Augustine
1. Biographical Information
2.1. Book One Augustine was first and foremost a Christian thinker; this means that he had an intellectual commitment to the Christian scriptures. This is why he states his purpose in writing as follows: "In order to guard against the sophistries of those who disdain to begin with faith, and are deceived by a crude and perverse love of reason" (I.1). To begin with faith is to begin with what scriptures declares about the Triune God. In particular, against those who would deny it, he aims to prove that "the Trinity is the one and only and true God, and also how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are rightly said, believed, understood, to be of one and the same substance or essence (substantiae vel essentiae)" (I.4). (What he means by substance or essence he does not explain at this time.) He views this as beginning from faith (I.4). Augustine acknowledges that scripture does portray God as if God had a body (anthropomorphically) (e.g., Ps 17:8) and as if God had a (changeable) human soul (anthropopathically) (e.g., Exod 20:5; Gen 6:1). But he points out that scripture also affirms God's complete difference from creation (Exod 3:14; 1 Tim 6:16; Jas 1:17; Ps 102:26-27). He draws the conclusion from 1 Tim 6:16 ("who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see") that God alone is immortal and then asserts based on Jas 1:17 ("Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change") that God's immortality means his unchangeableness: "True immortality is unchangeableness" (vera immortalitas incommutabilitas est) (I.2). It is axiomatic for Augustine that to understand "the substance of God" (substantia dei) is difficult, by which he means to understand what God is. What he does know about God, however, is that God is the one "who fashions things changeable, yet without any change in Himself, and creates things temporal, yet without any temporal movement in Himself" (sine ulla sui commutatione mutabilia facientem, et sine ullo suo temporali motu temporalia creantem) (I.3). Presumably, this assertion is based on his earlier interpretation of Jas 1:17. According to Augustine, all "catholic" interpreters (as opposed to the schismatics and heretics) have acknowledged that scripture teaches "The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality" (pater et filius et spiritus sanctus unius substantiae inseparabili aequalitate divinam insinuent unitatem) and that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are yet distinguishable one from the other (I.7). (His work On the Trinity will explain how this is true, within the limits of human understanding.) First, he demonstrates that scripture teaches that Christ is God: he interprets John 1:1-3, 14 to mean that Christ was not created and, therefore, "He is of one and the same substance with the Father" (see also 1 John 5:20) (I.9). He also points out that in 1 Tim 6:16, Paul does not necessarily exclude the Son from having immortality (I.10-11). Second, he says that similar evidence from scripture could be brought together about the Spirit. In Phil 3:3, Paul says that believers worship the Spirit of God, which implies that the Spirit is God, because human beings are forbidden from worshipping anyone but God (Deut 6:13). Similarly, Augustine argues that the Spirit must be God because Paul calls believers "the temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 6:19-20). Now those who are the temple of the Holy Spirit are also said to be "the members of Christ" in the same passage (1 Cor 6:15), but surely, the members of Christ would not be the temple of one who was the inferior of Christ. Moreover, Paul instructs believers "to glorify God in your body" and what is in the body is the Spirit, so that it follows that the Spirit is God (I.13). Based on Phil 2:6-7, Augustine formulates an important principle in dealing with scripture's affirmations about Christ (1.22)
Christ in his appearance as a servant is less than the Father and the Spirit and even less than Himself with respect to his pre-incarnate and therefore pre-"emptied" self. Nevertheless, Christ according to the form of God is equal to the Father and the Spirit. According to Augustine, applying this interpretive rule when appropriate will prevent such statements about Christ as in the form of a servant from being misunderstood as indicators that Christ does not share the substance of the Father.
In Books 2-4, Augustine elaborates further on what he said about the equality of the persons of the Trinity. In Book 2, he explains that John 5:19 ("The Son can do nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father do") should not be taken to express that Christ is less than the Father because of his assumption of the form of a servant. The implication is that Christ must do what he sees the Father doing because of his ontologically inferior status. Augustine rejects this interpretation because this would mean that the Father had first done all the things that the Son did in his flesh (such as, walking on water or opening the eyes of the blind with saliva, things impossible for an incorporeal and unchangeable Being), for how else could the Son "see" the Father do what he himself does? Rather, for Christ to say that he does what he "sees" the Father do is to assert Christ's unique relationship to the Father of being "of the Father" and so his equality with him. Likewise to say that Christ does what he sees the Father do means that he and the Father work together. Augustine says,
The Son is not "of Himself" but "of the Father." Although the Son does only what he sees the Father do and therefore the working is from the Father to the Son, nevertheless, it is the same working accomplished by the Son and the Father, indivisible and equal. The Spirit likewise may be sent from the Father and the Son, but this does not implying ontological inferiority (II. 5). Neither the Son nor the Spirit is less than the Father because they are sent from the Father (II. 7-13). In spite of the fact that Son is sent in the form of a servant and that the Spirit appeared as a dove and fire, Augustine insists that the Trinity is invisible (II. 14). (It is also unchangeable.) Thus, Paul's statement in 1 Tim 1:17 ("Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God...") refers to the Trinity and not simply to the Father, contrary to some of Augustine's unidentified contemporaries. In addition, the theophanies found in the scriptures are not to be interpreted as the actual appearance of the Trinity or any one person of the Trinity; rather, Augustine claims that such theophanies are the result of God's use of "the creature made subject" as a means of divine disclosure: "But indeed all these visible and sensible things are, as we have often said, exhibited through the creature made subject in order to signify the invisible and intelligible God, not only the Father, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit, 'of whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and in whom are all things'" (II. 25). God may manifest himself by appearing by means of part of his creation, such as a human being, fire, cloud or burning bush, but this is never to be misinterpreted as a manifestation of God as he is in himself. Augustine explains, "Wherefore the substance, or, if it is better to say, the essence of God, wherein we understand, in proportion to our measure, in however small a degree, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit since it is in no way changeable, can in no way in its proper self be visible." (III. 21). Augustine concludes that whenever God is said to appear to human beings in the Old Testament that it is actually angels who are appearing to them as emissaries of God, sent to accomplish the unchangeable will of God. He says,
