Augustine's understanding of the Trinity

[Iqbal Youssef]

Hi

Before i get into my query, i thought id just say a quick few words to introduce myself. My name's Iqbal, im a Copt living in Australia, im a student studying combined law, and i have just recently started to undergo an indepth study into theology and the philosophy of religion. I also have great interests in Christian apologetics and hope that the Lord may grant me the mind and spirit to do work in His defense, according to His will.

Im currently reading an article which is a refutation of an early muslim apologist who wrote one of the oldest polemical attacks on the Trinity. Much of the Christian defense is based on the Augustinian model of the Trinity. I want to paste a few passages from the article, and i hope someone can affirm their truth, or maybe critisize them for me maybe. Prima facie i see a few problems with the model presented. For example, doesnt this concept of the Trinity allow for even more than 3 hypostasis? Maybe power could be a 4th hypostasis? I hope someone can clear up my confusion. Heres a few passages from the article:

"In Christian theology, the divine foundational ego is the person of the Father who eternally generates the subsisting Truth or the Word. God knows Himself intellectually and loves Himself in a personal and eternal manner. This subsisting Love is the Spirit that proceeds from both the Father and the Word."

"It is difficult to understand the divine personhood, because the objects of the divine intellect and will are not accidental properties, rather they are subsistent in the divine mind in a manner similar to the subsistence of the ego of a human person. God is all-knowing and all-known as well as all-loving and all-beloved. They are aspects of His divine personhood, because knowing truth (intellect) and loving the good (will) are
aspects of an intellectual mind. So, whatever we understand about the personhood of God, it must account for the fact that ego, knowledge, and love are subsistent in the personhood of God, i.e., they are not accidental to His divine personhood."

"Furthermore, the primary aspect of God’s knowledge is His own infinite selfknowledge. God’s omniscience is more than His knowledge of this finite creation. In fact, God learned nothing in the act of creating this universe. The creation of the universe did not change God’s knowledge, because God is immutable as well as allknowing. God knows His own power, wisdom, and being infinitely. As a result, He knows Himself as well as the possible worlds He could bring into existence, if He were to will their existence. God infinitely knows Himself, so He is both the Knower and the Known. Also, God loves Himself, so He is both the Lover and the Beloved. What pertains to the intellectual nature of God relates to the personhood of God, because the defining element of personhood is ntellectuality. The ego, intellect, and will are all subsisting aspects of divine personhood. In the case of God, truth and love are not accidental to God’s personhood, as they are in human personhood. In stead they are each subsisting aspects of divine personhood. Thus, there must be more than one hypostasis in the personhood of God because the subsisting Ego does not alone account for the subsisting truth and subsisting love within the personhood of the one God."

"A function of the will is choice, and the will should choose the good and shun the evil, because it ought to love the good and to hate the evil. In God there is infinite and perfect goodness, so the divine will loves God with an infinite love. This aspect of the analogy points to the Holy Spirit. The speech in its knowledge and wisdom would indicate the Son, and the progenitor is a clear reference to the Father."

[Kevin Teo]

HI Iqbal,

I would recommend Sidney Griffith's writings. He authored a book, which is actually a collection of former essays he gave at conferences or published elsewhere in other academic journals. See Griffith, Sidney. The beginnings of Christian theology in Arabic : Muslim-Christian encounters in the early Islamic period.
(Aldershot, Hants; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, 2002 ).

There is a significant portion of the book which devotes itself to explaining the early Christian apologetic stance against the Muslim attacks on the Trinity, the Incarnation and the infallibility of Christian Scripture(that is, against the Muslim claims of the Christians and Jews having falsified Holy Writ).

[Iqbal Youssef]

Thanks for that Kevin - i havent heard of that book. I in fact have another quite popular book on the issue titled: "Christian apologetics during the Abassid period" By Samir Khalil Samir.

However, im particularly interested in this specific response (which i found on the internet: www.muhammadanism.org/trinity/al-warraq_trinity.pdf (http://www.muhammadanism.org/trinity/al-warraq_trinity.pdf))which uses the Augustinian Trinity model as its basis, because it is a direct line by line refutation of a prominent early islamic rationalist named al-warraq. This model interests me not only because it exposes the gross misunderstanding of classical metaphysics presented by al-warraq, but the nature of the model which shows a necessity of the Trinity in theory, raises many questions about the islamic God which Muslims need to answer in a way that maintains their "unitarian" conception of God (simply to avoid any sort of Trinitarianism, which their quran falsely sets up as a kind of tritheism).

