Back
on July 10, 2018 I became engaged in a discussion with Andrew Davis at his blog Contra Modalism. Andrew had published a thread
under the title, 'Do You Believe in the Son of God ?' (link), which
caught my eye. From the opening post we read:
[Quotes
from Andrew will be in GREEN; my combox comments from Andrew's blog will be in
BLUE; excerpts from Augustine and scholars in RED]
To
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, then, is manifestly required for
salvation. The confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God”
is central to the true Christian faith (Matt 16:16).
Yet
tragically, many professing Christians deny the Son of God. They do this by
embracing Augustinian trinitarianism.
Surely
such a statement must seem shocking to many. But consider this- if one believes
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Supreme God, the one God, the Almighty,
rather than His Son, then a person does not truly believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God.
Towards
the end of the post, Andrew boldly states that, "Augustinian
trinitarianism, then, or semi-modalism, as I prefer to call it, is not simply
some innocuous error."
In
the combox, I asked Andrew for some further clarification as to what he meant by
"Augustinian trinitarianism" and "semi-modalism". He
replied with:
I’m
using “Augustinian Trinitarianism” here to refer to his beliefs as expressed in
his books on the Trinity, and in his debate with Maximinus, a Homoian, that
God, the one God, is by definition the Trinity. Its this identification of God
with the Trinity instead of identifying God as the Father in particular that
logically leads to a denial that Christ is the Son of God. Whatever monarchy
and causality of the Son by the Father there is in this view, since it is
within God, the Trinity, it ultimately doesn’t change this. The problem as I
see it is not a lack of affirmation of the monarchy of the Father, but the
identification of the one God with the Trinity rather than the Father. (July
10, 2018 at 9:35 pm)
And:
Semi-modalism
says that the one God is one individual who is ontologically three persons of
Father, Son, and Spirit. From there there is considerably more variety
depending on who you talk to, ranging from a breakdown of the relationship
between those persons are one defined by ontologically causality of the Son and
Spirit from the Father, to a mere economic choice among those three persons to
effectively role-play as Father, Son, and Spirit. (July 15, 2018 at 4:37 am)
Augustine
believed that, "the one God is one individual"? That assessment did not, and does not, seem
to be an accurate understanding of what Augustine actually taught. The rest of
this post will build upon my following combox response to Andrew:
My
understanding of Augustine is that though he terms the Trinity (the Three) “one
God”, he does not say that the Trinity (the Three) is “one individual”.
Augustine states, “‘the Three are One’, because of one substance”; and, “hath
one and the same nature”—not “one individual”.
IMO
unus Deus (one God) with reference to the Trinity in Augustine’s mature
thought has Deus being used in a qualitative sense. This understanding
makes sense of the “God from God’ phraseology—found throughout Augustine’s
writings, and, of course, in the Nicene Creed.
I
then provided the following quote from an esteemed scholar of Augustine:
One
constant strand of argument throughout the book has been that the Father’s monarchia,
his status as principium and fons, is central to Augustine’s
Trinitarian theology. The discussions of these central chapters of the book
should, however, have also made clear that many things come under the umbrella
of asserting the importance of the Father’s status as principium. For
Augustine, the Father’s status as principium is eternally exercised through his
giving the fullness of divinity to the Son and Spirit such that the unity of
God will be eternally found in the mysterious unity of the homoousion.
(Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, p. 248.)
I
am in total agreement with the above reflections from Ayres. In a previous AF
thread—Augustine - on the causality of the Son from the Father and the monarchy of God the Father—I provided a number of examples which support Ayres' belief that, "the
Father’s monarchia, his status as principium and fons, is
central to Augustine’s Trinitarian theology". With this central teaching
of Augustine in mind, I am unable to make sense out of Andrew's conclusion that
Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity, "logically leads to a denial that
Christ is the Son of God."
Now,
Andrew is certainly not the only person to charge Augustine with embracing some
degree of modalism. I first came across this notion while reading Harnack's, History
of Dogma. Note the following:
We can see that Augustine
only gets beyond Modalism by the mere assertion that he does not wish to be a
modalist, and the aid of ingenious distinctions between different ideas. (History
of Dogma, 1958 Eng. ed., 4.131.)
