Episode 125: Interview with Dr. Benjamin Quinn

Dr. Benjamin Quinn shares with us a little about the importance of Augustine in contemporary thought and education. We also learn more about how Augustine understood wisdom and how that fits with the wisdom tradition in the Old Testament. His new book Christ the Way is now out with Lexham Press.

Timestamps:

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim with me this week will be Dr. Ben Quinn. Dr. Quinn has written a new book Christ the way, Augustine theology of humility with lexham Press. He is also professor of theology at Southeastern Baptist, southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, we talk a little bit about the importance of Augustine and theological education, and even his place in our own formation. We have quite a few podcasts coming up, including some of the older style where I talk with Tom and Trevor, about various things that we are thinking about or reading. We also have many other author interviews. And so I just wanted to let you know about what's coming forward. Also, we have reached over 100 likes, or excuse me reach over 100 ratings and reviews on iTunes. So appreciate you doing that. So yeah, for those of you haven't, if you rate review us on iTunes, it's supposed to help people find the podcast. We also have a new website made by our assistant grant Bell chamber, www dot A History of Christian theology.com. So go have a look at that we have some transcripts and links and other things there. Some more information about our episodes. So without any further ado, here's my interview with Dr. Ben Quinn, sort of, you know, and I when I when I heard you say, Be wise men, of course, you know, that's so for listeners, if you haven't seen this already, Dr. Quinn's book is Christ the way Augustine is theology of wisdom. And so you know, so that is exactly what this book is, which is, I think, as I understand it comes from his dissertation, probably edited, to some extent. But it's, it's also, I love hearing that story. Because the way that you connect your own life to Augusta to understanding of Augustine theology of wisdom is similar. Your title is Christ the way. So I. So last time I talked with Catholic you, they were going to publish my book as St. Augustine, the way of humility, St. Augustine theology of preaching. And so we both are going to have way in the title of the book and for you, it's this understanding of wisdom, and how that connects to your own background. For me, the challenge of my life was always pride. And so when I read Augustine, one thing that I read as a younger guy before I'd done, my dissertation was the Gustin struggling with pride and the need for Christ's humility. And so that was one of the things that one of my spiritual mentors always challenged me with. And you could probably tell even through some of the way that I've told my own story, there was a lot of hard headed pride in my own life. I thought I knew better. And so you know, so for me to like, I don't know what it is about Agustin but it does feel like there's no figure quite like him in church history, who can really touch you know, touch the our lives like and, you know, I've had count, you know, numbers of students who I take them through the confessions, if I teach, like the intro to theology class, and they're like, I hadn't really liked theology, but I connected to his story. And that's, that is one of the great things to me about Augustinian studies is whatever you you know, I'm not, he's not perfect. We don't have to agree with everything. But man, no one captivates and tells their story quite like Augustine.

Benjamin Quinn 3:29

That's absolutely right. And that's so at Southeastern we have an undergraduate program, and we still have kind of a light version of a great ideas are great books type program that all of our undergraduates have to do. So at least four semesters of history of ideas are great books, and even still one of our professors who has been teaching in that for probably 25 years now, every year will ask his students Okay, of all the of all the great books or all the history of ideas, readings, what was your favorite and Augustine is confessions? mean, just massively outweighs the rest. And it's exactly what you said, Chad, it's not because people so agree with Augustine or anything else, but because he was so long ago, you know, we're talking to 1600 years. And yet so irrelevant. I mean, you've read the confession, and you're like, this could have been in the journal today, you know, yeah. From someone's so honest, but also so articulate and eloquent. And just baring their soul before that. And in many ways, I'm not in any way going to put this next to the Psalms or the Proverbs. But in many ways, just like the Psalms will sometimes give us the vocabulary for prayer. I don't know about you. Sometimes I read the Psalms. And I'm like, David, you can't say that you're not supposed to. There it is in the scriptures. Well, sometimes Augustine, especially in confessions, will do the same. He'll just provide for us. That's what I was trying to say. That's how I was trying to pray. And I think he's probably catechized and discipled more Baptist than then maybe we're, we're honest about

Charles Kim 4:50

Yeah, for me, it was not only how he would pray, but like, I mean, I always go back to book for when he loses his friend, and he talks about how all I wanted to feel was grief. And that was it. But even that was never satisfying. But that was that was all I thought I wanted. And I you know, and but it would never there was never any there was no end to it. There was no satiating that and I remember, like, I lost a friend of mine in high school, and I was like, I get that. You know, I can Yep. You know, 1600 years ago, apparently, you know, young people felt exactly like I did. Yeah, how bizarre.

