The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
Four
The Holy Spirit's
Indwelling quia non Deus amaretur, nisi per Spiritum quem dedit
Introduction
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the human soul is an indispensable component of Augustinian deification. Reserving the term deificare for the overt work of the incarnate Son, Augustine nevertheless depicts how the Spirit's presence renders men and women gods: "not by nature, but are graced to be made and fashioned into gods by the Father through the Son by the gift of the Holy Spirit."1 Once again we encounter the doctrine that God transforms the elect into "gods" through the Son and by the gift of the Spirit. But precisely how does the Holy Spirit achieve this and how does Augustine explain the Spirit's work in the process of deification?
We saw in chapter 1 how the Spirit of God has been at work since the creation of the world. A new outpouring of the Spirit awaits creation at Pentecost, however, and Augustine must accordingly make a distinction between the Spirit's weak and re-
1. f. et symb. 9.16 (my translation): "Non enim sunt naturaliter dii, quicumque sunt facti atque conditi ex Patre per Filium dono Spiritus Sancti"; PL 40.189.