The Nicene Creed

Parent page: Apostasy/Creeds

Augustine as source of speculative trinitarian theology

"Augustine," says Thomasius, "is the true founder of the speculative theology of the Trinity," which was to remain the most active branch of philosophy and theology for fifteen centuries. Convinced that the highest blessedness depended on a true and complete grasp of this mystery, Augustine exerted prodigies of energy and genius in trying to achieve it. For fifteen years he labored away at his thesis on the trinity, "without," says Thomasius, "ever reaching a satisfactory conclusion." Beginning with axiom No. 1 of the schools, the absolute oneness and immateriality of God, he tries to work a threeness out of it by a series of elaborate analogies with the human mind, only to reach the final conclusion that if such a procedure furnishes an inadequate answer, it is at least an answer: Impar imago, sed tamen imago! The Father and the Son "cannot be really different persons, yet neither can they be entirely the same"; and "since the Father has a Son, he cannot very well be the Father." Again, Augustine wants the Holy Ghost to be a person, but his philosophical training will not allow it. Here certainly is a place where revelation would be helpful; its intellectual substitutes break down at every point. We say there are three persons, Augustine sums it up, not because there are three, but because we must say something. (Non ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur). "Thus," Thomasius concludes, "this attempt, carried out with such labor and perspicacity by the great teacher of the Church, is only a proof that the Trinity is not to be proven in such a way." This is the same conclusion we reached regarding Origen, and a confession of Augustine to a friend in a letter reads exactly like Origen's frequent admission in the First Principles: The friend had asked why, since the trinity are in all things inseparable, Christ alone took on a human body? "This is such a supremely difficult question," the saint replies, "and such a very important matter that it cannot here be settled by a sententia, nor can we be sure of solving it by any investigation. I make so bold, therefore, in writing to you, to indicate what I have in mind rather than giving an explanation, that you might judge the thing according to your own best understanding."^[1]

Augustine demonstrates the perils of non-prophetic governance in doctrine and administration

"Augustine," says Grabmann, "confronted face to face the hardest questions of Christian doctrine; those which have presented the greatest challenge to the human mind; and for years and for decades he worked away trying to solve them." That authority then lists the most important of these as unsolved, and says, "In these questions and others he has largely failed to work through to full clarity of understanding, and if dark and difficult passages on those themes are found in many places in his writings, he at least showed the way for all later theology."28 Wilhelm Christ, in the best-known "standard" history of Greek literature, writes that in the fourth century, Hellenism forced Christianity to go to its schools; "Christianity was squeezed into a system congenial to pagan-Greek-rationalist thought, and in that safe protective suit of armor was able to face up to the world, but in the process it had to sacrifice its noblest moral and spiritual forces." 29 How aptly this recalls Father Combès' declaration that Augustine wanted to give the church a doctrine so strong that she would never again have anything to fear from her enemies. The armor was provided—and at what a price!

As to the administrative problems with which Augustine wrestled, we can do no better than quote from a recent study by the learned Jesuit, Father Bligh: "St. Augustine provides the perplexing spectacle of an extremely wise and holy man who began by condemning the use of force against heretics, but changed his mind after observing the good effects of coercive measures taken without his approval. . . . Reverence for Augustine," he concludes, "forbids me to say that his justification of persecution was wrong; but its fruits were evil in the centuries which followed, and we may suspect that, if he had had as much experience to reflect on as we have, Augustine would have reverted to his first opinion."30

Here two able Catholic scholars have described St. Augustine, the one as toiling away for whole decades trying to work out the basic problems of doctrine and failing to come out with a clear solution, and the other as doing his best in the light of his limited experience to work out a basic policy of church government—with unfortunate results. The Latter-day Saints have always maintained that guidance both in doctrinal and administrational matters can come to the church only by revelation. We couldn't ask for a better case to prove it than that of St. Augustine, precisely because he is such a good and great man. The better man he is, the better he illustrates the point, which is that no man, no matter how good, wise, hard-working, devoted, and well-educated he may be, can give us certainty without revelation. In Father Bligh's opinion, time has not vindicated Augustine's opinions. It has shown that we can trust only the prophets.^[2]

Notes

1. ↑ Hugh W. Nibley, The World and the Prophets, 3rd edition, (Vol. 3 of Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by John W. Welch, Gary P. Gillum, and Don E. Norton (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1987), Chapter 11, references silently removed—consult original for citations.
2. ↑ Hugh W. Nibley, The World and the Prophets, 3rd edition, (Vol. 3 of Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by John W. Welch, Gary P. Gillum, and Don E. Norton (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1987), Chapter 11, references silently removed—consult original for citations.