Benjamin Quinn 5:28

No, another, I didn't tell this part and bear with me as maybe longer than you mean for it to be. But it's another part of reading confessions. And this, this came, I think after that, that experience I was talking about from my junior year of college. But later on, as I read the confessions in full, you know, Augustine, the great story of him stealing from stealing the pears. And, and that I actually was gripped like, I thought, someone someone's got a camera on me or something at the moment, because Augustine is telling the story of here he is he's sort of with friends, he's home from school, while his parents are trying to figure out how to pay to finish his school, you know, and there's a bit of peer pressure where they're stealing the pears, and for no good reason. And he basically says it as look, I didn't, I didn't need the pairs, I didn't want the pairs, what I wanted was to sin. And that really begins to that's that sort of that introspective, turned is distinctly obviously and you begin to see that the problem is what I tell my kids is the water, the water is the problem. And he says, You know, I didn't want the parents, I just wanted to sin. And so and then it goes on and sort of articulates how he, how he felt after that, and what he how he experienced that. Well, the the guilty connection for me was, I was probably 1413, maybe, summertime, my parents used to drop us off at the local YMCA. And that was our baby. We basically babysat ourselves by hanging out at the wire and playing basketball and baseball, whatever we you know, whatever we can do, just don't leave the grounds at the YMCA. And that was our babysitting. Well, we're home from school, or we're out of school, we're at the Y and there's some friends there, we're all playing basketball, we decide, hey, let's walk down to the local convenience store and get, you know, get a Gatorade or whatever. So we did. As we're walking back, there's a small little house with an open carport. And we knew that it was an elderly lady that lived there. She lived by herself and there was a fridge refrigerator and freezer on her on her carport. And the guys that I was with said, Hey, let's go see what's in that refrigerator. I'm sure that they were hoping it was alcohol or something I don't I don't really know. But I'm just following along. And we opened it up and it's full of hot dogs. The frigerator is full, I've no idea. It must have been like a July 4, or something. Hot dogs. And every one of these guys took a pack of hot dogs. And so foolish me I did the same and I didn't I didn't want hot dogs. I didn't need hot dogs and not a one of us ate a hot dog. We just wanted to steal, we just wanted to sin. And so I read that from a guest on the page. I was like, I'm just as guilty. And that's exactly that was exactly my story from just a few years ago, whereas Augustine is telling the same story experience as a mischief. Teenager, mischievious teenager, you know, and I thought, wow, he's he sees this a whole lot better than I do. I could probably learn a lot more from this guy.

Charles Kim 8:11

Yeah. Very well. That's a it's a it's a great. A great connection. Yeah, I yeah, what it is. So it is so fascinating how some of those like, I like those things. As a guy who's more interested in history, I like those things that make it seem like you know, that we're not that far apart. Because I think sometimes we get that mentality that we've moved so far forward, we've we've progressed so much. Look at what we know, now, you know, and all these things. And it's like, no, I think there still are things to be learned. And maybe, you know, like, and I don't want to you know, I mean, I don't want to deny some forms of scientific progress or whatever else. But like, I think those are the things that are truly human, are the things that don't change. And it's sometimes it can be hard to get my students to see that right. And so that's what that's why Augustine seems to reach out through the ages and say, hey, look, I'm not that different from you. And you go, Oh, wow, yeah, you forget that history isn't just some dead thing.

Benjamin Quinn 9:17

Yeah, absolutely. Right. And maybe Agustin more than others. I'm not suggesting that Augustine is the most important historical figure. But I suspect for many people, Augustine becomes the gateway that then opens up the importance of so much more history and really kind of to your point, it humbles us, because then we look back at someone from so long ago in a very different place from ours. And we think, wow, I do have a lot to learn from this guy. Maybe I should, maybe I should consider some other old dead guys and gals as well.

Charles Kim 9:48

Right? Well, so. So the topic of the book is wisdom. And I don't want to take up all your morning here, although I have quite enjoyed the conversation. But let's, we'll go through a few of the things that I wrote to you about specifically, but just so we have an idea. And actually, this is one of those things that you were mentioning earlier, your dad said, Be wise men and make wise decisions. Was that the phrase? I feel like I need? I feel like I need to store that away and use that with my son. Oh, it's three he won't, but like, it's like, okay, that's a good one. I need to start early.

Benjamin Quinn 10:22

Now as well go ahead and start reading it down.

Charles Kim 10:25

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, but you said you weren't sure that you'd be able to give a definition of wisdom. And part of this book is essentially an exploration of what does wisdom mean? To some extent, you know, you spend most of the time with Augustine, but you do frame that at the end with its comparison to a sort of a, an Old Testament or sort of male more Hebraic idea of wisdom, but maybe can we get started? Like, what are some things that we need to have in mind? When we think about Augustinian wisdom?