IMO,
Harnack should have read Augustine much more closely, for Augustine definitively
goes well beyond, "the mere
assertion that he does not wish to be a modalist". Time and time again
Augustine makes it clear that the Trinity (i.e. the Three) is composed of three
distinct persons, and that the Father is the beginning/source of the Son and
the Holy Spirit. As mentioned above, I have already provided a number of
examples which are germane to Augustine's anti-modalistic understanding of the
Trinity. The following selections will add further support that Augustine did
not espouse some degree and/or form of modalism:
summe unus est Pater
Veritatis, Pater suae Sapientiae (De Vera Religione, 43.81 - Sant'Agostino website)
The
Father of Truth is uniquely the highest/supreme One, the Father of His
Wisdom (On True Religion, 43.81 - translation mine.)
112. One God alone I worship,
the sole principle of all things [unum omnium Principium], and his Wisdom who
makes every wise soul wise, and his Gift [munus] whereby all the blessed are blessed. I am certainly
sure that every angel that loves this God loves me too. Whoever abides in him
and can hear human prayers, hears me in him. Whoever has God as his chief good,
helps me in him, and cannot grudge my sharing in him. Let those who adore or
flatter the parts of the world tell me this. What good friend will the man lack
who worships the one God whom all the good love, in knowing whom they rejoice,
and by having recourse to whom as their first principle they derive their
goodness? Every angel that loves his own aberrations and will not be subject to
the truth, but desires to find joy in his own advantage, has fallen away from
the common good of all and from true beatitude. To such all evil men are given
to be subdued and oppressed. But no good man is given over into his power
except to be tried and proved. None can doubt that such an angel is not to be
worshipped, for our misery is his joy, and our return to God is his loss.
113.
Let our religion bind us to the one omnipotent God, because no creature comes
between our minds and him whom we know to be the Father and the Truth, i.e.,
the inward light whereby we know him. In him and with him we venerate the
Truth, who is in all respects like him, and who is the form of all things that
have been made by the One, and that endeavour after unity. To spiritual minds
it is clear that all things were made by this form which alone achieves what
all things seek after. But all things would not have been made by the Father
through the Son, nor would they be preserved within their bounds in safety,
unless God were supremely good. (Of True Religion, in Augustine: Earlier
Writings, 55.112, 113, p. 282 - translation by John H. S. Burleigh.)
16. ON THE SON OF GOD
God [the Father] is the cause of all that exists.
But because he is the cause of all things, he is also the cause of his own
Wisdom, and God is never without his Wisdom. Therefore, the cause of his own
eternal Wisdom is eternal as well, nor is he prior in time to his Wisdom. So
then if it is in God's very nature to be the eternal Father, and if there never
was a time when he was not the Father, then he has never existed without the
Son. (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 70 - St. Augustine, Eighty-three
Different Questions, p. 45.)
All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father hath begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity. Yet not that this Trinity was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son. Nor, again, that this Trinity descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus when He was baptized; nor that, on the day of Pentecost, after the ascension of the Lord, when "there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind,'' the same Trinity "sat upon each of them with cloven tongues like as of fire," but only the Holy Spirit. "Thou art my Son," whether when He was baptized by John, or when the three disciples were with Him in the mount, or when the voice sounded, saying, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again;" but that it was a word of the Father only, spoken to the Son; although the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are indivisible, so work indivisibly. This is also my faith, since it is the Catholic faith. (On the Trinity, Book I.7 - NPNF 3.20 -
bold emphasis mine.)
But if the Son is said to be sent by the Father on this account, that the one is the Father, and the other the Son, this does not in any manner hinder us from believing the Son to be equal, and consubstantial, and coeternal with the Father, and yet to have been sent as Son by the Father. Not because the one is greater, the other less; but because the one is Father, the other Son; the one begetter, the other begotten; the
one, He from whom He is who is sent; the other, He who is from Him who sends. For the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son. And according to this manner we can now understand that the Son is not only said to have been sent because "the Word was made flesh," but therefore sent that the Word might be made flesh, and that He might perform through His bodily presence those things which were written; that is, that not only is He understood to have been sent as man, which the Word was made but the Word, too, was sent that it might be made man; because He was not sent in respect to any inequality of power, or substance, or anything that in Him was not equal to the Father; but in respect to this, that the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son; for the Son is the Word of the Father, which is also called His wisdom. What wonder, therefore, if He is sent, not because He is unequal with the Father, but because He is "a pure emanation (manatio) issuing from the glory of the Almighty God ?" For there, that which issues, and that from which it issues, is of one and the same substance. (On the Trinity, Book
IV.27 - NPNF Vol. 3.83 - bold emphasis mine.)
