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Trinity, Imago Dei, and Tripartite Anthropology: Exploring Augustine’s Contention that Human Triads Mirror the Trinity1 min read

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Augustine wrote The Trinity over twenty years, ending with a text so enormous that it was published in parts, in rough form, and later revised by Augustine (Harmless, 2010, p. 286).  At a high level, the book may be viewed as having two halves – the first half contains Augustine’s theological explanations of the Trinity, while the second half, looking for triads in anthropology, is based on Augustine’s assumption that a reflection of the Trinity must be in man as part of the imago Dei (ID).  In this paper, I explore the major views of what makes up the imago Dei, Augustine’s criteria for a proper triad reflecting the Trinity, whether his Trinitarian-human analogy can also support a tripartite view of man, and conclude that Augustine’s approach is scripturally sound and perhaps helpful for supporting a tripartite Biblical anthropology.

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