68

Divine Unity and the Economy of

Salvation in the De Trinitate of
Augustine
1. Introduction
In the twentieth century, most theologians in the English-speaking world
have accepted unquestioningly two dictums deriving from the fin de siècle
French historian of dogma Theodore de Regnon: first, that Augustine developed
an abstract and proto-scholastic theology of the Trinity centered on the divine
essence; and, second, that in so doing Augustine sacrificed the emphasis of
the Bible and creeds on the divine trineness,1 an emphasis supposedly2
maintained by the theologians of Greece.3 Unsurprisingly, a number of scholars
have on the basis of these teachings subjected Augustine’s doctrine of the
Trinity to an exacting critique.4
Surprisingly, however, this critique has evolved over the century in a way
unanticipated by de Regnon. Whereas he rightly considered the inseparability
of the divine acts ad extra as a common doctrine of the ancient Fathers East
and West, later critics have fastened upon this tenet as a peculiar error of
Augustine.5 Besides falsely crediting Augustine with originating this doctrine,
Augustine’s critics have claimed, in particular, that the doctrine of the unity
of the divine acts ad extra leads to four disastrous consequences. First, this

1 This is not to suggest that the view of a greater emphasis on trineness by the Greeks
radically distorts the reality of the matter or that it derives entirely from de Regnon.
2 We say “supposedly,” because John Damascene, the great systematizer of Eastern
theology, seems to claim that the divine Persons are not really, but only conceptually,
distinct from one another. Velecky, Ceslaus, “Following the Fathers,” Appendix 3 of
Aquinas, Thomas, Ceslaus Velecky, trans., Summa Theologiae: Vol. 6: the Trinity,
(London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965), p.131.
3 Barnes, Michel. “De Regnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies, 26-2 (1995),
pp.51, 53-54.
4 For instance, Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans., Joseph Donceel, (New York: Herder
& Herder, 1970), especially pp.10-19; Catherine M. LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity
& Christian Life, (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), esp, pp.81-104; and Colin Gunton,
The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991), esp. pp.31-
55.
5 e.g., LaCugna, op. cit, p.97.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 69

doctrine supposedly precludes the divine acts in this world from revealing the
Persons of the Trinity in their distinctness.6 Second, this doctrine supposedly
precludes the Son from assuming human nature as an individual.7 Third and
ironically, if the former criticism does not hold, then any of the divine Persons,
according to Augustine’s critics, could have assumed human nature.8 Fourth
and finally, the doctrine of the inseparability of the divine acts supposedly
leaves no room for distinguishing the eternal processions on the basis of the
economy.9
In what follows, besides providing essential doctrinal and historical context,
we shall attempt to prove each of the foregoing criticisms invalid.10

2. Does Augustine Contravene Tradition?

Before proceeding to our argument proper, however, we must address
several preliminary matters relevant to the content and nature of Augustine’s

6 Ibid., pp.97-102.
7 Ibid, pp.98-99. LaCugna claims this is the result if the inseparability principle is
“strictly applied.”
8 Rahner, op. cit, p. 11.
9 Gunton, op. cit, pp.48-51. By ‘economy,’ we mean, in the words of Prestige, “above
all...the covenanted dispensation of grace,” i.e., God’s acts in salvation history. These
acts are, even in the case of the inspiration of Scripture, distinct from the cognitive
content they confer which is recorded in Scripture. Prestige, George, God in Patristic
Thought, (London: William Heinemann, 1936), p.64.
10 Some readers may object at this point that refuting charges 1 and 4, which concern
whether God manifests the trine aspect of his nature through his acts, is a fruitless
exercise. They may correctly observe that the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed
propositionally in the Old and New Testaments. Attempting to derive it from the
divine acts is, therefore, superfluous for one who believes, as we do, in the plenary,
verbal inspiration of the Bible.
This does not mean, however, that we ought not to concern ourselves with whether
Augustine’s theology removes the holy Trinity from God’s revelation through act.
For the words of the Bible plainly reveal that on various occasions, e.g., Gen. 18:2;
Matt. 3:16-17, Matt. 17:5; Mark 1:10-11, 9:7; Luke 3:22, 9:35; and John 1:32, God
intended to reveal the distinctions in his nature by act as well as by word. Any
theology which precludes God from displaying his trine nature in his acts is directly
contrary to God’s revelation by word. The point of this paper, therefore, is not to
secure a means of knowing the Trinity apart from the Bible, but to investigate whether
Augustine’s theology, i.e., our theology as Western Christians, is faithful to the Biblical
doctrine of the Trinity.
 70 Divine Unity and the Economy of Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine

theology. First, Augustine did not originate the principle of the inseparability
of the divine acts ad extra. To understand this, one need look no further than
Augustine’s Epistle 11 in which he treats this doctrine as a commonplace of
Catholic faith.11 Ambrose, Augustine’s instructor in the faith, fervently
proclaimed this doctrine. For instance, we read in his De Spiritu Sancto: “If
then the peace of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, the grace one,
the love one and the communion one, the working is certainly one.”12 Later
in the same work, he writes: “Not only is the operation of the Father, Son and
Spirit everywhere one but also there is one and the same will, calling and
giving of commands.”13 Likewise Hilary, whose De Trinitate Augustine read,14
writes in this work: “All things that the Father does the Son does in like
manner. This is the true birth and the most complete mystery of our faith.”15
One could easily cite similar remarks from other pro-Nicene, Latin theologians
such as Eusebius of Vercelli, Rufinus, Gregory of Elvira, or Phoebadius of
Agen.16This doctrine of the inseparability of the divine acts ad extra played
such a great role in the Trinitarian theology of the late fourth century that
Michel Barnes calls it “the most distinctive feature of pro-Nicene polemic”
and “the substance of ‘Nicene’ theology.”17 Whatever the merits or demerits
of this doctrine, therefore, one simply cannot reasonably assign its origin to
Augustine.
Nor should we think this doctrine peculiar to the Latin West. Prestige
cites Athanasius (adSerap. 1.19,28,31; 3.5), Basil (c. Eun. 3.4; ep. 189.6,7),

11 Philip Schaff, ed., J.G. Cunningham, trans., “Letters of St. Augustin,” Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers: Vol I, (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans, 1956), p.229.
Lewis Ayres emphasizes this point in his article, “Remember That You Are Catholic”
(serm. 52.2): Augustine on the Unity of the Triune God, Journal of Early Christian
Studies, 7 (1999), p.46.
12 Quoted in Ayres, Lewis, “The Fundamental Grammar of Augustine’s Trinitarian
Theology,” in Robert Dodaro and George Lawless, ed., Augustine and His Critics,
(London: Routledge, 2000), p.56.
13 Ibid.
14 According to Barnes, Michel, “Re-reading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity,” in
Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, ed., The Trinity: an
Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),
p. 156.
15 Ibid.
16 According to Ayres, op. cit, “Remember That You Are A Catholic,” p.47.
17 Barnes, op. cit, “Re-reading,” p. 156.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 71

Gregory of Nyssa {non tres dei, Migne 45.125C,D; 133.A; comm, not,
45.180C), Gregory of Nazianzus {or. 31.16) among others as exponents of
this doctrine, all very distinguished and, in the case of the last three at least,
very Greek.18 We shall let Gregory of Nyssa {de Trin.) speak for the group:
“If...we understand that the operation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit is one, differing or varying in nothing, the oneness of their nature must
needs be inferred from the identity of their operation. The Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit alike give sanctification, and life, and light, and comfort,
and all similar graces. And let no one attribute the power of sanctification in
an especial sense to the Spirit, when he hears the savior in the Gospel saying
to the Father concerning his disciples, “Father, sanctify them in thy name.”
So too all the other gifts are wrought in those who are worthy alike by the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: every grace and power, guidance, life,
comfort, the change to immortality, and every other boon that exists, which
descends to us. As we say that the operation of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit is one, so we say that the Godhead is one....”19 John
Damascene later incorporated this doctrine into his De Fide Orthodoxia, and,
according to Lossky, this doctrine remains normative for the Eastern Orthodox
today.20 This is not to suggest that Augustine’s and the Cappadocians’
understanding of the unity of the operation of the three Persons is identical.
On the contrary, the Cappadocians (as interpreted by Damascene) derive the
unity of the divine acts ad extra from the perichoresis of the Persons, whereas
Augustine derives this unity from the Persons’common essence. The doctrine
of inseparability derived from these disparate sources is, however, identical.21
Anti-Augustinian theologians can by no means, therefore, legitimately appeal
to the great Fathers of the East to bolster their critique of this aspect of
Augustine’s doctrine of the Trinity.

18 Prestige, George, God in Patristic Thought, (London: William Heinemann, 1936),

pp.257-261.
19 Quoted in Ayres, op. cit, “Remember That You Are A Catholic,” pp.48-49.
20 Lossky, Vladimir, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Cambridge: James
Clarke, 1957), pp.53-54.
21 Wolfsonn, Harry, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers: Vol. 1: Faith, Trinity,
Incarnation, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp.349, 353-354,
356. We find it difficult to deny, incidentally, that the Greek derivation of the essence
of the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Father does not imply a mild subordinationism.
72 Divine Unity and the Economy o f Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine

3. Is The Inseparability Principle Logically Necessary?

In fact, the anti-Augustinians have not conclusively shown that they can
reconcile the idea of separable divine actions ad extra with God’s unity and
simplicity.22 In order to reject Augustine’s doctrine of the divine works ad
extra without sacrificing logic or orthodoxy, they must disprove and present a
reasonable substitute for another, equally venerable principle: in God all things
are one where opposition of relation does not intervene.23 Augustine’s
opponents must invalidate this principle, because it logically guarantees the
inseparability of divine acts ad extra; they must be one, since no opposition
of relation intervenes. Likewise, Augustine’s opponents must develop an
alternative to this principle lest they render Trinitarian theology incapable of
distinguishing personal and essential properties of the Persons of the Trinity.24
Whether they can develop such an alternative depends to a great extent on
their ability to navigate the minefield presented by 1 Cor 1:24, a minefield
Augustine navigates brilliantly with the help of the principle in question.25
At the opening of Book VI, Chapter I, Augustine begins his prolonged
discussion of this passage which identifies Christ as “the power of God and
the wisdom of God.” This text, in Augustine’s time, was commonly used by
anti-Arian apologists to demonstrate the equality of the Father and Son.26 “If
the Son of God is the power and the wisdom of God, and God is never without
His power and wisdom, then the Son is co-eternal with God the Father....”27

22 Besides the argument raised here on the basis of the traditional axiom, “In Deo
omnia unum sunt, ubi non obviât relationis oppositio,” one could also argue that
separable divine actions are inconceivable because of the lack of a suitable mode of
causality. For this argument, see Hill, William, “Uncreated Grace — A Critique of
Karl Rahner,” Thomist, XXVII (1963), pp.333-356.
23 “Omniaque [in Deo] sunt unum, ubi non obviât relationis oppositio.” Tanner,
Norman, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils: VolumeI, (London: Sheed & Ward,
1990), p.571. The Council of Florence included this rule in its Bulla Unionis Coptorum
also known as Cantate Domino.
24 The succeeding paragraph demonstrates the truth of this assertion.
25 Augustine explicitly discusses 1 Cor 1:24 only in Book VI, Chapter 1 and Book
VII, Chapter 1 and 2 although Chapters 2-9 of Book VI are highly relevant. Ayres,
op. cit, “Fundamental Grammar,” helpfully schematizes Augustine’s argument.
26 Augustine himself even used this argument in De Fide et Symbolo. Ayres, op. cit,
“Fundamental Grammar,” pp.57, 64.
27 Augustine, trans., Stephen McKenna, The Trinity, (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press,
1963), Book 6, Chapter 1, p. 199.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 73

Its polemical usefulness notwithstanding, this exegesis of 1 Cor 1:24 proved

highly problematic. For if the wisdom of the Father were the Son, one could
not say that the Father Himself, as Father, is wise. But the doctrine of divine
simplicity dictates that to be God is to be wise; if the Father is not wise,
therefore, neither is He God.28 Having recognized the intolerable results of
this naive exegesis, Augustine proceeds to give an alternative account of how
precisely the Son is God’s power and God’s wisdom.29 Since God is simple
and one, Augustine reasons, each of the three persons must be equally wise,
powerful, etc. and not the Son only.30 In fact, they must be identical in all
things which concern their essence.31 Through such reasoning, Augustine
banishes the difficulties caused by the misguided exegesis of 1 Cor 1:24 which
denies wisdom and power to the Father and Holy Ghost by attributing those
qualities exclusively to the Son. But in so doing, Augustine uncovers an even
more distressing dilemma; if the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are alike in
everything which touches their essence, how can we continue to distinguish
them and not acknowledge only one divine Person?32
To answer this question, Augustine analyzes the Persons’ names to learn
how they can signify Persons who are different, but not essentially so.33 From
this analysis, he concludes that the names Father and Son indicate a relational
difference between two beings of the same essence.34 Ahúman father and son
possess precisely the same human nature although one is the father and the
other the son. If the father had never begotten his son he would still possess
the same human nature. For the name father indicates principally not his
nature, but his relationship to his son.35 If this sort of distinction within unity
can subsist in mere creatures, how much more ought we to acknowledge it in
the perfectly simple God?36 The anomalous name ‘Holy Spirit’ can be
interpreted relationally as well inasmuch as the name denotes qualities which
Father and Son, the two spirators of the Holy Ghost, share.37 Augustine

28 Ibid., VII. 1, pp.218-219.

29 Ibid., VII. 1-2, pp.219-224.
30 Ibid., VI.3-5, pp.204-207.
31 Ibid., VII. 1-2, pp.222-224.
32 Ibid., VIL1, p.220
33 Ibid., VII. 1-2, pp.219-224.
34 Ibid., VII.2, pp.223-224.
35 Ibid., VIL 1, p.221.
36 Ibid., VII. 1, p.222.
37 Ibid., V .ll, pp.189-190.
 74 Divine Unity and the Economy of Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine

succeeds, therefore, in developing a rule to distinguish between personal and

essential properties in God. Relational terms refer to the persons; substantial
terms refer to the essence. In other words: in God all things are one where
opposition of relation does not intervene. Augustine’s critics, therefore, face
formidable obstacles in attempting to develop a formula consistent with their
principles which performs all of the functions of the old one: a basic
prerequisite for the success of their larger critique of Augustine.
With these factors in mind, we turn to the charges of Augustine’s opponents
against his doctrine of the inseparability of the divine acts ad extra. The
charges are: 1) that, in Augustine’s theology, the missions appropriated to the
Son and Holy Ghost fail to reveal the Persons’ eternal processions; 2) that, if
the divine acts ad extra are inseparable, then the Son alone cannot become
incarnate; 3) that, even if an individual Person could become incarnate,
Augustine gives no particular reason why this should be the Son; and 4) that
Augustine’s theology inadequately distinguishes between the modes of
procession of the Spirit and the Son.38

