Augustine spent almost 30 years writing "On the Trinity" in the early 400s.
I thought I'd make an attempt to summarize this valuable but hard-to-read treatise.
First of all, the way Augustine can flip between minute philosophical points and pious personal ones is astonishing.
In book 7, the bishop from North Africa uses the doctrine of divine simplicity to resolve a question:
if Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:30) then how can the Father and the Spirit also be the wisdom of God without there being three Wisdoms?
Answer:
Since to be God is to be wise, the Father is wisdom, and the Son is wisdom of wisdom, in the same way that Christ is light of light. There isn't some other thing or essence that is wisdom, light, truth, etc. that the Father, Son and Spirit are made or derived from. To be the Father is to be truth, to be the Son is to be truth, etc.
Finally, Augustine defends traditional language regarding the Trinity: Scripture does not speak of three Persons in one God, but we have to speak this way because there is no other way to maintain the unity of God as one, and the divinity of Father, Son and Spirit.
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