Appropriating the Divine Presence: Reading Augustine's On the Trinity as a Transformative Text

The Holy Trinity by Andre Rublev courtesy of Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Augustine's On the Trinity is generally regarded as his greatest work, and its position in the history of Christian thought, in both doctrine and mysticism, is foundational. But it has never been an easy text to understand. I have been teaching it as part of a course on the History of Christian Mysticism for several years and continue to find it a challenge to interpret and discuss. In part, this is because it presents no single clear line of interpretation. It offers three quite diverse possibilities. First, it is a text about how best to formulate the words of the doctrine of the Trinity, against error.² Books 1-7 set out the teaching of scripture and "Catholic commentators" on the Trinity, considering a number of difficult points regarding the language of missions, relations and persons.³ Often it is taught as part of courses on the development of Christian doctrine, in these terms. Yet, second, it is also a spiritual work about the capacity for knowing the presence of the Trinity and the reception of the Trinity in human experience. Books 8-15 seek to understand the doctrine "in a more inward manner," by examining the human mind as created in the image of God (imago Dei) and thus in the image of the Trinity.⁴ How these two kinds of accounts belong together has been the subject of considerable debate in the history of interpretation of the text.⁵ Then there is a third possibility, suggested especially by Books 1, 4, 12 and 13, that the text describes a journey of faith and healing ending in contemplation and face to face vision.⁶ Here, the text is not so much a theoretical treatment of doctrine or a reflection on its reception in human experience, but a path to follow for the one who seeks to be transformed by grace, on a personal journey of faith. The challenge for every interpreter is to put these three elements together. It is possible to give a coherent account of the text in terms of only one of these approaches, but in the end this is not satisfactory. At the same time, all three cannot be given strictly equal weight, because the text can only be coherently interpreted by taking a view on which is the most important. My aim in this essay is to give priority to the third possibility: to examine how the text can be interpreted as part of a journey of transformation towards face to face vision. The other elements will be approached as serving the purpose of transformation, rather than as of independent value, yet without disregarding their vital contribution.

To treat On the Trinity as a text primarily about personal transformation is rare in the modern history of interpretation. Those familiar with textbook treatments of the work will recall that central attention is generally given to how Augustine's "psychological analogies" between the operations of the mind and the inner relations of the Trinity - analogies, first, of mind (mens), self-knowledge (notitia sui) and self-love (amor sui), and second, of memory (memoria), intellect (intellegentia) and will (voluntas) - are treated as having a primarily doctrinal purpose of explaining the relations and unity of the persons of the Trinity. The 'trinity' of three operations in the mind illustrates the doctrine of the relations, unity and distinctions between the persons in the Trinity. The view that I want to argue for here is that the text can be read in that way, with some illuminating results, but that this is not the best way to read it or the approach most faithful to the text as a whole. It is better, I believe, to view it as a text for personal transformation on a journey of faith and to see how this interpretation reconciles the various elements. My justification for reading it this way is not only that it seems to work best, but that...