3. Do Temporal Missions Reveal Eternal Processions?

To meet the first charge, we shall analyze Augustine’s De Trinitate IV.20.
In this section, Augustine rebuts the charge that the Son’s sending implies his
inferiority to the Father. He explains that the Father sends the Son, “not as
though the one is greater and the other less, but because the one is the Father,
the other is the Son, the one is the begetter, the other is the begotten, the one
is He, from whom the one who is sent has His being, the other is He, who has
being from the one who sends.”39 In other words, the Bible identifies the
Father as He who sends the Son in time, not because the Son is inferior to the
Father, but because the Son proceeds from the Father eternally. Augustine
clearly asserts, therefore, that the temporal mission of the Son reveals his
eternal procession. For Augustine, this is a matter of definition. To be sent is
to be made known; “as for the Holy Spirit to be the gift of God is to proceed
from the Father, so to be sent is to know that He proceeds from Him.”40 The
perceptive critic will notice that thus far Augustine has merely begged the
question. By claiming that sending constitutes making known by definition,
he has avoided engaging the heart of his critics’ objection. If the Persons act

38 See notes 4-7.

39 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, Book IV, Chapter 20, p. 164.
40 Ibid., pp.167-168.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 75

inseparably, as a virtual monad, how can they reveal themselves as distinct?41

Such a question fails to trouble Augustine. But its mirror image does trouble
him considerably, and in the process of answering it, he implicitly dispatches
the question at hand.
Why, Augustine asks, seeing that the divine Persons are inseparable, do
they represent themselves to us separately, e.g., in the Incarnation, the dove
that descended on Christ, the tongues of fire, etc.?42 Our creaturely nature,
Augustine concludes, renders inseparable representation impossible.43 In his
words, “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit...work together inseparably.
But this cannot be represented inseparably by a creature...especially one that
is corporeal.”44 As creatures, therefore, we cannot approach the Persons’
ineffable simplicity directly, but only through inadequate and separate created
signs. How the Trinity so represents Himself while remaining inseparable,
Augustine illustrates by way of an analogy. “Just as when I mention my
memory, my understanding, and my will each name refers indeed to a specific
thing, but yet each one has been produced by all three...so the whole Trinity
together produced the voice of the Father, the flesh of the Son, and the dove
of the Holy Spirit, although each one is referred to one particular person.”45

5. Is The Incarnation Possible?

This formula, however, by no means satisfies Augustine’s contemporary
critics. For in extricating himself from one difficulty, Augustine has
immediately ensnared himself in another. What becomes of the Incarnation
of the Word if divine acts ad extra are merely referred to one person?
Augustine’s position seems to compel him to admit that all three Persons
assumed human nature in Christ and not merely the Word (a conclusion
Augustine himself drew in his Epistle II).46In his mature theology, however,
Augustine emphatically rejects this misunderstanding.47 In De Trinitate II.5.9,
he writes, “that form of the man which He assumed is person of the Son, not

41 Rahner, op. cit, Trinity, p. 14.

42 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, Book IV, Chapter 21, p. 170.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., p.171.
46 Lacugna, op. cit, pp.98-99. Augustine, op. cit, “Letters of St. Augustin,” p.230.
47 See the discussion of this subject in Ayres, op. cit, “Remember That You Are A
Catholic,” pp.46-64.
 76 Divine Unity and the Economy of Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine

of the Father also.”48 While Augustine never satisfactorily reconciles this

doctrine with the inseparability of the divine acts ad extra,49he does produce
a formula which contains the elements of a solution implicitly in De Trinitate
XV. 11.20. “Not God the Father, not the Holy Spirit, not the Trinity itself, but
the Son alone...was made flesh although the Trinity brought this about....”50
A conceptual breakthrough lies hidden not in the (very conventional) terms
themselves, but in the voice of the verbs. Although “brought” (facti sunt)
which signifies the joint action of the Persons appears in the active voice,
“was made” (factum est) is clearly passive. In bringing about the Incarnation,
all three persons act; but is an act implied by the phrase “was made flesh?”
Augustine’s implicit answer seems clearly to be “no/’ All three Persons unite
Christ’s human nature to the Word, but only the Word is so united. The doctrine
of the inseparability of the divine acts ad extra does not preclude the Incarnation
of the Son alone when the word Incarnation is taken to mean the undergoing
of Incarnation. It does, however, preclude the Son from acting alone in making
Himself incarnate.