These angels may appear visibly to human beings, as in the cases of Abraham and Jacob, or they may speak to human beings in the name of God, as with the prophets. God himself, however, could not appear visibly or speak because this would imply that his substance or essence was corporeal and changeable. Implicitly, Augustine de-anthropizes the Old Testament, thereby preserving God's otherness. In Book Four, Augustine explains in detail the soteriological purpose of Christ's being sent, or his incarnation. He stresses again, however, that Christ's being sent does not imply his inferiority to the Father:
Christ's being sent is not an indicator of his inferior ontological status in comparison to the Father, but of his eternal relation to the Father. Augustine explains,
It is the nature of the Son who is "of the Father" and eternally begotten to be sent. Although he is sent, the Son is nonetheless "equal, and consubstantial, and co-eternal with the Father." To be consubstantial with the Father is to share the Father's substance or to be what the Father is, which thereby makes the Son ontologically equal to the Father and eternal as He is. Quoting Wis 7:25, interpreted as speaking of the Son, insofar as he is the Word or Wisdom of God, Augustine refers to the Son as being "a pure emanation (emanantio) issuing from the glory of the Father," which he interprets to mean that the Son shares in the divine substance: "That which issues, and that from which it issues, is of one and the same substance" (27). The Son as the Wisdom of God therefore is "the brightness of the eternal light (candor...lucis aeternae)" (Wis 7:26). Augustine argues that the Spirit likewise may be sent from the Father and the Son, but in no way is less than either. He concludes, "But now, as I think, it has been sufficiently shown, that the Son is not therefore less because He is sent by the Father, nor the Holy Spirit less because both the Father sent Him and the Son" (31).
In Book Five, Augustine's aim is to prove that something can be predicated of the Trinity both according to substance and relatively. Unless one recognizes this distinction between the two types of attribution, one may wrongly assume that having different relative attributes implies that the attributes have a different substance or essence than that to which they are attributed. He begins by affirming how difficult it is to understand God because God cannot be understood in terms of the sensible and changeable world: "Whatever is said of a nature, unchangeable, invisible and having life absolutely and sufficient to itself, must not be measured after the custom of things visible, and changeable, and mortal, or not self-sufficient" (V. 2). The closest thing to the nature of God in human experience is the best aspect of human nature, "intellect" (intellectus), but even this falls far short of the nature of God. Augustine, nonetheless, provides something of a negative definition of God:
What Augustine does is to take attributes known from sensible and changeable existence and apply these to God but making necessary qualifications; the result is paradoxical assertion. So God is good, but not as an accidental attribute, but good as inseparable from his essence. Likewise, God is great, but without having quantity as an accidental attribute. God is a creator, but does not create from need; he rules his creation but not as part of creation and thereby non-spatially. God is also eternal but not as being in time or infinite duration. God creates all that is changeable, but does so without himself changing. Part of being unchangeable is to have no passions, which means affective states. Augustine does affirm, however, that God is a substance (substantia) or an essence (essentia), the Greek equivalent of which is ousia. In this context, by substance or essence, he means an individual being. Augustine points out, "From being (esse) comes that which we calls essence (essentia)" (V. 3). His point is that anything that is or has being is an essence or substance. But God is a unique substance or essence: because God is unchangeable (incommutabilis), God alone can be said truly to exist. God's unchangeableness implies his necessity, and that which exists necessarily can alone truly be said to be. In other words, of all substances or essences, God alone admits of no accidents (accidentia), which means that nothing contigent can be predicated of God: God must be what God is. Augustine interprets the revelation of God's name to Moses as "I am that I am" (Ego sum qui sum) and "I am" (Qui est) (Exod 3:13-14) as indicating that God alone is, in the sense of existing necessarily. He concludes, "That which not only is not changed, but also cannot at all be changed, alone falls most truly, without difficulty or hesitation, under the category of Being (quod verissime dicatur esse)" (V. 3). Augustine next seeks to refute the Arian view that "That whatsoever is said or understood of God, is said not according to accident, but according to substance: and therefore, to be unbegotten belongs to the Father according to substance, and to be begotten belongs to the Son according to substance. But to be unbegotten and to be begotten are different; therefore the substance of the Father and that of the Son are different" (V. 4). In so doing he employs his distinction between predicating something of God according to substance or relatively. The Arians argued that what is unbegotten (the Father) and begotten (the Son) cannot be the same substance, since these attributes are opposites. It follows, therefore, that the Son cannot be God, since the Father is God. While Augustine agrees that nothing can be spoken of God according to accident, since there is nothing accidental in God, because God is unchangeable, there are nonetheless two ways in which something can be spoken of God non-accidentally: according to substance and relatively (i.e., relationally). To speak of God as the Father and the Son is to speak relatively, since these terms are relational terms; but to do so does not preclude the possibility of speaking of God according to substance, which the Father and the Son share. Augustine says, "Wherefore, although to be the Father and to be the Son is different, yet their substance is not different; because they are so called, not according to substance, but according to relation, which relation, however, is not accident, because it is not changeable" (V. 6). The relation between the Father and the Son is not accidental, for it cannot be otherwise; but to be relatively Father and Son does not preclude being the same substance, or being the same being. Thus, the Father is related to the Son as the eternal, unchangeable Begetter to the eternal, unchangeable Begotten, yet both according to substance are identical. Also, contrary to the Arians, Augustine rejects the idea that the Son's relation as begotten is accidental, that it began in time. Similarly, the Arians wrongly do not recognise that one can speak of the Son both in relation to self and in relation to the Father. In relation to self, the Son is equal to the Father and even unbegotten, but in relation to the Father he is not equal and begotten. He concludes, "It remains therefore that He is equal according to substance; therefore the substance of both is the same" (V. 7). The Father and the Son are ontologically equal. Augustine introduces an important rule when speaking about God:
When one speaks about God in respect to himself one speaks according to substance, so that there is one God; one must not make the mistake of assuming that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three Gods because they are of the same substance. One can only speak of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit separately when speaking relatively. According to Augustine, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit should be distinguished from one another as persons (persona) and not as three substances. He explains:
He recognizes that the use of the term "person" (persona) is not completely appropriate as a term by which to distinguish the Father, Son and Holy Spirit from one another, but there really is no better term. So long as one recognizes the provisionality of the term, "person" can be so used.