Id just like some discussion on any flaws that anyone might see with the model ive presented. I think its plausible to an extent, but im still somewhat confused with the implications this model could have on the number of hypostasis vs persons that God can have.

[Iqbal Youssef]

Someone please reply...this is an urgent matter for me at the moment

[Katherine Clark]

Greetings:

I am not able to comment on Augustine due my ignorance. However, surfing the Internet I found an "Orthodoxy in Indonesia: An Interview with Archimandrite Daniel Bamburg Dwi Byantoro." It seems that Fr. Daniel is an Orthodox convert from Islam. He lives in a Moslem setting and has an approach to apologetics with the Moslems there that is a bit different and apparently effective. Alas, the article printed out without a URL so I can only provide you with the name of the man and the article title. The article was also printed in a magazine called Road to Emmaus. Its author is a Thomas Hulbert. I hope this helps. Thank you
Katherine Photini

[Arsenios]

Fr. Dan is a marvelous man - He was a Muslim raised in the incredible prejudices against Christians that Muslims have, who tried to be faithful, but desired holiness, and eventually found his way to God. He reads and understands the Koran in Arabic, and has a really good habit of making the Muslim case in such a way that I was convinced that the Muslims were right! And then to walk into the air-tight argument and utterly rend it vacuous in the kindest and most dispassionate way...

Anyone interacting with Muslims would do well to study under Fr. Dan. He uses the [mental] structure of Islamic understanding to show how it is a perversion of the Christian doctrines which it attacks, and a substitution of men in the places where Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and even the Theotokos, are understood in Christianity...

And Indonesia is in grave danger of slipping under Islamic Law, for it is some 98% Muslim. That country needs our prayers...

Arsenios

[Iqbal Youssef]

Dear Katherine and George

Islam in general is not my problem. I'm fairly well acquianted with islam as well its polemics, and its really no threat, it falls very quickly. My concern in bringing up this post, is the style of this specific Christian response to a quite infamous polemical attack. You see this "refutation" of the Trinity by al-warraq is remarkeable in the sense he is the first and probably only Muslim to attempt to counter the Trinity using the same vocabulary it was established upon. The article tries to emphasise that although al-warraq had the voabulary, he lacked understanding of that vocab. in its metaphysical context. Now im feeling kind of uncomfortable with how this particular Christian sought to respond to al-warraq, especially the kind of Trinity which he presents as a defense - which has its roots in Augustinian, and Aquinas' Trinitarianism.

Id like someone to address the problems which ive picked out above, as this is actually directly relevant to a presentation i have to do for university in about 1 and a half weeks time from now. Either i have misinterpreted the article, or the article has misinterpreted Augustine/Aquinas, or there really is a serious flaw in Augustines Trinity.

[Kevin Teo]

Hi Iqbal,

I am not going to say that I know anything useful about Augustine's Trinity model. The Trinitarian defense which many apologists have used(built on Augustine's model) is that nature--as a demonstration of God's nature--is in itself constituted by triads and this in itself works to affirm God's Triune nature. For example, the rays of the sun and the sun itself are one as much as the heat of the sun.

I am not sure if I have read this analogy correctly, but hopefully, someone who knows more of Augustine and Aquinas can say something more.

[Owen Jones]

This is a monumentally vast and complicated subject that is not going to be mastered in a week and a half. But I suspect the answer is to be found in the above post by Mr. Teo, i.e., Christian thought regarding the Trinity is analogical. I suspect that Islamic thought is entirely literal.

[Iqbal Youssef]

I just need someone to address the specific problems and issues ive outlined above - its to do with Augustine and Aquinas' theoretical reasoning that it is logically necessary for God to exist as a Trinity, due to Love and knowledge being substantial principles of His very being and aspects of the intellectual mind.