6. Could Any Divine Person Have Assumed Human Nature?

This solution, it need hardly be said, is unlikely to satisfy Augustine’s
critics. It reduces to conceptual confusion a complaint that originated in an
entirely different idea of what constitutes Incarnation. Unlike Augustine, the
advocates of separable divine action ad extra tend to see Incarnation as an act
which expresses the nature of the Word itself.51In the understanding proposed
above, by contrast, the Word plays a merely passive role standing aloof as it
were while only the inseparable Three deign to intervene in the world.52 This
theory of the Incarnation, the objector would claim, is so formal and abstract
that according to its logic any of the divine Persons could play the role assigned
to the Word in the economy of salvation.53 Augustine’s implied solution to

48 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, II.5.9, p.62.

49 Augustine’s attempted solutions pale in comparison with the precision and subtlety
of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, Ilia. Q. 3, art. 4 in R.J. Hennessey, trans., Summa
Theologiae: Vol. 48: the Incarnate Word, (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1976),
pp.95-97.
50 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, XV. 11.20, p.479.
51 Rahner, op. cit, Trinity, pp.31-33.
52 Aquinas, op. cit, p. 97 makes this explicit.
53 Lacugna, op. cit, p.99.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 77

the problem of how the Son alone could become Incarnate leads to the opposite
problem of why any or all three of the persons could not have become incarnate.
Although Augustine does not treat this question explicitly, the logic of his
position seems to dictate that, strictly speaking, any of the three Persons could
have become incarnate in human flesh.54Because they share the same essence
(indeed, each one is identical to that essence) and differ only in their relations
to each other (and thus not to any external human nature), the capacity of
each person for incarnation seems to follow necessarily. This admission,
however, only validates the objection if it follows from the possibility of any
of the three Persons becoming incarnate that the Incarnation of the Son in the
economy of salvation tells us nothing about the eternal character of the Son.
This allegation Augustine decisively refutes.
Although Augustine’s theology seems to support the hypothesis that, in
abstracto, any divine Person could assume human flesh, he argues extensively
that, given the conditions of this world, the eternal relations of the Son make
him the best candidate for Incarnation.55 According to Augustine, God became
incarnate in order to satisfy four needs of fallen mankind. We need: 1) to be
assured of God’s love and thus rescued from despair;562) to be humbled that
we may seek salvation from Him and not ourselves;57 3) to be shown an
exemplar of how we must live in order to attain eternal salvation;58 and 4) a
sacrifice of one who is both God and man to atone for our sins.59 The second
and fourth functions, it seems, could be performed equally well by any of the
divine Persons.60
But Christ’s status as the eternal, only-begotten Son of the Father renders
him by far the most capable of fulfilling the first. Although the Incarnation
and, therefore, humiliation of any divine Person for our salvation would

54 This is the conclusion of Aquinas, op. cit, Ilia. 0 . 3, art. 5, p.99. He draws this
conclusion, it must be emphasized, because the power to become Incarnate flows
from God’s essence, which is common to the three Persons, and not from their
individual relations. Indeed, it is difficult to see how any power could follow from a
mere relation.
55 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, IV. 1-3, 7-21 is permeated with discussion of this point.
56 Ibid., IV. 1.2, p.131.
57 Ibid., IV. 1.2, p. 131 and XIII.17.22, p. 402.
58 Ibid., VII.3.5, pp.227-228.
59 Ibid., XIII. 16.21, pp.399-400.
60 In particular, it seems that any of the three Persons could have fulfilled equally
well the criteria for a perfect sacrifice listed in ibid., IV. 14.19, pp.155-156.
 75 Divine Unity and the Economy of Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine

abundantly suffice to convince men of God’s love, only in the Incarnation

and death of Christ does the Father sacrifice his only Son.61 Only by uniting
the Second Person to human nature could God re-enact the Old Testament
aqedah offering His only Son without hesitation as a sacrifice to divine
justice.62Likewise, Christ’s status as the eternal Image, Word, and Wisdom of
the Father enables him to serve as Incarnate God more fittingly than either of
the others. We who must “be re-formed to the image of God/’ are so reformed
“on account of the example which the Image, equal to the Father, gives us...”
and we become wise by walking in the footsteps of Wisdom.63 Augustine
provides ample reason, therefore, why the Son and not the Father or the Holy
Ghost should become incarnate and shows that the Incarnation manifests not
the human and divine natures only, but also something of that which is peculiar
to the Son.

