On Christian Doctrine by Augustine of Hippo

On Christian Doctrine by Augustine of Hippo, 

Kindle edition, print length 202 pages, £0.77

One of the wonderful things about the advent of e-books is that it allows cheapskates like me to get hold of some of the classic works of Christian theology at bargain basement prices. The same title would have cost me £15.67 for a hardback edition or £8.05 for the paperback. Besides taking up more space on my already packed to capacity bookshelves. I first became aware of this title at last year's Banner Ministers' Conference, where Mike Reeves mentioned that in this work Augustine devotes a chapter to 'The Trinity the True Object of Enjoyment.' That sounded good to me and I swiftly downloaded a copy. I may have baulked at price of a hard copy , but at 0.77p, what's to lose? Not that investing in Augustine is ever a risky venture.

Augustine divides his treatment of Christian Doctrine into four 'Books'. Book I offers a general summary of Christian teaching. Book II is devoted to hermeneutics. Book III considers how the Bible teacher may attempt to resolve interpretive difficulties. Book IV reflects on how biblical truth thus discovered might best be taught to others. The main thrust of the work is hermeneutical. As Augustine writes in the Preface, 

There are certain rules for the interpretation of Scripture which I think might with great advantage be taught to earnest students of the word, that they may profit not only from reading the works of others who have laid open the secrets of the sacred writings, but also from themselves opening such secrets to others.   These rules I propose to teach to those who are able and willing to learn, if God our Lord do not withhold from me, while I write, the thoughts He is wont to vouchsafe to me in my meditations on this subject. (St Augustine of Hippo (2012-07-08). On Christian Doctrine (Kindle Locations 281-288). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.) 

In Books II & III Augustine gives careful attention to 'rules for the interpretation of Scripture'. He deals with matters such as the importance of knowledge of the original biblical languages, understanding figurative speech, the usefulness of 'profane leaning' to the Bible expositor and the resolution of knotty exegetical problems. But his hermenutical reflections are not confined to literary matters. The doctrinal summary of Book I is Augustine's way of ensuring that the interpretive task is placed within a clear theological framework. While diversity of opinion on the meaning of some Scripture passages is to be expected, the exegete is not entitled to discern a meaning in the text of Scripture that would contradict the basic elements of Christian truth as clearly disclosed in the Bible and confessed by the Church. This approach is in line with what the Reformers would later describe as the 'analogy of faith'. 

Augustine would have students of the word give themselves to the theological interpretation of Scripture so that their teaching will build up the people of God. While the Church Father does not avoid dealing with technicalities, his great desire is that a proper understanding the Bible and the powerful proclamation of its message should lead to the enjoyment of the God,

The only object which ought to be enjoyed is the triune God, who is our highest good and our true happiness. We are prevented by our sins from enjoying God; and that our sins might be taken away, "the word was made flesh," our Lord suffered, and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, taking to himself as his bride the church, in which we receive remission of our sins. And if our sins are remitted and our souls renewed by grace, we may await with hope the resurrection of the body to eternal glory; if not, we shall be raised to everlasting punishment. (St Augustine of Hippo (2012-07-08). On Christian Doctrine (Kindle Locations 448-456). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.)

This thought is further developed in the chapter that first drew my attention to this work, Book I: Chapter 5 - The Trinity the True Object of Enjoyment.

The true objects of enjoyment, then, are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are at the same time the Trinity, one Being, supreme above all, and common to all who enjoy Him, if He is an object, and not rather the cause of all objects, or indeed even if He is the cause of all.   For it is not easy to find a name that will suitably express so great excellence, unless it is better to speak in this way: The Trinity, one God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. (St Augustine of Hippo (2012-07-08). On Christian Doctrine (Kindle Locations 552-559). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.) 

Some of Augustine's exegesis is a little fanciful when compared the sober canons of interpretation laid down by the Reformers. Here and there his applications might give rise to a wry smile. He commends Ambrose inveighing against women using make-up as an example of the 'majestic style' of speech,  

If thou art comely why dost thou hide thy comeliness? If thou art plain, why dost thou lyingly pretend to be beautiful...? (Augustine of Hippo (2012-07-08). On Christian Doctrine (Kindle Locations 5437-5439). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.)

He justifies preachers using other people's sermons on the grounds that all truth is God's truth anyway and 'even those who could not compose what they say make it their own by composing their lives in harmony with it.' (St Augustine of Hippo (2012-07-08). On Christian Doctrine (Kindle Locations 5767-5769). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.) Well, that's alight, then. 

