Imago Trinitatis - Fordham



Imago Trinitatis

1. In the foregoing books of De Trinitate, but especially in bk. 5, Augustine has arrived at the following important conclusions:

a. On account of divine simplicity, whatever we can say of God absolutely, applies to Him substantially, even if the terms we attribute to Him in this way signify accidents in creatures.

b. The terms attributable in this manner are those that signify perfections without entailing some limitation in the perfection itself, even if the realizations of those perfections in creatures are necessarily limited. However, since the perfections themselves need not be limited, their absolutely unlimited realization is possible, indeed, actual in the unlimited perfection of divine essence.

c. Since these terms all equally signify the divine essence, they cannot distinguish the divine persons, who all equally are the same divine essence.

d. But the divine persons are among themselves distinct.

e. Therefore, the divine persons are distinct on account of the relative opposition of the relations resulting from the acts necessarily present in God, as an intelligent, understanding, and loving being.

2. These are the conclusions that serve as the basis for Augustine’s further considerations of the Trinity, as it can be discerned through its image in the human soul.

3. That God is a living being who lives an intelligent form of life is clear from the fact that life is a higher form of being than mere existence, and an intelligent life is a higher form of life than the life of a brute animal, and that this form of life does not have to be limited to matter, as is obvious in the case of the human soul.

4. But then, the acts and corresponding powers of an intelligent form of life, namely, acts of remembering, understanding, and loving, and the corresponding powers of memory, understanding, and will, have to be present in God. However, since no act and no power of God is other than God himself, these acts and powers are substantially the same, one, indivisible divine life and essence, but are distinguished from one another on account of their inherent directionality, and the resulting relative opposition between them. For example, whatever that has intellectual memory, that is, knowledge, actually knows something in an act of understanding by forming in itself a mental concept, a mental word. That unspoken word is said to be a concept insofar as it is conceived in the mind. However, when the mind is conceiving itself, and the act of conceiving is the same as the act of living of that mind (which is the case in God’s life), then the act of conceiving is also an act of begetting, namely, giving life to one’s own similitude in nature, and so that which is thus begotten is appropriately called a Son, and, accordingly, the conceiver/begetter is also appropriately called the Father. But since nothing can be both begetter and begotten, i.e., Father and Son in the same respect, Father and Son are distinct from one another, yet they are at the same time the one, self-understanding God.

5. Similar considerations apply to the act of will whereby God loves himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit.

6. Obviously, these relations distinguish the divine persons without dividing the divine essence, for the divine persons are constituted by the relations of God to himself. However, since God, as their creator, is related to his creatures through his essence, the extra-Trinitarian relations in which God stands to his creatures do not distinguish the divine persons: just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and the same God, so they are one and the same Creator.

7. Nevertheless, this does not mean that persons of the Trinity could not be reflected in a specific way in God’s creation to the extent that the natural capacity of the creature allows such a reflection.

8. But then, obviously, the best reflection of the Trinity in the creation known to us can be most discernible in that nature which is the closest in nobility to divine nature, namely, the divine part of man, the human soul.

9. So, a closer investigation of the powers, and the corresponding act of the human soul can provide us with a deeper insight into the mystery of the Trinity, if we manage to discern that image in our life that is a faint, obscure reflection of divine life. ***

10. The fact that the powers of memory, understanding, and will in man can be discerned as an image of the Trinity in man provides both a theoretical opportunity, and a practical challenge for man. The theoretical opportunity is the opportunity of gaining a better understanding of what is revealed to us about God’s inner life, through introspective theology. The practical challenge is the challenge of perfecting this image in man, thereby taking the soul closer to God, as much as it is allowed by its natural capacity.

11. The practical task resulting from these considerations, therefore, is very much like the task of the art-restorer, who first discerns the outlines of the masterpiece in a badly damaged, smudged picture, and then, relying on the image he discerned, carefully clears away all the smudge and taints to bring out as clearly as possible the original, as it was meant to be by its maker.

12. Now what does this mean in practical terms, aside from the metaphor? The clue is given precisely by the idea of the image of the Trinity in us. What does it take to perfect the image of divinity in humanity? Let us see the ways in which it is defective, and then let us look for the means to overcome eliminate these defects.

13. Human life is obviously inferior to the divine life in its temporality, and the corresponding mutability, and volatility of its activities. Human life does not consist in the ceaseless perfect operation of the soul’s highest faculties. We do not always remember the things we need to know, we do not always understand that we would have to understand, and we do not always love what we ought to love.

14. But even if we do not always remember what we need to know, especially not in the form of recollecting them from their true form in the divine idea, we still can have help from faith, reminding us the things we absolutely need to remember. Therefore, by gaining and strengthening our faith, we clear that part of the image, which represents the Father, the intellectual memory, enabling us to have an intelligent, human life. But once we have faith, it can be deepened with understanding, and so, understanding our faith can materialize in the hope that there is remedy for our defects. It is this exercise of understanding, materializing hope, that is the representation of the Divine Word, the Son, materializing in Jesus Christ, giving us the hope of the full restoration of human nature damaged by original sin. Finally, from this hope resulting from faith, there should further result the desire to realize this hope, the love of God, manifested in and through the active, practical love for humanity, the desire to restore the humanly attainable perfect image of divinity in humanity. This is the love completing the picture, which represents the gift of the Holy Spirit.

15. So, in conclusion, we can see that Augustine’s most speculative work, the Trinity is inextricably intertwined with his most practical concern: what sort of life should man live? The answer is provided by a deduction of the three theological virtues from the consideration of Trinity in its image in man: man should live a life informed by faith, inspired by hope, and infused with charity. This is the answer that is given a detailed, systematic exposition in Augustine’s Enchiridion. But first we shall have to deal with the question of what accounts for the damage done to the image, so we can better understand what is involved in the restoration. So, first we shall have to consider the issue of original sin damaging human nature, and especially our faculty that both caused it and that should be used in the process of reparation. Therefore, before moving on to the discussion of the Enchiridion, we shall first have to return to a thorough discussion of the third book of De Libero Arbitrio.

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