The Structure of the Human Mind According to Augustine

339 Pages·2017·2.3 MB·English

Johannes Brachtendorf

The Structure
of the Human Mind
According to Augustine

Self-reflection and
Knowledge of God
in De Trinitate

English Edition of
Johannes Brachtendorf, Die Struktur des menschlichen Geistes nach
Augustinus. Selbstreflexion und Erkenntnis Gottes in ‚De Trinitate’, Hamburg
2000
(Felix Meiner Verlag)
translated by Aaron Looney

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 5
1. Intention and Outline of this Work .......................................................................................... 5
2. On the legitimacy of a philosophical interpretation ............................................................... 10
a) De Trinitate as an exercitatio animi? ......................................................................... 10
b) Theological Interpretations ......................................................................................... 12
I. AUGUSTINE’S CONCEPTION OF THE TRINITY AND THE NEOPLATONIC CONTEXT ....... 17
1. Neoplatonic Precursors for Augustine’s Doctrine of the Triune God ................................... 17
a) Augustine’s Re-working of Plotinus’ Metaphysics of Mind ........................................ 17
b) The Line of Development: Plotinus – Porphyry – Marius Victorinus – Augustine .... 22
2. Self-reflection and the Ascent to God................................................................................... 26
a) Plotinus’ Doctrine of Self-knowledge ......................................................................... 26
b) Augustine’s Theory of Self-Relation from his Early Works to Confessiones ............. 35
c) Self-Reflection and Transcendence in Confessiones ................................................ 41
d) Intellectualis and intelligibilis in De Genesi ad litteram 12 ......................................... 49
II. THE ONTOLOGY OF THE TRINITY (TRIN. 5-7) ...................................................................... 57
1. God as substantia and essentia ........................................................................................... 58
2. Identity of Substance and Equality of Persons ..................................................................... 62
3. Relationality .......................................................................................................................... 64
4. The Relation of Substantiality and Relationality ................................................................... 67
5. The Logic of Language and the Problem with the Concept of Person ................................. 74
III. THE FAILURE OF VISION AND THE ANALYSIS OF MIND (TRIN. 8) ................................... 80
1. Veritas and bonum ipsum as Intelligible Realities ................................................................ 82
2. The Relation of these Reflections to Confessiones ............................................................. 86
3. The Knowledge in Faith ........................................................................................................ 89
4. The Discussion of Love ........................................................................................................ 99
5. A Natural Understanding of Trinity? ................................................................................... 108
IV. THE TRINITARIAN STRUCTURE OF THE HUMAN MIND (TRIN. 9, PART I) ..................... 118
1. The Soul as Analogat of God? Analogy and Ascension ................................................... 121
2. An Outline of the Trinitarian Ontology of the Human Mind................................................. 126
3. Demarcation of the Structure of the Mind from Ontologically Similar Phenomena ............ 133
a) Augustine and Aristotle on Relations ....................................................................... 133
b) Augustine and Aristotle on Wholes and Parts ......................................................... 136
c) Augustine’s Examination of the Theory of Mixture................................................... 139
4. Positive Proof of the Trinitarian Structure of the Human Mind – Self-Relationality as the
Fundamental Characteristic .............................................................................................. 141
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V. GENETIC RELATIONS IN THE MIND – NOTITIA AND VERBUM (TRIN. 9, PART II) ......... 148
1. The Derivation of the notitia – notitia as Word ................................................................... 148
2. Moral-Philosophical and Epistemological Aspects of the Inner Word ................................ 152
3. The Function of amor in the Production of the Word ......................................................... 158
VI. THE ORIGINAL SELF-RELATION OF THE HUMAN MIND AND ITS TRINITARIAN
STRUCTURE ............................................................................................................................... 162
1. The Discovery of Original Self-Knowledge ......................................................................... 164
2. Implicit and Explicit Self-Knowledge ................................................................................... 166
3. Self-Presence and the Criterion of Certainty ...................................................................... 173
4. The Contents of the Mind under the Criterion of Certainty................................................. 179
5. Se nosse and Consciousness ............................................................................................ 183
6. Characteristics of the Triad of Immediate Self-Knowledge ................................................ 185
a) Trinitarian Structures ................................................................................................ 185
b) Perfection as the Defining Feature .......................................................................... 187
VII. SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM (TRIN. 11-13)............................................................. 193
1. The Ascent to the Image of God as a Pedagogical Project (Trin. 11) ................................ 193
2. Knowledge and Wisdom (Trin. 12) ..................................................................................... 198
a) Knowledge and Wisdom as Topics of Ethics ........................................................... 198
b) Contemplation of the Eternal and Self-Knowledge .................................................. 201
3. Faith as Act and as Way to Wisdom (Trin. 13) ................................................................... 205
VIII. BEING AN IMAGE AND BECOMING AN IMAGE (TRIN. 14) ............................................. 211
Part One: The Image-Character as the Defining Feature of the Human Mind .................... 211
1. The Precedence of Being an Image over the Participation in God .................................... 211
2. Implicit and Explicit Self-Reflection .................................................................................... 215
3. Temporality as the Difference between the Two Forms of Self-Reflection ........................ 218
Part Two: The Renewal of the Image .................................................................................... 227
1. The cogitatio-Trinity as Addressee of the Call for Renewal ............................................... 227
2. Remembering God ............................................................................................................. 229
3. The Original Self-Relation in Practical Life – Self-Love and the Love of God.................... 231
4. The Image of God on the Plane of Conscious Reflection .................................................. 236
IX. HUMAN SUBJECTIVITY AND THE DIVINE TRINITY – CORRESPONDENCES AND
DIFFERENCES (TRIN. 15) ......................................................................................................... 249
1. The Comprehension of the Incomprehensible ................................................................... 249
2. A Comparison between Conscious Reflection and Immediate Self-Relation ..................... 255
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X. LANGUAGE AS A MIRROR OF THE TRINITY (TRIN. 15) .................................................... 264
1. The cogitatio as verbum ..................................................................................................... 264
2. Truth and Falsehood of the Inner Word ............................................................................. 265
a) The Principle of Congruence (Yes-Yes; No-No) ...................................................... 265
b) The Problem of the Lie ............................................................................................. 267
c) Deception and Error – Augustine’s Late Critique of the Academics ........................ 269
d) The Necessary Correspondence of Cogitatio and Notitia ....................................... 275
3. The Word of God as Inner Speech ..................................................................................... 277
XI. THE INNER WORD – A SEMANTIC CONCEPT? ................................................................. 280
1. Cratylus – Naturalistic and Conventionalistic Conceptions of Language ........................... 280
2. Augustine’s De dialectica ................................................................................................... 284
3. The Theory of Signs in De magistro ................................................................................... 286
a) Critique of Grammar ................................................................................................ 286
b) Critique of the Naturalistic Conception of Language ............................................... 289
c) Sextus Empiricus’ Critique of Language .................................................................. 291
4. Augustine’s Theory of Language-Acquisition in Confessiones 1 ....................................... 293
5. The Treatment of artes in De doctrina Christiana – Conventionality and Reality .............. 296
6. The Inner Word and the Relation of Thought and Speech ................................................ 301
7. A New Philosophy of Language in Augustine’s Later Works? – Two Modern Interpretations
of the Doctrine of the Inner Word (R.A. Markus; H.G. Gadamer) ..................................... 305
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 314
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................... 324
A. Works of Augustine ............................................................................................................ 324
B. Additional Sources ............................................................................................................. 326
C. Collected Editions .............................................................................................................. 327
D. Secondary Literature.......................................................................................................... 328