More seriously, Augustine insists that Christian teachers must practice what they preach, 'But whatever may be the majesty of the style, the life of the speaker will count for more in securing the hearer's compliance.' (St Augustine of Hippo (2012-07-08). On Christian Doctrine (Kindle Locations 5649-5650). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.) And that before speaking the preacher must first lift up his soul to God in prayer, 

And when the hour is come that he must speak, he ought, before he opens his mouth, to lift up his thirsty soul to God, to drink in what he is about to pour forth, and to be himself filled with what he is about to distribute. (St Augustine of Hippo (2012-07-08). On Christian Doctrine (Kindle Locations 4870-4873). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition) 

Augustine hardly needs any commendation from me, but may I suggest in the words that marked the turning point in the great man's life, that you toll lege, or whatever the Latin is for 'download and read' his On Christian Doctrine. All this for only 0.77p. Go on. You know it makes sense. 

Confessions of an Exiled Preacher at the Banner Ministers' Conference 2013: Book II

Now suppose I say "forgetfulness" and once again recognise what I mean
by the word, how do I recognise the thing itself unless I remembered it?
(Confessions Book X:16)

I must, Lord continue with my confession of your goodness at the Banner Conference while what was said and done is fresh in my mind. My notes disappeared like chaff before the wind when my Android Tablet crashed and would not be awakened from its sleep. I will speak of your servant Michael Reeves and testify of what you said to me through his ministry. 

In his first address Reeves spoke on God's Glorious Missionary Heart from John 20:19-23. I saw with fresh clarity that you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a great missionary God. Father, you sent your Son to rescue our world from sin. Son, you breathed forth your Spirit upon the church that we might speak of you to the world. Beloved Trinity, you are so very great, an overflowing ocean of love, light and life. By your overflowing goodness you made the world. By that same goodness you sustain it. But who would have though that your love could reach out from within your being and from among your persons to a rebel world like ours? May we worship you, the giving God of all grace and so may we become like you in overflowing love, light and fruitfulness. Send us forth on your mission; to proclaim the saving Son by the power of your Spirit that others too may taste and see that you are good and glorify the holy name into which we are baptised; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Then Michael Reeves told us of Augusine of Hippo: A Life of Commending the Gospel. I had read the Confessions of the great church father, but Reeves so spoke as to magnify your grace in him afresh. It was you who saved him from sin and error and made him a preacher of the good news of Jesus. Fired by your grace he fought against the unforgiving Donatists and the grace-denying Pelagians. May our lives also commend the gospel of our Saviour. But late did I love you too, wasting too many years in sin and unbelief before you found me, 

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace. (Confessions Book X:27)

But, Lord while a fire kindles in my heart at the memory of Michael Reeves' words, the words themselves are fading from my forgetful mind. As Augustine said, 'forgetfulness, when we remember it, is not present to the memory in itself, but by its image, because if it were present in itself, it would cause us, not to remember, but to forget? Who can possibly answer this or understand how it comes about?' (Confessions Book X:16). I do not have sufficient recollection to make a report, but I confess your goodness in that you did me good by letting me hear these things, 'Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits' (Psalm 103:2). 

Oh, and I remember that our side won Tuesday's football match 5-4, thanks to my valiant efforts in defence. 

On reading The Confessions of Saint Augustine

The Confessions of Saint Augustine,

Translated by Rex Warner, Signet Classic, 2001, 352pp. 

It has long been my habit to leave a book in the car for occasions when I know I'm going to be kept waiting around. A visit to the doctor, or dentist etc. For the last year or so The Confessions of Saint Augustine has served that purpose. Maybe reading this spiritual classic in short, sporadic bursts isn't the best way to go about it, but there we are. I finished reading the Confessions  the other week when taking my daughter to an orthodontist appointment. While she was getting all braced up, I concluded Book XIII, Augustine's somewhat mind-bending reflections on Genesis 1. 

This isn't a review of the Confessions (despite what it says in the link below), so much as an attempt to urge those who haven't yet read this work to give it a go. Rex Warner's translation in the edition I read is wonderfully vivid, crisp and clear. 

In a sense, the Confessions is Augustine's autobiography, 'a work of unique self-revelation, in which he becomes something more than his own Boswell'. (B. B. Warfield, Augustine and His "Confessions" in Calvin and Augustine, P&P, 1980). But it is an autobiography with a difference. The work's title is not incidental, for the Confessions takes the form of an  elongated confession to God. While others are invited to eavesdrop on Augustine's confession, it is primarily directed at God himself. The work opens with a note of praise, citing Psalm 145:3. Augustine asks for permission to pursue God, "Let me seek you, Lord, by praying to you and let me pray believing in you; since to us you have been preached." This element of dialogue with God continues throughout the Confessions, "Oh that I might find rest and peace in you!", "My God let me remember with thanks and let me confess to you your mercies done to me.", "Command what you will and give what you command.", "I have heard you, Lord my God, and I sucked a drop of sweetness from your truth and I understood." 