[Owen Jones]

Again, this is a monumentally vast and complicated issue and task that cannot be accomplished in a week and a half. It will, of course, never have a resolution, but to even adequately understand the issue requires a vast amount of reading, studying, questioning, praying and meditating on the subject. I would suggest five years minimum.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Iqbal,

Owen's note caused me a chuckle. The 'you'll need five years minimum' response to a question desiring immediate answer sounds a great deal like an old spiritual father I once knew. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

We'd love to comment on your question, but, as Owen noted, as it stands it is indeed 'monumentally vast'. If you could break it down into more focused questions -- i.e., questions on specific points of the model, rather than on the model as a whole, you would probably get much more response.

Looking forward to it,

INXC, Matthew

[Iqbal Youssef]

but i am focusing on specific points on the model!
From those passages ive quoted:

a) do they present Augustinian Trinitarinism accurately, and if no why not? and

b) does the model presented in those quotations imply that God can have more than 3 hypostasis (such as power as a fourth for example), yet only 3 persons (due to the intellectual aspect of ego, love, knowledge)? If yes, than why, and if no, why not?

c) Out of the following three "The knower, the knowledge and the known", which ones are hypostasis, are any of them? all of them? And how about "The lover, love, and the beloved"? whats the relationship between set 1) and set 2)? Whats the relationship between the persons of the Trinity and these "attributes"?

[Kevin Teo]

I would second Owen Jones' suspicion that Muslim thought is literal insofar as it has a strong suspicion and animosity against the mode of thinking used by Christians during the early Classical period of Islam.

An example would be the dialogue between the Nestorian Patriarch of the Church of the East, Timothy II, who was engaged in a polemical dialogue with the emir on behalf of the Christian community. Timothy II made a defense for God's Triune nature precisely using this analogy of the sun's rays(light), its warmth(heat) and the sun itself, and even natural analogies like the roots, the stem and the flower to describe the oneness and tri-functional aspects of a flower, and subsequently the Trinity. Of course, to the Muslim emir and his mutakhlimmun, who thought with more than an ounce of rationality, their response was only to end up dissecting the whole analogy to death by stating that these are parts which are different and hence not related at all. Timothy II's reaction was simply to the effect that analogies make their point only up to a certain limit(analogies are simply analogies and not literal word-for-word statements), and beyond that, reading something that was meant to be read analogically or metaphorically in a literal way would ultimately break down the true meaning of the text.

[Kevin Teo]

Another note about the questions that Iqbal made, which may not be the ones he asked for. As compared with man, God's nature is radically different. Man is made to worship God, and is not made to love himself(although in deviating because of sin, he swerves away to end up loving himself instead of God); God is not made and He exists even before the beginning of time and He exists in the sole regard of Himself in his own glory. This might sound very narcissistic if read in human eyes, but this has more so to do with the fact that God in His tri-personal nature is essentially in love with Himself insofar as the Father loves the Son, and the Son the Father, and the Holy Spirit participates actively too in this process of love.

I am not so sure where the idea of power as the 4th hypostasis comes about in the sections Iqbal quoted. Ego, knowledge and love appear at least on this basic level to satisfy the triads of qualities that the Augustinian model of the Trinity, heavily "borrowing" from the vocabulary of Platonism, implies.

[Owen Jones]

And, of course, all theological language is analogical. Theological terms are not propositions referring to objects. They are symbolic representations of reality as experienced as participation in the hierarchy of being. Reality is experienced as thingness, as "isness," as structure and as processes in between both the things and the non-things experienced. It is more than just a logical premise, therefore, that the structure of things in the world, and the processes in between things, is analogical to the structure of reality as a whole, which has a transcendent ground in unseen, non-things, or non-existent things.

Reality is experienced as intelligible, and therefore has an intelligible structure to "it," of which, consciousness is a part. There is no consciousness of reality apart from reality. So there is no objective "look" at the Divine Reality of the Trinity.

So the focus of theology on sensible things is analogical, for the purpose of speculating on the processes in between. That is the focus of Trinitarian theology. Not the objectification of the "things" of the Trinity, the "persons" of the Trinity, but on the intellible structures of in-betweenness. This gets corrupted in Stoic schools of Roman philosophy which tends to carry over into Roman Catholic thought in which theological concepts are objectivized and detached from their engendering experiences. The primary experience is the in-betweenness of particpation in the cosmos, in between lasting and passing existence. The rational differentiation of this experience is what we call theology. This process of differentiation is revealed to us in the context of historical consciousness, which is also not an objectifiable fact, but a symbolization of the experience of meaning in time with an eschatalogical index.

