Comparison of Trinity and Soul Analogies

Speaker 1 0:00

I think we should reiterate clearly that St Augustine did not intend to reduce the Trinity to two persons, but that seems to be what was implied. But even then, at least you had persons. With the analogies of the mind, you don't have persons, you have faculties within a single human being, and it's not even faculties within a single human being, it's faculties within the soul and it's faculties within a certain part of the soul. Because Plato, by whom Augustine was deeply influenced, understood the soul in terms of three parts A tripartite understanding of the soul, the highest part of which, the logisticon, is where the mind is to be found, the nous, as well as the dhyānyā, the dhyānoia, which is the discursive reasoning aspect of the soul, according to Plato. And then you have the nous, which is the intuitive part of the soul, capable of immediate apprehension of truth. Anyway, why are we saying all of this? Because the analogies of mind are one part of the soul. That's even further away from the trihypostatic teaching of the mystery of the Holy Trinity by the Cappadocian fathers. But what I see is, in the Cappadocians you have basically a scriptural approach. In St Augustine, it seems you have a more speculative philosophical approach. It seems you have a more speculative philosophical approach, and even though the text that we began looking at was to prepare you to look at the text of where those analogies come in his famous De Trinitate and we were reading through that first text in order to get to the second text so that we can see what Saint Augustine says, how he says it, try to understand what is his methodology, because there is a fundamental difference in methodology. What is the method? What we have said thus far is that St Augustine, in interpreting the meaning of these words that the Lord is good, in Psalm 134, 3-6, 134 is the Septuagint numbering and in English it's Psalm 135 in the King James, and the reason is because the Kingint follows the Alexandrian Hebrew manuscripts, which are 300 years older than the Palestinian, and that's how the rabbis of Alexandria numbered the Psalms.

Speaker 1 3:42

At any rate, St Augustine presents us with God is good and is absolute good. And we talked about how everything else is relative and we talked about participation. God is the absolute, uncreated good, and God's goodness is not the result of participation in some abstract absolute goodness. He is goodness itself. Himself is the absolute good. And then he talks about traveling inwards in paragraph four. When I travel inwards so far as I can towards him, I find that he is both deeper and higher than I can reach. The goodness of the Lord is such that he has no need of these things to make him good. Continuing that same theme, in a word, I do not praise these things apart from him, but him I find to be perfect without them. All right. So, once again, his goodness himself, his life itself, all these things are implied here. Himself, his life itself, all these things are implied here. God needs nothing. And all the other things which we see, which we identify as good and so forth, they add nothing to God. So, untouched by want or change, nowhere does he look for any good which may increase him, nowhere does he fear any evil that may diminish him".

Speaker 1 5:29

So then it goes into the different uses of good, all of which are relative the sky is good, the sun is good, the moon is good, and so on. As I say, he devotes a number of lines to this, so on. As I say he devotes a number of lines to this, god is absolute good. And, curiously, if you were to study Christian ethics in a Western seminary or Western university, this is what you would begin with Absolute goodness, establishing first that there is such a thing as absolute goodness, because unless you establish that first, you can't go any further. It's assumed that everything will necessarily descend to a relativity. But when I turn to God, I can think of nothing better to call him than simply good. The Lord himself says no one is good but God alone Mark 10, 18. So the good that is good by virtue of some other good, there's a difference between the good by virtue of some other good and the good that is good in itself. Once again, god is good in himself. So that good which makes things good is truly good, just as it truly is.

St Augustine's Analogy of Being

Speaker 1 6:58

And this is where we were coming to a very interesting passage. I think we spent a little bit of time unpacking it, but I'm just reading through it now. Pick up the threads, as much for my own benefit as for yours that it is an insult to him to say, of the things he has made, that they have no being. So, as we shall see a little later, augustine is fully aware of others for him that said that if God is being, then all other things have no being, and if all other things have being, then God will be above being, in other words, seeking to distinguish God from things made, created things. So there is that fundamental line of demarcation in patristic theology which is incredibly important, that is to say the created-uncreated distinction. God alone is uncreated and all creatures, all of creation is is, by definition, out of nothing. That's important because Saint Augustine is not going in that direction. He said it's an insult to God to say of the things he has. Let's go to the beginning of the sentence. It is not the case that the things he has made have no being. There it is. Or rather, it is an insult to him to say of the things he has made that they have no being. Why should he have made them if what he has made has no being? If what he has made has no being? And this is the difficulty To unpack this in order to explain what's going on here.

Speaker 1 9:14

You need philosophy Already. How much philosophy have we used? That's not the case with the Cappadocian firmness. There are terms which go back to philosophy, but at the end of the day, you say they're using them differently. Context is different, everything is different. You know how realtors say the most important thing is location, location, location. Here, the most important thing is context, context, context. So what's going on? Allow me to take a minute to explain.