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Introduction
1. Intention and Outline of this Work
De Trinitate may well be the most difficult and demanding of Augustine’s works. At
first reading, its extraordinary compositional compactness prevents recognition of the
objective structure and the inner logic of the work, as Augustine both reviews former
themes and develops new ideas. Perhaps because of the hermetic impression of the work,
modern scholars have primarily addressed isolated, individual teachings, rarely taking up
the context of the whole. Michael Schmaus’ classic Die psychologische Trinitätslehre
des heiligen Augustinus, published in 1927, presents a cohesive interpretation of De
Trinitate,1 but its only, more recent successors have been the dense commentaries in the
Bibliothèque Augustinienne edition of De Trinitate2 and Alfred Schindler’s Wort und
Analogie in Augustins Trinitätslehre.3
Scholarship on Augustine has been characterized by a measure of
multidisciplinarity that is hardly found in any other subject of intellectual history.
Theologians, philosophers, classicists, historians, and political scientists have discovered
vital topics of interest in Augustine’s writings. However invaluable the communication
across the boundaries of the varying disciplines is, each has a different set of questions.
Consequently, it should be seen as an insufficiency that all the aforementioned books are
theological treatises. For an encompassing philosophical interpretation of the entire
corpus has never been attempted. Philosophical interest has been predominantly confined
to single topics, offering systematic accounts of one or another aspect of Augustine’s