Benjamin Quinn 10:57

Yeah, it's a great question. So you know, one of the articles that kind of that kind of helped push me forward on this, there was a French article written by a guy named forbear care hay, who basically, he wrote this kind of mid 20th century. And he, as I understand Kerry is just really kicking up the dust on this important conversation. And suggesting, hey, there's a whole lot more study to be done here. And he pulls out something like 31 different principles or aspects of wisdom and Augustine, which, you know, which in one sense for an academic journal article is just way too much. But I so appreciated it because he's just trying to get the conversation started. And by the end of that article, and I'll I won't get the details, right, I don't have it in front of me. But by the end of that article, he sort of anticipates how the conversation is going to go. And he says, you know, the philosophers are going to lean too much in this direction. And the historians are going to lean too much in this direction, the Bible scholars are going to lean too much in this direction. And he says that the theologians he says the theologians are going to lean too much on the Christological emphasis of wisdom and Augustine. And so I remember that that was informative and kind of offering some direction early on. But then as I as I went all the way through and progressed through this study, it actually came full circle to me that I realize I'm doing this from the theological perspective. And so maybe I'm just guilty of what he anticipated. But I don't think you can overemphasize the person of Christ and Augustine, understanding of wisdom. So that's where if you know if I could have the conversation with with full bear care, Kay, I would say, you may be right, maybe I'm guilty. But I just don't think you can overemphasize that. I really think this since the central thing about wisdom, and Augustine is the person of Jesus. So when we see, we read, for example, that, that in him that is Jesus dwells all the fullness of knowledge and wisdom. This is Colossians two or First Corinthians 12, both of which are key passages for Augustine. We read those and we nod our heads in agreement, but it means something so much deeper to Agustin than it does for us it is a metaphysical essential for Agustin as well as a salvation essential as well as a Trinitarian sense as well as all these other things. So I just don't think you can overemphasize the Christological centrality of wisdom.

Charles Kim 13:17

It reminds me one of the one of the great quotes that you have this is actually towards the end of 208 Augustine his view of the Creation wisdom intersections, sees all of created reality held together by the linchpin of God made man who accounts for the harmony between time and eternity physicality and spirituality, action and contemplation, movement and stillness, CNC and sappy INSIA knowledge and wisdom to remove Christ is to collapse the edifice of Augustine thought. So, it's a powerful line that really captures how, you know, when I think about wisdom, I just, you know, I think about making a good choice. And, or, you know, something like that, oh, well, he's a he's a wise person. Actually, in French, we say you Lisandro. It means like, he's, he's a good boy. And sort of, or a nice boy, or something like that. And it's almost, I mean, not not being pedantic. But it's, it's like, it's a very, it just falls off the tongue. It's used all the time. And we might give a little more kind of weight to it, but it still feels like it's just being being good.

Benjamin Quinn 14:26

Right? Right, doing the right thing kind of stuff. And it's so much of and I don't want to discount this. So like, just having really good and fun long lasting conversations with Old Testament colleagues or something. And they'll approach wisdom as well. It's the skill of life. And I don't discredit that at all. Of course it is but it's it's a lot more than that too. And we can talk more about that if you want to take it that direction. But it is for Agustin this whole notion of wisdom and how it connects with Christ it is he reads a lot like I think for for evangelicals, and here we are as evangelicals even so Baptists we, we get super excited and Colossians 115. And following as we should, I think Augustine is still just as excited at Colossians, two, three, maybe he gets most sick, maybe the climax for him is Colossians, two, three, whereas for many of us, it's Colossians 115 through 18. There's something. Yeah,

Charles Kim 15:16

that's good. It's a good way to put it. And I mean, you know, so one of my questions you basically just asked that was where does the what are the biblical places that Augustine returns to? And but that's also just one and you use the few there and it just reminds me we were talking earlier about what, what struck us about Augustine and just how replete his theology is with scriptural language. You know, to some extent, the confessions just are Augustine telling the, the, the story of the life in biblical language, and to some, you know, there's a sense in which it's Augustine story, but there's a sense in which it's the story of the church, it's every man story. And so that's where the biblical references make it seem like he's, he's almost repattern the scriptures in like, there's, there's this old, this old parlor game that apparently the upper classes used to play, where they would retell the story of the Aeneid or the Odyssey in different lines, and they would see who could quote what back and forth at each other and they call them chin, and then sometimes they put them in chanteuse and so there's, there's a story, there's early Christians who told the story of Christ with the verb like with Virgil, so Provos, this female author from the fourth century, and she tells the whole story of Christ using lines from Virgil. Wow. And it's almost like what Augustine does, I just, I was just thinking about this. It's like, almost like what Augustine does when he tells the story of his life. He's like, how can I use scripture to tell my own story, or something? And so it's like almost every page, almost every line feels like a scriptural quotation. And same with his doctrine of wisdom, it just is a kind of pulling together of his understanding of wisdom in Scripture.

Benjamin Quinn 17:10

Yeah, absolutely. Right. So two thoughts on that quickly, one, I asked one of my doctoral supervisors one time I said, Hey, why don't we? Why don't we like, put together an entire Glossary of all the biblical references from Augustine, just so that, you know, so that people can have that as a nice resource? And he just shook his head and he said, You're crazy. It's impossible. I mean, there's no, there's no way to know it. He just he laces the language of Scripture into his sentences without without letting you know so often, and how I mean, for him, I'm sure he realized it, but some cases he's just he's just using the language the Bible, it'd be impossible to sort of pull out all of those biblical shadows and references and illustrations or what have you. It's just it's just all over in a way that shames I'll go back to our own crowd here as evangelicals. It just it shames us here we are, supposedly the people of the Bible. But I don't know, any evangelical author of any era that we could say has the least as much Scripture through his or her prose, the way that someone like St. Augustine did. And then when it comes to wisdom, you know, when I sort of just really in God's God's grace, and Providence leaned into Augustine for this, and I didn't realize until later that it's even still to this day, and Chad, correct me if I'm wrong here. But no theologian that I know of dead or alive, has just the sheer quantity of references to wisdom, irrespective of how many words they wrote, or how few words they wrote, just the sheer quantity and quota, have references to wisdom. Even Aquinas doesn't. And he wrote more than Augustine, but he doesn't say as much about wisdom and wisdom is important for Aquinas, but it's not as central or someone else like a lesser known like Lactantius, who says a lot about wisdom as well, he doesn't write nearly as much, but even still, no one has said more about wisdom than has St. Augustine and I don't think that that's a mere coincidence relative to the amount of influence that he's had over the centuries. Yeah,