7. What is Unique About the Hoiy Spirit?

The persistent critic of Augustine would respond to such a remark by
claiming that Augustine has shown us virtually nothing of what is truly peculiar
to the Son, because he has inadequately distinguished Him from the Holy

61 For God to become incarnate and die for the sins of the world (I am not endorsing
divine passibility : the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum justifies this expression)
in the Person of the Holy Spirit would be to represent the Holy Spirit as a kind of
second Son, a notion which Augustine emphatically rejects. Ibid. V.14.15, p.193 and
XV.27.48, p.519.
62 In ibid., IV.1.2, pp.131-132, Augustine quotes Rom 8:32 which describes the Father
as “he who has not spared his own Son but has delivered him for us all,” and concludes,
“how has he not also, with him, given us all things?” Aqedah literally means “binding”
and refers to Abraham’s binding of Isaac (Gen 22:9) in preparation for slaying him
and offering him as a sacrifice to God. For the significance of this motif in Jewish
religiosity and the New Testament, see Kaiser, Christopher B., “Biblical Theology
and the Patristic Doctrine of the Trinity: In What Ways Can Their Relationship Be
Established?,” Reformed Review, Vol. 45-2 (Winter, 1991), pp.125-127,146-148.
63 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, VII.3.5, p.228. This assignment of a special, revelatory
function to the Son shows that Augustine, in spite of his attribution of Old Testament
theophanies to angels instead of the Son, has by no means abandoned the tradition
going back to Iranaeus of the Son as logos prophorikos. He has merely shorn this
conception of its subordinationist implications. Cf. Hill, Edmund, “Karl Rahner’s
‘Remarks on the Dogmatic Treatise De Trinitate ‘and St. Augustine,” Augustinian
Studies, Vol. 2 (1971), pp.73-74. These observations are contra Gunton, op. cit,
pp.35-36.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 79

Spirit.64 Indeed, such a critic would maintain that Augustine cannot properly
distinguish Son and Spirit because of his insistence on the inseparability of
the external acts of the Trinity.65 Augustine, the critic claims, thus resorts to
positing the filioque and making outlandish appropriations to preserve the
distinction between the Spirit and the Son which his theology has nearly
obliterated.66
Such an account contains moments of truth, but badly misdiagnoses the
weaknesses of Augustine’s pneumatology. For instance, his treatment of the
difference between the eternal processions, for instance, suffers from at least
one crippling, terminological defect, though not one typically exploited by
Augustine’s critics. Perhaps because of his relative ignorance of Greek,
Augustine fails to distinguish between the Greek verbs έκορβνομαι and
έξέρχομαι ‘I proceed,’ and ‘I come forth,’ which are both translated with
procedere in the Vulgate.67 He, therefore, refers to the begetting of the Son
and the spirating of the Holy Ghost as processiones, a term which in the Bible
and the First Council of Constantinople refers specifically to spiration, as a
generic term for the ‘processions’ of the Son and Holy Spirit.68 Consequently,
he finds himself asking “why the Holy Spirit is not the Son when He proceeds
from the Father,” as if begetting were comprehended under the generic name
of procession.69 He thus compounds the impression of indistinctness between
the Son and the Holy Ghost by failing to recognize even a distinct name for
the procession of the Holy Ghost.
It is completely false, moreover, to charge Augustine with inventing the
doctrine of the filioque to solve the problem of distinguishing between the
second and third divine Persons. On the contrary, he burdens himself with
the additional difficulty of demonstrating that the Spirit is not the Son of the
Son.70 Augustine derives the filioque from those texts of Scripture which
refer to the “Spirit of the Son,” and, particularly, those which describe the
economic bestowal of the Spirit by the Son.71 His treatment of the doctrine is
64 Gunton, op. cit, pp.4753‫־‬.
65 Ibid., p.3.
66 Ibid., pp.4953‫־‬.
67 Englezakis, Benedict, “Should the Orthodox Speak of a ‘Temporal Procession’ of
the Holy Spirit?” Eastern Churches Review, Vol. IX (1977), pp.91-92.
68 Ibid., p.92.
69 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, XV.25.45, p.513.
70 Ibid., XV.26.47, pp.517-518.
71 Ibid., IV.20.29, p.168, XV.26.45, p.514.
 80 Divine Unity and the Economy of Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine

almost naively biblicistic. He is either unaware of or completely eschews the

speculative arguments later employed by Anselm for thefilioque and, indeed,
embarrasses later filioquists with his insistence that the Holy Ghost proceeds
from the Father principaliter.72 The usual indicia of logical legerdemain,
therefore, are noticeably lacking.
The same, alas, cannot be said for Augustine’s psychological analogy of
the Trinity. The strained reasoning, feeble metaphors, and, above all, neo-
Platonic origins of much of Books VIII-XV of De Trinitate lend credence to
the suspicion that Augustine introduces philosophical speculation to
compensate for the weaknesses of his theology. Two considerations, however,
militate against this conclusion. First, the development of images of the Trinity
constitutes an integral part of Augustine’s spirituality.73 He sees this exercitatio
mentis as a means of growing in understanding of and, therefore, likeness to
the Trinity.74 He contemplates the similitudes of God in his creatures not so
much to compensate for gaps in his theology as to grasp whatever he can of
the divine essence the vision of which he has made his life’s goal.75 Second,