In Book Six, exegeting 1 Cor 1:24 ("Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God"), Augustine considers in what sense Christ can be said to be the wisdom and power of God. Against the Arian position ("There was a time when the Son was not"), he affirms that the Son as the wisdom and power of God is co-eternal with God the Father, because there was never a time when God was without power and wisdom: "If the Son of God is the power and wisdom of God, and God was never without power and wisdom, then the Son is co-eternal with God the Father" (VI. 1). He then raises the question of whether the Son can be called the wisdom of God if God the Father is not wisdom itself but only the begetter of wisdom. He postpones answering this question, however, while he argues for the unity and equality of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That the Son is equal with the Father is implied by Paul's statement in Phil 2:6 ("Did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped"). Augustine interprets this to mean that the Son "is equal in all things which are said of His substance" (VI. 5). He concludes, "The Son is in no respect equal with the Father, if He is found to be unequal in anything which has to do with signifying His substance, as we have already shown. But the apostle has said that He is equal. Therefore the Son is equal with the Father in all things, and is of one and the same substance" (VI. 6). Likewise, the Holy Spirit "consists in the same unity of substance, and in the same equality" (VI. 7). Augustine believes that the fact that God is unchangeable (and necessary) means that he is simple and not manifold, unlike all of his creatures, which are manifold. A simple substance is a necessary substance because it cannot be otherwise since it cannot change. Yet, God is said to have attributes, which would seem to imply that God is manifold also. But Augustine argues that in the case of God, these attributes are really one: "And in Him it is not one thing to be blessed, and another to be great, or wise, or true, or good, or in a word to be Himself" (VI. 8). For God to be necessary is to be simple, which means that what appears to be discrete attributes are really not. (Augustine assumes that substances with contingent attributes are manifold, whereas a substance that has necessary attributes is simple.) Similarly, the Trinity must not be thought of as a Triplex, a unity composed of three substances, for this would also deny the simplicity of God. He says: Neither, since He is a Trinity, is He therefore to be thought triple (triplex); otherwise the Father alone, or the Son alone, will be less than the Father and Son together. Although, indeed, it is hard to see how we can say, either the Father alone, or the Son alone; since both the Father is with the Son, and the Son with the Father, always and inseparably: not that both are the Father, or both are the Son; but because they are always one in relation to the other, and neither the one nor the other alone. But because we call even the Trinity itself God alone, although He is always with holy spirits and souls, but say that He only is God, because they are not also God with Him; so we call the Father the Father alone, not because He is separate from the Son, but because they are not both together the Father. (VI. 9) One cannot separate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit according to substance, since the three are one substance. The Father and Son are distinguished, for example, only relatively: the one is not the other, even though both are God, not two Gods. Thus, since there is one God, the "addition" of the Son to the Father does not make the latter greater. This leads Augustine to conclude, "But in that highest Trinity one is as much as the three together, nor are two anything more than one. And They are infinite in themselves. So both each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are one. Let him who sees this, whether in part, or "through a glass and in an enigma" (VI. 12).
The question that he began to examine in Book Six, namely, whether the Father, who begat the Son, his power and wisdom, is not only the Father of power and wisdom, but also power and wisdom himself is taken up again in Book Seven. (The same question applies to any of the other attributes of God.) Augustine argues that God is wise in the same way that he speaks, by the word that he begat, "by whom He always and unchangeably utters Himself" (VII. 1). God is not wise by one thing, his wisdom, and God by something else, his essence; in other words, God is not God first and then becomes wise by having or acquiring the attribute of being wise. Augustine writes, "And because it is not one thing to Him to be, another to be God, the Son is also the essence of the Father, as He is His Word and image" (VII. 2). The unchangeableness of God means that God is necessarily what he is and cannot be otherwise; thus, for God to be is the same as for God to be God. This is in contrast to a changeable substance and the contingent quality that inheres in that substance to make it what it is. In this case, for the substance to be is not the same as to be what it is, because it may not have that particular quality that makes it what it is. (Augustine does not seem to consider the possibility of the essential attributes of a substance, without which the latter would not be what it is.) There are, in other words, two things, the substance and its quality. In the case of the substance of God, there is no such distinction, so that for God to be is for God to be God. God's simplicity likewise prohibits considering God as distinct from his attributes or that which he begets, because this would introduce plurality into the substance of God: God and God's qualities. Thus, if the Son is begotten of the Father, then what the Father is, the Son is. Augustine says, "But if the Father who begat wisdom is also made wise by it, and to be is not to Him the same as to be wise, then the Son is His quality, not His offspring; and there will no longer be absolute simplicity in the Godhead. But far be it from being so, since in truth in the Godhead is absolutely simple essence, and therefore to be is there the same as to be wise" (VII. 2). The Son cannot be viewed as the quality that makes God wise. Rather, God is wise and the Son is wise; the Son is the wisdom of wisdom. What is true of the Son is true of the Holy Spirit also (VII. 6). Augustine distinguishes between the Son as wisdom and as the Word. He says of the Son, "He is wisdom by that whereby he is essence" (VII. 3), by which he means the Son is God whose essence is necessarily to be wise. By contrast, the Son is the Word relatively, insofar as he is the word of the Father. He concludes, "But both together are one wisdom and one essence; in which to be, is the same as to be wise. And both together are not the Word or the Son, since to be is not the same as to be the Word or the Son, as we have already sufficiently shown that these terms are spoken relatively " (VII. 3). Augustine investigates further the term "person" (persona) as a means of distinguishing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit from one another. He determines that the term is a generic name, because other things—such as a human being—can be included in the genus as a person (VII. 7). He justifies the use of the term person in