Charles Kim 19:05

yeah, it's an interesting idea. I mean, I remember when I picked up your book, I was like, you know, you in one, we use wisdom. So often we think we know what it means or we like it's like, it's, it can be one of those words that we can easily gloss over one of the and to kind of maybe to illustrate this, again, I think I was most interested in in chapter four. But you start Chapter Four with a quote from Augustine is confessions. And if I remember correctly, yeah, it's a book 12. So also a book that, you know, people tend we tend to read books one through nine and leave 10 to 13. To the experts or something. But that's really where Augustine digs in on wisdom. And he's so just a quick quote from from the confessions here. The wisdom of which I speak is a created wisdom, the intellectual odor of being which by contemplating the light becomes light itself. Wisdom is called but it is a mediated wisdom. And there's a vast difference between light as a source. And that which is lit up by another the differences just as great between. And then here's the difference wisdom that creates with a capital W. And the wisdom that has been created. Well, then the first of all creators was wisdom understood in this way created wisdom, which is the rational, intelligent mind of your chaste city. And so, to me that that's one way in which we realize, okay, you can't just assume that you know what he's talking about. If you're just using our kind of easy gloss on wisdom is like being good or being kind or being smart, or, you know, something like that, like, you really go wait a minute, he's got something. He's working on a whole nother another level here.

Benjamin Quinn 20:46

Yeah, yeah, that's right. A whole nother level is a great sort of metaphor there. Because there are what I might call three, three dimensions or three approaches to wisdom here, you might say. So he speaks of wisdom in three very distinct ways, and maybe a better place. So the quote from confessions 12, it's illustrative and helpful, but he's more clear in on the trinity or de tren, 12, through 14, because that's where he begins to separate the cnca versus sapientia stuff. So there, you really begin to see how this plays out in his metaphysical scheme. But also in in book 14 of de tren. He opens that book by saying, Okay, I'm no longer talking about the wisdom that is God. I'm now talking about wisdom in humankind, and that is the created kind of wisdom. Now, the three different kinds of wisdom for clarity are the three different approaches or dimensions here are there is wisdom, that is God, it is the very essence and nature of God. It there's also wisdom that is the person of Jesus, this is first Corinthians 124. This is First Corinthians 12. A, this is Colossians two, three. And then just to round that out, there's four passages for Augustine is sort of a four legged stool in terms of the passages that really uphold his view of wisdom, those three that I just mentioned, and joke 2828, which he translates the worship of God is wisdom in humankind or something along those lines. But when he talks about those, these three, so wisdom in God, wisdom, that is Christ and then wisdom in humankind, that third one is the creative one. Now, sometimes he'll use language and when he's talking about wisdom, that is Jesus, he'll use language that make us nervous, because here we are sitting this side of calcined. On any point, I don't think it's really just remarkable that Augustine is not at you know, he's he's sort of anticipating these these Christological. Controversies and counselors, of course, it's taking place so he dies before emphasis in 431. He's not there. Of course, he's not at calcitonin 451. He's alive while some of the conversations are going on, but he doesn't he doesn't give to us a dedicated Christology. He gives us an on the Trinity. And buried in the middle of it is his Christology. But it's amazing how even as nuanced as those conversations are, the wholeness story and controversy, that there's nuances. All of that is, he never seems to really fall off the tightrope. He seems to walk that very, very carefully, and does so almost blindfolded. Like he, even those conversations are not happening right around him. And they continue to happen after him. And he still doesn't seem to fall off that tightrope, even though he'll use language at times, that make us a little bit nervous with Jesus. Now, when it comes to that, with that created Wisdom, what he means by that, and I don't think that this is a, a massive allusion to Proverbs eight, I don't I could be wrong about that. I do think there's some of that going on. But I think it's more of a simple a simple point, relative to the fact that the kind of wisdom that we are called to walk in, and that we are called to cultivate, it is one that has its ground and its source, and God Himself and in the person of Jesus. But at the same time, we are called to cultivate wisdom and to be wise, in the sense that as creatures, and this sense of this is where he quotes from the wisdom of Solomon, and he'll say that wisdom has left traces of herself and everything that's been made. It's where wisdom has been sort of woven into the grain of the of the world, the grain of the ground, the warp and woof of creation, you might say, and that we are called to live and walk and love and desire and everything else in accordance with that. And insofar as we do that, we exercise wisdom in the right way that that's part of what he's talking about, as well.