1 Michael Schmaus, Die psychologische Trinitätslehre des Heiligen Augustinus, (Münster: Aschendorff,
1927). (Photocopied reproduction of the 1927 edition with addendum and literature supplement by the
author: Münster, 1967.)
2 Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, Bibliothèque Augustinienne, Vols. 15 and 16: 2me série, Dieu et son oeuvre,
La Trinité, vol. 1 (BA15): Le mystère (De trin. I-VII, ed. and trans. by M. Mellet and Th. Camelot,
Introduction by E. Hendrikx), vol. 2 (=BA 16): Les images (De trin. VIII-XV, ed. and trans. by P.
Agaësse, commented by J. Moingt and P. Agaësse), Paris, 1955.
3 Alfred Schindler, Wort und Analogie in Augustines Trinitätslehre, (Tübingen: Mohr, 1965). R. Kany
offers an excellent overview in „Typen und Tendenzen der De Trinitate-Forschung seit F. Chr. Baur,“ in
Gott und sein Bild – Augustins De Trinitate im Spiegel gegenwärtiger Forschung, ed. by J. Brachtendorf
(Paderborn: Schöningh, 2000).
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thought while treating individual works like De Trinitate selectively and cursorily.4 An
exception is Ludger Hölscher’s The Reality of the Mind. Augustine’s Philosophical
Arguments for the Human Soul as a Spiritual Substance, which presents a detailed,
systematic-philosophical interpretation of one of De Trinitate’s most important
teachings.5 Hoelscher’s work reflects a growing interest in the philosophical treatment of
mind in De Trinitate, an interest undoubtedly spurred by the analytical tradition of the
philosophy of mind.
The time is ripe, therefore, for a comprehensive philosophical interpretation of De
Trinitate. My study orders Augustine’s isolated arguments like that of the immateriality
of the mind within the overall logic of his discussion on the mens humana as presented in
De Trinitate. Furthermore, I interpret Augustine’s theory of mind within the context of
the entire project of De Trinitate. The first task is indispensable for an accurate
interpretation of Augustine’s philosophy of mind. All too often deficits that appear in the
critical literature stem from disregard of the larger contexts of Augustine’s writings.
The first task, however, can be dealt with appropriately only if the second one is
simultaneously tackled. Augustine’s turn toward the analysis of mens humana is
motivated by his project for knowing God. The ways he examines the human mind are
understandable only by taking account of his speculation on the Trinity. The reticence of
philosophers to trespass only upon theological lines of questioning has inhibited the
philosophical pursuit of this connection. Books 1-7 of De Trinitate, accordingly, have
been designated to theology, leaving merely books 8-15 open for a philosophical
undertaking. This division is not conducive to understanding De Trinitate, and, in my
opinion, it can be avoided without blurring the boundaries between the disciplines.
Indeed, from the perspective of intellectual history, it is rather the rule than the exception
that impulses for philosophical examination come from outside philosophy. New
developments in the sciences or the arts have often stimulated philosophical reflection.
This applies invariably to theology. Hans-Georg Gadamer, for instance, acknowledges

