Aristotelian Predication, Augustine, and the Trinity

ARISTOTELIAN PREDICATION, AUGUSTINE, AND THE TRINITY GEORGE RUDEBUSCH Northern .Arizona University Flagstaff, Arizona CHRISTIAN FAITH proclaims that its God is one.1 It also denies thait the Father is the same as the Son, or that ,the Holy Spirit is the same as either the :Bather or the Son; for this reason Augustine and traditional Christian faith proclaim that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three.2 Here faith ends and theological explanation begins. For it will ibe asked, perhaips hy heretics, but also perhaps by sincere Christians such as Augustine himself: 3 " Three what?" or" Thl"ee who?" To answer this, we must say" three somethings" (tria quaedam) or fall into heresy.4 The Latin answer is to say that the three somethings are persons, the one something a substance or essence.5 It is this answer that lAugustine typically cites Deut 6.4 to establish this, e.g. 7.4.7, PL 42, p. 941. All references are to De Trinitate unless otherwise indicated; and unless otherwise indicated all English translations are from Stephan :McKenna, C.SS.R., De Trin4tate: The Trinity, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 45 (Washington : Catholic University of America Press, 1963). 2" The true faith proclaims that they are three, when it teaches (dioit) that the Father is not the Son, and that the Holy Spirit ... is neither the Father nor the Son," 7.4.7, PL 42, p. 939. 8 Heresy is certainly one of the sources of the doctrine of three persons, one essence: "there was need of a thorough explanation of the Trinity against the snares and errors of the heretics," 7.4.9, PL 42, p. 941. But there is no reason to believe that it must be a heretic who asks the question " Three what?" at, say, 7.4.7, PL 42, p. 939 or 7.6.11, PL 42, p. 943. 4 "[Human feebleness] could not say that they were not three somethings, since by denying this Sabellius fell into heresy," 7.4.9, PL 42, p. 941. 5 Augustine tends to use the term 'substance', perhaps in deference to convention, but he in fact prefers ' essence' on the grounds that ' substance', strictly speaking, is improper, 7.5.10. 587 588 GEORGE RUDEBUSCH Augustine wished to defend and make rus intelligible as possible . I The Aristotelian model of predioatiion. In the first four chapters of the Ca.tegories, Aristotle ouNines the theory of predicrution within which Augustine worked. The theory is built upon the notion of a. 'this here' (tode ti), that is, some individual to which we can point and say, " This here! " 6 Augustine's examples are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Imaigine yourself, then, pointing to some individual. Aristotle 's categories are determined by the questions we might ask about this individual. If we ask, " What is it? " we want to know its ' whatness ' or substance. 1"1he answer may be " a man " or " an animal." If we ask, " How big is it? " we want to know its 'how-much-ness' or quantity. The answer may be"six feet tall" or" two hundred pounds." In the same way, we have categories telling what sort it is (quality) , when it is (time), where it is (location), to whait it is (relation), and the rest, descrihed in the .fourth chapter of the Categories. If we move up and down within the downward-branching tree of any category, we find genera and species. For example, in the category of substance, ma.n is a species of the genus animal; in the category quality, white is a species of the genus co:fm. Looking up from Aibraham, Isaac, and the rest of the individuals who live at the very ·bottom of the substance tree, we find that we can make a number of' vertical' predications . Eig. ".A!braham is a man," "Abraham is an animal," and, most generally," Abraham is a substance." Likewise, we can say "Man is an ·animal" and "Man is a suibstance." In Aristotle's terminology, the predicates man, animal, and substance are 'said m' the species and individuals below them (Caty. ia20-22). I shall call this sort of predication' vertical' or ' said of...