The Trinity

by Augustine of Hippo

Book Overview

Augustine knows by faith that God is a trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is seeking as far as possible to understand what he believes. In the first seven books Augustine begins by searching the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments for clues to understanding and then argues in the language of philosophy and logic to defend the orthodox statement of the doctrine against the Arians. In the last eight books Augustine seeks to understand...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565484460
• ISBN13: 9781565484467
• Release Date: February 2012
• Publisher: New City Press
• Length: 472 Pages
• Weight: 1.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Essential reading for Christian thinkers

St Augustine was, before Aquinas, the most subtle and brilliant intellect in the Western Church. While Augustine's influence has sometimes been debated and even criticised, most recognise that he was both an outstanding theologian and a highly original philosopher. The Trinity is one of the works of the later period of Augustine's life, after he had been consecrated as Bishop of Hippo. During this period Augustine spent most of his time and energy on pastoral and theological issues, including deep theological reflection on the scriptures and theology. The Trinity is Augustine's attempt to plumb the mystery of God, as revealed to Christians as the triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It contains some fifteen or so books in which Augustine attempts to develop a systematic theology of the Triune God based around scripture, as well as outlining a theological anthropology which discusses how the image of God exists in human beings, and how the economy of salvation is effected through Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross and through the free acceptance of God's gift of salvation by the process of baptism and incorporation into the body of Christ, the Church. Augustine's text contains many profound and interesting theological insights which in themselves would become articles of dogma. Unfortunately, this tends to misrepresent Augustine, who was a very curious and inquiring thinker, who desired to understand God as much as was humanly possible. This book will be of most interest to theologians, but it will also interest philosophers and students of comparative religion, as well as those interested in Christian spirituality.

Doctor's advice

St. Augustine's position as a Doctor of the Church is understandable, even after only reading parts of this terrific book! He really comes at a discussion of the Trinity in a logical fashion that appeals to hearts and experiences, not just minds! I'd definitely recommend it to anyone of a particularly cerebral bent looking to learn more about their faith from a Doctor of the Church! This isn't light bedside reading, and it won't seem as simple as, say, the wisdom shared by Therese of Lisieux. But for those looking to read and learn about the Trinity, this book offers a deep and rich look at a mystery of the faith that many of us today take for granted, from a time when many people didn't take it for granted!

Extremely informative

Having written my senior thesis on St. Augustine's concept of the Trinity, I found Fr. Hill's edition to be a great resource in my research of the subject. His introduction to the treatise is a must-read, providing a solid overview of Trinitarian history, reviewing some of the early heresies and disputes, and introducing us to Augustine's predecessors. This introduction is invaluable for any who wish to understand De Trinitate in the context with which it was written, as it offers a defense against criticisms placed upon it by later theologians.

Perhaps Augustine's most difficult work

Trinitarian theology is a difficult subject. Scriptural references are few and their meaning is not obvious - indeed, they can easily be read as contradictory. In fact, there is no explicit description of the Trinity in the scriptures at all - the orthodox view of the Trinity (three persons in one God) is an inferential conclusion from scripture that took generations to piece together. Having arrived at that conclusion, the next problem was to understand exactly what it meant - a problem difficult enough that many argued that it was simply a mystery the answer to which we might know in the next life but not this.This famously difficult problem is the subject of Augustine's "The Trinity". In addressing it, he has two motives. His first motive is to combat non-Trinitarian heresy by showing the scriptural support for the concept and by showing that it is not inherently contradictory. His second motive is to attempt to understand the Trinity more deeply, to satisfy the scriptural directive to "seek His face evermore"."The Trinity" is a long book, the second longest work in the Augustinian corpus, and one that he worked on, intermittently, for sixteen years. He might not have finished it had not the unauthorized publication of the first twelve "books", led him to write the final three in order to avoid having the work available only in an incomplete form."The Trinity" begins with a consideration of the Scriptural references to the Trinity, with the aim of reconciling them and explaining them through the supposition of three equal persons in one God. Augustine is at particular pains to maintain the equality of the persons: that the Son is equal to the Father, and the Holy Spirit equal to both. Of particular concern to Augustine are the references to the Son and Holy Spirit being sent, with the implication that the Father who sends must be superior to them. This presentation takes up the first eight books.From there Augustine aims to develop some deeper understanding of the nature of the Trinity. His approach is to use the fact that the Man was created in the image of God. Given this, Augustine reasons, there should be some image of the Trinity in man. This leads to the consideration of a succession of trinities - the lover, beloved, and love; memory, understanding, and will; the objects of sense, the will to attend to them, and the sense impressions of them; etc. This presentation, which take up the next four books, is interesting, but often perplexing. It is easy for the reader to see that the trinities he names are not analogues of the divine Trinity, and it can be perplexing to attempt to understand how Augustine intends to bring this discussion of the trinities in man together.It is in the last few books, written after the premature publication of the earlier books, that Augustine works to reverse the centrifugal tendencies of his discussion of the trinities in man and unify them into a whole. The trinities in man are held up not as exact analogues

an essential classic for trinitarian theology

There is much discussion in contemporary theology about the Trinity (e.g. Moltmann, LaCugna, Gunton, Pannenberg, Rahner, Barth). In order to appreciate the discussion intelligently, you ought to go back to the source of the Western model of the Trinity. One of Augustine's analogies for the Trinity is the Father the Lover, the Son the Beloved, and the Spirit as the Love. Quite a few theologians are critical of Augustine's emphasis on the unity of the Triune God (e.g. Moltmann, Pannenberg, LaCugna). It is worth reading this work just to put their work in perspective.This work is more than just an exposition of theology. Augustine has a long discussion of perception (memory, understanding and will), because he needs to give an account for how human seeing can fulfill its supernatural vocation to see God. Some of his discussion anticipates some of the concerns of the Enlightenment. E.g. if the representation I recall in my mind is from my memory, but is also shaped by my will, how do I know I have an accurate representation of reality?Another reason to get this work is that any attempt to tackle the Trinity ends up by a mini-systematics. In a fairly short space, a close read of the work will pay a mountain of dividends.In particular, Edmund Hill did an invaluable job editing and translating the work. The introductory notes, the endnotes, and the essays scattered throughout the work are worth the price of the book itself. I have gotten a lot more out of the work because of Hill's commentary (and they are not overly intrusive). Some of Hill's translations are a little bit too colloquial for my taste, but he wanted to write a dynamic translation. If you want a literal translation of this work, you can like in other places.All in all, this is one of the all-time classics in Christian theology.