Mixtape · 1981

The Book of Genesis: Problems and Questions Involved in Approaching the Creation of Man

seraphim rose of platina ambrose of milan athanasius the great basil the great ephrem the syrian gregory palamas gregory the theologian isaac the syrian

Tracklist

1How To Approach The Book Of Genesis62:04
2The 1st 2nd and 3rd Days of Creation62:03
3The 4th 5th and 6th Days of Creation61:42
4The Sixth Day of Mans Fall From Paradise59:55
5The Fall of Man from Paradise69:09

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Patristic Theology The Book of Genesis Problems and Questions Involved in Approaching the Creation of Man By Saint Seraphim of Platina EDITOR’S NOTE: The following text was delivered orally as a course on Genesis during the St. Herman Pilgrimage, Platina, California, in August, 1981. As he read from the text, Fr. Seraphim would at times add illuminating impromptu remarks. Some of these remarks the editors have transcribed from cassette tapes and included in the main body of the text and in the footnotes. Introduction Chapter One: How to Read Genesis 1. Approach In a sense, none of us knows how to approach this book. Modern science and philosophy have filled our minds with so many theories and supposed facts about the beginnings of the universe and man that we inevitably come to this book with preconceived notions. Some want it to agree with their particular scientific theories; others look for it to disagree. Both of these look to it as having something scientific to say; but others look on it as sheer poetry, a product of religious imagination having nothing to do with science. The central question that causes our difficulties in understanding this book is: how “literally” are we to read it? Some Protestant Fundamentalists tell us it is all (or virtually all) “literal.” But such a view places us in some impossible difficulties: quite apart from our literal or non-literal interpretation of various passages, the very nature of the reality which is described in the first chapters of Genesis (the very creation of all things) makes it quite impossible for everything to be understood “literally”; we don’t even have words, for example, to describe “literally” how something can come out of nothing. How does God “speak”?—does He make a noise which resounds in an atmosphere that doesn’t yet exist? This explanation is obviously a little too simple—the reality is more complex. Then there is the opposite extreme. Some people would like to interpret this book (at least the earliest chapters which give the most difficulty) as being an allegory, a poetic way of describing something that is really much closer to our experience. Roman Catholic thinkers in recent years, for example, have come up with some ingenious ways of “explaining away” Paradise and the fall of man; but in reading these interpretations one has the impression that they have so little respect for the text of Genesis that they treat it as a primitive commentary on some recent scientific theories. This is also an extreme. St. John Damascene, the 8 th -century Father whose views generally sum up the Patristic opinion of the first Christian centuries, specifically states that the allegorical interpretation of Paradise is part of an early heresy and does not belong to the Church. One encounters often today a common way out between these two views. The statement of a Roman Catholic nun (who is also a teacher) was recently publicized widely under the title: “ God helped create evolution. ” She says: “ The biblical story of creation has a religious purpose. It contains, but does not teach, errors. The evolutionary theory of creation, in contrast, has a scientific purpose, and the search for truth is the province of astronomers, geologists, biologists and the like. Those two purposes are distinct, and both offer truth to the human mind and heart. ” She states that Genesis comes from oral traditions which were limited by the scientific views of that time. According to this view, Genesis belongs in one category, and scientific truth or reality in another; Genesis has little if anything to do with any kind of truth, whether literal or allegorical. Therefore, one doesn’t really need to think about the question: you read Genesis for spiritual uplift or poetry, and the scientists will tell you what you need to know about the facts of the world’s and man’s beginning. In one form or another this is a very common view today—but what it actually amounts to is a failure to look at the question at all; it does not take Genesis seriously. But our very purpose in studying Genesis is to take it seriously, to see what it actually says. None of these approaches we have mentioned can do this. We must look elsewhere for the “key” to understanding Genesis. In approaching Genesis we must try to avoid pitfalls such as we have mentioned above by a certain degree of self-awareness: what kind of prejudices or predispositions might we have in approaching the text? We have already mentioned that some of us may be too anxious to have the meaning of Genesis agree (or disagree) with some particular scientific theory. Let us state a more general principle as to how we, with our 20 th -century mentality, tend to do this. In reaction to the extreme literalness of our scientific outlook (a literalness which is required by the very nature of science), when we

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