Charles Kim 24:36

Yeah, and I wonder like, to some extent, like we make these distinctions which are really helpful and getting a handle on all the different ways that Augustine might be using the word but also, they're in a sense, they're almost connected, like as humans exercise wisdom in this world, part of what they're doing is participating in the very structure of reality. So to some extent, like, you know, in our House, we have chickens, and we have compost. And I love to read Wendell Berry. And so you know, it's sort of like what we were trying to do. One of the things that he said, he says, in the Unsettling of America is, like, he says, essentially, you know, we forget that we have, you know, sort of production, consumption and return. And we just think it all goes to the landfill, or it all goes in the trash. But like, we try to, you know, my wife and I, and try to teach our kids a little bit about like, okay, composting, or returning the things back to the earth. And so there's a sense in which we're participating in the wisdom in which the world was created by recognizing these patterns, and not assuming that there's just destruction, and that there's just like, oh, you know, well, that's just garbage? Well, no, they're like, if we really imitate the world in which in the way in which it was created, will be being wise. But that is also living into the wisdom of the Creator.

Benjamin Quinn 25:58

That's exactly right. The language of participation in chat is so critical here. And that's, and that's both because for for Augustine, and not just Augustine, but this whole sort of participatory ontology. So I'm not trying to get you know, I'm not trying to talk about all the fancy words. But the reality is, when we we oftentimes, even at our best, we think about being wise, or exercising wisdom only on this sort of horizontal plane, where look, let's do live according to the design of the Creator. And so and that's exactly right. But for Augustine, it doesn't stop, it doesn't even start on that horizontal plane. But insofar as we in our bodies, live out wisdom, in the truest sense, it is part of our spirituality, this is where Agustin will use this language of we turn we go upward, inward. So the degree to which we in our bodies actually in the flesh live wisely in the created world. It actually, this is how we ascend in contemplation towards God, it's part of our participation in God, part of our participation in Christ, the person of Christ, and part of how Christ manifests His will and way in our bodies, and it is very much this sort of, for lack of a better term, this sort of extra to set ready to sit is this sort of, we're doing it this way, in this horizontal sense. But it also is, is elevating us in contemplation spiritually towards God. Now, I'm not sure if I like that part of Augustine, and we can talk about that critically. But that is part of it for Augustine, as we live wisely in the world, we actually go upward towards God as we turn inward, recognizing how the god is how we're participating in God and how he's working through us in those ways. Yeah.

Charles Kim 27:33

Well said, Yeah. I mean, I may want to ask you about the crit, one of my questions is about the criticism of Augustine. But, uh, one thing that I should say, for our listeners, we are gonna have Jordan would come on and talk a little bit about the Christological controversies. So he's written on Maximus, the confessor. To some extent, we haven't really done a lot of fifth century stuff. So yeah, so So Dr. Quinn, Ben here has helped us sort of realize where Augustine is historically. So before Christians had really worked through these questions of what does it mean for Christ to be fully God and fully human? Those are sort of difficult, because we want to, you know, we want to preserve the Divinity, we want to preserve the humanity without collapsing one into the other. And so there's a lot of very careful thinking that's done. So I'm, I'm working through Dr. Woods book. And it is, it's, it's been a bit of a bear. He's, he's, he's working on another level, that, to some extent, like you are here on wisdom. And I sometimes I just, I'm like, Oh, I'm just a poor little like physiologist or something. Like, I don't know that I can fully understand what's going on. But, but yeah, so but these but Augustine is working kind of before those major conversations had taken place. But it does seem like wisdom is a fascinating thing for Augustine that I had never realized. And again, until I read your book, like we're, like, wisdom, in some ways, almost feels like a uniting concept. Where like, you know, we talked like the hypostatic union is this is the phrase that we come to use from Cal Seton on the question of how does humanity and divinity relate and to the single person of Christ right. So we we want to preserve his oneness and his unity. And but but but not collapse the distinction. So the Cyril comes up with this hypostatic union. But there's it seems like a way in which Augustine is very careful to talk about wisdom and, and a bunch of different ways. But it's also a kind of uniting concept for him. I don't know, I'll let you respond to that. But I had never realized just how many different ways he was working with wisdom that like you could almost see as anticipating some of those questions of how do we hold together the uniqueness of these things, but also the oneness of all these things? Yeah, this

