Saint Augustine on the Trinity

Speaker 1 0:00

Well, today we're going to read a few texts. Last time we left off we had read a little bit, perhaps most of On the Trinity by Saint Augustine, book 9, section 1, and then 1-5, paragraph paragraphs 1 to 5, 8. And this is from the translation of Burnaby, slightly revised by Wiles and Santer. It comes from the book Documents in Early Christian Thought, cambridge University Press, by Maurice Wiles and Mark Santa editors. So I want to go back to the beginning of this De Trinitate on the Trinity, and read through it again in a deliberate manner, paying close attention to detail. So the object of our present inquiry is Trinity, not a Trinity but the Trinity which is God, the true, supreme and only God. The reader, then, must be patient. We are still inquiring, and such inquiry deserves no censure, provided that our search for what must baffle knowledge and expression be made in unshakable faith. We're still inquiring, we've already talked about that, so I won't dwell on that.

Speaker 1 1:44

Affirmation, indeed, calls at once and rightly for censure from any who may see and instruct to better purpose. Seek the Lord and your soul shall live, psalm 69, 32. But we are warned against any rash boast of having already attained. Seek his face always. Psalm 105, 4. If anyone thinks that he knows something he does not yet know, as he ought to know. But if one loves God, one is known by him. 1 Corinthians 8, 2-3. He does not say has known him, which would be dangerous presumption, but is known by him. So, elsewhere, after saying now that you have come to know God, he at once corrects himself rather, are known by God. Galatians 4, 9. And most emphatic is that other passage Brethren, I do not consider that I have attained, but one thing I do forgetting what lies behind and reaching out to what lies ahead, I am intent to follow after the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, let those of us who are perfect be thus minded. Philippians 3, 13-15. By perfection in this life he understands nothing but to forget the things which lie behind and to reach out intently after the things which lie ahead.

Speaker 1 3:38

We're going to say more about this from a Cappadocian perspective when we look again at St Gregory of Nyssa. The safest intention is that of seeking continually until the goal of all our effort and our reaching out be attained. The intent is rightly directed only if it sets out from faith. Rightly directed only if it sets out from faith. A sure faith is itself a beginning of knowledge. But sure knowledge will not be perfected till after this life, when we shall see face to face. There, in that brief line, you have the credo ut intelligam. I believe that I might understand, and you also have the underlining of St Augustine's understanding that sure knowledge, as he calls it knowledge of God, is given in the life to come, not yet, not now, but later. Hugely significant difference between what we find in the Orthodox tradition and in the post-Augustinian Western theological tradition. So, but sure knowledge will not be perfected till after this life, when we shall see face to face. There's no face to face in this line, only in patria.

Speaker 1 5:19

Faith versus knowledge. Let us then be thus minded, convinced that the temper of the truth seeker is safer than that of rashly taking the unknown for known. Let us seek as expecting to find, and let us find as expecting still to seek, for when a man has finished, he is just beginning to seek, for when a man has finished, he is just beginning. Ecclesiasticus 18.7. Let us shun all doubt concerning matters of faith. Let us refuse all hasty affirmation concerning matters of understanding in the one, holding to authority, in the other seeking out the truth. We have a reference here to the analogy of faith and, in matters of understanding, the analogy of being the analogia entis. Yes, let us shun all doubt concerning matters of faith. Let us refuse all hasty affirmation concerning matters of understanding in the one, holding to authority auctoritas, in the other, seeking out the truth, veritas. As for our present inquiry, let us believe that Father, son and Holy Spirit are one God, maker and ruler of the whole creation.

Speaker 1 6:58

It's interesting here that Saint Augustine has no doubt that Father, son and Holy Spirit are one God and at the same time maker and ruler of the whole creation. That Father is not Son, nor Holy Spirit Father or Son, but a trinity of mutually related persons and a unity of equal essence and a unity of equal essence. So he's rejecting here, he's making sure that we don't think in a modalist sense regarding God. The Father is uniquely the Father, the Son is uniquely the Son and the Holy Spirit is uniquely and distinctively the Holy Spirit and they are not to be confused as persons. But he says this is a trinity of mutually related persons, because this is how he's going to go on to explain the distinctiveness of each of these divine persons and a unity of equal essence and let us seek to understand this truth, praying for the help of him whom we would understand, and to set forth what we are enabled to understand with such careful reverence as to speak nothing unworthily, even if we sometimes speak mistakenly.

