Current Seminar:
• Augustine's De Trinitate
3/17/2007
Book XII, Chapters 1-2
Br. Dunstan Robidoux, OSB
In chapter 1 of Book 12, Augustine begins to speak about the human intellect in a way which can point to its full parameters or
dimensions. In other words, he does not present a narrow theory of the human mind. The human mind is not to be understood
as a purely theoretical thing which exists apart from anything else, nor is the mind to be seen as essentially a pragmatic power which
exists only to meet or to deal with practical problems or issues. Augustine begins by speaking about an inner and an outer man or,
in other words, he speaks about inner and outer conditions. Sense and intellect are closely related to each other although the human
intellect transcends the sensible cognition of animals by its ability to take the things of sense and, from there, working with things sensed
and things remembered from sense, move towards meanings which transcend sense and which later are judged by an understanding of first principles
or "eternal reasons" that the human intellect is able to grasp and know (something which animals cannot grasp and know). In his explanation
of this, in his own day, Aquinas speaks about the first principles of the human intellect that, by self-knowledge, we human beings can come to a
knowledge of. Augustine here does not speak of first principles though this sense is implied when he speaks about criteria for judgment
which are "permanent and unchanging," something very basic for the proper operations of human understanding. Even as we attend to the practical
applications of the human intellect, in some way, in the judgments made, there is some connection to a power of judgment which, to some degree, is
conscious of a set of higher principles or reasons which are foundational for all human knowing. As sense and intellect are intimately related
to each other and as human understanding functions through some kind of interaction or interrelation between them, in the same way, for a complete
understanding of human intellectual operations, reason and will must be understood in terms of an ongoing interaction between the two. The
human intellect does not exist as an isolated, separate thing since its functioning depends on necessary relations both with respect to external
factors and also with respect to the existence of internal human desires which relate thinking and understanding toward objects or ends that are
desired and sought for and which can only be reached through efforts to think and understand. In Augustine, one can find relations postulated
between sense and intellect and intellect and will (rational desire) which later are more carefully explained by Aquinas when he applies a notion of
science and a heuristic set of metaphysical principles that he takes from Aristotle. In concluding the first chapter, Augustine distinguishes
between practical and theoretical reason within an overarching theory of the human intellect that acknowledges these two functions which are
distinguished whenever we attempt to speak about a contemplative element which exists in human understanding versus or in distinction to a practical
or existential element which must try and find a way to live in a world that is constituted by spatial and temporal coordinates. In either
aspect, Trinitarian analogies should be found although, as one attends to purely contemplative functions and activities, as a person gives him or
herself to inspecting "eternal reasons" within judgment, by this inspection, dwelling, and commitment, one finds an analogy that is most apt and which
can be referred to here as an "image of God" and not only as a "trinity" among other "trinities."
In chapter 2, Augustine speaks about a Trinitarian analogy that has been favored by some persons, an analogy that is grounded in an allegorical
interpretation of history’s first family as this is given in Genesis in the story of Adam and Eve and the union which subsequently exists between
them to produce offspring. Eve, the woman, proceeds directly from Adam as from a rib and so here one can speak of the proceeding of the Holy
Spirit who comes directly from God the Father though not as a son or daughter. Here Augustine expresses his appreciation for the fact that the
coming of Eve from Adam can be used to show that the Holy Spirit can be understood to proceed from God the Father in a way that differs from the
proceeding of God the Son from God the Father. However, on the whole, the use of this analogy of husband, wife, and offspring is not a good
Trinitarian analogy since, as Genesis notes, man is made in God's Trinitarian image and not in the image of any particular divine person. If
we take the human family as an apt analogy for the Trinity and if we assume that every son or daughter is the fruit of an implanted male seed (a
commonly received view in St. Augustine's day), we begin to think in terms of the primacy of the Father's image although this thesis conflicts with the
fact that every man (or every human being) is made in God's Trinitarian image (and not in the image of God the Father). In addition, as emphasis
is placed on person and not on a common nature, it can lead to an exegesis of scripture which says that man was made in the image of God the Son as
distinct from being made in the image of God the Father. The Son's image is distinguished from the Father's image and this can lead to the view
that Son and Father are unlike each other. In conclusion, as one attends to the temporality or sequence of events which is constitutive of nuclear
human family life, one finds that conditions need to be fulfilled before anything can happen in terms of persons proceeding from each other. But,
this type of thinking jars with the absence of temporality in divine processions. It is an unresolved problem also that, on the one hand, it is
said in scripture that man is made in God's image although, on the other hand, it is clearly suggested in 1 Cor 11:7 that every woman is made less in
God's image than is the case with a man. How are these tensions to be resolved?
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