72 For Anselm’s arguments, see his “On the Procession of the Holy Spirit,” in Anselm,
Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, trans., Trinity, Incarnation, and Redemption:
Theological Treatises, (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), esp. pp.88-97. For
Augustine’s use of principaliter, see Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, XV.17.29, p.493.
73 We infer that the contemplation of trinities in the things of this world is central to
Augustine’s spirituality, because he treats it as a duty in op. cit, Trinity, XII.5.5 and
because he employs such images in his masterworks, the Confessions, the Trinity,
and the City of God as well as numerous other writings. Portalie, Eugene, Ralph J.
Bastion, trans., A Guide to the Thought o f St. Augustine, (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1975), pp. 134-135 includes a list of 22 Trinitarian analogies mentioned by
Augustine along with citations to the works in which these analogies appear, including
the works listed above. Augustinian works which include such images, but are not
listed by Portalie include On Faith and the Creed IX. 17 in Philip Schaff, ed., S.D.F.
Salmond, trans., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Vol. Ill, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1993), p.328; Sermon 52:17-23 in Edmund Hill, trans., The Works of St.
Augustine: Sermons: III (51-94) on the New Testament, (New York: New City Press,
1991), pp.57-62; Sermon 105.4 in Edmund Hill, trans., The Works o f St. Augustine:
Sermons: 111/4 (94A-147A) on the New Testament, (New York: New City Press, 1992),
p.90; Sermon 117.11-14, ibid., pp.215-219; as well as Letter 11.3-4 in op. cit,
Augustine, “Letters,” pp.229-230; Letter 169.6, ibid., pp.540-541; and surely many
others.
74 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity XV.6.10, pp.462-463.
75 Ibid., XV.11.20, pp.476-480.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 81

he seeks traces of the image of God in his own soul and other creatures for
apologetic reasons.76 The trinities to be found everywhere, and especially in
the human mind, may reveal to the unbeliever a trinitarian structure, however
slight, in all created beings: a discovery which can only be explained by the
Christian conviction that God, who is being itself, is a Trinity.77
Third and decisively for our purposes, Augustine, in De Trinitate XV.7.11-
12, specifically disavows the view that memory, understanding, and will, his
principal analogy for the Trinity, constitutes anything approaching a precise
model of the Trinity.78 In particular, Augustine notes, unlike our memory,
understanding, and will, which pertain only to our mind, the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, both together and individually, are nothing less than God.79
Recalling his exegesis of 1 Cor 1:24, Augustine shows that our understanding
does not remember by itself, but only through the memory. Our memory
does not will by itself, but only through the will, etc.80 The structure of the
human mind, therefore, although useful as an image, can by no means inform
us of the nature of the ineffably simple and transcendent God. The
psychological analogy of the Trinity, therefore, does not and cannot, for
Augustine, provide details of the divine nature, including the Holy Spirit’s
procession, other than those found in the Scripture.
On the contrary, the psychological analogy serves to amplify and explore
the nature of the Trinity only insofar as it builds on insights derived from the
Scripture. Its efficacy in illuminating the procession of the Holy Spirit,
therefore, depends entirely on whether the Scripture appropriates (implicitly
or explicitly) the term ‘will5or ‘love’ to the Holy Spirit. This is not to say that
Augustine must show that the Holy Spirit alone is love, but that the Scripture
‘appropriates’ or ascribes this essential quality to him because of a special
affinity for it.81For instance, Scripture appropriates the name ‘Wisdom’ to the
Son because of Wisdom’s association with the Son’s proper name, Logos,

76 Ibid., XV.1.1, p.451.

77 Ibid., XI.5.8, p.327.
78 Ibid., XV.7.11-12, pp.464-466.
79 Ibid., XV.7.11, pp.464-465.
80 Ibid., XV.7.12, p.465.
81 Augustine defends the appropriation of essential attributes to individual Persons in
ibid., VIL3.4-6, pp.225-229 and XV17.29-30, pp.493-495.See also Aquinas’s defense
of appropriation in S.T. Ia.39.7. T.C. O’Brien, trans., Summa Theologiae: Vol. 7:
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1976), pp. 125-129.
82 Divine Unity and the Economy o f Salvation in the De Trinitate of Augustine

