Credo Ut Intelligam Versus Crede Ut Intelligas

 Feel free to fact check me here--this was written back in 2013:

I teach a course on human nature and once used a work by Leslie Stevenson and David Haberman entitled Ten Theories of Human Nature. It's now up to twelve theories, but here is one thing I've noted about the book (among others) which I hope the editors/authors change one day.

I have found a small technical error in Stevenson and Haberman's book. On page 130, Augustine of Hippo is quoted as saying, "I believe in order to understand" (The Latin is credo ut intelligam); yet that evidently is not what the bishop wrote. The expression credo ut intelligam was uttered or written by Anselm of Canterbury (the so-called father of Medieval theology). Augustine actually said or wrote the words "Crede, ut intelligas" (Believe, in order to understand). One form is indicative whereas the other is imperatival.
See Augustine's Sermon 43.7, 9 and the Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, pages 85-86.
Maybe one day this change will be made in Stevenson/Haberman.

It may sound like I'm picking nits, but Augustine died in 430 CE; conversely, Anselm is a 11-12th century figure. While he certainly derived his saying from Augustine, technically, one speech act is indicative while the other is a command. Nevertheless, I would concede that the point remains the same.

Comments From Augustine of Hippo on Romans 5:12

Augustine of Hippo has some interesting remarks pertaining to Romans 5:12:

"But if the apostle had wished to assert that sin entered into the world, not by natural descent, but by imitation, he would have mentioned as the first offender, not Adam indeed, but the devil, of whom it is written, that 'he sinneth from the beginning'; of whom also we read in the Book of Wisdom: 'Nevertheless through the devil's envy death entered into the world.' Now, forasmuch as this death came upon men from the devil, not because they were propagated by him, but because they imitated his example, it is immediately added: 'And they that do hold of his side do imitate him.' Accordingly, the apostle, when mentioning sin and death together, which had passed by natural descent from one upon all men, set him down as the introducer thereof from whom the propagation of the human race took its beginning" (On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.9).

Augustine of Hippo, the Divine Essence, and the Trinity Doctrine

To say that all formulations of the Trinity doctrine are not the same is an understatement. While church historians warn that one should not overly emphasize the differences between western and eastern versions of the Trinity, I believe the divine essence is uniquely fundamental for Augustine, who is the chief representative of the western church. That is, Augustine appears to stress the essence of God when he reflects on the three persons rather than their putative status as divine persons. Edmund Fortman writes that Augustine "thought rather of one single divine nature subsisting in three Persons" (The Triune God, pp. 140-141). Furthermore, notice that Fortman quotes from Augustine's De Trinitate on p. 141 (second paragraph):

"Each person of the Trinity is God, and all together are One God. Each is the full essence, and all together are One essence."

Again from Fortman, we read: "And by presenting the divine essence with all its absolute perfections as existing identically in each of the three Persons . . ." (p. 141).

See other quotes on pp. 141-142 of Fortman.

Augustine writes in De Trinitate 7.2.3: 

Therefore the Father and the Son together are one essence, and one greatness, and one truth, and one wisdom. But the Father and Son both together are not one Word, because both together are not one Son. For as the Son is referred to the Father, and is not so called in respect to Himself, so also the Word is referred to him whose Word it is, when it is called the Word. Since He is the Son in that He is the Word, and He is the Word in that He is the Son. Inasmuch, therefore, as the Father and the Son together are certainly not one Son, it follows that the Father and the Son together are not the one Word of both.