Augustine’s Psychological Trinity and Its Significance in Religious Education

ABSTRACT

The constributions of Cappadocia Fathers and heretics-debates in Councils of Nicaea in the early period of formation of the thoughts on Trinity were reviewed to get a perspective on Augustine’s book ｢Trinity｣ in the historical development of the trinity doctrine. The whole contents of the book 「Trinity」 were summarized and the basic direction of Augustine to search for the image of Trinity in human psychological structure was reviewed. He combined the epistemological three elements, the Subject, the Object, and the Action with the psychological structures to form 4 stages of development in the psychological models of Trinity. The lower two stages were found in the sensation triplet and the mental images of the sensational triplet of the ‘outer man’. The third stage was found in the knowledge (scientia) of the inner man. The highest stage of the Trinity image was reached by the Wisdom (sapientia) of God in the mental triplet of Memory, Understanding and Will. In this article the mental trinity models in terms of the epistemological triplet were considered, and they were applied specifically to the Teaching-Leaning theory. Further consideration of the highest psychological trinity image in human was performed to reveal its significance with respect to religious education and Christian faith education.