Speaker 1 9:57

St Augustine is going in the direction. What he wants to do is to say that, yes, god is unique. God is the absolute good and no good can be compared to God. He is goodness in itself. He is goodness in himself means that we may gain knowledge of him, the creator, by means of his creation. If we study his creation, if we learn about his creation, we are learning about him. We are learning about him. We are learning about the one who made all these things which make up the cosmos.

Speaker 1 10:52

So there's a compelling argument there, based on the idea that there is a similarity between creation and the creator. The creator has made his imprint on his creation in such a way that if you learn about the creature, the creation, you will be learning about the creator. This will lead you to knowledge of the Creator. It's interesting because, in St John Damascene, for example, he tells us clearly that all that we can learn from creation is that there must be a God. Who that God is is not known and cannot be revealed through creation. Why? Because creation is from nothing, comes into existence out of nothing, and God has no beginning.

Speaker 1 12:13

It's a radical, radical difference between the created and the uncreated and therefore there is no similarity between the created and the uncreated. Well, of course people will say, and they do. Well, what does it mean that we were created in the image of God? We were created in the image of God. We were made, as it says in Holy Scripture, in the image and after the likeness of God. But that doesn't mean that there's a similarity between the created and the uncreated.

Speaker 1 12:56

What that means and I'm summarizing this huge chapter of patristic theology here for the purpose of clarity now what that means, because image is described in various ways what is the image of God in man? The fact that man has a soul, the fact that man has a nous, it's the fact that the soul is both reasonable and spiritual, and so on. Right, but what all of that means together, in the final analysis, is that we have been created. We are creatures brought into existence out of nothing, but for reasons which only the Lord knows, we have been endowed with the capacity to contain divine life. We have been endowed with the capacity to contain divine life. This is where the image of God resides in man, that we have this capacity to become Christ-like. And what becoming Christ-like means is to be united with and in communion with, to share in his life.

Speaker 1 14:25

So the Orthodox patristic tradition emphasizes time and time again the importance of the created-uncreated distinction, that there is no similarity between the creator and the created. St Augustine wants to get to what we call the analogia entis, the analogy of being, which is what I mentioned earlier, that, since the world was created by God and must therefore have the imprint of the Creator in it, study of the world, knowledge of the world will give you knowledge of the Creator, not, as St John Damascene says, knowledge that the Creator exists, that there is a Creator, but who the Creator is. And what St Augustine wants to get to is to say, if you want to understand the Holy Trinity, you must look at what was created in the image of God, the Holy Trinity, and that is to say man. So let's look at ourselves. That brings us to the analogy of the mind. And just to emphasize that, he gives us two analogies of the mind, two sets of terminology, but they're all analogies of the mind. The mind of what? Of human beings. If we look at our mind, we shall see that there is there to be discovered the mystery of the Holy Trinity. To be fair to Saint Augustine, he accepts the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to Saint Augustine. He accepts the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and he's not trying to turn the doctrine of the Holy Trinity into Plato's galogarathon, the beautiful and the good. He's trying to present us with an angle of approach that gives us a grasp, an apprehension of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Speaker 1 16:49

Some people, and among them Metropolitan Callistos Ware he felt that the analogies in St Augustine were not to be taken as literal. They are analogies and they shouldn't be pressed too far. Henry Chadwick doesn't believe that that's the case, saying that for Augustine, analogy is something, and I quote, mathematical and exact. So for that reason it's debated among scholars. There are differing opinions, but the way that St Augustine goes into the detail that he gives, we're going to see that on this particular point, analogy is something mathematical and exact. So yeah, the mystery is certainly emphasized by the Cappadocian fathers. This is uppermost. Even in the few quotations that we've looked at, we found them saying this very thing. So we have the analogia entis implied here, strongly implied by Saint Augustine in this passage.

Speaker 1 18:16

What was it that he made if what he made has no being, so the things that he made. If what he made has no being, so the things that he made do have being, and so can, after all, be compared with him the similarity. Yet the words this is not easy. Yet the words I am, who am, and you shall say to the children of Israel he who is has sent me to you Exodus 3.14, sound as if he alone has been. He did not say the Lord, god, the Almighty, the Merciful, the Just, though if he had done so, he would certainly have been speaking the truth.

Speaker 1 19:11

His answer, the answer that he actually gives, excludes everything that could be predicated of God. That God is good, god is, is what St Saint Augustine wants to say. His answer excludes everything that could be predicated of God or said about him, and says that being itself is what he is called. So evoi mi oonon, ego sum qui sum. This is biblical, but what Saint Augustine is focusing on is on being ends, which is more akin to what you find in the philosophers. In the philosophers, not he who is, but that which is, which is impersonal. So let's finish this paragraph.