Speaker 1 8:40

Now notice here the tone of St Augustine's language. He is saying forgive me if I make mistakes in the process of presenting to you this mystery as best I can, but what is the problem with that? I mean, on the surface it's perfectly fine. He's going to talk about a great mystery and he may not be able to do so with exactitude. So what is the problem? Why would we say that there is a red flag here? This is a speculation. He's taking data and he's certainly using first of all credo, his faith, but he's already aware that he doesn't know something for sure, and this is a concern. As I say, some people would regard this as a step up from other fathers, because they seem to be rather sure of what they say, the fathers, because they seem to be rather sure of what they say. See, on the psychological level, saint Augustine is a little more impressive. He's allowing for mistakes. Please forgive me if I make a mistake. I'm doing the best I can. He's a bishop. He's writing a speculative treatise.

Speaker 1 10:15

Treatise even if we sometimes speak mistakenly. Why do the fathers not speak mistakenly? Where does their infallibility come from? What is the experience that the fathers have that their theology is based on? So, to approach it from a slightly different angle, or question what is theology?

Speaker 1 10:31

We said, in reference to the day of Pentecost, that the apostles did not receive ideas about God, concepts about God, on the day of Pentecost, what did they receive? What did they experience? The Holy Spirit, what happened when they experienced the Holy Spirit? What was revealed to them? Doesn't the Lord say that the other comforter will lead them into all the truth, will lead them into all the truth. Well, what is that? So the Holy Spirit enables us to see Christ, because who is the truth? Jesus Christ. Again, it's not an idea, it's not a concept. It's the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. Who is the image of God is revealed in and through the Holy Spirit. Didn't they know Christ before? They knew Christ before? But what does the Holy Spirit reveal? Christ as God and Creator. You know, we were created in His image, according to the image of God, to use the biblical language more precisely. So we were created according to the image of God. He, who is the image of God, created us in his image. He is the son of God by nature.

Speaker 1 12:29

And then I say to you that I learned my astronomy through books, by reading books on astronomy. In other words, I've never actually looked through a telescope and seen those heavenly bodies of which I know something about. What would you say? What would I be If I said to you I'm a student of the law, I've studied the law, I've read books about the law, but I've never actually been in a courtroom and I've never acted as an attorney in court. What would you say there? But I know a lot about it because I've read books, but I've never actually practiced law. What would you say? Am I a lawyer? No, you'd have your doubts. Of course, it would be even worse if I said I have tried cases and happened to have lost all of them and that might be even more to the point in some cases or that I'm a surgeon and unfortunately, none of my patients survived the surgery. None of my patients survived the surgery. So if I say to you I've studied medicine and I know all the details, but I've never actually practiced medicine, I didn't go to spend time as a junior doctor under a surgeon and train under him and then conduct my own surgery and then have a record of surgeries and all of that, then of course you would be right to have some serious doubts about my pedigree as a surgeon.

Speaker 1 14:18

So why is theology different? When you study theology and you can speak about the mystery of the Holy Trinity on the basis of the history of the church, the councils, all of that with a certain exactitude, does that mean you are a theologian? We're going to come back to that question when we look at Gregory the theologian, because he says more about that. So too does Gregory of Nyssa. But what I want to really make as clear as possible to you is this empirical, experiential character of the basis of Orthodox theology.

Speaker 1 15:01

I'll give you a simple liturgical example to illustrate the point further. We have the greatest anaphora, the greatest divine Eucharist ever written, the divine liturgy of Saint Basil the Great. And why is it that? This anaphora, the anaphora of St John Chrysostom, the other great anaphoras that are part of our tradition and heritage, why is it that I can't just sit down and write an anaphora? Because people do.

Speaker 1 15:39

You look at the Reformed tradition, you look at the Roman Catholic tradition after Vatican II and they'll produce alternative anaphoras which, on the face of it, they're anaphoras. Why can they never have that place? Why can they never have that place, the place that St Basil's in Afra has, the place that St John Chrysostom's in Afra has? See many Protestants. They're very sharp. They'll go back to the earliest times of the church and, through the Holy Scriptures, they'll see that.