28. Therefore the Word of God is sent by Him, of whom He is the Word; He is sent by Him, from whom He was begotten (genitum); He sends who begot, That is sent which is begotten...What then is born (natum) from eternity is eternal... But the Father is not said to be sent, when from time to time He is apprehended by any one, for He has no one of whom to be, or from whom to proceed; since Wisdom says, "I came out of the mouth of the Most High," and it is said of the Holy Spirit, "He proceedeth from the Father," but the Father is from no one.
29. As, therefore, the Father begat, the Son is begotten; so the Father sent, the Son was sent. But in like manner as He who begat an He who was begotten, so both He who sent and He who was sent, are one, since the Father and the Son are one. So also the Holy Spirit is one with them, since these three are one...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.28,
29 - NPNF 3.85 - bold emphasis mine.)
And
yet it is not to no purpose that in this Trinity the Son and none other is called the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit and none other the Gift of God, and God the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds...This distinction, then, of the inseparable Trinity is not to be merely accepted in passing, but to be carefully considered; for hence it was that the Word of God was specially called also the Wisdom of God, although both Father and Holy Spirit are wisdom. If, then, any one of the three is to be specially called Love, what more fitting than that it should be the Holy Spirit ? namely, that in that simple and highest nature, substance should not be one thing and love another, but that substance itself should be love, and love itself should be substance, whether in the Father, or in the Son, or in the Holy Spirit; and yet that the Holy Spirit should be specially called Love. (On the Trinity, XV.29
- NPNF 3.216 - bold emphasis mine.)
We can ask whether we
should understand the words "In the beginning God made heaven and
earth" only in accord with history, or whether they also signify something
in figures, and how they conform to the gospel and for what reason this book
begins in this way. According to history one asks whether "In the
beginning" means in the beginning of time in the principle, in the very
Wisdom of God. For the Son of God said that he was the principle. When he was
asked, "Who are you?" he said, "The principle; that is why I am
speaking to you." For there is a principle without principle, and there is
a principal along with another principal. The principle without principle is
the Father alone, and thus we believe that all things are from one
principle. But the Son is a principle in such a way that he is from the
Father. (On the Literal Translation of Genesis, in Fathers
of the Church, vol. 84, p. 148 - bold emphasis mine.)
In this Beginning, O God, hast Thou made heaven and earth, in Thy Word, in Thy Son, in Thy Power, in Thy Wisdom, in Thy Truth, wondrously speaking and wondrously making. Who shall comprehend ? who shall relate it ? What is that which shines through me, and strikes my heart without injury, and I both shudder and burn ? I shudder inasmuch as am unlike it ; and I burn inasmuch as I am like it. It is Wisdom itself that shines through me, clearing my cloudiness, which again overwhelms me, fainting from it, in the darkness and amount of my punishment...I will with confidence cry out from Thy oracle, How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord, in Wisdom hast Thou made them all. And this Wisdom is the Beginning, and in that Beginning hast Thou made heaven and earth. (Confessions,
XI.11 - NPNF 1.166, 167.)
For
it is true, O Lord, that Thou hast made heaven and earth ; it is also true, that the Beginning is Thy Wisdom, in Which Thou hast made all things. (Confessions, XI.28
- NPNF 1.183 - bold emphasis mine.)
What
is it, then, that He "saith, hath given to the Son to have life in Himself" ? I would say it briefly. He begot the Son. For it is not that He existed without life, and received life, but He is life by being begotten. The Father is life not by being begotten; the Son is life by being begotten. The Father is of no father; the Son is of God the Father. The Father in His being is of none, but in that He is Father, 'tis because of the Son. But the Son also, in that He is Son, 'tis because of the Father: in His being. He is of the Father. 'This He said, therefore: "hath given life to the Son, that He might have it in Himself." Just as if He were to say, "The Father, who is life in Himself, begot the Son, who should be life in Himself." Indeed, He would have this dedit (hath given) to be understood for the same thing as genuit
(hath begotten). It is like as if we said to a person, "God has given thee being." To whom ? If to some one already existing, then He gave him not being, because he who could receive existed before it was given him. When, therefore, thou hearest it said, "He gave thee being," thou wast not in being to receive, but thou didst receive, that thou shouldst be by coming into existence. The builder gave to this house that it should be. But what did he give to it? He gave it to be a house. To what did he give ? To this house. Gave it what ? To be a house. How could he give to a house that it should be a house ? For if the house was, to what did he give to be a house, when the house existed already? What, then, does that mean, "gave it to be a house" ? It means, he brought to pass that it should be a house. Well, then, what gave He to the Son? Gave Him to be the Son, begot Him to be life that is, "gave Him to have life in Himself " that He should be the life not needing life, that He may not be understood as having life by participation. (St. Augustin: Homilies
on the Gospel of John, Tractate XIX.13, NPNF 7.127 - bold emphasis mine.)
