Intro: “Love" and “Knowledge” exist in a substance of their own

Speaker 1 0:00

So in the paragraph that we just read, st Augustine says that love and knowledge do not belong to the mind as attributes to a subject. Their existence is as substantive as that of the mind itself. They are not attributes, they are substances as that of the mind itself. They are not attributes, they are substances. They can be regarded as mutually related terms, but each exists in a substance of its own. Each exists in a substance of its own, as related terms. They are not comparable to colour and the coloured subject, where the colour possesses no substance proper to itself. The substance is the coloured body, the colour is in the substance. And then he goes on to say the relation is to be compared, rather to that of two friends who are also men, that is, substances. Let me just say a word about substance and attribute, because this keeps coming up and a note of clarification is perhaps in order.

St. Augustine an “essentialist”: thinks in terms of “substance”

Speaker 1 1:26

If you read a typical dictionary definition of what accident means in Aristotle's own language, you'll read something like in medieval philosophy, following Aristotle accident is an entity whose essential nature it is to adhere in another entity as a subject, as a subject. This is what is referred to in Latin as an ens in alio, ens in alio, entity in something else. It is thus toio, and so a substance is an ens per se, an ens in itself, an entity in itself. My own definition here is accident is an entity which inheres in something else but which is not the entity per se, not the substance per se. The entity per se is the substance. So what are accidents? Accidents are modifications that substance undergoes but that do not change the kind of thing that substance is. Accidents only exist when they are accidents of some substance, and examples are colors, weight, motion. Motion Motion is an accident. For Aristotle there were ten categories into which things naturally fall. You have substance and then you have nine attributes, nine accidents, nine accidents Quality, relation, action, passion, time, place, disposition, which means the arrangement of parts, raiment, whether a thing is dressed or armed, etc. All these distinctions are basically logical, but in a sense they reflect the structure of reality. One never finds any substance that we experience without some accidents. Nor an accident that is not the accident of a subject. That is not the accident of a subject. Every dog, for instance, has some colour, place, size. Nevertheless, it is obvious that what a dog is is not the same as its colour or its size, etc. So again, accident is an entity whose essential nature it is to adhere in another entity as a subject Ends in alio, and it is to be contrasted with a substance Ends per se.

Reading §6 of Bk 9, De Trinitate: “Lover” & “Knower”, “Knowledge” & “Love" = relative terms

“Mind” & “Spirit” are not relative terms

“Head” & “Headed" = relative terms but also substances

Speaker 1 5:00

The important point is actually a very basic one, and that is that Saint Augustine thinks in terms of substance, and this is why we refer to him sometimes as an essentialist. You'll see at the end of this passage exactly why we say that. So, continuing from where we left off with paragraph six, augustine writes lover and knower, knowledge and love are all substances, but while lover and love, noah and knowledge are like friends, relative terms, mind and spirit, like men, are not. Yet it is not the case with lover and love, noah and knowledge, as it is with men who are friends, that they can exist apart from one another. It may appear that friends qua friends can be separated in body only and not in soul, but it is possible for a friend to begin to hate his friend and thereby cease to be his friend, though the other may not know it and may continue to love him. On the other hand, if the love with which the mind loves itself ceases to exist, the mind will also cease to be lover, and so, with the knowledge whereby the mind knows itself.

Comparison of drink comprised of wine, water and honey

Speaker 1 6:46

Bear with me in this sentence. This is an interesting, challenging series of words. A head is the head of something headed. Head and headed are relative terms, though also substances, both being bodies, for nothing can be headed unless it is a body, but in this case severance can separate the two from one another, which is not so with love and lover, or knowledge and knower. If any bodies exist which cannot be cut or divided at all, they must still be composed of their own parts, or they would not be bodies. Part and whole are related terms, since every part belongs to some whole and the whole is whole by a totality of parts. But since both part and whole are bodies, they exist not only as related but as substances. May we say, then, that the mind as a whole and that the love with which it loves itself and the knowledge with which it knows itself are like two parts composing the whole, or, alternatively, that they and the mind itself are equal parts making up one whole. The difficulty here is that no part embraces the whole to which it belongs, whereas the mind's knowledge, when it knows itself as a whole, that is, perfectly extends over the whole of it, and when it loves itself perfectly, it loves itself as a whole and its love extends over the whole of it.