Speaker 1 16:15

Well, you know what the Anaphras, the Eucharistic prayers, used to be prayed extemporaneously, and they're right. So that's what they will do. They'll say, well, we want to be biblical, and they do that. Why is that not acceptable for us? Why don't we do that? We have that centuries old, unbroken tradition. We wanted to. We could do that very easily, couldn't we? Why don't we do that? Why do we stay with the anaphora of St Basil the Great, st John Chrysostom, St James and the others? Why is there nothing to add? How can that be so?

Speaker 1 16:56

So again, bringing this back to how these Eucharistic prayers were written, what are they the fruit of? Are they the fruit of a brilliant man sitting down and gathering together all these ideas and then expressing them in a beautifully poetic way? Or are they the fruit of the experience, the experience of Christ, the vision of Christ in glory. It's very important for us to understand this basic, simple fact of the life of the church, of the life of the church, because sometimes we say prayer is the guide of all things, and that's true. But what kind of prayer, what kind of experience within the prayerful tradition of the saints of the church? Extremely important. And it just so happens that this is the hardest aspect of the life of the Orthodox Church, the teachings of the Orthodox Church, the tradition of the Orthodox Church that the West finds so difficult to accept.

Speaker 1 18:15

Because, well, because of various reasons, I remember sitting in a seminar once upon a time at Oxford and the seminar was about the place of the Holy Spirit in systematic theology. And there was an Arian, great admirer of Eunomius. I sat through a whole semester of lectures on Arianism given by an Arian. There was the former Archbishop of Canterbury who wrote on Vladimir Lossky, the critique of Vladimir Lossky, saint Gregory Palamas, the whole Orthodox tradition, and there were others. And there was one American PhD student who was writing his thesis on Gregory of Nyssa. He began to speak about how remarkable St Gregory of Nyssa's understanding of the Holy Spirit is and how experience experience of the Holy Spirit, the common experience of the Holy Spirit, is central to his understanding of the place of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, etc. Etc. And as I was listening to him I thought oh, this is wonderful, this is very orthodox. But I might have been the only person in the room who thought that, because everybody else was totally unimpressed.

Speaker 1 19:49

And I wondered about that and realized after a while that systematic theology, of course, is based on what these people consider to be something sure and tangible. You know human logic, reason, and indeed the logos is understood as reason. When you say logos, a Western Christian who has studied these things thinks logos. So you have reason. And then you have in their experience you have this word experience which unfortunately to them seems so subjective. And you have all these groups of people, many of which seem to claim that they have a certain experience that reason cannot challenge in any way, and they probably do, but they're different kinds of experience.

Speaker 1 20:58

And then, to the dismay of these scholars, whether they're Roman Catholic scholastics or whether they're sola scriptura Protestants, the whole edifice of what they have is based on reason, either directly or indirectly. And these groups of people over here who emphasize experience are just hand clapping and speaking in tongues and all of that kind of thing. And so if anybody comes along and says something, even orthodox, with a small o, and in this case about St Gregory of Nyssa and how common experience is a key, they don't want to have anything to do with it. It's too much. It's too much chaos. You're introducing too much chaos into the life of the church and there it is. So you have to be very careful in how you present the orthodox emphasis on experience, especially when in dialogue with Western Christians, because they might perceive you in this way and then they've stopped listening to you. And in fact it's very much the two hands of God, as we find in the analogy preserved in Irenaeus, the logos and the spirit that's the Orthodox understanding is very much contained in that, because you have a balance.

Speaker 1 22:33

But it's not that we don't have any theology. We have an abundance of the theological word in the Orthodox tradition. The question is, what is the source of that theological word? Where does it come from? What is it based on? St Paul talks about a cloud of witnesses, so we'll say more about that in due course. It's time for a break and then, when we come back, we'll continue our reading of the De Trinitate of St Augustine. Please subscribe to our channel and share with your friends. Click on the join button below our video and become a friend or reader of the Mount Tabor Academy. Support our drive to introduce the theology and spiritual life of the Orthodox Church to the wider community.