[Owen Jones]

It may seem like carping at this point, but Orthodox theologians generally do not use the term "existence" to apply to God. God does not exist. He does not have the quality of existence. The very term implies contingency. God is "defined" by the Fathers as "Beyond." If we cease to use the idea of existence in reference to God, it prevents a whole lot of theological problems that we get ourselves into that lead to typical heresies.

Try remembering this: God does not exist. God IS. He reveals Himself to the Isrealites as "I am."

[Myles A. Bailey]

Hey Iqbal

I'm a Roman Catholic so maybe I can help you out. Granted I'm not a theological expert so you may have to cross reference what I say with someone more knowledgeable however I think I understand enough of Latin Theology to answer your queries.

First it is neccessary to address what Owen said in his last post. In Latin Theology no distinction is made between God's essence and existence. Latin Theology states God exists so much as to hyper exist, that is he exists and is simultaneously beyond existence. For instance, we would say that God is a perfect act. In God according to Latin Theology there is no potentiality that is unactualised. Whereas in the world we see things in motion and only entering into motion only by the agency of something else in motion, God is so perfectly in motion needing nothing else to activate any of His potential that He cannot be said to be moving at all. Paradoxically, He is Pure Act and Immuteable. God is so perfectly being that He defies the very categories of being.

This premise of the Latin Theological system should answer the reason why God's power cannot be a hypostasis according to the Western schools. God's omnipotence is the epitome of a potentiality namely power in perfect action all power with no deficiency. In the Latin system thus power cannot be seperated from God's being and take on hypostatic reality and the same can be said of everything else predicated to God e.g. all-knowledge, all-goodness.

This touches upon your question of whether or not the Trinitarian view expressed is accurate of St Augustine. I must confess I don't know. I've never read St Augustine's treatise on the Trinity and moreover I have been told that the aforesaid treatise does not actually cover everything St Augustine actually says about the Trinity via homilies and letters. St Augustine may have written a lot but he was not systematic but tended to be condition by controversy. All I can do for you is present the hypostastic relations as understood by St Thomas Aquinas. However, as St Thomas Aquinas is generally more authorative in Western Theology than St Augustine (and more or less seen as consolodating and arranging Augustine and the rest of Latin theology prior to the scholastic age) this should be more sufficient.

Aquinas explains generation in the Godhead using an anology between thought and word. He says that basically since a word shows forth a man's power to understand and has a likeness to its origin as a father begets a son in his likeness we can understand a word in some sense to be an offspring of mind. Aquinas points out though that in man the word is not properly called the son because in man the intellectual word is not of the same nature with the man. He gives the example of a self-portrait of a painter saying that if man's intellectual expressions were called 'son' his self-portrait would be his son because it shares likeness. Aquinas then contrasts this with God in whom perfect understanding that transcends perfection is essential. Hence, the Word of God must be truly said to be God because He is of the Divine nature and likeness. As God is timeless the Word of God is also co-eternal existing beyond space and since God's understanding is perfect there cannot be more than one Word nor can the Word be composite because by one act God comprehends everything infinitately including Himself preventing the Word from lacking any potential since the Word completely comprehends even the essence of the Divinity. Thus, Aquinas concludes God's Word can rightly be called His Son.

As for procession within the Godhead Aquinas teaches that some appetitive action follows on from all knowing. Love he says is the appetitive activity that is principal which if missing doesn't leave room for anything else. Since God has all perfections including perfect knowledge God must also have perfect love via appetitive operation/procession just as God's Word is generated by intellectual operation.

The love of God is God's very being as is the Word of God. As God always understand in act and to understand all things understands Himself Aquinas teaches that so too does He love all things by loving His own goodness. Hence all that is confessed of the Son e.g. co-eternal, divinity etc. is rightly confessed of the Holy Spirit.

Aquinas concludes that since anything subsisting in intelligent nature is called a person it is neccessary then to say that in God there are three persons because that from which the Word and Love proceed is subsisting also and can also be called a person. Thus, God should be said to have 3 persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 3 persons who are of the same essence and nature and thus share whatever is absolutely of God differing only in relations of origin.

