The Work of the Trinity and the Knowledge of God in Augustine's De Trinitate

This article seeks to set forth the contribution that book 8 of Augustine's De Trinitate makes to our understanding of Augustine's way of knowing and the structure of the De Trinitate. With regards to Augustine's way of knowing, I argue that, in contrast to the results to which the epistemological Christocentrism of Barthian theology can lead, Augustine is able to present an account of the knowledge of God that remains faithful to the witness of Scripture by building his account around the work of each person of the Trinity. With regards to the structure of the De Trinitate, I propose that Augustine's concern in De Trinitate 8 with vain mental images shows that the search for the true image of God in the second half of the De Trinitate is motivated by a concern for the way in which the imagination responds to teaching about the Trinity.     

Confessions from the Classroom Teaching with Augustinian Eyes

Through an analysis of Augustine's Confessions, this essay aims to identify the sources, tenets, and implications of the theological anthropology that grounds the author's pedagogy. The author describes classroom dynamics and teaching strategies in terms of the concepts of creation, sin, and redemption found in the Confessions. In relation to Augustine's doctrine of creation, the author argues that a theological anthropology that posits an ineradicable relationship of the human person to God justifies optimism about student response to the study of theology. It also supports a sacramental understanding of the effectiveness of the teacher. In relation to Augustine's theology of sin, the author reflects on the effects of pride on both teacher and student. The section on redemption acknowledges that although the teacher cannot eradicate sin in the classroom, he or she can counter such effects through the responsible and sensitive exercise of authority. Throughout the essay, the virtues of humility and gratitude in the classroom are highlighted, and concrete pedagogical issues are examined in a theological light.     

The Politics of Pears: Augustine on the Ethics of Privative Versus Eucharist Communities

In my essay, I interpret Augustine's Confessions as a political text that portrays Augustine's attempt to find a true community. This search includes a critique of various defective communities that cannot provide the public good necessary for a true public. To show this, I focus on Augustine's account of the pear theft as an example par excellence of a privative community. I examine the story as an account of an inexplicable act of willing against the good that unmakes the will. I then argue that the supposed resolution—that Augustine was willing the good of community—in fact exacerbates the inexplicability of the pear theft. In feasting on iniquity, this community un-makes itself. I conclude by showing how the pear thieves represent a perverted imitation of the eucharistic community, which does not steal but shares the Good and so shares its goods.     

Trinitarian Missiology: Towards a Theology of God as Missionary1

Abstract: This article explores the possibilities of using ‘missionary’ as an attribute of God, as has been done recently in some ecclesial discourse. To this end, it offers an exegesis of John 20:21–23 via expositions of Augustine's discussion of the divine missions in De Trinitate, Barth's account of election, and the Lateran condemnation of Joachim of Fiore, and a discussion of the relationship between trinitarian theology and the divine attributes.     

Figuring the Porous Self: St. Augustine and the Phenomenology of Temporality

This article examines the phenomenological structures of the homo temporalis filtered through Augustine's illuminating, if unsystematic, insights on temporality and the imago Dei. It situates such a phenomenological interpretation of the Augustinian self in view of current interpretations that polarize or split the Augustinian self into an either/or scheme—either an “interior” self or an “exterior” self. Given this imbalance, the article suggests that a phenomenological evaluation of Augustine brings to light how interior and exterior spheres are deeply integrated. The article elaborates this position by contending that the self's temporal streaming within the exterior world‐horizon is inescapable because it reflects basic constituents of a self created by God which is nevertheless capable of contemplating a God who transcends time. This seeming paradox is resolved by recourse to what is described as the “double entry” of the self. The temporal streaming of the self in the world‐horizon (entry one) is porous to the eternal inwardly (entry two); the eternal entry is thus interior and analyzable in terms of a non‐reflective self‐awareness on display in Augustine's De Trinitate; and finally Augustine's understanding of the temporality of faith indicates how the self of faith can be lived in light of Heidegger's emphasis on the future and Husserl's emphasis on the past.     

Explaining the Paradox of Hedonism

The paradox of hedonism is the idea that making pleasure the only thing that we desire for its own sake can be self-defeating. Why would this be true? In this paper, I survey two prominent explanations, then develop a third possible explanation, inspired by Joseph Butler's classic discussion of the paradox. The existing accounts claim that the paradox arises because we are systematically incompetent at predicting what will make us happy, or because the greatest pleasures for human beings are found in certain special goods which hedonists cannot enjoy. On the account that I develop, the paradox is a consequence of a theory about the nature of pleasure, together with a view about the requirements of rational belief. Which of these explanations is correct, I argue, bears on central questions about how to understand the nature and extent of the paradox.     