speaking of God as follows: "Therefore it was lawful through the mere necessity of speaking and reasoning to say three persons, not because Scripture says it, but because Scripture does not contradict it" (VII. 8). This manner of speaking was required by "the necessity of speaking" (VII. 9) and was not forbidden in scripture. According to him, methodologically, it is permissible to introduce non-biblical terminology in order to clarify the implicit teaching about the Trinity in scripture. Augustine also reconsiders the term substance as applied to the Trinity and rejects it in favor of essence. This is because to subsist (subsistare) or to be a substance is to admit of plurality, for a distinction is made between the substance and its qualities. Thus it is inappropriate to call God a subject: If, I say, God subsists so that He can be properly called a substance, then there is something in Him as it were in a subject, and He is not simple, i.e. such that to Him to be is the same as is anything else that is said concerning Him in respect to Himself; as, for instance, great, omnipotent, good, and whatever of this kind is not unfitly said of God. But it is an impiety to say that God subsists, and is a subject in relation to His own goodness, and that this goodness is not a substance or rather essence, and that God Himself is not His own goodness, but that it is in Him as in a subject. And hence it is clear that God is improperly called substance, in order that He may be understood to be, by the more usual name essence, which He is truly and properly called. (VII. 10) As Augustine defines the term, God is not a subject that has attributes such as goodness, because God is simple, which means that for God to be is the same as for God to be God, i.e., his attributes. He prefers the term essence, when speaking of God, because this term implies that to be (esse) is to be what he is or to be his essence (essentia), which is true only of God since God is unchangeable.
Augustine begins by re-iterating his argument that the Father is not greater than the Son and that both together are not greater than the Holy Spirit. Moreover, any two together in the same Trinity are not greater than one, nor are all three together greater than each individually (VIII. 1-2). Since each person of the Trinity is the same substance, it follows that there is an equality among the three and that there are not three substances that can be added together to produce a greater substance. He says, "But what whenever each is singly spoken of in respect to themselves, then they are not spoken of as three in the plural number, but one, the Trinity itself, as the Father God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God" (VII. 1). In his view, for God to be is to be true or the truth, but to be true or the truth does not admit of degrees, so that one person of the Trinity cannot be more true or more the truth than another; nor can the true be more true by adding true to true. He writes, And so the Son and the Holy Spirit together are just as great as the Father alone, since they are as truly. So also the Trinity itself is as great as each several person therein. For where truth itself is magnitude, that is not more great which is not more true: since in regard to the essence of truth, to be true is the same as to be, and to be is the same as to be great; therefore to be great is the same as to be true. And in regard to it, therefore, what is equally true must needs also be equally great. (VIII. 2) By calling God the true or the truth, Augustine is idenitying God as that from which all things originate and derive their lesser and dependent truth. In addition, to be true is also to be great, but there is only one greatness and not degrees of greatness with respect to God. Augustine then differentiates between the true things that are created and the truth by which they were created; by the latter, he means God (VII. 1). (The use of the term "the true" or "truth" of the Trinity is reminiscent of Platonism: Socrates explains that the Good gives "truth" (tên aleitheia) to the objects of knowledge [Rep. 508e-509a]. Augustine identifies God as the original truth) He then lists what God is not: in short, God is nothing like anything in creation. Rather, quoting Wis 9:15, he affirms that "God is truth" (deus veritas est) and then says, "For it is written that "God is light;" (1 John 1:5) not in such way as these eyes see, but in such way as the heart sees, when it is said, He is truth (veritas)" (VII. 3). God as truth and God as light are closely associated; by an inner illumination, God as light enables the heart to understand that God is truth. It is clear that Augustine is influenced by Platonism, for God is not one truth among other truths, but the truth that makes other truths true; likewise, God is the light that allows the heart or the soul to see the truth. Also along Platonic lines, Augustine identifies God as the Good itself, that which makes all other things good; God is the form of the Good (which in Platonic thought is identified as the One form above all other forms). He says, "So God is to be loved, not this and that good, but the good itself" (VIII. 4). Without God as the unchangeable Good there would be no changeable goods: "Wherefore there would be no changeable goods, unless there were the unchangeable good" (VIII. 5). Those things in the sensible and changeable world that one identifies as good and therefore worthy of being loved are only so because of their "participation in the Good" (participatione boni). He explains: Whenever then you are told of this good thing and that good thing, which things can also in other respects be called not good, if you can put aside those things which are good by the participation of the good, and discern that good itself by the participation of which they are good (for when this or that good thing is spoken of, you understand together with them the good itself also): if, then, I say you can remove these things, and can discern the good in itself, then you will have discerned God (perspicere bonum). (VIII. 5) If one were to abstract from all the changeable contents of things that are identified as good, so that only the Good remains, then one has perceived or discerned God, for God is not a good among other things, but the unchangeable Good itself. (Augustine does not say "the form of the Good," but he certainly could have.) He also connects his understanding of God as the Good with Acts 17:27-28: God as the good is that in which "we live and move and have our being" (VIII. 5) Augustine also argues that human beings have an innate love of righteousness, which causes them to love righteous people. He then differentiates between righteous persons, whom we love because they are righteous, from the form that makes them righteous and allows us to recognize them as righteous. He asks, "Why then do we love another whom we believe to be righteous, and do not love that form itself wherein we see what is a righteous mind, that we also may be able to be righteous?" (VIII. 9). The form of righteousness itself is God, by whom all righteousness is possible and recognizable. Thus, he concludes,"The more ardently we love God, the more certainly and the more calmly do we see Him, because we behold in God the unchangeable form of righteousness, according to which we judge that man ought to live" (VIII. 13).