I hope this helps

God love you
Myles

[Leandros Papadopoulos]

Dear Myles A. Bailey,

Would you explain for us the meaning of the following phrase coming form "Summa Theologica" (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/103602.htm)
of Thomas Aquinas, which is also a position found in Augustine's work:

"Furthermore, the order of the procession of each one agrees with this conclusion. For it was said above (27, 2,4; 28, 4), that the Son proceeds by the way of the intellect as Word, and the Holy Ghost by way of the will as Love. Now love must proceed from a word. For we do not love anything unless we apprehend it by a mental conception. Hence also in this way it is manifest that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son"

This is one position of Thomas Aquinas against which Orthodox theologians have fundamental objection.

[Myles A. Bailey]

Dear Leandros

Please note Aquinas qualifies his statement in the very next question of the Summa namely Whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son? (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/103603.htm). As I said on the thread in the informal area linking to this topic Aquinas' words are not meant to make the Son a cause in and of himself but a mediator in the procession of the Spirit, which satisfies Orthodox objections at least according to Stylianopoulos who states in his article The Filioque: Domga, Theologoumenon or Error? (http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/stylianopoulos_filioque.html) that:

"However, the Augustinian interpretation of the filioque, i.e., that the Father and the Son are the common cause of the eternal being of the Spirit, unintentionally compromises the "monarchy" of the Father according to Cappadocian trinitarian theology presupposed and reflected by the Nicene Creed in which the verb "proceeds" (ἐêðïñåõüìåíïí) refers to the eternal origin of the Spirit from the Father. Eastern trinitarian thought as expressed by Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Cypriot and Gregory Palamas conceives of the Son as mediating, but not causing, the Spirit's procession from the Father. On this nuanced difference in doctrinal interpretation hangs the whole weight of centuries of controversy between the Eastern and Western churches. The formula "who proceeds from the Father through the Son" is a sound theological resolution of this problem in the conciliatory spirit of Maximos the Confessor laying aside the above specific Augustinian interpretation as an erroneous theological opinion but at the same time affirming the active participation of the Son in the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father."

Aquinas' answer in Summa Theologica Question 36 Article 3 should make clear that this is the West's position. The West does not make the Son a common cause in the sense that somehow together they get together and play an active part in the procession of the Spirit. Rather, it is the Father who acts via his Word as Aquinas states in the aforesaid article of the Summa Theologiae. It is the Father who concieves in the Word what He wills by procession of love: the Holy Spirit. Latin Christianity does not hold and never has held that the Son plays anything more than a mediating role in the Spirit's procession. As such it is my contention that the 'sound theological resolution' that Stylianopoulos is seeking from the West can already be found in the work of St Thomas Aquinas.

God love you
Christ is Risen
Myles

[Kosmas Damianides]

Hi,

A good place to start is to download this article on Augustinian Triadology in particular the filioque clause The Filioque; A Reply to the Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation: By Fr Michael Azkoul (http://www.homb.org/FILIOQUE.pdf).

I have learnt a lot on this subject through this very enlightening essay.

In Christ

Kosmas Damianides


May God bless us all.

[M.C. Steenberg]

It is somewhat strange to put forward the idea that expressions of the Trinity employing filoque would be any more uniform and singular than expressions that do not. Just as there are many manners of articulating the Trinitarian mystery in Eastern expression, which does not employ this clause, so there are many manners of articulating the Trinity in contexts that do use it.

The focus of this thread is not the filioque per se, but more broadly Augustine's understanding of the Trinity. I raise the above point as a reminder that quoting Thomas Aquinas may not in fact be the best way to try to explore Augustine's conception, any more than, for example, reading Symeon the New Theologian is itself a good guide to understanding the theology of Gregory of Nazianzus. In both cases, there is direct and deliberate influence due to a commentary by the latter on the former (Thomas comments on Augustine; Symeon comments on Gregory); but in both cases also there is the matter of the later writer's own continuation of the articulative project -- adding their own methods and insights into the writings on which they comment.