Augustine charts the course of his life from his birth to the time of writing his confession. He tells of how he was delivered from the error of Manichaeism to embrace the truth of the Catholic faith. He details his conversion experience, when, famously he heard a child in a neighbouring garden calling out, "Toll lege", "Take and read." He took and read Romans 13:11-14 and was never the same again. Augustine wrote out of a deep sense of the sovereign grace of God by which he was saved from sin. He us utterly entranced by the beauty of  the Lord, 

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

This was the triune God who revealed himself to Augustine in his Son and by his Spirit, "The Trinity, my God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Creator of all creation." 

In prayerful dialogue with God, Augustine reflects on love and desire, friendship and bereavement, memory and time (see here), faith and reason. It really is remarkable stuff. For good reason Augustine's Confessions is regarded as one of the great works of Christian theology. Time spent with the Confessions is time well spent. Better if you find yourself waiting around to listen in to Augustine's conversation with God than read the standard waiting room fare. Will it be for you, Hello! magazine, a leaflet on root canal treatment, playing Angry Birds on your phone, or The Confessions of Saint Augustine? As the voice said,  Toll lege.  

My current "time redeeming" read is Letters of John Newton. Mine is a second hand copy of the Banner of Truth 1965 edition, original price 4s6d. I had to interrupt this post for a family visit to the dentist (it's all teeth, teeth, teeth with us). While waiting for my six monthly check (yea, no fillings this time!), I read Letter I, Grace in the Blade and very good it was too. 

Augustine on time

Trying to take seriously Paul's injunction to "redeem the time" (Ephesians 5:15-16), it's my practice to leave a book in the car that I can take with me to read when waiting at the doctors/dentists or whenever I have to hang around for a bit. I suppose I could get stuck into a well thumbed issue of Hello Magazine, or read a leaflet on the health benefits of tea or study some information the best way to floss your teeth, but I don't think that reading the standard waiting room fodder would be the best way to redeem time. Anyway, not to further waste your time by rambling on about personal trivia I'll get down to the matter in hand.

But wait a minute, I haven't yet told you what I'm currently using as my "waiting room book". It's The Confessions of Augustine. What better use of otherwise wasted time than to read this classic work of Christian autobiography/theology? Last Thursday I had to take a family member to see the physiotherapist. While they were being pulled around and prodded, I sat in the waiting room with Augustine. I was able to get going on Book XI, where the theologian discusses time.

The remarkable thing with his deliberations as to the nature of time is that Augustine is reflecting on the subject in conversation with God. The Confessions are his confession to God, a spiritual autobiography in the form of a prayer, and his thoughts on time are no exception. He meditations are punctuated by prayer, "O Lord my God, hear my prayer and let thy mercy attend my longing.", "Let me hear and understand how in the beginning thou madest heaven and earth.", "I am seeking the truth, O Father; I am not affirming it. O my God, direct and rule me." Reasoning corum deo, or before the face of God, Augustine was not afraid to confess his ignorance. Indeed, he has great difficulty in understanding what time is,

What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know. Yet I say with confidence that I know that if nothing passed away, there would be no past time; and if nothing were still coming, there would be no future time; and if there were nothing at all, there would be no present time. (Chapter XV:17)

He ponders the question that is till raised today, "What was God doing before the creation of the world?"

How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off the force of the question). “He was preparing hell,” he said, “for those who pry too deep.” It is one thing to see the answer; it is another to laugh at the questioner--and for myself I do not answer these things thus. More willingly would I have answered, “I do not know what I do not know,” than cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed--and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer.

Rather, I say that thou, our God, art the Creator of every creature. And if in the term “heaven and earth” every creature is included, I make bold to say further: “Before God made heaven and earth, he did not make anything at all. For if he did, what did he make unless it were a creature?” I do indeed wish that I knew all that I desire to know to my profit as surely as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made. (Chapter XII:14)

In other words God did not create the world in time in the sense that silent eons went by before he made the world. Rather, the creation of the universe involved the creation of time itself.

Since, therefore, thou art the Creator of all times, if there was any time before thou madest heaven and earth, why is it said that thou wast abstaining from working? For thou madest that very time itself, and periods could not pass by before thou madest the whole temporal procession. But if there was no time before heaven and earth, how, then, can it be asked, “What wast thou doing then?” For there was no “then” when there was no time. (Chapter XIII:15).