Benjamin Quinn 29:48

is where we do that be really clear and I don't pretend to understand everything Augustine is trying to say but let me let me say it as best I understand it, and then try to respond to it. Hopefully I'm interpreting him well So I'm okay using the language of, I want to be careful, but I'm okay saying that Christ is what we might call the conjunction and conduit of all of creation. Here's what I don't mean by that I'm not talking about conjunction the way the story is talks about the conjunction with respect to the divine and human nature's in the person of Jesus. And nor is that what Augustine is talking about. I'm talking about, and I'm talking about in a broader metaphysical sense, keeping in mind for Augustine, he has this sort of Neoplatonic three story, you know, top to bottom in terms of priority view of the world. And what's at the top of that is the eternal realm. That's where God is. That's where the ideas are, the divine ideas are, that's where the the realm of stillness is, and simplicity. So that's that top realm, let's jump to the bottom realm, then. And also that top realm is the realm of sappy into you to jump to fall to the bottom realm, them this is the realm of skin tear. So this is the realm of movement. This is the realm of knowledge, not not what knowledge is, on the bottom, wisdom is at the top. This is the room of bodies and material world, that kind of thing. And then in the middle, is that so it's where our souls are, it's where angels are, it's where sometimes it's worth kind of things are floating somewhere in between. Now, when it comes to the person of Christ, I'm not talking about the the uniting of the divine and human nature with respect to conjunction, what when Augustine reads Colossians, let's go back to that Colossians, how in Christ, all things hold together. And then in verses chapter two, verse three, in him or his all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, that's where you have to backup and think about this metaphysical scheme of Augustine, that in Jesus, only because of Jesus does that top realm and that bottom realm and that middle realm and whatever other realm might exist, that only holds together rather than just utterly dissolve apart because of the person of Jesus, the incarnate Christ. Now, he's not again, that's not a commentary on how the divine and human nature's relate to one another. It's a comment. It's a slight commentary, with wisdom being that central piece and Jesus being the power and the wisdom of God that holds all of reality together. So insofar as we're clear about this is a metaphysical comment and less a an incarnation comment. Yeah, Jesus is the conjunction and conduit The reason I want to use the language of conduit is because he is the way this to kind of back the point Christ away. So in its in de tren, I think it's maybe book 12, where he says, In Him or through him, we travel upwards, and he talks about the inward upward thing he says neither, neither moving, moving to the left or to the right, but we traveled through him upward in contemplation toward God. So that's where only because Christ is fully divine, fully human, everything that it means to be God and everything that it means to be a human being, that all of reality holds together. And he becomes then the way that the sort of the conjunction what holds it all together, but also the way or the conduit through which we traveled to God.

Charles Kim 33:01

Some heavy stuff, some heavy stuff for July 5 on at 10am at 10am. I like it.

Benjamin Quinn 33:09

And I'm, I'm wide open to correction there if I miss Miss reading him, but it is something where I, I'm careful to use the language of conjunction because it's historically loaded. You know, that's, that's the immediate red flag to any, any sort of historian concerns, and I totally get that. But that's where I want to say this is not a comment about how the divine and human natures relate. This is about all of reality holds together in the person Jesus. And so if we can separate those things with clarity, then let's talk about it. If not, let's find a better word.

Charles Kim 33:40

Yeah, well, I mean, just as a side comment, it is also one of the general difficulties of working with a rhetorician. And, and so part of what some of the kind of the work that I tried to do is to see how rhetoric has shaped Augustus theology. And so, you know, we tend to, you know, post Aquinas and post Protestant scholasticism and all the rest of it, we're very careful with our distinctions and you know, and so in Augustine, not not necessarily in a trend, I mean, he is trying to be more systematic there. But in other times, you know, when Augustine is just using whatever word comes to his mind to kind of connect with people and is less concerned with the possibility that you know, sort of, you know, will will say, Well, is it a technical term? It is sir I'm not I'm not disagreeing with you about your reading of de tren but, but it's also just one of those fun, fun and frustrating things about a guy settle does he mean the same thing here?

Benjamin Quinn 34:36

So true, because if he has to lean in one if he has to go for technical precision versus rhetorical flair, probably eight and a half times out of 10 towards the rhetorical flair. de tren is that unique place though, as you just said, Well, that's that's where Agustin who is the account and occasional theologian, meaning that the theologian for the occasion this is the play I swear this is where Rowan Williams says if ever there was a gratuitous work and Augustus corpus is a trend, this is one where he wasn't probably asked or you may have been asked, but he doesn't. He's not doing this because he's responding to controversy so much he's doing this because he thinks it will be helpful for the church. And he writes this only a only a few years after he has said, you'd have to be crazy to take up work on the Trinity apparently feels the need that probably should offer this, I think it would be a gift to the church. And so this is where you get the most systematic treatment from Augustine and on the most important topic, I think. And here, I think you also see, Augustine is so he is such an exigency tonight, you know, he's not a modern exegete the way that we think about it, but he is very much executing Scripture all the way through, but at the same time, he has, you might want to imagine as the Bible in one hand, and Nicaea, the Nicene Creed on the other hand, and he's executing the scriptures and executing the tradition hand in hand and working these things through. So even sometimes we may not even realize that he's he's leaning into the metaphors or the language of Nicaea. Especially when he talks about light, or even the quote that you read from confessions, there's a difference between the light that is the source versus the light that is illuminated. Well, this he's just drawing from the tradition on this and the language that he's been given there.