In particular, the Orthodox are in general very bad at understanding Augustine's view on the Trinity and what he meant by filoque (or anything else, for that matter), partially because there is a deep-set bias against 'Vatican theology', largely misunderstood as a kind of post-Enlightenment, neo-Thomism but called 'Augustinian' since Thomas referred so heavily to Augustine. There are some good Orthodox minds that are applying themselves to understanding Augustine more accurately and authentically; but before this sets in in a wide-spread way, there is a great deal of ground to cover in debunking the kind of false-dichotomies and characterisations that prevent full understanding even of 'fully Eastern' theologians.

INXC, Matthew

[Owen Jones]

My concern is that Askoul is using Augustine as a straw man to make a bad faith argument that is far more encompassing, which is that Orthodoxy represents pure theology and pure revelation whereas Western Catholic theology relies on "Greek philosophy." This is not a sustainable argument. First of all, Rome saved the East several times regarding heresies that the East and the Patriarch embraced. Also, philosophic reasoning, the respect for mathematics and geometry as a kind of ordering method in theology, and even mystagogy is not something that can be separated out from the Greek theological tradition. If anything, you have to go to the Syriac tradition for a kind of pure aversion to anything that smacks of Greek reasoning or "abstraction." And yet the Syriac environment seems to be the birthplace of a number of heresies.

My own view is that, when it comes to the Christian life as it ought to be lived, there is no one more Orthodox than Augustine, and as for deification, I am not aware of the split between the earlier and later Augustine that Askoul argues for. Check out his sermons and you will see an Augustine that is profoundly Orthodox in every respect, especially on the question of deification.

I think the later Augustine of necessity, as a witness to the fall of the Empire, wrote what is widely considered to be the most important work of Christian social philosophy ever written, i.e., how are Christians to relate to secular history and secular political order. Orthodoxy still begs for such a thinker on this level.

Now, the criticism of the ecumenical dialogue might be entirely appropriate, but I think one has to be careful not to base it entirely on a brief against Augustine. Askoul seems to know his stuff, but someone kind know a lot superficially and sound brilliant. I am just urging some caution before accepting all of his conclusions at face value.

[Olga]

Is Fr Michael Azkoul related to Paul Azkoul the iconographer? The reason why I ask, is that Paul Azkoul has some rather, er, interesting things to say about the iconographic depiction of the Holy Trinity as the three angels. The article can be found on his website at www.traditionaliconography.com (http://www.traditionaliconography.com), click on the "On the Hopsitality of Abraham" link.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Owen and others,

I agree whole heartedly with your assessment of the article to which a link was provided above. It is the kind of text that in fact has relevant criticisms to make of various trinitarian conceptions, and strong points to make about Eastern ways of articulating the Trinity; but these are lost, as is much of the credibility of the article, in deeply biased, inaccurate, and unfair portrayals of the thought of those with whom one is disagreeing.

There's little time (or need) to comment thoroughly on these, but a few at first glance: There is the strange assertion that the filoque concept is 'the invention' of Augustine, with 'no precedent in the writings of the Holy Fathers' -- despite its rather obvious and central place in, for example, the writings of St Cyril of Jerusalem, the main voice of the third ecumenical council, further commended as the 'seal of the fathers' (sphragis pateron) at the fourth. More problematically overall, there is an unfortunate current of sarcastic dismissal that runs through the text. After attempting to explain Augustine's analogy of intellect/mind/love on p.6, for example, the author retorts, 'Amazing is the vast and profound knowledge that Augustine, Aquinas, et al have concerning the Incomprehensible God'. This is simple bias and prejudice. No one who has read the analogies of Gregory of Nyssa, of Athanasius and others, or who has examined the detail into which the metaphysical language of the same goes, can seriously suggest that Augustine is some kind of intellectual, discontent with simply 'accepting the mystery' as do other fathers. This is the kind of comment made without reference to Augustine's meditations, confessions and pastoral homilies on the nature of mystery and faith, etc. Assertions, later on the same page, that Augustine 'abandoned salvation by deification' through a reference to the nature of essence/persons, is not only unsupported (and in fact contradicted) by Augustine's writings -- especially his homilies -- but also fails to take into account to authentic cause for a shift in Augustine's language and conceptuality later in his life: the conflict with Pelagius.

