Usually,
even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the
other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even
their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun
and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals,
shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain
from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing
for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy
Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to
prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance
in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant
individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our
sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose
salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as
unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they
themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our
books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the
resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven,
when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they
themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and
incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on
their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false
opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of
our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously
untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even
recite from memory many passages which they think support their position,
although they understand neither what they say nor the things
about which they make assertion.

Den helige
Augustinus av Hippo var en biskop och helgon under tre- och fyrahundratalet från dagens Algeriet. Han är en av kyrkans genom tiderna mest brillianta hjärnor. Han fungerar även som skyddshelgon till vår blogg. Jag vill verkligen rekommendera alla att läsa hans
Bekännelser som var lika aktuell på 400-talet som den är idag i vår tid.