Speaker 1 8:42

Take another possible comparison A single drink may be composed of wine, water and honey. Each component will extend throughout the whole and yet they remain three. There is no part of the drink which does not contain all three, not side by side, as would be oil and water, but completely mixed. All are substances and the whole fluid is one definite substance made out of the three. Can we suppose that the triad of mind, love and knowledge exist together in the same kind of way? Apparently not. Water, wine and honey are not themselves of one substance, though one single substance of drink results from that mixture.

Image of 3 similar rings made of one piece of gold

Triad in which the mind knows and loves itself

Speaker 1 9:41

But it seems certain that our mental triad must be of one and the same essence. And since the mind loves itself and knows itself, and its threeness does not involve its being loved or known by anything else, the three must then necessarily have one and the same essence. This means that if they could be intermingled so as to lose their identity, they would in no way be three or capable of mutual relation. This would be like three similar rings made out of one piece of gold, like three similar rings made out of one piece of gold. They might be linked together, but would still be mutually related on the basis of their similarity, since similarity implies similarity to something else. We should have a trinity of rings and one gold, but if they were melted down and mixed with one another in a single lump, there would be an end to the trinity. We could still speak of one gold, as with three rings, but no longer of three golden objects.

Speaker 1 11:02

In our triad, on the one hand, in which the mind knows and loves itself, we have a permanent trinity of mind, love and knowledge. There is no intermingling and loss of identity, though, severally, each is in itself and mutually, each as a whole is in the others, as wholes, whether each singly in the other pair or the pairs in each singly. In other words, all are in all. The mind is in itself, being a substantive term, though it is termed knowing, known or knowable in relation to its knowledge, and loving, loved or lovable in relation to the love with which it loves itself. Knowledge is indeed related to the mind, knowing or known, but still it is properly termed known and knowing in itself, for the knowledge by which the mind knows itself is not unknown to the knowledge itself. Similarly, love, though related to the loving mind to which it belongs, related to the loving mind to which it belongs, still remains of itself and in itself, for love is loved and that can only be by the love which is itself. This shows that each of the three singly is in itself.

Speaker 1 12:40

Again, they are alternately in one another. The loving mind is in the love. Love is in the lover's knowledge, knowledge in the knowing mind. They are severally in the remaining pairs. The mind which knows and loves itself is in its love and knowledge. The love of the loving and self-knowing mind is in the mind and its knowledge. The knowledge of the self-knowing and loving mind is in the mind and its love because it loves itself, knowing and knows itself loving.

A better solution?

Speaker 1 13:30

The three pairs are in each single member, for the mind which knows and loves itself is in the love, together with its knowledge and in the knowledge, together with the love. And the love and the knowledge are together in the mind which loves and knows itself. And the manner in which holes are in holes. We have already indicated the mind loving and knowing the whole of itself, knowing the whole of its love and loving the whole of its knowledge. Whenever the three members are each in themselves, perfect. In a wonderful way. The three are inseparable from one another and yet each one of them is a substance and all together are one substance or essence, though mutually related to one another another.

“Beatific Vision” = vision of divine Substance

Speaker 1 14:46

So this is St Augustine's attempt to give us a better solution to the dogmatic definition of the Holy Trinity that we have in the Cappadocian Fathers. As I said before, that last line will show you quite clearly why we sometimes refer to St Augustine's Trinity of not only God but man and the whole cosmos in essentialist terms. At the end of the day, everything is essence, everything is substantia and there is nothing other than substantia. And when we come into direct contact with God, that direct contact with God, god himself is substance, it has to be with substance. And the later schoolmen, aquinas and others, give us that beatific vision, which is a vision of the divine substance, which necessarily involves an ontological distance between the beholder and God himself.

Gregory the Theologian: God at once one flash of lightning and three

Image of God in human beings

Speaker 1 15:56

And then, of course, you're faced with also the question does the divine substance in fact transcend the Trinitarian character of God? It's almost inevitable. When you go to school in the West, there's the Holy Trinity. Then, somewhere somewhat higher ontologically still, is God. That's because we have such an emphasis on the divine substance and there is no place really for the Cappadocian understanding of the hypostasis, so that when St Gregory the theologian says when I speak of God, you must be illumined at once by one flash of lightning and by three. Three in properties, in hypostases, in persons, prosopo, if any prefer so to call them, for we will not quarrel about words so long as the syllables convey the same meaning, but one in respect of usia essence indivisibly divided and dividedly conjoined. That is different. That is fundamentally conjoined. That is different. That is fundamentally, I would say, different.