With
the above selections in mind—and those from the AF thread linked to above—I am
truly baffled by Andrew's deduction concerning "Augustinian
trinitarianism" and the Son of God. Here again is Andrew's conclusion:
Its
this identification of God with the Trinity instead of identifying God as the
Father in particular that logically leads to a denial that Christ is the Son of
God. Whatever monarchy and causality of the Son by the Father there is in this
view, since it is within God, the Trinity, it ultimately doesn’t change this.
The problem as I see it is not a lack of affirmation of the monarchy of the
Father, but the identification of the one God with the Trinity rather than the Father.
Though
Augustine does in fact term the Trinity "one God", it is not to the
exclusion that the Father is in a unique sense "one God", "God
alone", "God only", "the Supreme One", "sole Principle", "Principle
without principle", et al. Augustine also repeatedly informs us that it is
the Father alone, who is the beginning/source of the Son of God. When all the
evidence is brought together—with all due respect to Andrew—I ultimately find
no basis for the belief that "Augustinian trinitarianism...logically leads to a
denial that Christ is the Son of God."
As
for modalism, and/or semi-modalism, I just don't find any trace of it in
Augustine's extant corpus; but I do find plenty of anti-modalism. So, why is it
some folk maintain that some degree of modalism exists in Augustine's doctrine
of the Trinity? I would like to suggest two probable reasons:
1.)
The failure to recognize that Augustine uses two different senses for the term
God (Deus); one with reference to the Three as being one God (i.e. one
divinity/essence/substance) and not three Gods; the second with reference to
the Father as being the principium and fons (i.e. monarchia)
of everything else that has existence—including the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2.)
A misunderstanding of what the term trinity (trinitas) meant in
Augustine's time; note the following:
The
word "trinitas" is more merely numerical in meaning than the English
"trinity," has come almost to demand a capital T. But it means no
more than "threeness," or more concretely "threesome"
"a three." My inclination will be to avoid the capital T mostly, and
sometimes to substitute more numbersome English words. (Edmund Hill, The Works
of St. Augustine - A Translation for the 21st Century, Vol. 5, The Trinity, p.
91.)
I
shall end here for now; more later, the Lord willing...
Grace
and peace,
David
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteI think the central point we aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on is whether Augustine treats the Trinity as a person. We both acknowledge that he calls the Trinity one God, and that at least at times this is meant to indicate the co-essentiality of the persons, not that the Trinity is a person. The question is, does Augustine treat the Trinity as an individual? Are there times when Augustine speaks of the “one God” as the Trinity as a single person, not merely in reference to a shared essence? I believe the answer is firmly 'yes'.
“If someone asks us about them singly: Is the Father God? We say that he is God. Is the Son God? We say that he is God. Is the Holy Spirit God? We say that he is God. But when someone asks us about all of them: Are they three gods? We appeal to the divine scriptures which say, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4). In†30 that divine commandment we learn that the same Trinity is one God.” (Debate with Maximinus)
Unless we will suggest that anyone would think that the shema is speaking of an impersonal essence rather than the person of the one God, then Augustine must be understood here to teach that the Trinity is altogether a single person. The usage of this passage as referencing the Trinity as one God references the Trinity being one God as one individual, not as one abstract essence.
From one of the very passages you quoted above:
“All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality” (On the Trinity, Book 1)
“The Trinity, Who is God” seems to unavoidably present the Trinity as a single “Who”. How this falls short of treating the Trinity as an individual is a mystery to me.
There is also Augustine’s prayer at the end of On the Trinity, as we have discussed in previous threads. I am limited to the English translation here, but provided it is at all accurate, this prayer seems to leave no possible doubt that the one God for Augustine was the Trinity as a single individual:
“O Lord our God, we believe in You, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the Truth would not say, Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, unless You were a Trinity. Nor would you, O Lord God, bid us to be baptized in the name of Him who is not the Lord God. Nor would the divine voice have said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God, unless You were so a Trinity as to be one Lord God. And if You, O God, were Yourself the Father, and were Yourself the Son… And we shall say one thing without end, in praising You in One, ourselves also made one in You. O Lord the one God, God the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is of Yours, may they acknowledge who are Yours; if anything of my own, may it be pardoned both by You and by those who are Yours. Amen.”