Augustine's thought that the creation of matter also involved the creation of time anticipates modern scientific theories. Einstein's theory of relativity links space and time together to form a unified spacetime. Accordingly, time itself began with the 'big bang'. As Paul Davies acknowledges,

Augustine was already there in the fifth century. His considered answer to what God was doing before creating the universe was that 'the world was made with time and not in time'. Augustine's God was a being who transcends time, a being located outside time altogether, and responsible for creating time and space as well as matter. Thus Augustine skilfully avoided the problem of why the creation happened at that moment rather than some other, earlier, moment. There were no earlier moments... If the universe originated 'in time', then it cannot have been caused by any physical process that has finite probability, because if it did the the event would already have happened, an infinite time ago. On the other had, if the universe was made 'with time' then this problem goes away. (The Goldilocks Enigma, Paul Davies, Penguin, p. 80-81)

God is an eternal being. From everlasting to everlasting he is God (Psalm 90:2). Time involves an extension of moments, but God is not subject to the passing of time. He simply is. We should not envisage him waiting for ages before implementing his plan to create the universe. Such a time-based category does not apply to a God whose being and knowledge are infinite and eternal. Herman Bavinck comments,

Consequently-strictly speaking-one cannot speak of foreknowledge in the case of God: with him there are no "distinctions of time". He calls the things that are not as if they were and sees what is not as if it already existed. [Citing Augustine] "For what is foreknowledge if not knowledge of future events? But can anything be future to God who surpasses all times? For if God's knowledge includes the very things themselves, they are not future to him, but present; and for this reason we should no longer speak of God's foreknowledge but simply of God's knowledge." [Citing Gregory the Great] "Whatever is past and future to us is immediately present in his sight." (Reformed Dogmatics Volume Two: God and Creation, Herman Bavinck, Baker Academic, p.196-197).

So, to ask "What was God doing before the creation?" is nonsensical. There was no before before the creation, only God in the infinite fullness of his communicative being as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is the eternal One and the everlasting Three. He made us and not we ourselves. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1) involved the creation of time as well as space and matter. Our God has placed us in this world of time, Psalm 39:4-5. In Christ God himself entered spacetime when the Son of God became man to redeem us from sin and death (Galatians 4:4-5). He calls us to redeem the time, to use every precious moment of our lives for the glory of his eternal name.

Pelagius is the worst heretic

Poll result in full:

Pelagius 30%
The Pope 28%
Arius 14%
Marcion 14%
Schleiermacher 11%
Cerinthius 2%

See below for B.B. Warfield's summary of the Pelagian controversy

At this point we have touched the central and formative principle of Pelagianism. It lies in the assumption of the plenary ability of man; his ability to do all that righteousness can demand — to work out not only his own salvation, but also his own perfection. This is the core of the whole theory; and all the other postulates not only depend upon it, but arise out of it. Both chronologically and logically this is the root of the system.

The theology which Augustine opposed, in his anti-Pelagian writings, to the errors of Pelagianism, is, shortly, the theology of grace. Its roots were planted deeply in his own experience, and in the teachings of Scripture, especially of that apostle whom he delights to call 'the great preacher of grace,' and to follow whom, in his measure, was his greatest desire. The grace of God in Jesus Christ, conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit and evidenced by the love that He sheds abroad in our hearts, is the centre around which this whole side of His system revolves, and the germ out of which it grows. He was the more able to make it thus central because of the harmony of this view of salvation with the general principle of his whole theology, which was theocentric and revolved around his conception of God as the immanent and vital spirit in whom all things live and move and have their being. In like manner, God is the absolute good, and all good is either Himself or from Him; and only as God makes us good, are we able to do anything good.

See here for Warfield's articles on Augustine and Pelagius.

Augustine of Hippo and the Reformation

It is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the Church. The doctrine of grace came from Augustine's hands in its positive outline completely formulated: sinful man depends for his recovery to good and to God entirely on the free grace of God...

Therefore, when the great revival of religion that we call the Reformation came, seeing that it was, on the theological side, a revival of "Augustinianism"... there was nothing for it but the rending of the Church.

.

BB Warfield in Calvin and Augustine p. 322 & 323 P&R.

Augustine: "Let me seek you, Lord"

Augustine of Hippo

For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Romans 10: 13 & 14)

Let me seek you, Lord, by praying to you and let me pray believing in you; since to us you have been preached. My faith prays to you, Lord this faith which you gave me and with which you inspired one through the Incarnation of your Son and through the ministry of the Preacher.

The Confessions of Augustine, Book I:1