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PERSONHOOD, NATURE, AND VISION OF GOD IN AUGUSTINE'S DE TRINITATE

Jacob D. Gerber

In his De Trinitate, Augustine does not work through Trinitarian theology as a

disinterested scientist would, trying to dissect something out of sheer curiosity in its

composition; rather, his theological findings stem from his belief that the highest good that any

human could ever reach would be to behold the face of God in three persons. Furthermore, since

this great good is only for the pure of heart, Augustine integrates into his theological method the

spiritual process of purifying his soul so that the result of his theology is not just an answer to a

question but a vision of God. In other words, Augustine integrates theology and worship, so that

as his mind approaches a better understanding of God, his soul simultaneously approaches the

purity necessary to replace his faith with sight. In this paper, I want to trace Augustine's fusion

of orthodoxy and doxology, and I will especially focus on his contention that the wicked will not

see the Son in his form of equality to the Father, but rather in the form of his being a servant to

the Father. Then, I will critically analyze Augustine's contentions in light of more recent

developments in the concept of personhood as those developments relate to Trinitarian theology

and to the Christian doctrine of Heaven and Hell.

In the first book of De Trinitate, Augustine clearly sets out his belief that the sight of the

face of God is the highest good to which humanity could possibly reach. He writes,

“We see now through a mirror in an obscure manner,” that is, in likenesses: “but
then face to face.”
This contemplation is promised to us as the end of all our labors and the
eternal fullness of our joys, for: “We are the sons of God, and it has not yet
appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like
him for we shall see him as he is.”...Nothing more than that joy will be needed,
because there will be nothing more that can be desired.1

1 Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Stephen McKenna (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press,
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Augustine here links sight and contemplation, which in effect links his theological reflection

with the joys promised to believers in glory. Although his contemplation is now “obscure”

despite his constant attempts to unite the concepts of God's three-ness and his one-ness,

Augustine is emboldened by the knowledge that the Triune God will eventually reward him with

the greatest of all joys, the ability to see God “face to face.” Augustine believes that he will

neither need nor want anything beyond this vision of God's face.

To me, the verse that Augustine uses to proof-text his assertion (1 John 3:2) is the most

intriguing verse in the New Testament about the future hope of Christians, and I wish that

Augustine had spent more time explaining the significance that he would attach to it. When John

says, “for we shall see him as he is,” John in some way links our future glorification to a form

like Christ's to the mere sight of our Savior, but he does so ambiguously. Is the sight of Christ a

catalyst for our glorification, or is sight of Christ verification that we have indeed been glorified?

The text does not clearly distinguish which aspect is the cause and which is the effect, but

Augustine seems content merely to have biblically demonstrated the link between the two.

Augustine goes on to define the kingdom of God (a concept that has sparked much debate

among biblical and theological scholars) in very simple and similar terms:

What then is the meaning of “when he shall deliver the kingdom to God and the
Father”? Perhaps that God the Father does not have the kingdom at the present
time? No, but that the man Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and men,
reigns now among all the just who live by faith, and shall one day bring them to
that sight, which the same Apostle calls the vision “face to face.” Therefore, to
say “he shall deliver the kingdom to God and the Father,” is the same as saying
when He shall lead the believers to the contemplation of God and the Father.2

1963), 1.16-17; p. 23-25.

2 Ibid., 1.16; p. 23.
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Thus, Augustine does not primarily describe God's kingdom in terms of imperial power,

territorial expansion, or even the service of King's subjects; rather, the kingdom of God is the

place where believers enjoy the vision of the face of God in the Father and the Son. Augustine

goes on to include the Holy Spirit, insisting “Nor is the Spirit of both of them, that is, the Spirit

of the Father and the Son excluded from this unity, and this Holy Spirit is properly called: 'The

Spirit of truth whom this world cannot receive.' For this is the fullness of our joy, than which

there is nothing greater: to enjoy God the Trinity in whose image we have been made.”3 So to

Augustine, the kingdom of God is the greatest good of humanity: the enjoyment of the face of

God in the three persons of the Trinity forever.