Retracing Augustine's Ethics

Augustine's exposition of the image of God in Book 15 of On The Trinity (De Trinitate) sheds light on multiple issues that arise in scholarly interpretations of Augustine's account of lying. This essay argues against interpretations that posit a uniform account of lying in Augustine—with the same constitutive features, and insisting both that it is never necessary to tell a lie and that lying is absolutely prohibited. Such interpretations regularly employ intertextual reading strategies that elide distinctions and developments in Augustine's ethics of lying. Instead, I show how looking at texts written prior and subsequent to the texts usually consulted suggests a trajectory in Augustine's thought, beginning with an understanding of lies as morally culpable but potentially necessary, and culminating in a vision of lying as the fundamental evil and the origin of every sin.     

Redeeming Creation: Creatio ex nihilo and the Imago Dei in Augustine

Contemporary theology has sometimes been critical of the perceived abstract, speculative intellectualism in Augustine's anthropology, especially in his understanding of the imago Dei. Within the larger context of Augustine's claims on the soul, however, and, in particular, in the way he conceives the soul created from nothing according to the image of God, one finds an intimate binding of soteriological and moral concerns to his claims on the created origin of the soul. In this we see that Augustine's intellectualism does not remove the soul from time, history and the relations with God and the world forged therein, but underscores the soul's sensitivity to, and dependence on, its relations to God and the world.     

“Make no provision for the flesh”: recognizing the incarnation in and after Augustine

This article argues for the importance of the intelligibility of the sexed body to incarnational theology. Building on Mark Jordan's reading of Augustine, I focus on the paradox of the incarnation as both the bodily sign (signa) of God and God Godself as the thing that the sign signifies (res). Through an analysis of the debates around Leo Steinberg's work on the meaning of Christ's genitals in Renaissance art, I explore the ways in which depicting the incarnation is a paradoxical exercise of depicting God's fully human body. I argue that attention to the paradox of the incarnation as both sign and thing can disrupt ideologies of sexual difference that force bodies to be intelligible as unambiguously sexed, while the question of sexual difference can work within incarnational theology to disturb the equivalence of full humanity and unambiguous maleness.     

TIME AND PLACE FOR PHILOSOPHY

Abstract: Writing in continuous gratitude to Gary Matthews's wonderful project of rescuing childhood from its disregard, not to say banishment, in professional philosophy, I relate here certain moments in his considerations of early childhood to moments in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, which opens with a scene of childhood from Augustine's Confessions, and also to moments in later stages of childhood (as Matthews also significantly indicates) and, beyond that, to adolescent crises and to what I have called philosophy as “the education of grown‐ups.” I raise the issue of whether we are to see the “odd” questions of early childhood as proto‐science, which will eventually graduate into better science, or as proto‐philosophy, which will be continuously elaborated in philosophical investigation. This raises the question of whether philosophy is to be regarded, early or late, as inseparable from science or, as the later Wittgenstein urges, autonomous with respect to science's glamorous advances.     

THE LOST LEGACY OF ANSELM'S ARGUMENT: RE‐THINKING THE PURPOSE OF PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

In his Proslogion, Anselm presents a proof for God's existence which has attracted a tremendous amount of scholarly attention. In spite of all that has been said about this proof and proofs for God's existence more generally, scholarly consensus seems to dissipate when it comes to determining whether theistic proofs are persuasive and sound. In this article, I will argue that there is a way to provide compelling proof for the existence of God. To substantiate this claim, I will not attempt to prove that God exists apart from His revelation in any of the ways that have been advocated by various philosophers of religion. Rather, I will endeavor to explain that Anselm's approach to offering evidence for God's existence is quite different from the approach that modern philosophers tend to attribute to him and to elaborate on what that approach involves by reading Anselm's argument in the context of Augustine's De Trinitate and the whole of the Proslogion.     

JUST LIES: Finding Augustine's Ethics of Public Lying in His Treatments of Lying and Killing

Augustine famously defends the justice of killing in certain public contexts such as just wars. He also claims that private citizens who intentionally kill are guilty of murder, regardless of their reasons. Just as famously, Augustine seems to prohibit lying categorically. Analyzing these features of his thought and their connections, I argue that Augustine is best understood as endorsing the justice of lying in certain public contexts, even though he does not explicitly do so. Specifically, I show that parallels between his treatments of killing and lying along with his “agent (auctor)–instrument (minister)” distinction, in which God is the true agent or “author” of certain acts and humans are merely God's instruments, together imply that he would regard certain instances of public lying as permissible and even obligatory. I buttress my argument by examining several key but neglected passages and by responding to various objections and rival interpretations. Throughout, I challenge standard interpretations of Augustine's ethics of killing and lying and seek to deepen our overall understanding of these dimensions of his thought. In so doing, I contribute to ongoing discussions of public and private lying and to the task of relating Augustine's thought to contemporary debate and deliberation on war, killing, and lying.     