In Book Nine, Augustine finds an image of the Trinity in the human soul or mind, which is in the image of God. The mind as it knows itself and loves itself and its own knowledge, while still being one essence, is a reflection of the Trinity. The mind knows corporeal things by means of the senses and incorporeal things by means of itself; since it is incorporeal the mind knows itself by itself (IX. 3). The mind not only knows itself but also loves itself, but it cannot love itself without knowing itself. Augustine says, "But as there are two things (duo quaedam), the mind and the love of it, when it loves itself; so there are two things, the mind and the knowledge of it, when it knows itself, Therefore the mind itself, and the love of it, and the knowledge of it, are three things (tria quaedam), and these three are one" (IX. 4). Augustine insists that the love and knowledge are not qualities that inhere in the substance of the mind or spirit. He writes, "Wherefore love and knowledge are not contained in the mind as in a subject, but these also exist substantially, as the mind itself does; because, even if they are mutually predicated relatively, yet they exist each severally in their own substance" (IX. 5). It is true that mind or spirit, knowledge and love are relatives to one another: the three cannot exist separately from one another, for the mind would not know itself without knowledge nor love itself without love; yet the three are also one substance (IX. 6). It is also erroneous to see the mind, knowledge and love as three parts of a whole, even as comingled together, because when the mind knows itself it knows itself not something else; likewise, when the mind loves itself, it loves itself and not something else. Augustine says, "And I cannot see how those other three are not of the same substance, since the mind itself loves itself, and itself knows itself; and these three so exist, as that the mind is neither loved nor known by any other thing at all. These three, therefore, must needs be of one and the same essence" (IX. 7). Augustine explains how mind, knowledge and love can be three, but still be the same substance. He says, "But in these three, when the mind knows itself and loves itself, there remains a trinity: mind, love, knowledge; and this trinity is not confounded together by any commingling: although they are each severally in themselves and mutually all in all, or each severally in each two, or each two in each. Therefore all are in all" (IX. 8). The mind, knowledge and love are not three parts of a whole co-mingled together, because each of the three in respect to itself is something and not the others, or as Augustine said, "So these things are severally in themselves" (Ita sunt haec singula in se ipsis) (IX. 8). Nevertheless, as he says, each is also "in" the others. This is the meaning of Augustine's statement that "All is in all." The mind considered "in itself" is something distinct from its knowledge, but relative to its own knowledge, the mind knows, is known and is knowable, because what the mind knows is itself. Similarly, the mind considered in itself is distinct from its love, but relative to its own love, the mind loves, is loved and is loveable, because the mind loves itself. Thus, knowledge and love are both "in" in the mind. The knowledge known and knowable by the mind is at the same time the knower, the mind, because the mind knows itself. The same is true for love. He concludes, "So these things are severally in themselves. But so are they in each other; because both the mind that loves is in love, and love is in the knowledge of him that loves, and knowledge is in the mind that knows" (IX. 8). Augustine adds that the mind knows itself, but also knows its own love, because the mind also loves itself; likewise, the mind loves itself, but also loves its own knowledge because the mind knows itself: "The mind loves itself as a whole, and knows itself as a whole, and knows its own love wholly, and loves its own knowledge wholly" (IX. 8). When the human mind knows itself and loves itself it knows and loves something that is changeable, different from the Trinity (IX. 9); in this way the mind differs from the Triune God. Augustine then differentiates three distinct moments in human intellection or "the sight of the mind": the form, the word and love. To say that the mind knows itself is to say that it knows its form, the form according to which it is; to put it differently, when the mind knows itself, it begets itself, insofar as it knows what it itself is, which knowledge Augustine calls the word. The word begotten in the mind is joined to the mind by love, for the word is loved by the mind, because the mind loves itself; were the word not loved by the mind, it would not be produced. He writes, "Whenever, then, the mind knows and loves itself, its word is joined to it by love. And since it loves knowledge and knows love, both the word is in love and love is in the word, and both are in him who loves and speaks" (IX. 15). Not only does the mind love knowledge or the word, but also knows love, insofar as it is aware of loving knowledge; this means that not only is love and knowledge in the mind, but also that love is "in" the word and the word is "in" love. Augustine identifies the knowledge or the word as the begotten of the mind, being a perfect and equal image of the latter; love, on the other hand, is not begotten, but is that desire that causes the mind to know itself. (IX. 17-18). In this way, the mind is an image of the Trinity.
