Augustine Hippo Flashcards
What is the status of Augustine’s understanding of God at the beginning of this selection from his Confessions, does he already understand who God is and what the benefit of knowing God is (see 8.i.1)?
Certain of eternal life, no doubt that God is the creator and there are benefits to knowing God; the problem is not that he should be more certain but that he should be more stable
What does Augustine mean when he says that he does not need to be “more certain” of who God is, rather he needs to be “more stable” in God (8.i.1)?
means that while he understood who god is, the knowledge had not effected the way he lived
Victorinus asks the famous question, “Then do walls (of a church) make Christians?” (or, “Is it the walls [of a church] that make Christians?”) What is the answer that Augustine wants his readers to provide to this question? That is to say, what is the proper answer in the context of this story?
Marius Voctorinus is a big political player who handles issue; he had an intellectual understanding of Christianity but his friend Simplicianus said he couldn’t be a Christian is he doesn’t go to church, Augustine says the answer is yes, you must know and understand the gospel AND act upon it.
How does Augustine describe his will prior to his conversion?
Explains the situation in which you know what to do but you have a will that is half wounded and twist this way and that; he would partly will to do something and partly will not to do something and NEEDS a will that is strong and unqualified
Augustine says that he needed a will that is “strong and unqualified” Augustine explains why he did not have that kind of will. If “there is no monstrous split between willing and not willing”, then what are we “dealing with”?
We are really just dealing with the sickness of the soul, which doesn’t really rise and is weighed down by habit.
Habits - keep you from willing/doing what you know to be good and right
It is important, now, to determine how a person can overcome the morbid condition of the mind, these long accumulated habits, that keep him/her from willing and doing what s/he knows they should do. How and from whom does a person get the ability to have a strong and unqualified will?
Strong and unqualified will comes from God; only comes by Grace which enables one to will correctly and do what is right Augustine says we corrupt our own wills by building up habits that make us act in certain ways
Augustine explicitly identifies the problem that the baptismal account seems to present to his summary of the catholic faith in 52.2, what is the problem?
This is an example of a scripture that make Inseparable operations difficult to accept because Jesus, HS, and father are separate characters.
The trinity produced the body, the dove, and the voice
What is Augustine’s response to the question - “Does the Father do anything that the Son doesn’t do, or the Son do anything that the Father doesn’t do?”
To effect something = to produce something, to be engaged in a n operation or work that has a product 1- The work of the incarnation (birth, suffering, resurrection, etc.) was produced/done by both the Father and the Son 2 - That work belongs to one “person” (the Son) even though both did it
Augustine - Jesus’ baptism is not the only work detailed in Scripture that does not seem to fit with the doctrine of inseparable operations. “If the Father does nothing without the Son and the Son nothing without the Father, won’t it follow, presumably, that we have to say the Father too was”, what?
- Born of the Virgin Mary, if the 3 worked separately then the Son couldn’t be incarnated
1 - The Son does something without the Fater - affirming Scripture by discarding inseperable operations
2 - The Father too was born - affirming inseperable operations by discarding scripture
Augustine seeks to understand and accept both ___ AND____
scripture
inseparable operations
How does Augustine state that we can understand both the incarnation of the Son and the doctrine of inseparable operations to be true?
You have the persons quite distinct but are working inseparable
Augustine reveals an illustration/analogy from our own experinece to explain his thoery of inseperable operations: what are the “three somethings which can be indicated separately and which operate inseparably”?
What was the problem with this explanation?
Memory - that which retains what has been said/heard
Understanding - that which assesses what has been retained
Will - that b which you choose to retain and assess what has been said/heard
Demonstrates how (informally) three things can function differently but all be a part of the same function that belongs to only one of them.
It doesn’t demonstrate how the trinity work together, just their actions. Uses this analogy later to address how the three things exist together (added to how they work together)
What are”Trinitarian Relations” and how does Augustine explain them? (4 ways)
- how the F, S, and HS relate to each other
1 - M, U, and W always exist because the mind always knows itself F, S and HS always exist
2 - Are coequal and Inseparable
3 - are irreducible (always exist distinctly)
4 - named relative to each other, their identities are determined by their relationships
Augustine is the first to distinguish between ___and ____and define will as a _____.
will
intellect
moral sense
Why do illustrations like Augustine’s of the trinity fail?
because God is immaterial and no illustration can accurately express the Divine life and how God works; at the same time accurate glimpses of the Divine life only occurs if we recognize the failure of every attempt to do so
