Abstract
If we find in the days of the apostles when Christianity was presumably at its strongest, the development of deviations from the truth, such as legalism and angel worship, then it should also be expected that ion the days to follow, when the apostles were gone and the wolves of which Jesus Christ spoke would have time to multiply and become even more adept in their attempts to portray themselves as sheep, that the problems of error would increase. This would be especially so since more and more people would be joining the church and bringing it into their own preconceived ideas, weaknesses of character, and the negative effects of their former education in the world system. The latter is exemplified by the person and work of the great theologian Augustine. He was so impressed with the scholarly work of Aristotle that he tried to reconcile much of it to Scripture. Consequently, he devised what might be called the first popular theory of theistic evolution in church history. Aristotle had believed in a "Planner" but he was also convinced that life evolved. For him it was not a branching evolution as we have presented before us today, but a straight-line evolution from the simplest organism to the most complex. In Augustine's attempt to reconcile Aristotle and Scripture in the area of origins he did the church a great disfavor. (It is interesting to note that Henry Fairfield Osborne has indicated that if the church would have continued to accept Augustine's idea the theory of evolution would not have led to the great controversy that we see today.) Thankfully such men as Francisco Suarez took issue with Augustine and was able to effectively oppose Augustine's idea and guide the church back to what we might call Biblical creationism.