Trinity and Apologetics In the Theology of St. Augustine

This article examines Trinitarian themes in St. Augustine's City of God and in his On the Trinity. It argues that the scope and intention of the latter work can be clarified to some extent by noticing the apologetic commitments entailed in the exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity in the former. It argues against the tendency of some recent scholarship to restrict the intelligibility of the On the Trinity to converted Christians, even as it also defends the irreducibility of the doctrine of the Trinity, in Augustine's thinking, to any doctrine of pagan learning. Without prejudice to recent scholarly clarifications of the polemical origins of some of the arguments in the On the Trinity, the article argues (in effect) that the work is more than the sum of its polemical parts, and is intentionally addressed by Augustine to a wide readership, deliberately unspecified in identity except insofar as they are united as “human beings who are seeking God.” Just as ancient apologetics, including Augustine's, was addressed to a variety of people, pagan and Christian, in various states of conviction and conversion, so the On the Trinity is meant to address many types of readers, at various levels of conversion and understanding, hoping to bring all of them closer to—or to confirm and deepen their participation in—the true worship of the one true God, without which, Augustine believes, no one can ultimately find the God they seek.     

‘We shall be like him,for we shall see him’: Augustine's De Trinitate and the Purification of the Mind

Contemporary re‐examinations of Augustine's De Trinitate have made the case for the coherence and consistency of the work based on the material content of its trinitarian theology. I propose that Augustine's understanding of De Trinitate's function also ties the work together as a whole. Rather than just talking about purification, De Trinitate attempts to participate in and correspond to God's economically grounded, eschatological purification of humanity. By undertaking a close reading of Book 1, followed by a brief overview of Books 2–15, I make the case that reading De Trinitate as a participation in purification holds all 15 books together.     

READING AUGUSTINE THROUGH JOB: A REPARATIVE READING OF AUGUSTINE'S DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION

In this article I argue that Augustine's four late works against the so‐called “Semi‐Pelagians” can be read creatively and reparatively alongside the book of Job. Specifically, Augustine's frequent appeals to the inscrutability of God's judgment can be compared with God's speeches to Job out of the whirlwind. Having shown how the latter operate “indexically”, I will return to Augustine to highlight signs of indexicality throughout his four works. This will allow an interpretation of Augustine's doctrine of predestination, and its culminating moments of inscrutability, not as timeless truth, but as a tool used within prayer and preaching to foster salvation.     

THE IMAGO DEI AS THE MIND OF JESUS CHRIST

In this essay I examine David Clough's interpretation of the imago Dei and his use of “creaturely” language in his book On Animals: Volume 1, Systematic Theology. Contrary to Clough, I argue that the imago Dei should be interpreted as being uniquely human. Using a neuroscientific approach, I elaborate on my claim that while Jesus is the image of God perfected, the imago Dei is best understood as having the mind of Christ. In regards to language, I make the case that using terms such as “creature” when referring to nonhuman animals is problematic in that it can serve to alienate human beings from their capacity to image God. In addition I argue that “creaturely” language raises concerns for the African American community given Western Christianity's history as it relates to their valuation of black bodies and human enslavement.     

The Sin of Heresy: Opposition to Heresy in Augustine’s Confessions

Throughout the Confessions, Augustine repeatedly complains about heresy with a special focus on the heresy he once belonged to, Manicheanism. To those of us who live in a culture in which respectable people rarely, if ever, care about religious orthodoxy to such a degree, these complaints seem rather bizarre. Despite this initial appearance, Augustine presents in the Confessions several plausible reasons for thinking heresy is sinful and, therefore, detrimental to a person’s sanctity and ultimate salvation. In this paper, I argue that Augustine considers heresy sinful because it involves as many as three kinds of idolatry: loving a lie/false conception of God instead of the true God, loving one’s own beliefs more than the Truth, which is God, and loving the worldly praise one receives from developing novel opinions more than God.     

Architectonics Matter: Some Advantages of Treating the Unicity of God in Advance of the Trinity of Persons,in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas's distinction between what is essential and personal in God has been widely criticized in Protestant and Catholic modernity because of its supposed isolation of God from the economy of salvation. Based upon consideration of the divine goodness, I defend Aquinas's arrangement in Summa Theologiae I, qq. 1–49, advancing metaphysical inquiry along four lines. I discuss, first, the fittingness of ascribing conceptual priority to the common in advance of the particular; second, how Aquinas's ‘double perspective’ illuminates the New Testament language of ‘participation’ in the divine nature; third, the manner in which God's attributes structure God's works, illustrating the concordance of nature and works; fourth, and last, how Aquinas’s architectonic clarifies the relationship between God's essential names and transcendentality.