These quotes are very straightforward in showing that Augustine treated the Trinity as a person; when he called the Trinity “one God”, although this was doubtless at times merely in reference to the three persons sharing a common essence, yet at other times it is cleared treating Them collectively as a single individual, as the above quotes show.
Continued...
Its that view of the Trinity as an individual who is the one God that results in a denial of Christ as being the Son of God. If Christ relates to the one God, the Supreme God, the Almighty, as a person of that God, then He does not relate to him as a Son. In other words, if ‘the [person] of one God=Trinity’, then for Christ to be the Son of God in truth would require Him to be Son of the Trinity, a view which I am not aware of anyone holding. If within that personal Trinity the Son is one of three persons, who relates to the first of those persons as Father, yet that only preserves Christ’s identity as the Son of the Father, not as the Son of God. You labor to show that Augustine believed the Son is truly Son of the Father, caused by Him, yet that is not a point I have ever contested.
ReplyDeleteI think Augustine’s view poses a difficulty in that, as you show, he clearly affirms the causal monarchy of the Father. Within “God the Trinity”, the Father in particular is the source and cause of the other persons. There is real distinction thus drawn between the Father, Son, and Spirit in Augustine’s theology which prevent us from justly labeling him a modalist. That is why I coin the term ‘semi-modalist’- because this view is not the original modalism, which would deny such personal distinctions, yet maintains the central error of the original heresy in defining the God one individual, who is then the Trinity of three persons.
Far from having “no trace” of modalism in his writings, Augustine’s language of the Trinity as the one God as a person paved the way for the way the west articulates the Trinity semi-modalistically up to this day.
In Christ,
Andrew Davis
Hi David and Andrew,
ReplyDeleteIt seems that there is a difference between treating the Trinity *as if* one person (e.g., using singular personal pronouns for all Three), and saying that they are actually one person, where the former is a kind of elliptical expression. Given what Augustine says elsewhere, and the problems arising from taking Augustine to be doing the latter, I think we should regard him as merely treating them *as if* one person by a figure of speech.
I think there are several instances of this sort of way of speaking in Scripture; three candidates of this come to mind:
(1) Abraham says, "My lord," to the three angels who appeared by the oak trees of Mamre. He did not say, "My lords," but used the singular, evidently for all three of them. For in the same breath he says, "That you all may refresh yourselves," and then they respond. Perhaps he was only addressing one of them, that is of course very much plausible. But the other two cases are clearer cases of this kind of elliptical use of singular personal pronouns for multiple persons. (A similar elliptical expression is evident in how (at least) one of the angels (= *the* Angel of the Lord?) is called the LORD. But of course, if he is the LORD’s angel, then he is not the same person as the LORD, even if he also possesses his name, and is rightly called LORD.)
(2) Jacob fears what the inhabitants near Shechem might do to him after Simeon and Levi kill the inhabitants of that town, and he says to those two sons, “I am few in number.” Well, he is literally only one; but since his family and servant and livestock and so forth are so connected to him, he spoke as if they were part of him, and hence as if he were many.
(3) Jesus heals the demonic of the Gerasenes. He says him, “Come out of him, you unclean spirit,” but has all of them in mind. And after asking the name of the evil spirit, that spirit replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” Jesus treats the legion of evil spirits as if but the one with whom he was conversing, who is evidently their leader. And that one spirit appears to take the name of, or personify all of them: “my name is Legion” and yet shows that he is not intending to speak literally, for the spirit says adds immediately after this, “for we are many.”
I’m not saying that these cases are exactly similar to those you point to in Augustine, where he calls the Trinity “he” and “whom” and so forth, but it shows that one can treat multiple persons as if one person without intending to say that they are really one person. This figure of speech seems to be related to the more common figure one of speaking as if one’s agent is the person himself without intending that such an expression be understood literally.
I think this is the more charitable interpretation of Augustine, given that he elsewhere clearly distinguishes the Three and clearly considers them distinct persons, with the Father having a primacy in rank and causation (or precisely in lacking a cause) with respect to the other two. And, in his practice of saying that certain things rightly said of all three, whether together or individually, can be uniquely or especially said of one of them: with “God” being one of those cases, even as Wisdom or Love is. For he says, “The Father of Truth is uniquely the highest/supreme One, the Father of His Wisdom.”