Sprit–Matter distinction supersedes the Created–Uncreated distinction

The heart in Augustine and Plato

Speaker 1 17:29

There's a certain attraction to this approach because it's based on the idea that we are creatures of God. If you want to know something about God, then we have to look at ourselves, since we bear the seal of the Creator. But, of course, when you say that, something very important is already being pushed to the background and that is the radical difference between the created and the uncreated. And we've talked about this a little bit by referring to how the distinction between spirit and matter and you see that in this text became more prominent than the fundamental distinction between the created and the uncreated. The distinction between the created and the uncreated means that there is no similarity between the creator and the created. But when you make the spirit matter distinction more prominent and the created, uncreated distinction becomes blurred, then a very different picture begins to emerge and I think the philosophical approach of Saint Augustine becomes evident.

Analogies of Mind not from Scripture

Speaker 1 18:47

Isn't that interesting? Because the heart, that's something that Plato doesn't really have much time for either. Everything is up here. The logisticon is here in the head. There are other aspects of the soul, the incensive dothimigon which in Plato is the seat of the noble emotions and includes the heart. But it's true, focus is not on the heart in this particular text and it's certainly a heady approach to this great mystery, isn't it how the three are one and the one are three, but not in a bodily sense, in a spiritual sense, and on the curious fact that St Augustine does not take his analogies of the mind from Scripture. I think he would have done that if he felt it would be productive.

Christological revelation also Trinitarian

Speaker 1 19:45

But it is true that the mystery of the Trinity, it's there at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, it's there at the Transfiguration at Pentecost, but I would venture to say that it's a secondary revelation. The focus is on Christ and here is a great mystery that the revelation of Christ is at one and the same time, revelation of the Holy Trinity. But that's not something that, forgive me, but doesn't seem to be something that Saint Augustine sees, and he's not content with what is offered there. So he's trying to give a fuller treatment in his own way. But his approach, you see, is from a very different angle. Why does he not at least start with Holy Scripture? This is a passage that we're reading. There are references to Scripture, but the analogies, no, they're not from Scripture.

Created effects and symbols

Comparison with Basil the Great (Eps 7 and 234)

Speaker 1 20:55

I think that his immediate audience were his followers, and it brings in the point that, well, st Augustine preferred to be in North Africa, and he was not only away from the center of where things were happening, but he had a quieter existence and he was less challenged. Don't forget that his writings were really discovered only later and they became the cornerstone of Carolingian theology, I think it's fair to say. His group of followers, and then perhaps a little wider, in North Africa. But later they take on another dimension of influence. But later they take on another dimension of influence. So, theologically, the way that theophany is understood in St Augustine, you have created effects and symbols by means of which God communicates with the world because God himself is not present in the world since the fall. So you have these created effects and symbols by which he communicates with the saints. Again, that's conceptual, it's an intellectualistic understanding of revelation which, in modern times, of revelation which, in modern times, has come to coincide with a lack of trust in experience.

Speaker 1 22:37

But next I want to remind you of the aware of the inadequacy of theological discourse, so much so that in his seventh epistle to his friend Gregory, his exhortation on the word of truth, written perhaps in 360 or 363, he says every theological expression is incapable of conveying the entire meaning of the one speaking, because by nature, our speech serves our ideas somewhat imperfectly. Or if our dhyānya and here he's using dhyānya as nus, if our dhyānya is weak, our language is more inadequate still. So what I want to do next is to look at how St Basil the Great talks about the Holy Trinity and look at his distinction between the essence and energies of God, the usia and the energie, or the dynamis, the powers of God. Where God is not totally unknowable because he is revealed in his energies, and what that means. We know that God is not what God is. Where the divine essence is simply unknowable. We know the majesty, the power, the wisdom, the goodness, the providence of God and his justice or the righteousness of his judgment. All these descriptions are of God's condescension, his coming down to us, his energies, the way that he reveals himself, the way that he manifests himself to us, but not his essence. And so we'll take a look at epistle number 234. Also from Documents in Early Christian Thought edited by Maurice Wiles and Mark Santer, page 10, slightly revised Do you worship what you know or what you do not know?