although, as we have seen, each Person of the Trinity is equally wise in

Himself.82
It must be admitted that Augustine’s efforts to prove that the Scripture
specially appropriates love to the Holy Spirit meet with little success. He
does manage to find a tenuous appropriation of love to the Holy Spirit in 1
John and does argue convincingly that the Scripture’s references to Wisdom,
Image, and Word in the Godhead imply the existence of an affective element
there as well.83 But, by way of solid evidence, he gives little more. Indeed,
even if one were to grant that Augustine proved conclusively that the Scripture
treats the Holy Spirit as ‘Love,’ a critical mistake vitiates much, if not all, of
the fruit Augustine could have reaped from his insight. His great mistake is
to use the Scripture’s supposed description of the Holy Ghost as love to
characterize the Him as the act of love.84 Insofar as the concept of act differs
fundamentally from that of hypostasis, Augustine thus runs the risk of
representing God as a dyad. He could have accomplished more by treating
‘Love’ as the terminus of divine self-love, a kind of image of the Father not as
he knows himself but as he loves himself, the procedure later adopted by
Aquinas.85 The concept of love as the inner term of affection may not directly
convey the idea of personality, but it does convey something which can be
conceived of as an hypostasis which is more than can be said for love as act.
The use of the name ‘Word’ for the Son by the Scriptures, moreover, indicates
that names of the Persons need not signify rational beings. Augustine’s
characterization of the Holy Spirit as Love, therefore, is exegetically weak,
though not necessarily disastrous.
Augustine proves more successful when he represents the Spirit as Gift.
He does employ “desperate exegesis”86 in his defense of calling the Spirit

82 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, VII.3.4, p.225.

83 Ibid., IX. 12.18, pp.288-289 and XV.17.31, p.496.
84 Ibid., VI.5.7, p.206 and XV. 17.27, p.491.
85 Aquinas presents his conception of affective terminus in S.T. Ia.37,1. “Just as on
the basis of a person’s knowing it a kind of intellectual conception of the reality
known comes forth in the knower, i.e. a word, so too on the basis of a person’s loving
it, a kind of imprint, so to speak, of the reality loved comes forth in the lover’s will,
by reason of which the object loved is present in the lover even as the object known
is present in the knower.” Aquinas, op. cit, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, p.81. See
also the discussion of this issue in “Appendix 2: the Holy Spirit: Love,” ibid., pp.252-
258.
86 Gunton, op. cit, p.49.
The Reformed Theological Review 60:2 (August, 2001) 83

Gift in De Trinitate XV. 19.33-35, but he need not have. After a convoluted
identification of the Holy Ghost as the water Christ promised the woman at
the well87 and a similarly belabored discussion of Eph 4:7-8,88 presumably
the portions of his exegesis deemed “desperate,” Augustine proceeds to list
four separate characterizations of the Holy Ghost as Gift (Acts 2:38, 8:20,
10:45, and 11:17) by Luke (he could also have added Luke 11:13), three of
which are direct quotations of the Apostle Peter.89 Augustine thus demonstrates
that a Biblical author and a very important Biblical character consistently
characterize the Holy Spirit as Gift. Moreover, he does not treat the revelation
of the Holy Ghost as Gift as merely verbal, but grounds it solidly in the
economy (not by separating the divine acts ad extra, but by linking the written
word to the Christian’s experience). “Just as the body of the flesh is nothing
else than the flesh, so the Gift of the Holy Spirit is nothing else than the Holy
Spirit.”90 The conception of the Holy Spirit as Gift, moreover, contains great
potential for use in exegetically grounding the psychological analogy insofar
as the concepts of Gift to self and Love as the internal term of self-love are by
not necessarily dissimilar or irreconcilable. Contemporary anti-Augustinians,
therefore, can reasonably claim that Augustine inadequately distinguishes Spirit
and Word in their eternal processions. But they cannot claim that he has
failed to make significant progress toward that end. Aquinas’s treatment of
the subject, moreover, shows that the elements of a solution provided by
Augustine can be developed into a sophisticated, perhaps even compelling,
account of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Both Augustine and Aquinas, it
need hardly be said, develop their insights in this area without in any way
compromising the inseparability of the external acts of the Trinity.

8. Conclusion
The contention of Augustine’s critics, therefore, that the doctrine of the
inseparability of the divine acts ad extra divorces the eternal Trinity from the
economy is simply false. As we have shown, Augustine can, without sacrificing
the inseparability principle, firmly ground in the economy the distinction
between the Son and Spirit in their eternal processions and the character of
these processions without implying the Incarnation of all three Persons or

87 Augustine, op. cit, Trinity, XV. 19.33, pp.498-499.

88 Ibid., XV.19.34, pp.499-501.
89 Ibid., XV.19.35, pp.501-502.
90 Ibid., XV.19.36, p.502.
84 Divine Unity and the Economy of Salvation in the De Trinitate ofAugustine

impugning the special Suitability of the Son for the role of God Incarnate.
Augustine, moreover, in upholding the inseparability of the divine acts ad
extra is at one with his immediate predecessors and contemporaries in East
and West. In view of his treatment of divine unity and relationality vis-a-vis
1 Cor 1:24, he could hardly have done otherwise without plunging the doctrine
of the Trinity into confusion. The criticisms treated in this paper, therefore,
should by no means prevents us from continuing to regard Augustine’s teaching
as a legitimate expression of the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity.
DENNIS W .JOWERS
Edinburgh, Scotland
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