Trinity and Apologetics In the Theology of <scp>S</scp>t. <scp>A</scp>ugustine

Abstract

Abstract This article examines T rinitarian themes in S t. A ugustine's C ity of G od and in his O n the T rinity . It argues that the scope and intention of the latter work can be clarified to some extent by noticing the apologetic commitments entailed in the exposition of the doctrine of the T rinity in the former. It argues against the tendency of some recent scholarship to restrict the intelligibility of the O n the T rinity to converted C hristians, even as it also defends the irreducibility of the doctrine of the T rinity, in A ugustine's thinking, to any doctrine of pagan learning. Without prejudice to recent scholarly clarifications of the polemical origins of some of the arguments in the O n the T rinity , the article argues (in effect) that the work is more than the sum of its polemical parts, and is intentionally addressed by A ugustine to a wide readership, deliberately unspecified in identity except insofar as they are united as “human beings who are seeking G od.” Just as ancient apologetics, including A ugustine's, was addressed to a variety of people, pagan and C hristian, in various states of conviction and conversion, so the O n the T rinity is meant to address many types of readers, at various levels of conversion and understanding, hoping to bring all of them closer to—or to confirm and deepen their participation in—the true worship of the one true G od, without which, A ugustine believes, no one can ultimately find the G od they seek.