Speaker 1 25:23

If we answer we worship something that we know, they retort immediately what is the essence of what you worship then? If we admit that we do not know its essence, they turn round and say then you worship what you do not know its essence. They turn round and say then you worship what you do not know. Our answer to this is that the word to know has a variety of meanings, for what we say we know is God's greatness, his power, his wisdom, his goodness, his providential care for us and the justice of his judgment, but not his actual essence. Their question is thus captious.

Speaker 1 26:17

To deny that one knows the essence of God is not to admit that one has no knowledge of him. The many attributes that we have just enumerated provide a basis on which we form our conception of God. But God is simple, we are then told, and so every one of the attributes which you have enumerated as knowable must refer to his essence. That argument is sophistry, and the absurdities it involves are enumerable. All these attributes which we have enumerated, do they, all of them, denote one single essence? Is his attribute of inspiring awe identical with his mercy, with his justice or with his creative power? Is his foreknowledge identical with his power to reward or to punish, or his majesty with his providence, and does the mention of any one of those attributes disclose his essence?

Speaker 1 27:21

Now, if they say that it does, they should not be asking us whether we know God's essence. They should be inquiring whether we know God as awe-inspiring. They should be inquiring whether we know God as awe-inspiring, as just or as merciful, and these are things which we confess that we do know. If, on the other hand, they say that God's essence is something different from these attributes, they must not produce spurious arguments against us on the basis of the simplicity of that essence, for in that case, they have themselves admitted that his essence is something different from every one of his attributes. His energies are various, but his essence is simple. But his essence is simple. Our position is that it is from his energies that we come to know our God, while we do not claim to come anywhere near his actual essence, for his energies reach down to us, but his essence remains inaccessible.

Speaker 1 28:33

But they say, if you are ignorant of his essence, you are ignorant of him. Your answer to this must be if you say you know his essence, you have no knowledge of him. A man who has been bitten by a mad dog may see the dog on his plate, but in fact he sees no more than the healthy see, and he is to be pitied for thinking he can see what he cannot see. You must not admire him for his assertion, but pity him for his derangement. So recognize the voice of the mockers in the words.

Speaker 1 29:16

If you are ignorant of the essence, you are worshipping what you do not know. That God exists I do know, but what his essence is I regard as beyond my understanding. How then am I saved by faith? Faith is sufficient for the knowledge that God is not of what he is and of the fact that he rewards those who seek him. See Hebrews 11.6. So knowledge of the divine essence consists in the perception of his incomprehensibility. What we worship is not that of which we comprehend the essence, but that of which we comprehend that the essence exists. And we can put the following counter-question no man has seen God at any time.

Speaker 1 30:17

The only begotten Son, he who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him, john 1.18. What is it of the Father that the only begotten has revealed His essence or his power? If it is his power, then we know as much as he has revealed to us. If it is his essence, tell us where he said that the Father's essence consisted in his being unbegotten. When did Abraham worship? The father's essence consisted in his being unbegotten.

Speaker 1 30:59

When did abraham worship? Was it not when he believed? And when did he believe? Was it not when he was called? Where, in this case, is there any scriptural testimony to abraham's having comprehended? And the disciples, when did they worship him? Was it not when they saw creation subject to him? From the obedience of the sea and the winds to him, they came to the knowledge of his divinity. Accordingly, his energies are the basis of knowledge and knowledge is the basis of worship. Do you believe that I can do this. I believe Lord and he worshipped him See Matthew 9.28 and John 9.38.

Speaker 1 31:49

Thus, worship is consequent on faith and faith is grounded on God's power. You say that the believer has knowledge as well as faith. Yes, but his knowledge has the same basis as his faith and, conversely, faith has the same basis as knowledge and, conversely, faith has the same basis as knowledge. We know God from his power. Thus we believe in him, of whom we have knowledge, and we worship him, in whom we have faith.

Appeal

Speaker 1 32:25

The Cappadocians do use language in an effort to convey something of what is the experience of the church, and Saint Augustine believes that there is a similarity between the creature and the creator creature and the creator, which opens up the door to philosophical speculation, whereas in the Cappadocian Fathers, you see, there's not really any room for philosophical speculation. And the problem that we face, as Orthodox dialoguing with the West, is that the West, as I said before, still regards the Fathers as philosophizing about God. So they're still trying to understand them from a speculative perspective, perspective, and the suspicions that they have of anything that claims to be based on experience means that it's highly unlikely that, unless they reorientate their whole vision, that they will understand anything of the orthodox approach to theology, anything of how theology or a theologian is understood in the Orthodox tradition. 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.