In Book V of the Confessions, Augustine writes about the many scientific books that he has read. He then goes on to talk about scientists--like the authors of those books--who "have skill to number stars and grains of sand, to measure the tracts of the constellations and trace the paths of planets":
The reason and understanding by which [these scientists] investigate these things are gifts that they have from [God]. By means of them they have discovered much and foretold eclipses of the sun and moon many years before they happened. They calculated the day and the hour of the eclipse, and whether it would be total or partial, and their reckonings were found correct because it all happened as they had predicted. They wrote down the principles which they had discovered, and their books are still read and used to forecast the year, the month, the day, and the hour of eclipses of the sun and moon, and the degree of their totality. And these eclipses will take place just as they foretell. (Confessions, Book V, Section 3, as translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin).
Such knowledge seems quite remarkable. Indeed, as Augustine tells us, "[these] powers are a source of wonder and astonishment to men who do not know the secrets." However--unfortunately--"the astronomers are flattered and claim the credit for themselves. They lapse into pride without respect for [God] and fall into shadow away from [His] light, but although they can predict an eclipse of the sun so far ahead, they cannot see that they themselves are already in the shadow of eclipse. This is because they ignore [God] and do not inquire how they come to possess the intelligence to make these researches."
This failure on the part of the scientists in Augustine's day to "inquire how they [came] to possess the intelligence to make these researches" can still be seen in our time. Many scientists today accept without question the idea that human beings are merely the product of unguided evolution. Yet they never seem to ask themselves how they can be sure that such a process could have produced beings with such incredible intellectual capacities. No other organism on earth possesses such abilities, but these scientists seem incurious as to why this is the case. We can only hope that more and more of the scientists of our time will come to realize that, despite all their knowledge, they are still "in the shadow of eclipse," so that they might be motivated to seek Him who alone can dissipate that "shadow'" of which Augustine so eloquently speaks.
Painting of Augustine of Hippo by Sandro Botticelli from Wikimedia Commons