The Theological Epistemology of Augustine's De Trinitate
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'.
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