In Book Ten, Augustine uncovers even a more accurate image of the Trinity in the human mind. He begins by affirming that the mind does not love what it does not already know (even if imperfectly) (X. 1-4). From this, he argues that, when it seeks to know itself because it loves itself, the mind must already know itself (he assumes that the mind only seeks to know what it loves). He then concludes that the mind knows itself wholly and not simply in part, for the mind is always completely present to itself: "Therefore as a whole it is present to itself, and there is nothing left to be sought: for that is wanting which is sought, not the mind which seeks. Since therefore it as a whole seeks itself, nothing of it is wanting" (X. 6). Later, he explains that the mind knows itself in the very act of understanding the precept to "know yourself" (X. 9-10). His point is that the soul's knowledge of itself is immediate and intuitive, for even in doubting all things about itself the very act of doubting reveals the mind to itself, for one cannot doubt that one is doubting; what it means to doubt or any other intellectual act is what the mind is (see City of God, xi. 26). The structure of the mind, which the mind knows immediately, even in doubting all else, is that of "memory, understanding and will" (memoria, intellegentia, voluntas) (X.17); these are the three faculties (for want of a better term) of the mind. Augustine points out that these three are nevertheless one: Since, then, these three, memory, understanding, will are not three lives, but one life; nor three minds, but one mind; it follows certainly that neither are they three substances, but one substance. Since memory, which is called life, and mind, and substance, is so called in respect to itself; but it is called memory, relatively to something. And I should say the same also of understanding and of will, since they are called understanding and will relatively to something; but each in respect to itself is life, and mind, and essence. And hence these three are one, in that they are one life, one mind, one essence; and whatever else they are severally called in respect to themselves, they are called also together, not plurally, but in the singular number. (X.18) Each when considered in itself is mind wholly, not a part of mind; when considered relatively to one another, however, memory, understanding and will are distinct from one another. Memory is a relative term relating mind to itself as understanding, because the understanding remembers what it already knows, i.e., has in memory; likewise, mind as remembering itself is understanding, because understanding is memory called to mind. The relationship between memory and understanding presupposes the Platonic concept of knowledge as recollection: Knowledge is the soul's recollection of the Ideas, which it already knows but has forgotten (Phaedo 75c-76c). The will is mind desiring to remember itself or to understand itself, which are really the same thing. Thus, the three refer to one another and "mutually contain" one another (X. 17). This is because the mind as memory remembers that it has memory, understanding and will; likewise mind as understandng understands that it understands, wills and remembers. Finally, the mind as will wills to will, remember and understand. Moreover, the memory, understanding and willing is of the whole of the memory, understanding and willing.
Augustine discovers a trace of the Trinity in the outer man, defined as the body and its five senses. The bodily sense nearest to the mind is sight, and so it is in this sense that one finds the greatest image of the Trinity (XI. 1). An act of vision is constituted by three elements: the object seen, the eyes that see, the soul as focusing attention on the object seen (animi intentio) (XI. 2). The object seen is really the form of the object that is impressed upon the sense (XI.3-5). The substance of these elements of the act of vision, however, are different from one another: the form of the object seen is not the same as the eye and both are different from the soul as focusing attention on the object seen. Thus, this trinity of the outer man bears only some resemblance to God: the form produced in the one who sees is the offspring (the Son), whereas the form that produces is the parent (the Father). The will is that which unites the two in the act of focussing attention of the object seen (the Holy Spirit). Augustine then identifies another Trinity in the rational soul (anima rationalis) (XI. 6), in which the three elements do not differ with respect to substance. (The rational soul or the inner man stands in opposition to the body or outer man.) He writes, "And so that trinity is produced from memory, from internal vision, and from the will which unites both. And when these three things are combined into one, from that combination itself they are called conception (conceptio). And in these three there is no longer any diversity of substance" (XI. 6). When the rational soul remembers the form seen by an internal vision, there results a type of trinity. Augustine says:
The form in the memory, which Augustine calls, "the species of the body," is the parent (the Father) and the copy of that form in the eye of the mind (the Son) is the offspring. Because the rational soul is not perceiving a sense object by means of the sense organ of the eyes but remembering the form previously seen the three elements of this trinity share the same substance, because each is the rational soul. Finally, the will that brings the two together is the third element of this trinity (the Holy Spirit).
Augustine defines the human being as having an outer man and an inner man. By the former, he means the living body, including the five bodily senses and the faculty of memory. Human beings are like animals in this regard. A human being differs from an animal, however, insofar as he has an inner man or mind, which he defines as a "spiritual substance" (substantia spiritalis) (XII. 1) or "that rational substance of our mind" (illa rationali nostrae mentis substantia) (XII. 3). The mind allows human beings to judge images of corporeal things held in the memory according to unchangeable and universal standards: "But it is the part of the higher reason (sublimioris rationis) to judge of these corporeal things according to incorporeal and eternal reasons (rationes incorporales et sempiternas); which, unless they were above the human mind, would certainly not be unchangeable" (XII. 2). As he uses the term, "higher reason" represents reason or the mind, functionally defined as the human ability to judge by means of the eternal Ideas, or reasons; to do so allows for the possibility of recognizing the eternal Ideas in sense objects. He says, in addition, that to judge sense perceptions by these reasons is to judge by means of the "eternal and unchangeable truth" (intellegibili atque incommutabili veritati) (XII. 3). For Augustine, the truth is the reasons (Ideas) taken as a totality. Augustine, however, stresses the unity of the mind, in spite of its having two aspects: "Our intellect and action, or our counsel and performance, or our reason and rational appetite, or whatever other more significant terms there may be by which to express them" (XII. 4). The mind has two valid applications: to the corporeal and changing world and to the incorporeal and unchangeable world. The application of the mind to the corporeal world is for the purpose of action, whereas the contemplation of the forms is an end in itself. Later in Book Twelve, he differentiates between knowledge (scientia) and wisdom (sapientia). Knowledge is of temporal and corporeal things, whereas wisdom is of eternal things. He writes,
Wisdom consists
of knowing the totality of the intelligible world, the forms, collectively
known as the truth. The "intellectual mind" sees the Ideas
or Forms, which Augustine calls reasons or "intelligible things"
by means of incorporeal light (XII. 24). He believes that there is a
trinity inherent in the mind, as defined above, in that part of the
mind that "contemplates eternal things (aeternorum)"
a trinity emerges (see XII. 4): "We might
have resemblances of bodies impressed within on the memory from which
thought might be formed, while the will as a third united them"
(XII. 25).
