Current Seminar:
• Augustine's De Trinitate
5/19/2007
Book XIII, Chapters 1-2
Dr. Ron Vardiman
In moving toward an inner, spiritual analogy to the Trinity, Augustine begins by considering certain preliminary points. From his notion of the
two functions of the rational mind, he treats the action of the will regarding faith and happiness. He first examines the nature of faith. He
takes as his text the beginning of St. John’s Gospel. He sees in the first part of this passage a consideration of unchangeable, everlasting
truths, while the second part introduces truths contained in time, as history. This division corresponds to his previous discussion of the two
functions of the rational mind.
We do not know the eternal truths in the same way we know temporal ones, by forming images from experience and imagination, relating them to what we
already know. Yet when we have faith in what we cannot experience we know we have it because the faith is inside us. We cannot have faith in
what we experience, because then we have knowledge. Note the distinction here between faith and belief (it is possible to believe or not believe
what we experience). Each person who has faith has it in his own particular way, but what is believed (regarding God and the Church) may be said
to be common to all believers. Thus we speak of one Faith.
Augustine then goes into a discussion of what all men want, that is what is the common will. He rejects the somewhat facetious suggestion of
buying cheap and selling dear, as well as the desire to be praised. He then considers the idea that all men want to be happy, with which he
agrees. Yet there are many ways in which men seek happiness, and many never know it. All love happiness, but if not all know it this
contradicts what we have established about love previously. Then Augustine asks if we find the happy life in what we enjoy most. He
quotes Cicero’s argument that wanting what is not right brings unhappiness, so that not getting what you want can be better than getting it. Thus
those are unhappy who do not have what they want or want wrongly. To be completely happy then is to want rightly and have all one wants.
Augustine asks why some, when they cannot get both of these elements of happiness, choose to have all they want even if it is not desired
rightly. He attributes this to man’s warped nature, his inability to reject immediate enjoyment for the sake of later fulfillment, even when the
immediate enjoyment actually moves him further from obtaining true happiness. But a good will is satisfied with such good things as come its way,
and perseveres in evil circumstances knowing they will end, and happiness will one day be complete.
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