We would like to bring attention to the good work of the Mary Michael Machabee Institute, whose brief, concentrated YouTube apologetics presentations are useful in dispelling common objections to Catholic truths, including what the Faith teaches about origins. Below, we have embedded one of these fine videos.
There is a common misconception that Saint Augustine was not a young earth creationist. This error is due to a grave misreading of that great Father’s work, De Genesi ad Litteram (“The Literal Meaning of Genesis”). Some who repeat the misconception are simply ignorant of what the Father from Hippo wrote and may be excused on that account, but it is downright dishonest for theistic evolutionists to transform into one of themselves a saint who was plainly a young-earth creationist, who believed that God directly and specifically created all the individual natures in existence in their so-called “seminal reasons,” and then directly put these potencies into act Himself. Yes, his ideas are complicated, but they aren’t evolutionist — not by a long shot. (For more on this aspect of the question, see St. Augustine, Genesis, and Theistic Evolution).
Here is the video, preceded by the description on the Mary Michael Machabee Institute’s YouTube channel:
The first installment of our St. Augustine debate series. Does St. Augustine actually favor an old earth evolutionary model of the universe? Let us contrast the claims made about him by the eminent Catholic scholar Jimmy Akin with the words of the great Doctor of the Church himself.