It also seems that he thinks of the Three as being one infinite substance construed more along the lines of a primary substance, and not just as sharing the same secondary substance or natural kind. Their essence isn’t just formally identically (as yours, David’s and mine are), but numerically identical; since their nature is, unlike finite natures Being itself, and this is capable of only existing in but one primary substance (or what is more like a substance than anything else). But this is a third way of understanding “is one God” or “is God” when said of the Trinity beyond it referring either to an abstract natural kind or generic essence, as something implicitly signifying that there is but one person: that they together are one infinite, divine, primary substance (and, perhaps that they function in such a unified fashion, and share in but one Authority – which follow from them being one substance in this sense).
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Sean
To be clear, I don't think that by saying "The Three are one God" he is employing the elliptical expression I suggest above, because I don't think this is meant to sound as if they are one person; though, I suggest that this is what he is doing in using "he" and "whom" of the Three.
ReplyDeleteHi Sean,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Augustine at least at times seems to treat the substance as a primary substance. That is basically my point though- a primary substance after all, is a person. I say that understanding a person to be an individual of a rational nature; if the substance shared by the persons of the Trinity is a primary substance, an individuated substance, rather than a generic substance, then it meets the definition of a person. It is an individual (as per numerical rather than simply generic unity) of a rational nature, namely, a nature that is supposed to be shared by the three persons. Even without calling the Trinity a "person", therefore, by that name, yet if he does make it out to be a numeric unity of primary rather than secondary substance as you suggest, then he does make the Trinity out to be a person.
In Christ,
Andrew Davis
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThanks much for taking the time to respond to my musings. You wrote:
==I think the central point we aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on is whether Augustine treats the Trinity as a person.==
Agreed.
== The question is, does Augustine treat the Trinity as an individual? Are there times when Augustine speaks of the “one God” as the Trinity as a single person, not merely in reference to a shared essence? I believe the answer is firmly 'yes'.==
As you know, I just as firmly believe the answer to be 'no'.
==“All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me concerning the Trinity, Who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality” (On the Trinity, Book 1)
“The Trinity, Who is God” seems to unavoidably present the Trinity as a single “Who”. How this falls short of treating the Trinity as an individual is a mystery to me.==
This where the importance of understanding exactly what the term trinitas meant during Augustine's time. Once again, take note of the following from Dr. Hill:
The word "trinitas" is more merely numerical in meaning than the English "trinity," has come almost to demand a capital T. But it means no more than "threeness," or more concretely "threesome" "a three." My inclination will be to avoid the capital T mostly, and sometimes to substitute more numbersome English words. (Edmund Hill, The Works of St. Augustine - A Translation for the 21st Century, Vol. 5, The Trinity, p. 91.)
Dr. Hill's translation of the germane section from the above cited De Trinitate passage is informative:
>>7. The purpose of all the Catholic commentators I have been able to read on the divine books of both testaments, who have written before me on the trinity which God is, has been to teach that according to the scriptures Father and Son and Holy Sprit in the inseparable equality of one substance present a divine unity; and therefore are not three gods but one God...>> (Edmund Hill, The Works of St. Augustine - A Translation for the 21st Century, Vol. 5, The Trinity, p. 69 - bold emphasis mine.)
If we keep in mind that the term trinitas back then means a numerical "three", that it is a singular noun and the pronouns attached to it are not masculine, personal pronouns, then Dr. Hill's translation sure seems to be the most accurate—i.e 'which' and not 'who'.
It makes much more sense to me to understand the trinity which God is as a qualitative description of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who are the members of the numerical "three", than to postulate that Augustine is speaking of yet another individual.
As for the use of singular pronouns attached to a composite group, note the following from New Testament:
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5:25-27 - NASB)
Andrew, I am really trying hard to understand your take on the issue under investigation, but at this point in our discussion, it just does not make sense to me.
Anyway, thanks much for your charitable and thoughtful reflections; though we currently disagree, they are still appreciated.
Grace and peace,
David
Hi Sean,
ReplyDeleteGood to see you back at AF. It your first posted comment, you wrote:
==It seems that there is a difference between treating the Trinity *as if* one person (e.g., using singular personal pronouns for all Three)...==
In the combox of another thread on Augustine (link), I wrote the following:
==Wheelock's Latin Grammar (1992) identifies four types of Latin pronouns: personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, reflexive pronouns and intensive pronouns. My research so far indicates that when pronouns are used with deus and trinitas, they are usually intensive and not personal. This is an important distinction, and is probably the reason why some folk prefer to translate ipse as 'itself' rather than 'himself'.==
As my research of Augustine's Latin texts continues, I still have yet to find personal pronouns used in conjunction with trinitas.
