Sister Projects: Wikichristian | WikiMD
BelieversCafe is a large collection of christian articles with over 40,000 pages
Our sponsors:
10 [Augustin here begins his discussion of some ternaries that are found in the Finite, that illustrate the trinality of the Infinite. Like all finite analogies, they fail at certain points. In the case chosen-namely, the lover, the loved, and love-the first two are substances, the last is not. The mind is a substance, but its activity in loving is not. In chapter iv. 5, Augustin asserts that "love and knowledge exist substantially, as the mind itself does." But no psychology, ancient or modern, has ever maintained that the agencies of a spiritual entity or substance are themselves spiritual entity or substances. The activities of the human mind in cognizing, loving, etc., are only its energizing, not its substance.
The ambiguity of the Latin contributes to this error. The mind and its loving, and also the mind and its cognizing, are denominated "duo quoedam" the mind, love, and knowledge, are denominated "tria quoedem." By bringing the mind and its love and knowledge under the one term "quoedam," and then giving the meaning of "substance" to "thing," in "something," the result follows that all three are alike and equally "substantial."
This analogy taken from the mind and its activities illustrates the trinality of the Divine essence, but fails to illustrate the substantiality of the three persons. The three Divine persons are not the Divine essence together with two of its activities (such, e.g., as creation and redemption), but the essence in three modes, or "forms," as St. Paul denominates them in Phil. iii. 6.
If Augustin could prove his assertion that the activities of the human spirit in knowing and loving are strictly "substantial," then this ternary would illustrate not only the trinality of the essence, but the essentiality and objectivity of the persons. The fact which he mentions, that knowledge and love are inseparable from the knowing and loving mind, does not prove their equal substantiality with the mind.-W.G.T.S.].
11 [Augustin here illustrates, by the ternary of mind, love, and knowledge, what the Greek Trinitarians denominate the perixw/rhsij of the divine essence. By the figure of a circulation, they describe the eternal inbeing and indwelling of one person in another. This is founded on John xiv. 10, 11; xvii. 21, 23. "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? I pray that they all may be one, as thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee." Athanasius (Oratio, iii. 21) remarks that Christ here prays that the disciples "may imitate the trinitarian unity of essence, in their unity of affection." Had it been possible for the disciples to be in the essence of the Father as the Son is, he would have prayed that they all may be "one in Thee," instead of "one in Us."
The Platonists, also, employed this figure of circulatory movement, to explain the self-reflecting and self-communing nature of the human mind. "It is not possible for us to know what our souls are, but only by their kinh/seij kuklikai, their circular and reflex motions and converse with themselves, which only can steal from them their own secrets." J. Smith: Immortality of the Soul, Ch. ii.
Augustin's illustration, however, is imperfect, because "the three things" which circulate are not "each of them severally a substance." Only one of them, namely, the mind, is a substance.-W.G.T.S.]
12 [The inward production of a thought in the finite essence of the human spirit which is expressed outwardly in a spoken word, is analogous to the eternal generation of the Eternal Wisdom in the infinite essence of God expressed in the Eternal Word. Both are alike, in that something spiritual issues from something spiritual, without division or diminution of substance. But a thought of the human mind is not an objective thing or substance; while the Eternal Word is.-W.G.T.S.]
24 [The meaning of this obscure chapter seems to be, that only what the mind is pleased with, is the real expression and index of the mind-its true "word." The true nature of the mind is revealed in its sympathies. But this requires some qualification. For in the case of contrary qualities, like right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, the real nature of the mind is seen also in its antipathy as well as in its sympathy; in its hatred of wrong as well as in its love of right. Each alike is a true index of the mind, because each really implies the other.-W.G.T.S.]
27 [It is not these three together that constitute the one substance. The mind alone is the substance-the knowledge and the love being only two activities of it. When the mind is not cognizing or loving, it is still an entire mind. As previously remarked in the annotation on IX. ii. this ternary will completely illustrate a trinality of a certain kind, but not that of the Trinity; in which the "tria quoedam" are three subsistences, each of which is so substantial as to be the subject of attributes, and to be able to employ them. The human mind is substantial enough to possess and employ the attributes of knowledge and love. We say that the mind knows and loves. But an activity of the mind is not substantial enough to possess and employ the attributes of knowledge and love. We cannot say that the loving loves; or the loving knows; or the knowing loves, etc.-W.G.T.S.].