I should make clear that I, personally, find Augustine's Trinitarian conceptions deeply problematic, for some of the reasons indicated in the article (though not as grounded in the kinds of explanations or assessments made there). There are solid and strong reasons that it has always struck up discomfort in Eastern minds. But there is no room to understand accurately what Augustine said, what he was trying to articulate in that speech, and how it truthfully related to the East of his day and the patristic heritage overall, in an arena of discussion where it is still seen as acceptable to call Augustine an 'intellectual' who 'invents' theology and has no relation to true patristic testimony. Let the assembled fathers of Ephesus, who invited him to the council, be the first to offer a sound anathema to this kind of talk.

INXC, Matthew

[Father David Moser]

Olga,

Fr Michael Azkoul (the theological writer) is the father, Paul Azkoul (the iconographer) is the son.

Archpr. David Moser

[Olga]

Thank you for the reply, Fr David. I find it interesting that Fr Michael Azkoul has made pronouncements on various matters, including the status of Augustine which are very "traditionalist Orthodox", and his iconographer son has seen it fit to argue that the rendition of the Holy Trinity in the form of the three angels is not proper.

[Kosmas Damianides]

Why does Fr Paul see the Hospitality of Abraham as an entertaining of only angels with only one representing the Christ Jesus?


"The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, "My Lord, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on-- since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." (Genesis 18:1-5)

One notices that Abraham calls Them "My Lord" singular, and They speak as One. Abraham does not say my Lords. This is truly a Theophany, how can it be seen in any other way? Does a Saint necessarily have to say it is a Thephany in order for it to be proclaimed as such? St Augustine calls this a theophany nevertheless. He in fact explains that we should not identify any angel (in the OT) with Christ, but with God the Trinity.

[Daniel Jones]

Matthew,

The problem I see with Augustine's conception of the Trinity is absolute divine simplicity (and in my opinion, was the root problem in Pyrrhus of Constantinople's monotheletism), and employing Aristotle's category of relation to what a hypostasis is.

I also agree with Joseph Farrell's analysis in his introduction to the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, as Augustine asks the question in De Trinitate(as the dialectics seem to push it in this direction), Why couldn't there be just One Person in the Holy Trinity? Of course, Augustine, denied it as it contradicts the Creedal Symbol, but he just didn't see the dialectic breaking down at the level of the filioque.

Photius Jones
http://www.energeticprocession.com

[Christopher Boyd]

A few points, Matthew, that I would appreciate some clarification on, regarding regarding what you said about Fr. Michael Azkoul's essay:


There is the strange assertion that the filoque concept is 'the invention' of Augustine, with 'no precedent in the writings of the Holy Fathers' -- despite its rather obvious and central place in, for example, the writings of St Cyril of Jerusalem, the main voice of the third ecumenical council, further commended as the 'seal of the fathers' (sphragis pateron) at the fourth.

Can you point out where the "filioque concept" that is as taught by Augustine, is taught by Fathers preceding Augustine? I don't find it a strange assertion at all. Is he not the inventor of the double procession theology, as represented by the expression filioque, as was understood in the 11th century?

It was St. Cyril of Alexandria who was the voice of the third council, not St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Is the filioque "obvious and central," as you say, to the writings St. Cyril? Can you provide a reference?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Boyd, you wrote:


It was St. Cyril of Alexandria who was the voice of the third council, not St. Cyril of Jerusalem.

Quite right, quite right. This is what comes from attempting to write a post about Cyril of Alexandria, whilst teaching a course on Cyril of Jerusalem. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif It was certainly Cyril of Alexandria I intended to name, and who speaks of the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son.

More on that later (it's late at present); but I thought I'd issue the necessary correction at once.

INXC, Matthew

[Daniel Jones]

Matthew,

But did Cyril understand this filioque as a *hypostatic procession* from the Father and the Son as from a single principle as the Carolingians and Latin Scholastics did? That's what needs to be understood I would think. From Orthodox point-of-view there is a filioque on the level of the economy and an eternal energetic procession (or as Lossky calls it 'eternal manifestation' of the Spirit).

Photius

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Photius, you wrote:


But did Cyril understand this filioque as a *hypostatic procession* from the Father and the Son as from a single principle as the Carolingians and Latin Scholastics did?