Moving on, I found your distinction between primary and secondary substances to be quite interesting. I certainly need to do more reflection on this distinction, and how it relates to our ongoing discussion.
Grace and peace,
David
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteBut isn't the claim that every person is a separate primary substance something that Augustine would dispute?
True, every primary substance that has human nature, which belongs to that natural kind, is but one person; and one human person is one primary substance. But does the divine substance and its nature work that way? Perhaps it is only on account of the finitude of their substances and natures that finite persons are separate substances; but the Father as infinite and the Son as infinite and the Holy Spirit as infinite would be one (primary) substance.
If Augustine models divine begetting off of the mind's ability to apprehend itself (and considers, as part of his commitment to divine simplicity and analogical predication, the Father to be Mind, and Essence, etc.), he would say that the Father, in thinking of himself perfectly, begets a sort of copy of himself. Now, the Son is not merely a mental object of the Father, but, like one is consubstantial with the mind that is the Father. (Maybe considering how God creates the world might illuminate this: for he creates more like how an author makes a story: he thinks of it and thus makes it; he doesn't first make it, and it be there, and then knows of it. So in 'thinking' of himself, the Father produces a replica of sorts, who is like him in every respect, save being Father.)
Maybe this all doesn't work. But at the very least, I think one can, as I think Augustine would, dispute the claim that every persons is a separate primary substance, particularly if one grounds this objection in divine simplicity and its attendant doctrine of analogical predication. And, perhaps, the mind provides a useful analogy of how this might work.
Take care,
Sean
Hi Sean,
ReplyDeleteI suppose it is within the realm of possibility that Augustine would not have agreed with that definition of person. It is ascribed to Boethius, and if I understand correctly served as the basic universal definition of a person throughout scholasticism. It wouldn't be absurd to suppose that Augustine, a few generations earlier, might have also understood personhood that way. But its possible Augustine didn't have a clear conception of the distinction between person and essence (primary and secondary substance). If I were to take a wild guess at how his theology ended up where it did, it would be that he didn't have clear categorical distinctions and perhaps made up his theology in a way that seemed to work well against his opponents in his era, without working out the inconsistencies that arose in it.
If Augustine did not view a person as a primary substance, I would be even more concerned about the possibility of modalism in his theology as this real distinction between the persons of the Trinity might then not be present. If the Son exists as God's thought of Himself without being a distinct subsistence (primary substance), then I don't see what would separate Augustine's thought from full-on modalism apart from, as one of the scholars David quoted in the article said, that he did not want to be a modalist, and verbally made the necessary denials to make himself appear orthodox. However, I think the wealth of quotes David provides respecting Augustine's apparent commitment to the monarchy of the Father would make such a modalistic view unlikely. How could the Son be begotten from the Father without being a distinct primary substance? It would rob Augustine's articulation of eternal generation of all value if it did not work to show that the Son is truly a distinct person (primary substance of a rational nature).
At the very least, whatever Augustine believed, I think a strong case can be made that following generations, many of which were highly influenced by Augustine, did articulate the Trinity in a semi-modalistic fashion by accepting a Boethian definition of a person while at the same time defining the substance supposedly shared by the persons of the Trinity as a primary substance. When theologians like Van Til come out and say that the Trinity is a person, I really don't see them as being innovative- I think they are being honest in describing what many of their predecessors, from the time of Augustine onward, believed.
In Christ,
Andrew Davis
David Waltz
ReplyDeleteI think what Andrew was trying to say is that is that Augustine uses Filioque language.
"29. As, therefore, the Father begat, the Son is begotten; so the Father sent, the Son was sent. But in like manner as He who begat an He who was begotten, so both He who sent and He who was sent, are one, since the Father and the Son are one. So also the Holy Spirit is one with them, since these three are one...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.28, 29 - NPNF 3.85 - bold emphasis mine.)""
Many who hold to the eastern trinity cannot hold to what I put in (((( )))).
While many of can agree that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. That is not what Augustine just say.
And while i realize that Augustine uses a lot of Monarchy langauge this Addition is what Andrew was called Semi-modalistic.