Charles Kim 36:16

Yeah, well, uh, sort of, in the interest of time, I'll I will kind of move towards the end of my questions. So what you know, So towards the end of the book, you talk about more Hebraic concepts of wisdom. And ultimately, this becomes your question about Agustin Is he too inward and upward? Rather than sort of in the world enough? And so, I don't know, could you say a little bit of something about like, so what, what do we, you know, where are the ways in which Augustine is, exegesis? Maybe your mind fails him? Like, because it does seem like you, you you move in that direction of like, yeah, I don't think he really understands exactly how wisdom is working in the Old Testament entirely. And so you sort of bring in some, some other ways to kind of correct a little bit. And maybe, maybe even, it's just a question of emphasis, or maybe, you know, it's less like you just just wrong, but maybe, you know, I don't know, if you if you want to speak to that a little bit.

Benjamin Quinn 37:18

Yeah. So this is where, you know, I really, really love Augustine and I want to learn from him. But at the same time, he's a he's a man. And so where is he right? Where is where is maybe he missing the mark on some things. So one of my supervisors, doctoral supervisors is a guy by the name of Craig, Bartholomew, and Craig, that one of the reasons that I wanted to study with him is because I love how he writes on wisdom. And so his his own doctoral work was in the area of Ecclesiastes and hermeneutics mixed with philosophy. But But following that, and he's written a lot on wisdom, including a theological introduction to, to the wisdom literature, but also it pulls into the New Testament, and Christological connections there. So as Craig and I have talked a lot about wisdom during that time, and I've continued to do so a couple of the things that that really were of cure of concern for me was how little Augustine will lean into what we tend to think of as the wisdom literature. Now I realized that category may not have even been in his mind, and I credit Wilkins for good work there and all that but at the same time, I mean, even even in the fifth century, one would have thought of the length the literature of Proverbs, for example, as a go to place for wisdom. And Augustine doesn't deal a lot with Proverbs, no joke. 2828 is a key passage for him. But in terms of how he pieces his his doctrine of sappy antiA together, what we think of as the wisdom literature, barely features in there. And instead, what features is a lot of Paul. And I just wondered why that was. So these are just, these are just sort of thoughts and suggestions here. These are I mean, I wouldn't have this put together in such a way as to completely debunk anything about Augustine nor but I want to, but I can't help but think that the reason that Augustine leans so much into Paul's writings as opposed to the earthiness of something like proverbs or even portions of the Psalms, is because it accommodates his philosophy and accommodates his metaphysic a whole lot better. So there is a place that he has a sermon on the on the Proverbs 31. Woman. We've got him l Walters has an interesting commentary on that. And this is part of Augustine is mature work. This is not his early stuff. And in his commentary on proverbs 31. This is the place where in my mind, the whole of Proverbs really comes together in in this woman, Proverbs 31, who, who fears the Lord, who sort of exercises wisdom and all of these earthy kind of ways and I think it really is, it's a beautiful image of sort of that Hebrew vision of how to live embodied in this creative world. And Augustine spiritualizes the heck out of this thing and While you know while I so enjoy I always enjoy kind of following Augustine thought here but but I was I'm really disappointed in that part honestly, and maybe I'm misunderstanding him here. But I just think there was such an opportunity to actually dig into what it means to live in the in the body in this created world and to exercise wisdom. But he can't it says though he can't let himself go that direction, he has to pull it back into the spiritual and then bring it up to the the sort of contemplative. And I think that that's an underdeveloped muscle for Augustine he, because of that, you might say that sort of light or loose Neoplatonic flame framework that he's still committed to that at the end of the day, what's what's best, the highest value is always the spiritual value. So there is there is still that, that even if limited dualism, what's most important, the highest priority and the greatest amount of value is always that which is up. So as my supervisor would say, pulls our feet his wisdom ultimately pulls our feet off the ground, as opposed to the wisdom of Scripture. And toto seems to actually put our feet more firmly on the ground. And in a window berry kind of fashion. As you mentioned a minute ago, we actually understand what it means to tin the garden better. And that means literally 10 the garden not just metaphorically 10, the gardener spiritually 10 the garden. And those are not either or they ought to be both ends altogether. But for Augustine, most of the time, I think those become either oars, and the preference is always on the spiritual side of that. So that's where I would want to, I want to bring him into conversation with the Neo Calvinists, some of the Dutch Reformed thinkers, so I really appreciate Kuyper and Bhavik al Walters, I mentioned a minute ago. Craig, my supervisor is kind of a leading spokesperson for this tradition, and there's many others there. There was a there was an article written in 77, I think around 77. And this was a presentation first given at Tyndall house and then was published in the Tyndall Tyndall bulletin where Chad bear with me, I'm trying to remember remember his name. French American or a theologian taught Ted's for a long time. I'll think of it in a minute. Anyway, you can edit this portion. But he wrote to say it again.

Charles Kim 42:18

Gerald Bray, hey,

Benjamin Quinn 42:22

Andre. That may be that may not be right. I'll think of it in a minute, I don't know.