Surely Cyril did not understand it in this much later manner. But of course, the original issue here was in reference to Augustine of Hippo; so the question ought to be whether Augustine thought of the concept in the terms of later scholasticism. There is a kind of inverse historicism that tends to rear its head in Orthodox criticisms of the Filioque (which are quite valid in many ways), which accuses Augustine of teaching scholastic visions of this idea, simply because scholastic readers read him and commented on him. My point earlier in this thread was that these sorts of charges are really quite flawed; not least because there are many others in the early Church who taught the procession of the Spirit from the Father 'and the Son' -- though you are quite right to note that not everyone who says these words means the same thing. This is precisely the point I would wish to echo. Augustine should no more be read through the lens of Aquinas than Cyril should be read through the lens of Augustine.

INXC, Matthew

[Daniel Jones]

Matthew,

I'm a little unclear of what you think might be Scholastic distortions of Augustine's doctrine. If we take the best of Scholastics: Albert, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Anselm, and Scotus, they follow the essentials of Augustine with respect to the Trinity, specifically Augustine's view of the absolute simplicity of God and the Persons of the Trinity as relations and the distinction of the persons based off their mutual relation of opposition. Furthermore, how are we going to understand the great Scholastics without understanding Augustine first? The Medieval Tradition is read through Augustine. By my lights, Augustine employs Aristotle's category of a relation of the essence as what constitutes a person, since 'relations' are metaphysically 'thinner' than essences. For Augustine, there can be no real metaphysical distinction or plurality in God. Modus Tollens, the filioque falls out of absolute divine simplicity (ADS). If ADS is wrong, and I believe it is (e.g. as regards the ethos of the argument given in Capita 96, 97 by Gregory Palamas), then the filioque doctrine is a cognitive misfire by Augustine from a philosophical point-of-view. If God is absoutely simple, then how are we to distinguish between acts of will and acts of generation? This is why I think the etenerality of the world has been such a problem to get around in Western Metaphysics since the Scholastics, and we are back to the problems addressed by Origen in First Principles. Notice Aquinas' non-answer to the problem in the Disputed Questions on Truth 6-7, which is Aquinas' most lengthy treatment of God's act of will to create. They all follow Augustine's Neo-Platonic view of Being, where God just is Being and not in any qualified sense, and thus, there being a metaphysical and epistemic continuity between God and finite being that is rooted in the analogia entis that extends to essences. John D. Jones Philosophy chair at Marquette did a good paper that traces out the philosophical framework of the Neo-Platonic, Scholastic, and Byzantine structure called "Manifesting Beyond-being Being (hyperousios ousia): The Divine Essence-Energies Distinction for Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite." If you like, I could send it to your email.

Photius Jones

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Photius, you wrote:


I'm a little unclear of what you think might be Scholastic distortions of Augustine's doctrine. If we take the best of Scholastics: Albert, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Anselm, and Scotus, they follow the essentials of Augustine with respect to the Trinity, specifically Augustine's view of the absolute simplicity of God and the Persons of the Trinity as relations and the distinction of the persons based off their mutual relation of opposition. Furthermore, how are we going to understand the great Scholastics without understanding Augustine first? The Medieval Tradition is read through Augustine. [...]

Firstly, thank you for the post from which I've drawn this quotation; I found it very interesting and thoughtful. However, I think you misunderstand the basic point I was making in my posts earlier in this thread, which were in reaction to a specific article on 'Augustine'. My point was that it is historically unfair, and particularly non-useful, to read Augustine through Aquinas and Scotus; though it is entirely reasonable, as you say, to read Aquinas and Scotus through Augustine, which is precisely what they were doing. But assessment of an individual's writing cannot be done authentically 'backwards' through later redactors who reflected on his texts. To understand Augustine, read Augustine, along with Tertullian, Cicero, etc. To see where others 'went' with his lines of thought and conceptuality, turn to Aquinas; but Aquinas cannot be used to understand Augustine properly.

I happen to agree with much of what you wrote, as per essence and relation (in your post no. 10, above); but my remarks earlier were not in fact meant to comment pointedly on Augustine's actual conceptions (though this is certainly a task we might continue!), but to make a comment on the method of 'criticism' employed in a certain document, which seems to me far more a reflection of bias against scholastic redactions of theological trends which find a forebear in Augustine's words, than an authentic criticism of what Augustine himself actually wrote.

INXC, Matthew