Back
on March 8, 2013, I published a thread under the title: Which
Augustine ???. In the opening post, I wrote:
Keeping
in mind the distinction between the Latin/Western and Greek/Eastern approaches
to the doctrine of the Trinity drawn by a number of patristic and theological
scholars of the last few decades, one will find that the following selections
are more in line with the Greek/Eastern approach.
In
addition to the contrast mentioned above, many of those scholars who have sided
with the so-called 'Greek/Eastern' approach, also included some harsh
criticisms of Augustine's elucidations on the doctrine of the Trinity. However,
beginning with my aforementioned post on Augustine, I started to notice some
serious flaws with those who maintained such views. One defect is the failure
to realize that a good deal of semantic confusion existed among many
post-Nicene Church Fathers. I have come to discern that many of the supposed
distinctions entail little more than a lack of precision on the part of those
CFs who were actually attempting to defend/explain the same concepts.
One such concept was the eternal generation of the Son of God from the God the
Father.
To
my knowledge—unlike a number of modern Evangelical scholars who deny the
doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son from the Father (see THIS
THREAD for some examples)—every post-Nicene Church Father who wrote
in depth on the doctrine of the Trinity affirmed the doctrine of the eternal
generation of the Son of God by/from God the Father; it wasn't until the
Reformation period that this centuries old doctrine was denied by some
Trinitarians (the important/relevant debates over eternal generation are
intra-Trinitarian, for all non-Trinitarians deny it).
When
the concept of the generation of the Son of God from God the Father is
affirmed, one cannot avoid the implication of causality. But if one affirms the
causal relationship between the Father and the Son, how does one avoid the
charge of either Arianism or Tritheism? A number of post-Nicene CFs avoided
such charges by embracing three important concepts: first, the generation of
the Son of God from the God the Father is an eternal begetting, not a temporal
creation; second, this eternal begetting includes the full communication of the
Father's ousia/essence/substance to the Son without any loss—or
as the original Nicene Creed phrases it, 'born/begotten from the
essence/substance of the Father'; and third, the affirmation of God the Father
as the fount/source of divinity. [It is important to point out these three
concepts form the foundational aspects of what I have termed, 'Nicene
Monarchism'—more commonly known as the monarchy of God the Father—and
importantly, all three entail causality.]
Though
all the Catholic/Orthodox post-Nicene CFs who wrote at length on the doctrine
of the Trinity clearly affirmed the doctrine of eternal generation, the same
clarity concerning the latter two concepts were not always as transparent—this
is where the aforementioned semantic confusion comes into play—but with that
said, I am now convinced that even though some post-Nicene CFs did not
explicitly affirm the last two concepts, they actually did so via terminology
that can be confusing if one does not take into account all of what they wrote
concerning the issues at hand. The rest of this post will focus on Augustine,
and whether or not his overall theology affirms that the Son is, 'born/begotten
from the substance of the Father', as well as the Father as the fount/source of
divinity. I have chosen Augustine because my earlier readings of his
writings—influenced by the consensus of modern patristic scholars who upheld
the so-called distinction between the Latin/Western and Greek/Eastern
approaches to the doctrine of the Trinity—led me to believe that he denied the third concept, and probably the second. However, my more recent
readings have reversed these conclusions—I am now convinced that Augustine's
overall theology upholds the Nicene teaching that the Son is 'born/begotten
from the essence/substance of the Father' (not just from His 'person'), and
that the Father is the fount/source of divinity. As such, I have also come
to the conclusion that Augustine was also an advocate of the monarchy of God
the Father.
Now,
it is relatively straightforward to demonstrate that Augustine taught the Son
is 'born/begotten from the essence/substance of the Father', for in a number of
places in his writings he explicitly says so. I shall begin with a quote I
already provided in the above mentioned thread, adding the Latin text, and two
more English translations:
Naturalis ergo Filius de ipsa Patris
substantia unicus natus est, id existens quod Pater est; Deus de Deo, Lumen de
Lumine. (De Fide et Simbolo, 4.6)
Thus, then, the Son according to nature (naturalis filius) was born of the very substance of the Father, the only one so born, subsisting as that which the Father is, God of God, Light of Light. (On Faith and the Creed, 4.6 -NPNF 3.324
- bold
emphasis mine.)
Only one natural Son, then, has been begotten
of the very substance of the Father, and having the same nature as the
father: God of God, Light of Light. (On Faith and the Creed, 4.6 - FC
27.323 -
bold emphasis mine.)
Being
Son by nature he was born uniquely of the substance of the Father, being
what the Father is, God of God, Light of Light. (Faith and the Creed 4.6
- LCC, Augustine: Earlier Writings, p. 357 - bold emphasis mine.)
And
from his On the Trinity we read:
...the
Father is not anything unless because He has the Son; so that not only that which is meant by Father (which it is manifest He is not called relatively to Himself but to the Son, and therefore is the Father because He has the Son), but that which He is in respect to His own substance is so called, because He begat His own essence. (VII.1 - NPNF 3.105
- bold
emphasis mine.)
For the love in the Father, which is in His ineffably simple nature, is nothing else than His very nature and substance itself,—as we have already often said, and are not ashamed of often repeating. And hence the "Son of His love," is none other than He who is born of His substance. (XV.37 - NPNF 3.105
- bold
emphasis mine.)
Wherefore the logic of Eunomius, from whom the Eunomian heretics sprang, is ridiculous. For when he could not understand, and would not believe, that the only-begotten Word of God, by which all things were made, is the Son of God by nature, i.e. born of the substance of the Father... (XV.38 - NPNF 3.105
- bold
emphasis mine.)
And
so, we see that Augustine explicitly affirmed the teaching from the original Nicene
Creed (325) that the Son is, 'born/begotten from the essence/substance of the
Father'.