4 See, for example, G. O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1987); J. Mader, Aurelius Augustinus. Philosophie und Christentum, (Niederösterreiches Pressehaus: St.
Polten-Wien, 1991).
5 Ludger Hölscher, The Reality of the Mind. Augustine’s Philosophical Arguments for the Human Soul as a
Spiritual Substance, (Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1986).
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the motivational power of theological questions when he argues that the fusion of Greek
philosophy with the Christian dogma of the Trinity results in a philosophically acceptable
concept of language.6 Dogmatic guidelines need not determine the principles of
philosophical thought, and I believe they do not in Augustine’s De Trinitate. Among the
interpretations of De Trinitate, it has become nearly a rule to attribute those elements of
Augustine’s analysis of mind that are either difficult or that simply defy smooth
interpretation to his theological preoccupations. The individual analysis of such elements
provides the sole means of clarifying the theological-philosophical relation. Principally,
however, Augustine himself attempts to withhold elements of faith from the context of
his analysis of mind. If he thus fails in this project, he fails the criterion he himself
establishes for his project.
My philosophical interpretation, taking the entire construction of De Trinitate into
consideration, examines the historical context of Augustine’s conception of the Trinity. I
then show, in outline form, the extent to which Augustine both relies on Plotinus in his
discussion of the theory of principles and for his teaching on self-knowledge and
separates himself from Neoplatonist conceptions (Chap. 1). I next consider Augustine’s
explications of the Trinity dogma. Rather than focusing on the biblical grounding that
Augustine offers in books 1-4, I show how Augustine in books 5-7 draws on Platonic and
Aristotelian concepts for his analysis of the penetration of thought. Under the title, “The
Ontology of the Trinity,” I develop those characteristics that Augustine claims are to be
predicated of God understood as Trinity (Chap. II).
According to Augustine, the understanding of an object is accomplished in the vision
of it. In his early works, particularly in Confessiones, the project of ascending to a direct
vision of God plays a prominent role. In the history of Augustine’s thought, the eighth
book of De Trinitate was revolutionary, for it argues that the ontological structure of the
Trinity makes a vision of the triune God impossible for finite understanding. A direct
path to the Trinity vis-à-vis Neoplatonist vision does not exist (Chap. III). Augustine’s
replacement strategy for the unmediated visio is found in a mediated vision of God in
images and mirrors. In the metaphysical hierarchy of being, the human mind represents

6 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition, trans. revised by Joel Weinsheimer and
Donald G. Marshall, (Continuum Publishing Company: New York, 1989), 405.
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the highest ranking being under God. The analysis of the mens humana in book 9
illustrates that, despite its finitude, the mens humana structurally exhibits the same
ontological characteristics exemplary of the divine Trinity. Because the human mind has
a trinitarian form, an understanding of it may be regarded as a vision of God in God’s
image. The project of De Trinitate thus becomes an examination of the ontology of mens
humana (Chap. IV/V).
While book 9 sketches this ontology, Augustine introduces in book 10 a distinction
between an always already existing self-knowledge of mind and an expressive, yet-to-be-
attained self-knowledge in the sense of the Delphic command: “Cognosce teipsum
(Chap. IV).” The consequences of this distinction are significant. First of all, the
phenomenon of immediate self-knowledge points to a core area of the mind in which the
trinitarian structure is particularly pronounced. In this core, as in the divine Trinity, no
time-difference exists between the members. Secondly, the distinction between existing
and yet-to-be-attained self-knowledge resolves the hermeneutical problem of how the
understanding of the concept trinity, presupposed in every act of love for the triune God,
is possible. In the course of getting to know itself, the human mind is immediately
familiar with a trinitarian-structured entity that so corresponds to God that it may be
called imago Dei. Thirdly, this distinction enables the integration of ethical themes into
the context of the philosophy of mind. Although on the plane of immediate self-
knowledge, the mind is always already an image of God, it should—but has yet to—
become an image of God on the plane of conscious reflection. Through a morally
positive way of living, the mind will arrive at true self-knowledge. The mind will then
know itself as an image of God and therewith will know God himself in the form of an
image, arriving at the similarity to God that resides in wisdom. Books 11-13 present a
pedagogically motivated detour for the grasping of the timeless trinity in the human
mind. Augustine leads the reader who is unaccustomed to distinguishing between
simultaneously arising grounds through an analysis of more easily grasped, in time
differentiated triads to an understanding of the image of God.
Along with the invocation of wisdom, the ethical problematic comes to fruition in
book 14 under the title “The Renewal of the Image.” Augustine carries out the
distinction between original self-reference and acts of expressive consciousness.
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Through the norm-conformed performance of the latter, humans succeed in participating
in God and therewith in happiness (Chap. VIII). Finally, book 15 compares the structure
of conscious thought with the structure of the divine Trinity. Augustine extensively
discusses the most important structural parallel in his teaching on the inner word. Finite,
reflexive thinking, I argue, lags behind the simultaneity of the divine Trinity, particularly
on account of its discursiveness. Only if the conditions of earthly existence are lifted can
this limitation be removed so that expressive thought, too, will reach the greatest possible
likeness to God (Chap. IX/X).
Language, which Augustine declares to be the most original manifestation of
reason in the early text De Ordine but devalues soon thereafter in De Magistro,7 plays a
surprising role in De Trinitate.8 De Trinitate culminates in a specific conception of the
word. The “wordliness” of self-reference emerges as the common characteristic of both
God and the human. In my conclusion (Chap. XI), I address the question whether the
teaching of the inner word, in addition to its significance for the philosophy of mind, has
relevance for the philosophy of language, as H.G. Gadamer claims. Augustine’s
speculation on the Trinity would, in that case, prove significant for the development of a
philosophical conception of language.
Neither the historical development of dogma in general nor the much-discussed
question concerning the relation between the Augustinian and the Cappadocian
interpretation of the Trinity in particular constitute my concern in this work.9 I also leave
aside the question whether the apotheosis of the self-empowered subject and the triumph
of individualism over the thought of community otherwise linked to Kant’s
transcendental philosophy or to Descartes’ principle of certainty truly derive from

