I am surprised to find out how many people have quoted St. Augustine as saying: “What was God doing before He created the World”, “He was creating Hell for people who ask questions like that”. I was doing some research tonight, and I was surprised to find so many people quoting Augustine as saying this (both in theology books and secular writings alike).
Being a good student (and learning my lesson the hard way of quoting things without checking the source), I pulled out my Confessions to find this quote and read it for myself, before I quoted it. However, as I pulled out my confessions I found that Augustine did not actually say what everyone is quoting him as saying (I’ve also checked the Penguin Classics translation against my Oxford World’s Classics to verify that I wasn’t reading a translation error).
In fact, Augustine said that he would never choose to answer such a question with such a response. Here is the exact quote from my translation (Penguin was a bit different but said essentially the same):
This is my reply to anyone who asks: ‘What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?’ My reply is not that which someone is said to have given as a joke to evade the force of the question. He said: ‘He was preparing hells for people who inquire into profundities.’ It is one thing to laugh, another to see the point at issue, and this reply I reject. I would have preferred him to answer ‘I am ignorant of what I do not know’ rather than reply so as to ridicule someone who has asked a deep question and to win approval for an answer which is a mistake. – The Confessions, Book 11, Section 14, Oxford World’s Classics – translated by Henry Chadwick.
I think this quote can still be used for a humorous ice breaker for either side of the discussion, to get people’s attention – making sure of course, to word the introduction to the quote in such a way as to not attribute to Augustine himself.
I was just surprised that so many intellectuals have misquoted him, that I just thought I would pass this along!