But
Augustine's elucidations on the causality of the Son also include phraseology
which strongly suggests that Father is the fount/source of deity/divinity, which
means that he was also an advocate of the monarchy of God the Father. IMO,
the following selections—when reflected on objectively—support my assessments:
That
then which the Lord says, "Whom I will send unto you from the Father," shows the Spirit to be both of the Father and of the Son; because, also, when He had said, "Whom the Father will send," He added also, "in my name." Yet He did not say, Whom the Father will send from me, as He said, "Whom I will send unto you from the Father," showing, namely, that the Father is the beginning (principium) of the
whole divinity, or if it is better so expressed, deity. He, therefore, who proceeds from the Father and from the Son, is referred back to Him from whom the Son was born (natus). (On the Trinity, IV.29
- NPNF 3.85 - bold emphasis mine.)
...we
understand that the Son is not indeed less than, but equal to the Father, but yet that He is from Him, God of God, Light of light. For we call the Son God of God; but the Father, God only; not of God. (On the Trinity, II.2
- NPNF 3.38 - bold emphasis mine.)
For the Son is the Son of the Father, and the Father certainly is the Father of the Son; but the Son is called God of God, the Son is called Light of Light; the Father is called Light, but not, of Light, the Father is called God, but not, of God. (On the Gospel of
John, XXXIX.1 - NPNF 3.38)
Partly then, I repeat, it is with a view to this administration that those things have been thus written which the heretics make the ground of their false allegations; and partly it was with a view to the consideration that the Son owes to the Father that which He is, thereby also certainly owing this in particular to the Father, to wit, that He is equal to the same Father, or that He is His Peer (eidem Patri æqualis aut par est), whereas the Father owes whatsoever He is to no one. (On Faith and the
Creed, 9.18 -NPNF 3.328-329 - bold emphasis mine.)
Just
as the Father has life in himself, so he has also granted the Son to have life
in himself (Jn.
5:26). As he had, as he gave; what he had, he gave; he gave the same king he
had; he gave as much as he had. All the things which the Father has are the
Son's. Therefore, the Father gave to the Son nothing less than the Father has.
The Father did not lose the life he gave to the Son. By living, he retains the
life he gave by begetting. The Father himself is life, and the Son himself is
life. Each of them has what he is, but the one is life from no one, while the
other is life from life. (Answer to Maximinis the Arian, II.7 - The
Works of Saint Augustine, vol. 1.18, Arianism and other Heresies, p.
284 - bold
emphasis mine.)
I
firmly believe the above selections from Augustine demonstrate that he must be
included with other CFs (e.g. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of
Nyssa, Hilary) who affirmed the monarchy of God the Father. But, I suspect that
some folk will need further confirmation to convince them; as such, I am
including the assessment of a highly respected 20th century patristic
scholar—the Catholic theologian, Yves Congar, d. 1995—which supports my view.
Note the following from his third volume of, I Believe in the Holy Spirit:
Clearly
Augustine must be mentioned first, because he had such a deep influence on
Western thinking and, although he did not initiate the idea, continued to be
the major source in the question of the Filioque. He said, for example:
'The Father is the principle of all-divinity or, to be more precise, of the
deity, because he does not take his origin from anything else. He has no one
from whom he has his being or from whom he proceeds, but it is by him that the
Son is begotten and from him that the Holy Spirit proceeds.'[19] Later in the
same treatise, he reaffirms this conviction: 'The Son has all that he has from
the Father; he therefore has from the Father that the Holy Spirit (also)
proceeds from him.'[20] This 'also' is my insertion, not Augustine's. Augustine,
on the contrary, expresses the monarchy of the father in the following
words: 'It is not in vain that God the Father is called the one by whom the
Word is begotten, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds. I have
added principaliter, "principally", because the Holy Spirit
also proceeds from the Son. But it is the Father who gave it to him.'[21] This principaliter has very strong
import—it expresses the idea of the first and absolute source. (I
Believe in the Holy Spirit, Volume III - The River of the Water of Life (Rev.
22:1) Flows in the East and the West, pp. 134, 135 - bold emphasis mine.)
NOTES
19.
Augustine, De Trin. IV, 20, 29 (PL 42, 908); this text is
frequently quoted, for example, by Peter Lombard, I Sent., 29,
Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas and even Leo XIII, in his encyclical Divinum
illud munus of 9 May 1897 (DS 3326).
20.
De Trin. XV, 26, 47 (PL 42, 1094).
21.
De Trin. XV, 17, 29 (PL 42, 1081); 26, 47 (PL 42, 1095, principaliter);
Contra Maxim. II, 14 (PL 42, 770). The word also occurred in
Tertullian; see Adv. Prax. III, 3. Tertullian used it to affirm the of the
Father in begetting the Son. (Ibid. 141.)
Though
I have been aware of Augustine's somewhat famous phrase, "The Father is
the principle of all-divinity" (totius divinitatis...principium pater est), for a number of years
now (and that it was referenced by Peter Lombard, Bonaventure and Thomas
Aquinas), I was not aware this phrase was quoted by Leo XIII. And further,
it wasn't until I had read Congar's assessment that I fully equated this phrase
with the monarchy of God the Father. With that said, I would like to suggest to
those who read this thread that they seriously reflect on the evidence that has
been presented, and then ask themselves if my reassessment of Augustine is
accurate.
I
shall bring this post to an end by acknowledging that my research into certain
elements of Augustine's Trinitarian thought since my March 8, 2013 thread has
not been an 'easy' endeavor; but, it has certainly has been an informative and
rewarding one. I sincerely hope that others will find some value in my
continued efforts.
Grace
and peace,
David
