The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
One
Creation as the Unifying Prologue
non omnino essem, nisi esses in me
As our introduction chronicled, critics of Augustine are correct to point out how the degree of communion between God and creation parallels the extent to which a creature can be divinized. In his Saint Augustin, Patric Ranson likewise uses this relationship to argue that the absence of deification in Augustine forbids any union between creator and creature.1 Ranson rightly sees how creation and salvation are organically linked in Augustine's thought; he is also accurate in stating that the mariage of the created and the uncreated is the sens premier of Christianity. However, is he correct in judging that a close union between the created and the uncreated is actually forbidden in Augustine's thinking? Exactly how does Augustine describe this relationship between creator and creature?
This chapter shows how creation is a dialogue between the Word who never ceases receiving the Father, and the created
1. Patric Ranson, Saint Augustin (Paris: l'Âge d'homme, 1988), 33, where he maintains that the absence of the doctrine of deification consequently forbids the "marriage" (interdit ce mariage) of creation with the uncreated God.
2 Creation as the Unifying Prologue beings he never stops forming. The world's very first moment bespeaks a type of contingent existence which can never be self-sufficient but must receive all it is by turning back with and in the Logos to the Father. In this way we shall see how creation for Augustine is essentially a conuersio ad Deum. The Trinity brings other beings into existence by creating them to adhere instantaneously to God and thus to receive existence and all their specific attributes. As such, contingent existents are created so as to turn toward God, thereby receiving what the creator continuously bestows. This is how Augustine's theology of creation is clearly Logocentric: each created existent must imitate the Word's eternal turn toward and presence before the Father in order to receive existence and the qualities which make it what it is.
This chapter proceeds by way of three main sections. We begin by seeking to understand what this world tells us of God. Augustine sees in all creatures a triadic ontology pointing us not only to an omnipotent God, but to a Trinity of persons. Augustine clearly desires to emphasize how it is not some incommunicable power that creates, nor is it any one divine person, but it is the Trinity who has chosen to create. Second, we examine the life of this Trinity as rooted in eternal reciprocity, a timeless relatedness whose very being is constituted by the Father's eternal begetting of the Son, these two being joined by the Holy Spirit. The third and final section considers the purpose of God's creating. Augustine carefully distinguishes two ways to answer the question "Quare fecerit?"—"Toward what end did he create?" The first way of asking this question is to demand an answer of God's will. Fiercely intent on preserving divine freedom, however, Augustine admonishes those who presume God must have created out of some lack or need. Instead, he constantly emphasizes God's free will in creating. God creates out of neither coercion nor obligation. But what then is the purpose of creation itself? This is the second way