We should not miss the fact that Augustine thus describes the kingdom of God in terms of

relation. In other words, the kingdom of God is not a thing that God possesses; rather, it is a

perfect, intimate, face-to-face relationship with his people. Thus, the kingdom God is not so

much conquered as it is built (in the way relationship are built) as God prepares believers to

enjoy the vision of his face. Because of this, Augustine further argues that the kingdom is built

through the purification of the soul in the course of a relationship with God. Although there is a

modern misconception that theology is a purely academic exercise involving the intellect only,

Augustine demonstrates that we must be holy in order to understand the holy God: “...it is

difficult to contemplate and to comprehend fully the substance of God, which makes changeable

things without any change in itself, and creates temporal things without any temporal movement

of its own. Therefore, the purification of our soul is necessary in order that it may be able to see

that ineffable thing in an ineffable manner.”4 Later, he again writes to the same effect, insisting

3 Ibid., 1.18; p. 25-26.

4 Ibid., 1.3; p. 5-6.
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that we are incapable of comprehending God “because the weak eye of the human mind cannot

be fixed on a light so dazzling, unless it has been nourished and become stronger by the justice

of faith.”5 Of course, it is only in the process of growth in faithful obedience to God that

believers relate to and know God better. For Augustine, faith, holiness, and a personal

relationship are all inseparably linked with the discipline of theology.

My point in all this is to demonstrate that Augustine's goal—to attain the holiness without

which no one will see the Lord—is identical to his methodology. Theology is not an intellectual

pursuit that can be abstracted from holy living because God himself is holy, and so to understand

God correctly, we must be holy “with the help of the Lord our God and as far as lies in our

power.”6 Intellectual reflection and the purification of the soul complement each other in

Augustine's attempt not only to give a fitting description of who God is, but also to go beyond

mere description of something seen by faith to an actual vision of God, which is to enter the

kingdom of God. Augustine's theological method and goal is a beneficial corrective to either of

the extremes within the contemporary church, where some eschew theology because they are

interested only in the “love” of Jesus and other people, whereas others are so interested in

“theology” that they develop an intellectual arrogance against the former group and even against

those in the latter group with whom they disagree. Neither approach is correct; Augustine's

theological reflection involves both careful thinking as well as the purification of his own soul

that by both he might better see God. Purity involves theology and theology involves purity, but

neither is an end in itself: the believer must utilize both in his or her quest to see God.

5 Ibid., 1.4; p. 7.
6 Ibid., 1.4; p. 7.
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As Augustine begins to work through these arguments, he arrives quickly at a difficulty:

if the mere sight of the face of God is perfect bliss, how do we reconcile the orthodox Christian

belief that Jesus is fully God with the fact that many people alive during Jesus' time do not seem

to have regarded him as unique? If the face of Jesus is the face of God, how could this not have

been overpoweringly apparent? Augustine's solution to this problem lies in the fact that Jesus

did not appear in his form that is equal to God, but in the form of a slave (Phil. 2:7), and this is

especially apparent at Christ's ascension to the Father:

Hence, it was necessary that the form of the slave should be taken away from their
sight, for by gazing upon it they thought that Christ was only that which they
saw....That is to say, it is, therefore, necessary for me to go to the Father, because
while you see me as I now am, you conclude from what you see that I am less
than the Father. You are so engrossed with the creature and the habit that I have
assumed, as not to perceive the equality that I have with the Father.7

So, the reason Jesus was not recognized as the equal of the Father is that he appeared in a

different from from the one that would display his equality.

The role of the Holy Spirit, then, is to testify to believers that Jesus is indeed the equal of

the Father—despite his having appeared in the form of a servant—a belief that is necessary for

salvation, as Augustine insists in his interpretation of the passage where Jesus speaks of sending

the Holy Spirit in his own absence from the disciples: “And what is the meaning of: 'I go to the

Father' if not, just as I am equal to the Father, so I teach my faithful ones that they must regard

me as such? Those who believe this will be considered worthy of being brought from faith to

sight, that is, to the vision itself, and in bringing them to it He is said to deliver the kingdom to

God and the Father.”8 Elsewhere, Augustine makes clear that, although Christ delivers the

faithful into the kingdom of God, “neither He [Christ] Himself nor the Holy Spirit are to be kept

7 Ibid., 1.18; p. 27.

8 Ibid., 1.21; p. 32.
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out of it, when He shall bring the faithful to the contemplation of God.” Thus, all three members

of the Trinity are involved in bringing believers into the kingdom of God to contemplate him.

Having found a solution for the question of how Jesus appeared as less than God during

his first coming, Augustine next tackles the question of which form Jesus will take during his

second second coming. Of course, the righteous will enter into the vision of God for eternity, but

what about the wicked? For Augustine, this is a serious issue: “if the Son of God, the judge, will

also appear to the wicked in the form by which He is equal to the Father, when He is to judge the

wicked, what great thing is it that He promises to him who loves Him saying: 'I will love him

and manifest myself to him'?”9 If Jesus returned to judge as the Son of God (i.e., that form in

which he is equal to the Father), God would be granting the blessed reward of the vision of God

to the wicked rather than reserving the reward for the righteous alone. Augustine finds the

solution to this problem in the different natures of Jesus, suggesting that the wicked will not see