Augustine discourses on faith, and commends it to his readers. Faith is belief without seeing, and is a condition of blessedness. Faith also provides an image of the Trinity. When "the words of this faith" are committed to memory, there issues a trinity within the inner man. First, there exists in the memory the sounds of the words that exist even when the mind does not think upon them. Second, the eye of the mind (acie) conceives of the words that are in the memory, resulting the recollection of what is in the memory. Finally, the will to recollect what is in the memory unites both.
In Book Fourteen, Augustine begins by identifying wisdom with the worship of God (dei cultus) (XIV. 1). He then asserts that there is another trinity inherent in the mind that is different from that resulting from faith (as explained in Book Thirteen). This trinity is the image of God in a human being, that which will always exist, even when faith as a possibility no longer exists (XIV. 3). The image of God in a human being is the trinity of memory, understanding and love resultant upon the mind's contemplation of itself. When the mind knows itself, it forms a conception of itself, an image of what is held in its memory. Augustine writes:
For the mind to know itself requires that the mind "behold itself in conception." When it knows itself, the mind, however, is not previously unknown to itself, but is in its own memory. Augustine distinguishes between conception (cogitatio), which is what the mind knows when it knows itself, and notion (notitia), which is what is contained in the memory, but not conceived (XIV. 9). Intelligence (intellegentia) is "that by which we understand in thought, that is, when our thought is formed by the finding of those things, which had been at hand to the memory but were not being thought of" (XIV. 10). In other words, intelligence is the mind retrieving a notion from memory and thinking about it. The mind's love of itself brings together "the begetter and the begotten" or the memory and the understanding (Augustine assumes that the mind only understands what it loves, insofar as all human activity is directed towards the good, which is object of all volitional activity.) This is synonymous with the will, "or preference which combines this offspring and parent, and is in some way common to both" (XIV. 10). (Augustine also argues that the mind as present to itself is rightly called memory even though the mind is not remembering something past [XIV. 14].) This trinity of memory, intelligence and will in one mind is an image of the Trinity. The mind's understanding of itself is different from the mind's understanding of anything else. Augustine explains,
For the mind not to be "adventitious to itself" means that it did not come to itself as something unknown to itself or something external to itself, having its origin "somewhere else" (unlike sense perception); rather, paradoxically, in the mind already existing there was begotten the same mind not yet existing, the conception of itself. So, in a sense the mind pre-existed its coming to the mind, because the mind knows itself, but in another sense, the mind did not pre-exist its coming to mind for the same reason: the mind comes to know itself as its own object. Similarly, the mind does not "see itself" after it is brought from the memory by recollection; this is because the mind already knew itself. As Augustine argued earlier, the mind has always remembered, understood and loved itself, since it is the nature of the mind to do so. The mind is ever present to itself as knowing and loving itself (self-consciousness). Thus, the one mind as memory, intelligence and will resembles the one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as there is one mind but with three "faculities," so there is one God as substance with three persons. The Father as memory is the source or begetter of the conception of the image of itself in intelligence, but the latter is not essentially different from the former because it is an image of itself. The will is what binds the memory and intelligence together, but is not separable from what it binds, for it could not bind without something to bind. Augustine stresses that the image of God in a human being manifests itself not in the mind's remembrance, understanding and love of itself, but insofar as "it can also remember, understand, and love Him by whom it was made" (XIV. 15). It is not fully clear what he means, but it seems that his point is that the image of God is most fully manifest when it is directed to God. Later, Augustine defines God as follows: "A nature (natura) not made, which made all other natures, great and small, and is without doubt more excellent than those which it has made, and therefore also than that of which we are speaking; viz. than the rational and intellectual nature, which is the mind of man, made after the image of Him who made it. And that nature, more excellent than the rest, is God" (XIV. 16). By "nature" (natura), Augustine means "substance" (substantia) or a being. God is a unique being, insofar as he is uncreated and has created all other "natures" or beings. Moreover, the image of God in human beings is "the rational and intellectual nature," which implies that God is rational and intellectual.
Augustine begins by defining God as "a nature...not created but creating" (natura...non creata, sed creatrix) (XV. 1). He states his intention to seek for the Trinity that is God, using the other trinities found in the human mind as stepping stones by which to approach the true Trinity, that of which the mind is the image (XV. 6). When he said that "the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made," the apostle Paul meant that the Trinity was mirrored in the trinities in the mind (XV. 3). God is defined then by various attributes: "Eternal, immortal incorruptible, unchangeable, living, wise, powerful, beautiful, righteous, good, blessed spirit" (XV. 8). Of these twelve attributes, Augustine says that only the last signifies substance, the other eleven being qualities. What he means is that to define God as a "blessed spirit" is say that he is a thing or a substance, whereas to define him as eternal or wise, for example, is to attribute a quality to that substance. But this is misleading, because such a distinction between quality and substance does not apply "in that ineffable and simple nature" (non ita est in illa ineffabili simplicique natura) (XV. 8). Because it is not something different for God to be and to be something, because God is necessary, whatever is attributed to God is always according to substance and not according to quality: "For whatever seems to be predicated therein according to quality (secundum qualitates), is to be understood according to substance or essence (secundum substantiam vel essentiam)" (XV. 8). Augustine then takes these twelve attributes and reduces them to three on the assumption that all twelve are contained in the three: God is eternal, wise and blessed. He then seeks to reduce these three to one attribute: God as wise. God does not have wisdom but is wisdom itself (XV. 9): "For God does not receive wisdom from any one as we receive it from Him, but He is Himself His own wisdom; because His wisdom is not one thing, and His essence another, seeing that to Him to be wise is to be" (XV. 9). For God to be wise or to have wisdom according to substance means that God is the totality of the intelligible world, the Ideas. Because God is not wise by his wisdom but is wise essentially, his wisdom is the wisdom of wisdom. The relationship between God as wise and God's wisdom is that between the Father and the Son. To put it differently, the essentially wise Father begets his own wisdom or his word. The love common between the two is the Holy Spirit. Augustine writes, "I say, in such manner also see the Trinity that is God; because there also, by the understanding, we behold both Him as it were speaking, and His Word, i.e. the Father and the Son; and then, proceeding thence, the love common to both, namely, the Holy Spirit" (XV. 10). God as knowing his own wisdom, and therefore his begetting of a word, and God as loving his own wisdom, which is love of himself, is the Trinity:
