Book of Genesis, patristic teaching on creation and independence of knowledge

This article by Eugene Khvalkov examines the compatibility between contemporary scientific theories on evolution and the Orthodox doctrine of creation. Belonging to the field of systematic theological study, it draws on patristic exegesis of the first chapter of Genesis to demonstrate that no fundamental contradiction exists between evolutionism and Orthodox faith. The author first establishes that scientific creationism is a Protestant fundamentalist import foreign to the Orthodox Tradition, before analyzing the interpretations of Saint Augustine and Saint Basil the Great on the Hexaemeron. He shows that the Hebrew notion of yom, the biblical description of the firmament, and the creative activity attributed to matter allow for a non-literalist reading of the creation narrative. The main contribution of the article is to methodologically ground, on the basis of patristic consensus, the principle of independence and non-contradiction between the scientific and theological domains.