David Waltz
ReplyDeleteAnother place is here
" the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only. (((((( the Spirit of the Father and of the Son))))))), Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity. Yet not that this Trinity was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son. Nor, again, that this Trinity descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus when He was baptized; nor that, on the day of Pentecost, after the ascension of the Lord, when "there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind,'' the same Trinity "sat upon each of them with cloven tongues like as of fire," but only the Holy Spirit. "Thou art my Son," whether when He was baptized by John, or when the three disciples were with Him in the mount, or when the voice sounded, saying, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again;" but that it was a word of the Father only, spoken to the Son; although the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are indivisible, so work indivisibly. This is also my faith, since it is the Catholic faith. (On the Trinity, Book I.7 - NPNF 3.20 - bold emphasis mine.)"""
Again the Above ((( ))))) show where i also believe Augustine to be teach the Filioque as nd thus what Andrew Davis calls Semi-Modalism.
I would love to here your thoughts on both of these examples David Waltz.
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThanks much for taking the time to comment. You wrote:
==I think what Andrew was trying to say is that is that Augustine uses Filioque language.==
Augustine most certainly “uses Filioque language”. But I do not think that this fact is foundational to Andrew Davis’ belief that Augustine is what he terms a “semi-modalist”. Note the following from my opening post in this thread:
>>Towards the end of the post, Andrew boldly states that, "Augustinian trinitarianism, then, or semi-modalism, as I prefer to call it, is not simply some innocuous error."
In the combox, I asked Andrew for some further clarification as to what he meant by "Augustinian trinitarianism" and "semi-modalism". He replied with:
I’m using “Augustinian Trinitarianism” here to refer to his beliefs as expressed in his books on the Trinity, and in his debate with Maximinus, a Homoian, that God, the one God, is by definition the Trinity. Its this identification of God with the Trinity instead of identifying God as the Father in particular that logically leads to a denial that Christ is the Son of God. Whatever monarchy and causality of the Son by the Father there is in this view, since it is within God, the Trinity, it ultimately doesn’t change this. The problem as I see it is not a lack of affirmation of the monarchy of the Father, but the identification of the one God with the Trinity rather than the Father. (July 10, 2018 at 9:35 pm)
And:
Semi-modalism says that the one God is one individual who is ontologically three persons of Father, Son, and Spirit. From there there is considerably more variety depending on who you talk to, ranging from a breakdown of the relationship between those persons are one defined by ontologically causality of the Son and Spirit from the Father, to a mere economic choice among those three persons to effectively role-play as Father, Son, and Spirit. (July 15, 2018 at 4:37 am)
Augustine believed that, "the one God is one individual"? That assessment did not, and does not, seem to be an accurate understanding of what Augustine actually taught. The rest of this post will build upon my following combox response to Andrew:
My understanding of Augustine is that though he terms the Trinity (the Three) “one God”, he does not say that the Trinity (the Three) is “one individual”. Augustine states, “‘the Three are One’, because of one substance”; and, “hath one and the same nature”—not “one individual”.
IMO unus Deus (one God) with reference to the Trinity in Augustine’s mature thought has Deus being used in a qualitative sense. This understanding makes sense of the “God from God’ phraseology—found throughout Augustine’s writings, and, of course, in the Nicene Creed.
I then provided the following quote from an esteemed scholar of Augustine:
One constant strand of argument throughout the book has been that the Father’s monarchia, his status as principium and fons, is central to Augustine’s Trinitarian theology. The discussions of these central chapters of the book should, however, have also made clear that many things come under the umbrella of asserting the importance of the Father’s status as principium. For Augustine, the Father’s status as principium is eternally exercised through his giving the fullness of divinity to the Son and Spirit such that the unity of God will be eternally found in the mysterious unity of the homoousion. (Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, p. 248.)>>
cont'd
cont'd
ReplyDeleteAndrew Davis believes that the “one God” for Augustine is the Trinity, and not the Father. This belief of his is why he calls Augustine a “semi-modalist”.
But as you can discern from my response(s) to him, I think he has completely misunderstood Augustine. I have provided way to many references from Augustine’s works that clearly demonstrates Augustine retains the teaching from the Bible and the Nicene Creed that the Father is in a unique sense the “one God”, and that he uses the phrase “one God” with reference to the Trinity in a different sense—i.e. a qualitative sense.
Hope I have provided some clarity to your concerns. If not, please feel free to ask more questions.
Grace and peace,
David
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