God as wisdom knows himself and loves himself. This results in a Trinity: "wisdom, and the knowledge wisdom has of itself, and its love of itself." Augustine explains that for God as wise according to substance to know himself and thereby beget wisdom of wisdom is to know of himself as simultaeous: "And do such as we are, think, that in so great infirmity of mind we can comprehend whether the foresight of God is the same as His memory and His understanding, who does not regard in thought each several thing, but embraces all that He knows in one eternal and unchangeable and ineffable vision?" (XV. 14). This is impossible, however, for human beings to understand, because human beings are temporal and understand sequentially. Augustine discusses the nature of the generation of the word in the human mind, for the purpose of understanding the generation of the Word, the Son. He says, "For of necessity, when we speak what is true, i.e. speak what we know, there is born from the knowledge itself which the memory retains, a word that is altogether of the same kind with that knowledge from which it is born. For the thought that is formed by the thing which we know, is the word which we speak in the heart" (XV. 19). The word that is formed in the heart as a copy of what is held in memory, however, is not yet given in speech; this comes later, when the mind attempts to communicate this word to another mind by means of a sound. The generation of a word in the human mind is like the generation of the Word or the Son from the Father, and the incarnation of the Word in flesh is like the expression of that word by means of audible speech (XV. 20). Augustine then describes the Word in paradoxical terms:
Augustine next considers how the Holy Spirit can be called love, more specifically the mutual love of the Father and the Son. According to 1 John 4:16, "God is love," which is interpreted of God as "an unchangeable and simple substance" (immutabilis simplexque substantia), so that God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is love (XV. 27). Nevertheless, since the Holy Spirit is the Gift (see Acts 8:20), proceeding from the Father and the Son, it is particularly fitting that he should be called love. He writes,
By identifying the Holy Spirit as love, it is important to guard against the inference that the Father and the Son are not love, because God, the simple substance, is love, not according to quality but according to substance. Yet, it is not inappropriate to call the Holy Spirit love, for he is God's expression of love or gift to human beings. The Spirit, however, is also God. Since the Holy Spirit is in a special sense the love of God, it is also fitting to describe the Spirit as the love that binds the Father and the Son together:
Again, one must guard against seeing the Trinity as consisting of three distinct substances, as Augustine says, "For the love in the Father, which is in His ineffably simple nature, is nothing else than His very nature and substance itself" (Caritas quippe patris quae in natura eius est ineffabiliter simplici nihil est aliud quam eius ipsa natura atque substantia) (XV. 37). He also explains that the procession of the Son from the Father and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son are outside of time, occuring in eternity. In other words, there was no generation (generatio) in the Trinity, only eternal procession (processio) (XV. 45-48).
Questions for Discussion
1. What are the (neo)-Platonic influences on Augustine's understanding of the Trinity? 2. Do you agree that (neo)-Platonic thought should have been allowed to influence Augustine's thinking about God? 3. Do you agree with Augustine that God is an unchangeable substance or essence? Is it correct to refer to God as the Good? 4. Do you agree with Augustine's adoption of the term "person" as a means to express his teaching about the Trinity? 5. What is Augustine's understanding of the Trinity? In what two ways does he see the Trinity mirrored in the structure of the human mind? Do you agree with this approach? 6. Do you agree the Holy Spirit should be understood as the love between the Son and the Father? 7. Do you agree with Augustine's interpretation of Exod 3:13-14: "I am that I am" (Ego sum qui sum) and "I am" (Qui est)?
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Augustine
(Aurelius Augustinus) was born in 354 in North Africa, in Tagaste in
Numidia (now part of Algeria); the nearest major city to Tagaste was
Carthage. His mother, Monica, was a Christian, but his father was a
pagan (He did convert, however, later in life). As a student in Carthage,
he was introduced to philosophy (understood in the ancient sense) by
reading a treatise by Cicero (Conf. III.4.7-8). He taught rhetoric in
Carthage for a period of time, and then in his late twenties moved to
Rome in 383. Augustine was attracted to Manicheism for a while, but
rejected this school of philosophy as inadequate (Conf. V.3.5;
7.13). He then became a Academician or a skeptic (Conf. V.14.25).
After this he was introduced to neo-Platonism by means "the books
of the Platonists" made available to him in Latin translation in
Milan in 384. His adoption of neo-Platonism facilitated his conversion
to Christianity: Augustine believes that neo-Platonism has many affinities
with the Christian scriptures. While in Milan as a professor of rhetoric,
in 386, under the influence of Ambrose, he became a Christian. and was
baptised by Ambrose at Easter in 387. About twelve years later he wrote
an account of his life up to a time just after his conversion, a book
known as the Confessions. In his Confessions, Augustine
explains that he had a long-term relationship with a woman beginning
in Carthage, by whom he had a son; eventually, persuaded by his mother,
who came to be with him in Milan, Augustine breaks off his relationship
with this woman, who then returns to Carthage. He agrees to get married
to another, more suitable woman. In 391, Augustine was appointed as
the Bishop of Hippo Regius, in Numidia; he died during the Vandal siege
of Hippo Regius in 430. From 411 until his death, he was involved in
the controversy with the Pelagians in the church. Augustine was a prolific
writer; although many of his works did not survive, what remains of
his literary output is still voluminous, especially by ancient standards.
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