St. Augustine's Theology: Divine Nature and Creation

Divine Attributes and the Trinity

God is provident, prescient, and creative, and is omnipresent. We have previously stated that eternity and necessity are derivations of immutability, as they proceed from God, who is immutable. In contrast, being created is essentially a mixture of being and nonbeing.

God is one nature, divine, comprising three persons equal in nature and duration (commutable and co-eternal). They differ only in the order of precedence: the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This is called the Divine Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Therefore, happiness is the love of God.

3. The Creation of the World

For St. Augustine, the world is not subsistent but must have a beginning. God is the creator of this world, and its existence depends on the divine will of God. This view also denies the possibility of the eternity of the world. The world is not co-eternal with God, for everything mutable has a beginning and an end. The world has a principle of temporality. This does not mean it was created in time, but over time. Since no change or mutation is possible outside of time, the world did not exist before time, and when time ends, the world will end. Time and the world are simultaneous.

4. Augustinian Anthropology

Man, as we have stated, is a composite of two substances: body and soul. Man is a soul that essentially uses the body. The soul is the image of the Trinity. The soul is mind first, being rational, possessing a memory of divinity. From this flows knowledge—news—and from knowledge arises love. We are confident in our being and we love what we know.

Man was created in the image and likeness of God. God in Trinity is eternal and full being (Father), absolute truth (Son), and total love (Holy Spirit).

Man is a finite being seeking to remain in existence, but he also seeks truth and wisdom. Furthermore, man seeks love, needs to love and be loved, and seeks happiness. He discovers this in relation to the three faculties of the soul:

• Memory: For which we remember.
• Knowledge: To know why.
• Will: By which we love.

The soul of man is one, yet possesses these three distinct powers, mirroring God. Each power expresses the whole soul. Where there is memory of being, there is also knowledge and love of it. Therefore, man's structure matches that of God, and this correspondence allows us to find Him within ourselves. This encounter proceeds in the following manner:

The Path to God:

1. First, rejection of the outside world.
2. Second, search across our internal self.
3. Third, transcendence into the higher realm, to God.