Speaker 1 20:14

His answer excludes everything that could be predicated of God or said about him, and says that being itself is what he is called. This is what you shall say to them. He said he who is has sent me to you as if that were his name. His being is such that in comparison with him, they have being, for they derive their being from him, but when compared with him, they have no being. This is what we were saying earlier, for true being is immutable being and, by the way, true being is spiritual and that is his alone. So he alone has true being and he alone is immutable, unchangeable, for what is is. Just as the good of goods is good, so he's added a dimension here. He said the things that he made do have being. He wanted to establish that because he made them. Now I am who am, and you shall say to the children of Israel he who is has sent me to you Exodus 3.14, sound as if he alone has been. He did not say the Lord, god the Almighty, the Merciful, just, though if he had done so, he would certainly have been speaking the truth. His answer excludes everything that could be predicated of God or said about him, and says that being itself is what he is called. This is what you shall say to them. He said he who has sent me to you as if that were his name is, has sent me to you as if that were his name. His being is such that, in comparison with him, the things that are made have no being. When not compared with him, they have being, for they derive their being from him, but when compared with him, they have no being him, but when compared with him, they have no being, for true being is immutable being and that is his alone. Okay, for what is is just as the good of goods is good. Reflect and consider.

Speaker 1 23:01

Now he's going to go on to talk about praising, participation and sharing and love. Reflect and consider. Whatever else you praise, you praise it because it is good. Only a madman praises what is not good. If you praise an unjust man on account of his injustice, will not you also be unjust? So there's a here, this implication of participation. If you praise someone who is unjust, you're participating in the injustice of that person. If you praise a thief because he is a thief, will you not also be his accomplice? If you praise a just man on account of his justice, will you not also have a share in his justice through praising? So praising and participation are being connected. They're being viewed together. Praising equals participation. Now, you would not praise him if you did not love him, and you would not love him if you had no share in his justice. So then, whatever else we praise, we praise because it is good, and you can have no greater, better or surer reason for praising God than that he is good. Therefore, praise the Lord, for he is good.

Speaker 1 24:41

The whole point is to get back to this phrase from the psalm the Lord is good. How much more can we say about his goodness? Whose heart can conceive or comprehend how good the Lord is? So he's going to encourage us now to look to man and to direct contact with God. But direct contact with God, we're going to see, is not actually possible in this life. Possible in this life, it's in the life to come, what the Roman Catholics later referred to as the beatific vision. So let us return to ourselves. Let's look to man and acknowledge him there. So he's building this argumentation very, very meticulously and he's forcing us to think according to the lines that he's following. So praising is participation in love. If you had no share in his justice, you wouldn't love a just person. So, whatever else we praise, we praise because it is good, and you can have no greater, better or surer reason for praising God than that he is good. So, therefore, praise the Lord, for he is good. Now, how much more can we say about his goodness? He's going to try and take it further by looking at us human beings, created in the image of God, and acknowledging him there, where In us.

Speaker 1 26:46

Let us praise the maker in his works. We are his works, for we are not fit to behold him in himself. We are not fit to behold him in himself. So vision of God is not possible, experience of God is not possible in this life. We're not fit to behold him in himself. One day, perhaps, we shall be fit to behold him when our heart has been so cleansed by faith that at last, it may rejoice in truth that one day. What does that refer to? Well, he goes on.

Speaker 1 27:35

But now, since we cannot look on him, let us look at his works instead, lest we should fail to praise him. So we want to praise him. The fact that we cannot look upon him directly should not deter us from praising him, because we can still see goodness in the things that he has made and that there is a similarity between the maker, the creator, and the created. So we see what is good. Praise the Lord. We praise him through creation, because in creation we see the goodness of God, the goodness that points us towards the ultimate, perfect, absolute good. So, just to finish this book. But now, since we cannot look on him, let us look at his works instead, lest we should fail to praise him because we don't want not to praise him. Praise the Lord, for he is good. That is why I said praise the Lord for he is good.

Speaker 1 28:58

Sing to his name, for he is sweet Psalm 135.3. He would perhaps have been good but not sweet, had he not made you capable of tasting him and perhaps he's also thinking of taste and see, for the Lord is good. Yevsaste geidate o ti Christos, o Kyrios Christos. There is spelt with an eta, which means kind. The Lord is kind, good. However, he has revealed himself to men as one who has also sent bread from heaven by giving his co-equal son.

Speaker 1 29:42

So, all this time, who is he speaking of? Up to now, speaking of God the Father. That's problematic. Well, we'll talk about that later. He's coming to the incarnation, so the one who comes is his co-equal son, who is what he is to be made man and to be put to death for men, so that, by means of what you are, you may be able to taste what you are not. So he's thinking of the flesh, the body of the Lord.

Speaker 1 30:30

So do you wish to hear how uniquely good he is? It was the Lord, when asked, who said no one is good but God alone Mark 10, 18. The uniqueness of his goodness is something that I am reluctant to pass over quickly but am incapable of praising fitly. If I move on rapidly, I am afraid I shall appear ungrateful, but if I do undertake to expound it, I am afraid of becoming exhausted by the vast burden of the Lord's praises. Even so, my brothers accept my praise of him, unfit though I am to utter it, so that, even if his praises be not fully unfolded, the zeal of him who utters them may at least be accepted. May God himself approve my intention and pardon my failure. Okay, here it's a convenient point to stop, and we'll come back to this next time.