Jesus according to his divinity (that is, in his form as the Son of God), but according to his

humanity (as the Son of Man): “the wicked will no doubt be unable to see Him except according

to that form by which He is the Son of Man, but still in the glory in which He will judge, not in

the lowliness in which He was judged.”10 Only after the wicked are judged, will Christ reveal his

true form to the just:

And the vision itself is face to face, which is promised to the just as their supreme
reward, and this will come to pass when He shall deliver the kingdom to God and
the Father. There, he wants it understood, will also be the vision of His own form,
when the whole of creation together with that form in which the Son of God has
been made the Son of Man, has been made subject to God. Because according to
this form: “The Son himself will be made subject to him, who subjected all things
to him, that God may be all in all.”11

9 Ibid., 1.28; p. 43.

10 Ibid., 1.28; p. 42.
11 Ibid., 1.28; p. 42-43.
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So, the wicked will be judged by the glorified Son of Man and sent to eternal destruction; then,

the Son of God (who has been made the Son of Man) will deliver the kingdom to his Father

(which is an act of submission to his Father), and the righteous will see the Son face to face with

the Father as they rule for all eternity, where God is all in all.

It is on this aspect of Augustine's theology that I would like to focus, where he

distinguishes between the Son of Man as Judge and the Son of God as Reward. With some

hesitancy in the shadow of such a great church theologian, I think that Augustine has taken his

logic too far in making this distinction. I will argue my case on the basis of more modern

theology concerning heaven and hell as well as more modern Trinitarian theology.

Many theologians have followed the logic of Augustine that there could be no greater

reward than to behold the face of God. J. C. Ryle, in a book about heaven, exhorts believers to

remember the hope they have of seeing Christ, “Think, Christian believer, of seeing your

Saviour, and beholding your King in His beauty. Faith will be at last swallowed up in sight and

hope in certainty.”12 Also, Charles Hodge speaks of heaven, citing the Transfiguration of Christ

as a biblical example of the effects of such a vision:

We know however: (1) That this incomprehensible blessedness of heaven shall

arise from the vision of God. This vision is beatific. It beatifies. It transforms
the soul into the divine image; transfusing into it the divine life, so that it is filed
with the fulness of God. This vision of God is in the face of Jesus Christ, in
whom dwells the plenitude of the divine glory bodily. God is seen in fashion as a
man; and it is this manifestation of God in the person of Christ that is
inconceivably and intolerably ravishing. Peter, James, and John became as dead
men when they saw his glory, for a moment, in the holy mount.13

12 J. C. Ryle, Heaven: Valuable Counsel on our Eternal Home (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications,
1991), 47.
13 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing; reprint, Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 860.
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More recently, John Piper devoted an entire book to explaining that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is

not primarily good because of any of the secondary benefits that we gain, such as justification,

sanctification, or even the opportunity to avoid going to hell; rather, Piper argued that the gospel

is good primarily because it reconciles us to God so that we can enjoy God forever: “When I say

that God Is the Gospel I mean that the highest, best, final, decisive good of the gospel, without

which no other gifts would be good is the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed for our

everlasting enjoyment.”14 In this matter, these theologians carry on the tradition of Augustine.

Yet, on the other hand, some theologians are comfortable to break with Augustine by

describing God as the one manifesting himself to the wicked for the purposes of judgment.

Robert Peterson attempts to nuance the Augustinian tradition (although he does not put it that

way), writing:

We need to reconsider the common notion that God is absent from hell. In one
sense, he is absent from hell. This is why Paul says that unbelievers 'will be shut
out from the presence of the Lord' (2 Thess. 1:9). God is not present in hell in
grace and blessing.
However, since God is everywhere present, he is present in hell. Although
he is not there in grace and blessing, he is there in holiness and wrath. We read in
Revelation 14:10 that the unsaved will 'drink of the wine of God's fury' and 'be
tormented with burning sulfur in the presence...of the Lamb.' The word 'Lamb'
occurs twenty-eight times in the book of Revelation, and every occurrence except
one (13:11) is a symbol for Christ. The wicked will suffer eternally in Christ's
holy presence!15

In this first sense, Peterson reiterates an essentially Augustinian position on the matter: “God is

not present in hell in grace and blessing,” which Augustine might rephrase to say “Christ will not

manifest himself to the wicked, which would be grace and blessing.” Nevertheless, Peterson

insists that there is indeed a sense in which God is present in hell, which is “in holiness and

14 John Piper, God is the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2005), 13, original emphasis.
15 Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed
Publishing, 1995), 187.
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wrath.” We should be careful to note, though, that Peterson is not addressing Augustine when he

writes this. Nevertheless, I think that his statement is still helpful, even if it must be cautious in

our application of it.