But he wrote, he wrote this, he gave this presentation and wrote this article on what is the basically the core principle of wisdom. And it just walks through Old Testament all the way to New Testament, just just a really careful kind of biblical theology, Old Testament New Testament. He gets to the end of it. In the end of his article, he says, and he says, in conclusion, you know, most conclusions, try to wrap things up or close things up, but actually want to open things up. And similar to what Kerry does with his sort of kicking up the dust article. This gentleman does the same by saying I think that there are a few conversation partners that really need to talk to Augustine. He deals with Augustine in this at the end. And he said, I think that there's some conversation partners that really need to be part of this discussion. And one of them that he mentions is the Dutch Reformed crowd. He taught he mentioned, Kuyper, he mentioned doya beard, he's sort of the philosophical side of that tradition. And he just says, I think that there's something there, that the Augustinian tradition and the Dutch Reformed tradition, that they might want to come talk about this, even though the Dutch Reformed are much more critical of anything that comes anywhere close to smelling platonic. And I think his reason for that was because it's such a faith first, a faith forward a faith seeking understanding type of tradition. I said, I think that those two need to come together. And then he ends his article. And that's one of the places where I want to say, look, he said that, and I think it was 7778. Well, it's high time that we had that conversation. And I want to pull those conversation partners even closer, not just about wisdom, but about other things as well. And I think that helps keep Augustine honest. But I think also Augustine helps to push that the coperion tradition of the Dutch Reformed even farther into a healthy spirituality in the process. Yeah,

Charles Kim 44:14

yeah, actually, it Philip carry does I mean, Philip K, wrote a couple books on Augustine, we were able to have him on the podcast and talk a little bit about his criticisms of, of what he sort of, I think he calls it the the sort of epistemic side of Plato versus the metaphysical side of Plato. And he sort of says, like, some of the things that Agustin draws on from Plato, he, you know, classical theism and these sort of things are exactly right. But he doesn't think that Augustine, I mean, he ultimately thinks we should just move past Augustine. And and you know, so in his, the meaning of Protestant theology draws heavily on Luther here and says that that Luther will really help us. We'll learn to hear the word And so but it just reminds me that, you know, I wanted to have him on because I was curious to talk to somebody who had such strong criticism of Augustine, because I spend most of my life just trying to understand the Gustin himself and usually in a way that tries to move it in a more. I mean, that not exactly a defender of Augustine, but to some extent, yes. And think that he that he's helpful, so yeah, but I think I think that's right. I mean, I think there's always these questions. And it is, it's like, you know, another way to state kind of what you've said was, in a, I'm writing some stuff on an Augustine sermons on Mary and Martha, where he talks about the active and the contemplative life. And he, you know, he's like, Well, we're glad that Martha serves in this world. But ultimately, Mary has chosen the better part, and you sit at the feet of Christ, and you contemplate, and that's, that's where you're going. And so you can see that, like, you know, like you said, he does seem to set up. You have to make a choice here. And you choose Mary every time.

Benjamin Quinn 46:04

Yeah, now that's exactly right. And it's, that's a great point, Augustine leaning into Mary sitting at the feet, that is always he's created an either or. But I think the whole of the scriptures would say there are there is a time to get up and to serve. And that's where, and honestly, I wonder if I wonder how much Augustine would disagree with what we're saying, you know, if we could have direct conversation with him, but at the end of the day, I think where it would come down to is, are we going to adopt his metaphysic or not, because I think that becomes the tipping point where he's so committed to the metaphysic that he has to place the higher value on those things that are spiritual. And that's also that many of the many of those thoughts and much of that discussion is so foreign to us as moderns or even postmoderns. We just don't think metaphysics first, whereas for Augustine, and I do think this is wise for him. He recognized how important having a proper philosophy was to a proper and thick theology, whereas we just don't think that way. But that's also an area where we could definitely learn from Augustine.

Charles Kim 47:08

Yeah. Well, I have greatly enjoyed our time. I told you, we take an hour, and we've gone on much longer than an hour. So I appreciate you indulging my questions. I know, you got a lot going on, at Southeastern, but it's been an honor and a privilege to have Dr. Ben Quinn and his book with lexan press is Christ the way Augustine is theology of wisdom. And with a great little foreword by Lewis Ayers. I know quite a few students of Lewis airs at this point. And they always do good work. So yeah, so thank you very much. I guess I could offer you this anything else that you'd like to say or to add? And, and we can, I think that's probably, you know, at this point, we'd have to make two podcasts if we go on too much longer. First of

Benjamin Quinn 48:01

all, honorable che, that's who I was trying Okay, honorable shade. So the fear of the Lord as the principle of wisdom was published in the Tyndall bulletin 1977 So if you want to edit that back in Andre blog, he wrote a fantastic little article kicking up further the dust here and says the Augustinians should talk to the Dutch Reformed I think there's a good conversation to be had. So that's part of what I want to pull together. Okay. In terms of anything to leave with, first of all, read the confessions, you know, live with the confessions. Don't Don't let it replace your Bible by any means. But as one professor said to me, years ago, you will find yourself in the confessions and that's very, very true. And at the same time, I'll leave you with my dad's comment of the Be wise men and women and make make wise decisions. Very good.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai