created everything "at one time." If the Greek author had wanted to impart the idea of "all at once" there were plenty of words at his disposal.(6) The reason this mistake may have happened is that Augustine's knowledge of Greek was at an elementary level when he began his commentary on Genesis in 401 AD.(7) It wasn't until he was an old man that he had a modest reading ability of Greek. Unfortunately, Augustine was dependent on the Vulgate's translation of Ecclesiasticus 18:1, and thus he could have easily misunderstood the meaning of the verse.(8)

So let's take the tally. Of the thirty or so Fathers who taught on the days of Genesis 1, all but two said the days were literal. Of those two, one had a known-habit of interpreting almost all of Scripture in an allegorical sense (Origen), while the other said the days could be limited to one instant of time, but only because he felt compelled to add the angels to Genesis 1, in addition to the fact that he misconstrued the Greek of Ecclesiasticus 18:1, yet even at that, admitted his interpretation might not be correct and he would gladly concede it to anyone who had a satisfactory literal interpretation. Thus, we have at least 94% of the Fathers who say the days of Genesis 1 are literal days, 3% who say they are not, and 3% who say that they may be.

So how could 94%-97% not figure in Akin's calculations as being a "moral unanimity," but only a "majority of Church Fathers"? We know Akin is aware that Origen and Augustine represent the only dissenting voices among the Fathers, since later in his essay he says that "Origen and Augustine...remarked...that the sun was not created until the fourth day." Obviously, Akin couldn't find any more Fathers who agreed. Could it be that Akin never really calculated how many Fathers believed that the days of Genesis 1 were to be literally interpreted before he wrote his article, and never really investigated why Origen opposed it and why Augustine offered an alternative? Could it be that Akin began with an agenda (e.g., a belief in evolution over long-ages) and was seeking some way of accommodating that view to satisfy the evolutionist audience to whom he was appealing?

Before we answer that question, let's look at another statement Akin makes in the same paragraph. He writes: "In addition later Catholic authorities (e.g., Thomas Aquinas; see ST I:74:2) recognized a diversity of permissible interpretations."(9)

From this statement you would think that Aquinas was just gushing with possible interpretations of Genesis 1, but his writings show that is not the case at all. Aquinas dealt with only two possible interpretations - Augustine's one day view (while rejecting Origen's allegorizing), or the earlier Fathers' six day view, represented best by Basil, Ambrose and Chrysostom.

Moreover, nowhere in his writings does Aquinas suggest that the days of Genesis 1 are to be understood as long ages or anything resembling today's evolutionary theory, nor did he posit that the literal interpretation could be substituted for the "framework" view that Akin is advocating. Again, the only question Aquinas had about how to interpret the days of Genesis was whether to adopt an instantaneous creation or six 24-hour days. Thomas strikes somewhat of a middle ground by suggesting that a likely scenario is that all the matter of the universe was instantaneously created yet fashioned over six literal days (Sent. 12, q. 1, art 2, ad 8). He reminds us that the non-Augustinian Fathers held that the formlessness of the primal matter did not mean no form at all, but rather a lack of proper differentiation and finished beauty (ST I, q. 69, art 1), and to which he agrees (Sent, d. 12, q. 1, art 1; art2, ad 2; ST I, q. 45, art 4). In opposition to Augustine's "angel" interpretation, Aquinas maintains that the light of Genesis 1:3 was literal light, because without that light there would have been no first day (ST I, q. 67, art 4).

Moreover, I think it is rather significant that paragraph 116 of the 1992 Catechism, the very Catechism that Akin claims is giving evidence of his symbolic "framework" hypothesis, quotes Aquinas from the Summa Theologica as stating that the literal sense is the meaning of the words of Scripture.(10) Paragraph 116 states: "The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and... 'all other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.' This is precisely why none of the Fathers, many of whom also offered allegorical interpretations to Genesis 1, never allowed such added nuances to obscure or replace the literal interpretation.

The 1909 Pontifical Biblical Commission:

Next, Akin addresses the decisions of the 1909 PBC regarding the interpretation of Genesis. After citing query 4, Akin concludes that the PBC "established a significant measure of freedom from the interpretation of the six days. In particular, the answer to the latter question asserted room for the day-age hypothesis."

Here Akin seems to possess the ability to read the mind of the 1909 PBC. Unfortunately for him, nowhere does the PBC mention the "day-age hypothesis" or the theory of evolution in any of its decrees on the interpretation of Genesis. The PBC refers to "these chapters [of Genesis], which the Fathers and Doctors have understood differently," but as we have seen, all the Fathers and Doctors believed in a miraculous, ex nihilo creation, and the only differences they had, apart from Augustine's issue with the creation of the angels, regarded how to understand the details of the literal interpretation of the six 24-hour days, not regarding whether the days of Genesis represented long-ages or suggested an evolutionary process. In fact, Pius X, who commissioned the 1909 PBC, was adamant against the theory of evolution, more so in its social context, but also as it stemmed from its biological context. His writings were filled with denunciations against its pseudo-intellectual claims. For example, in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pius X stated the problem quite succinctly:

To conclude this whole question of faith and its various branches, we have still to consider, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have to say about the development of the one and the other. First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must in fact be changed. In this way they pass to what is practically their principal doctrine, namely, evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject under penalty of death - dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself.

As for the PBC's answer to query 8, it appears that Akin has much too liberal an interpretation of its words. Query 8 posed the following:

Whether in that designation and distinction of six days, with which the account of the first chapter of Genesis deals, the word "days" can be assumed either in its proper sense as a natural day, or in the improper sense of a certain space of time; and whether with regard to such a question there can be free disagreement among exegetes?

The PBC's answer was: "Reply: In the affirmative." Because of the PBC's answer, many evolution enthusiasts, like Akin, have concluded that, as of 1909, the Catholic Church was adopting or accepting the theory of long-ages. But that is far from the truth.

First, as we noted in query 4, the PBC mentions nothing about the day-age theory or the theory of evolution in query 8. The PBC simply said "a certain space of time." As noted previously, since the PBC is connecting itself to the teachings of the "Fathers and Doctors," the PBC could not be intending to give room for the theory of evolution (since none of the "Fathers and Doctors" said the days of Genesis were long ages or that living things evolved from species to species), but merely to accommodate the view of St. Augustine (and which St. Thomas also said was possible), which held that a conceivable interpretation of Genesis 1 was that the whole universe was created instantaneously, i.e., in one day, rather than six days.

Second, and more importantly, in the clause "to such a question there can be free disagreement among exegetes," the PBC is not making a determination of whether Genesis speaks of indefinite periods of time, but only that "exegetes" can be free to disagree. Who are "exegetes"? They can be anyone, but they certainly do not have official standing in the Church. Exegetes can be "free to disagree" because they are, in fact, merely exegetes, not officials of the magisterium who must speak dogmatically for the Church. "Exegetes" are a diverse body of individuals who quite frequently "disagree" with one another on a whole host of subjects, not to mention the fact that they do not bind anyone's conscience. Thus they can argue all they want about the meaning of "day" in Genesis 1, but it won't matter at all in the final analysis. Conversely, the Church, in her official declarations, is not "free to disagree," simply because Church doctrine cannot waver between two opinions, since obviously, a "day" in Genesis 1 cannot be both 24-hours and not 24-hours at the same time.

Third, we must realize that, in allowing exegetes two possibilities of interpreting "day" in Genesis 1, the PBC is admitting that it does not know how to interpret the word. Obviously, if the PBC did know, it would have clearly stated whether "day" was 24 hours or not. Accordingly, the PBC cannot be claiming divine assistance to make a definitive decision on the word "day," for by the same token, God does not waver between two possibilities when He gives divine help to Peter and his underlings. It follows, then, that the PBC's only purpose was to tell "exegetes" they could be "free to disagree," but it was not to discount two thousand years of Church tradition which had not so much as entertained the theory of evolution, even though the Greeks had been teaching it as a fact of life.(11)

Pius XII's Letter to the 1948 PBC:

Next, Mr. Akin makes reference to Pius XII's approval of a reply from the PBC, which Akin claims "effectively nullified the restrictive aspect of the PBC's 1909 replies." The part of the reply from Pius XII that Akin quotes is as follows:

These replies are in no way a hindrance to further truly scientific examination of these problems in accordance with the results acquired in the last forty years (Letter to Cardinal Suhard [1948]).

First, we wonder how, in his assessment of the 1909 PBC, Mr. Akin can say that its decrees were "restrictive," yet also say, as we saw earlier, that the 1909 PBC gave a "significant measure of freedom." At the least, Akin's view of the 1909 PBC seems quite arbitrary, and perhaps is more of an indication that his emphases is dependent on the direction he wants to steer the reader at any given moment.

Second, Akin shows no evidence where, in this letter to Cardinal Suhard, that Pius XII makes reference to the 1909 PBC, yet Akin makes the brash conclusion that Pius XII was "effectively nullifying the restrictive aspects of the PBC's 1909 replies." Moreover, Akin is asserting that a mere papal letter - a letter with no designated authority for the universal church - trumps the official and binding declarations of 1909 PBC, even though the PBC was speaking for Pius X and was understood as an authoritative arm of his magisterium. Apparently, Akin feels not the slightest compunction of pitting Pius X and the 1909 PBC against Pius XII and the 1948 PBC. In reality, the differences between the two commissions are only in the mind of James Akin.

Irrespective of these concerns, the only thing of note that Akin quotes from Pius XII's letter is a statement concerning literary forms. Regarding the interpretation of Genesis, at one point Pius XII says: "It is therefore impossible to deny or to affirm their historicity as a whole without unduly applying to them norms of a literary type under which they cannot be classed." From this, Akin concludes that "there was a great deal of liberty thereby granted to exegetes on how to interpret these chapters of Genesis." As we noted above, however, "exegetes" do not establish official doctrine for the Church, but are more or less the purveyors and surveyors of what the Church considers worthy of investigation, not committing herself to any of the suggestions of the exegetes, especially those that deviate from established dogma or the traditional consensus. This was the very reason Pius XII condemned the notion of polygenism (viz., the belief that the human race had multiple sets of first parents) in his 1950 encyclical, Humani Generis, which in itself was a mortal blow to evolution yet to be admitted by its adherents.

Second, Pius XII's statement says nothing different than the 1909 PBC, since the latter also recognized literary forms within the Creation account. Considering Pius XII's use of the operative phrase "as a whole," the only thing he means to say is that, since we cannot be sure of the literary form being used in Genesis, then we cannot say that the narratives are all history. But this is no surprise, since the 1909 PBC said the same thing when it noted that Genesis contains "metaphors and anthropomorphisms." So there is really nothing here on which Mr. Akin can hang his hat. In fact, it is Akin's "framework" view which requires all of Genesis 1 to be symbolic, and of which neither the 1909 or 1948 PBC ever sanctioned.

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