The Bible does not give us much further assistance on the topic, although there are a few

passages worthy of our consideration. First, when Moses asks to see God's glory, the Lord

consents, but adds, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”16 Obviously,

Moses is not one of the wicked of whom Augustine is writing, but the whole reason that Moses

cannot see God's face is that Moses is still sinful to a degree—otherwise, if humans were

excluded from seeing the face of God on the basis of their finiteness alone, how could God

promise the vision of his face to believers? The reason that God limits Moses's vision is his

sinfulness, so that when we are glorified, we will be capable of seeing God face to face. Now,

however, even though Moses may see the backside of God's glory, he would die if he saw God's

glorious face. If one of the greatest servants of God ever to live was not holy enough to behold

the face of God without dying, how much more would the wicked suffer to see that face?

Although this passage does not definitively answer our question, it helps.

Second, the book of Revelation contains a passage one part of the coming judgment that

is worth our consideration. John describes the breaking of the sixth seal:

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and
the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and
among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us
and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath
of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”17

16 Ex. 33:20.
17 Rev. 6:15-17.
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The Lamb, of course, would refer to Christ, so it is likely that “him who is seated on the throne”

would refer to the Father. If so, then the wicked will see the face of the Father, and there would

be no reason to think that Christ could not appear to the wicked in his form that is equal with the

Father; of course, this would not be a beatific vision of the face of God, but would provoke the

terror described in this passage.

Still, I hesitate to rest on these conclusions, knowing that these proof-texts were not

written specifically to answer my question about Augustine's theology. So, I would like to

approach this question in the light of Trinitarian theology. Essentially, I think that Augustine

erred by conflating the issues of God's nature with God's personhood. As I wrote earlier,

Augustine's understanding of the kingdom of God—God's granting to the righteous the vision of

his face—is essentially a relational understanding of our future reward. In this, I completely

agree with Augustine's conclusions, because heaven could not be fully satisfying if we were

merely given newer, better parts of God's creation—that is, we would not find heaven infinitely

enjoyable if we were only given a larger amount of the finite. Instead, for heaven to live up to

(and even to exceed!) the hype, God must give believers the infinite rather than the finite, the

Creator rather than the creation—God must give believers himself. In other words, if heaven is

not a perfect, personal, face-to-face relationship with God that will last for all eternity, it will not

be worth it.

This personal aspect to heaven is key to understand the theology of our hope of glory.

Two of the three persons in the Trinity do not have literal bodies; only the Son of God made man

has a physical, human body. Our face-to-face relationship with God in glory, however, will not

only be with the Second Person of the Trinity, so we must ask ourselves: What would it mean to
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know God face to face if God does not have a face? Clearly, this must be an anthropomorphism

designed to describe a personal relationship, and we will be mistaken if we expect the Father or

the Holy Spirit to have an actual face. So, what are the implications of this figure of speech?

Consider the significance of gazing into the face of another person. Lovers can spend

hours just looking into the face of his or her significant other; parents often speak of watching

their children sleep “with such a peaceful look on his face”; people take comfort in looking at the

pictures of their friends and families, especially those separated by distance or death; Middle

Eastern people take faces so seriously that men make their wives wear veils over their faces in

order to avoid sharing her beauty with other people. In each of these cases, looking into a

person's face is an intimate act of love. So, to use this metaphor of seeing God “face to face” is

to describe an extremely intimate relationship that we will enjoy with God.

On the other hand, think about what happens when a parent begins to scold a child for

misbehavior: the child has an instant reaction to look away from his or her parent's face. On the

one hand, this reaction does not change anything substantive in what the child had done or what

the parent says to scold the child; on the other hand, by looking away from the parent's face, the

child avoids taking the brunt of the relational punishment that is meted out in the parent's angry

face. To correspond this to the judgment of God against the wicked, I would argue that the

wicked are doomed to an everlasting vision of the furious face of God. If the beatific vision of

God's face is the greatest possible good, then the greatest possible torture would be to see a

wrathful vision of that same face.

So, I am arguing that the subject at hand does not have to do with God's nature (i.e., what

he is) so much as it has to do with God's personhood (i.e., who he is in relation to other people).
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If so, then there is no reason that Christ could not judge the world in his form that is equal to the

Father, since this would be far from a reward, but the most severe punishment possible. Whether

people see Christ in his human or in his divinity is not as important as the disposition Christ

takes when people gaze into his face, which is essentially an issue of how Christ relates to those

being judged. If the disposition on his face is love, then nothing could be better than to look into

his face; if the disposition is wrath, then nothing could be worse. So, while I agree with the

major premises and conclusions in the first book of Augustine's De Trinitate, I think that he

arrives at a mistaken deduction in one aspect of his reasoning when he confuses the the nature of

God with the personhood of God.