7 See Or. 2.11.32. For the decipherment of the abbreviations see the table of abbreviations.
8 See the last chapter of this work.
9 See F. Courth, “Trinität in der Schrift und Patristik,“ in: Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte II/Ia, (Herder:
Freiburg 1988), 189-209. An overview of the history of research is found in M.R. Barnes, “De Regnon
Reconsidered,” in: AS 26 (1995), 51-79.
A defense of Augustine against the accusation that in the Latin West the language grounded in salvation
economy was repressed in favor of an immanent understanding of the trinity is to be found in E. Hill, “Karl
Rahner’s ‘Remarks on the Dogmatic Treatise De Trinitate and St. Augustine,’” in: AS 2 (1971), 67-80.
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Augustine’s teaching of the Trinity.10 Such genealogical classifications are, in general,
too imprecise to be used for our analysis of De Trinitate. Lastly, I do not claim to
compile or, what is more, review the complete literature on Augustine’s De Trinitate.
Such a claim would be impossible to fulfill alone in the face of the sheer quantity of
publications. I will therefore draw primarily from works that provide foundational theses
or directly address positions taken in this work.
2. On the legitimacy of a philosophical interpretation
a) De Trinitate as an exercitatio animi?
In De Trinitate, Augustine presents a coherent line of argumentation. This interpretation
is not, however, a matter of course. H.-I. Marrou once advocated the thesis that De
Trinitate could be saved from the accusation of incoherence only if it is interpreted as an
exercitatio animi—that is, as an attempt to lead the reader to the comprehension of a
higher insight.11 Although Marrou later retracted his thesis, his catchphrase exercitatio
animi has become a standard conception.12 Marrou had detected insufficient systematic
unity in Augustine’s works, but he stated that the goal of Augustine’s writings was
always to direct the reader to intelligible realities. To understand such realities, the
reader’s power of comprehension would have to be trained, implying all kinds of
intellectual exercises. A thematic connection between these exercises and the specific
content of a writing could be entirely missing, for in these texts, Augustine is purportedly
concerned solely with an exercitatio animi understood formally. Despite their lack of
thematic unity, according to Marrou, Augustine’s works were purposively composed in a
pedagogical sense. In his retraction, Marrou withdrew his accusation of incoherence.
His previously diagnosed breaks in the line of thought do not truly exist, but rather stem
exclusively from misinterpretations and a lack of understanding. Thus his thesis of
exercitatio animi falls to the wayside.

10 See, for example, D.E. Gunton, The One, the Three and the Many, (Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge, 1993). For a discussion of Gunton’s work, s. L. Ayres, “Augustine, the Trinity and
Modernity,” in: AS 26 (1995), 127-133.
11 H.-I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, (Paris, 1958).
12 See the “Retractatio” that Marrou attached to his book from the fourth edition onward.
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