The theological epistemology of Augustine's De Trinitate / Luigi Gioia.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gioia, Luigi, 1968-

Series:

Oxford theological monographs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430. De Trinitate.

Augustine.

Trinity--History of doctrines--Early church, ca. 30-600.

Trinity.

Trinity--History of doctrines.

Trinity--History of doctrines--Early church.

Physical Description:

xvi, 330 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Luigi Gioia provides a fresh description and analysis of Augustine's monumental treatise, De Trinitate, working on a supposition of its unity and its coherence from structural, rhetorical, and theological points of view. The main arguments of the treatise are reviewed first: Scripture and the mystery of the Trinity; discussion of 'Arian' logical and ontological categories; a comparison between the process of knowledge and formal aspects of the confession of the mystery of the Trinity; an account of the so called 'psychological analogies'. These topics hold a predominantly instructive or polemical function. The unity and the coherence of the treatise become apparent especially when its description focuses on a truly theological understanding of knowledge of God: Augustine aims at leading the reader to the vision and enjoyment of God the Trinity, in whose image we are created. This mystagogical aspect of the rhetoric of De Trinitate is unfolded through Christology, soteriology, doctrine of the Holy Spirit and doctrine of revelation. At the same time, from the vantage point of love, Augustine detects and powerfully depicts the epistemological consequences of human sinfulness, thus unmasking the fundamental deficiency of received theories of knowledge. Only love restores knowledge and enables philosophers to yield to the injunction which resumes philosophical enterprise as a whole, namely 'know thyself'.

Contents:

1 Augustine and his Critics 6

I Anagogy, creationist ontology, and analogy 6

II Augustine and Western Trinitarian Theology 10

III Augustine and Modernity 16

IV The Exercitatio of the incarnation 19

2 Against the 'Arians': Outline of Books 1 to 7 24

I Scripture and the mystery of the Trinity 24

II Knowledge of God 30

III The inseparability of soteriology and revelation 32

IV The logical and ontological categories of the 'Arians' 34

3 Augustine and Philosophers 40

I Knowledge of our illness 40

II Philosophers on happiness 41

III Philosophers on knowledge of God 43

IV Philosophy in Augustine's thought 47

4 Christ, Salvation, and Knowledge of God 68

I The Incarnation 68

II Christ's sacrifice and his mediatory role 83

III Soteriology and eschatology: the subjective side of salvation 97

5 Trinity and Revelation 106

I The Trinitarian form of revelation 106

II God's invisibility and his unknowability in revelation 107

III The transition to the inner-life of the Trinity 112

IV Wisdom and the identity between revealer and revelation 117

V The rule 'God from God' 120

6 The Holy Spirit and the Inner-Life of the Trinity 125

I Christology and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit 125

II The Holy Spirit and the unity of the Trinity 129

III The Holy Spirit and the 'order' of the Trinity 133

IV The identity and the property of the Holy Spirit 135

V The inner-Trinitarian origin of the Holy Spirit 139

VI The father, origin of the inner-life of the Trinity 144

7 Trinity and Ontology 147

I Ontological categories and Trinitarian theology 148

II Criticism of substance and person 154

III An ontological bent in Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity? 158

IV Augustine's real understanding of the inner-life of the Trinity 161

8 Love and Knowledge of God 170

I Love and knowledge of God as truth 170

II Love and knowledge of objects of belief 176

III Love and knowledge of the Trinity 180

IV Love of love itself 184

V The theological roots of the argument of book 8 186

9 Knowledge and its Paradoxes 190

I Knowledge from the senses 190

II Illumination 193

III Intellectual knowledge 198

IV The mind 205

V Love's misleading power 207

VI Self-charity and epistemology 213

VII The genesis of self-alienation 216

10 Wisdom or Augustine's Ideal of Philosophy 219

I Science and wisdom 221

II Philosophy as worship 227

11 The Image of God 232

I The characteristics of the image 232

II Augustine's doctrine of creation 239

III Platonic participation and Augustine's understanding of created being 259

IV The image in Plotinus and Marius Victorinus 269

V The image in the De Trinitate 275

Conclusion: The Primacy of Love 298.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [303]-319) and indexes.

ISBN:

9780199553464

0199553467

OCLC:

230916565