The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
The Holy Spirit's Indwelling 141 then, go beyond such a "first reading" to show how the Spirit consummates what we can call the divinizing work of the Son. To achieve this closer reading and thereby understand how the Holy Spirit is active in the lives of the deified, let us now consider what the Spirit does in those elect whom Christ calls.
Exposition Of De Trinitate 6.5.7
The overall purpose of Book 6 of the De Trinitate is to refute what Augustine sees as a fault in Arian logic, a project that also forces him to question some of the linguistic precision he worked out earlier. The Bishop of Hippo suggests that from 1 Cor. 1:24—Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God—the Arians strengthen their position of subordinating the Son to the Father. That is, by arguing that the Son is both the uirtus and sapientia of the Father, the Arians supposedly conclude that the Father must therefore not be uirtus and sapientia but only the begetter of such virtues. To understand why this is such a troublesome contention for Augustine, we must examine the core argument running through Books 5 to 7.
In Book 5 Augustine agreed with the Arians that one can never predicate an accidental quality of the Godhead but he is quick to point out that this does not mean that all predicates are substantial. Augustine therefore enlists another way of talking about God, providing his readers with two ways of attributing divine predicates: (1) by way of God's substance [secundum substantiam] and (2) by way of the relationships [secundum relatiuum] within the Godhead.18 We can therefore now talk about God by way of what God is substantially, as well as by way of who the divine persons are in relationship to one another. So, for example, "begetter" and "begotten" should be understood not as substance terms (as the Arians were wont to do) but as relationship terms, thus showing how
18. Trin. 5.5.6; CCL 50.211.