Augustine's Approach to Reading Scripture: Purifying the Mind to Know God

In his De Trinitate (On the Trinity), Augustine of Hippo presents not just a theological treatise on the nature of the triune God but also a hermeneutical approach to reading Scripture.

Written in the early 5th century, this work reveals Augustine's concern with how Christians approach and interpret biblical texts, particularly when those texts speak about God. At the heart of Augustine's approach is this idea: to truly understand Scripture, one must first purify one's mind to know its subject, God Himself.

Augustine's Threefold Audience

Augustine begins by envisioning three kinds of readers that would benefit from his work on the Trinity: "those who conceived of God in bodily terms," "those who do so in terms of created spirit, such as soul," and those who otherwise have false ideas about God (1.1.1). This third kind of reader takes the Bible too literally when it uses metaphors and so imagines God as having a color or forgetting and remembering things and more besides. This group appears to read Scripture but not to purify or cleanse their minds of false notions. Hold on to this notion, because it becomes important to Augustine's view of how Scripture was written.

How Scripture Accommodates Human Weakness

Augustine believes Scripture purifies us of falsehoods and false ideas in a particular way:

"Consequently, in order that the human mind may be cleansed from errors of this kind, Sacred Scripture, adapting itself to little ones, has employed words from every class of objects in order that our intellect, as though strengthened by them, might rise as it were gradually to divine and sublime things. For when it spoke of God, it made use even of words taken from material objects, as when it said: 'Protect me under the shadow of thy wings.' And it has borrowed many things from the spiritual creature in order to describe thereby not that which is actually so, but that which had to be spoken of as being so, as for example, when it says: 'I am a jealous God,' and 'I regret that I made man.' But it has not drawn any of its words from things that have no existence at all, either to form its figures of speech or to make enigmatic sayings. Hence, they boast in a pernicious and futile manner, who shut themselves off from the truth by that third kind of error, in their predicating to God what can be found neither in Him nor in any creature." (1.1.2)

Notice how Augustine here points to the third kind of error noted above. Such readers will go to Scripture and see phrases like "I am a jealous God" or "I regret that I made man" and take these without being cleansed in mind. Given how much attention that Augustine gives to this group of readers, it seems likely they are his main intended audience.

So who exactly are they? Well, they read Scripture and hear metaphorical language which is not "actually so" but is only "spoken of as being so." Put simply, Augustine writes for those who read Scripture overly-literally and take metaphorical language about God as to his jealousy and regret as being true when they are not actually so. They are instead accommodations or adaptations that Scripture uses to help us know God.

Scripture as Pedagogical Steps for Growth

Augustine continues:

"For, from the things which are found in the creature, the divine Scripture is wont to prepare enticements, as it were, for children. Its purpose is to arouse the affections of the weak, so that by means of them, as though they were steps, they may mount to higher things according to their own modest capacity, and abandon the lower things" (1.1.2).

So here Augustine points out that Scripture is written for "the weak" to awaken "the affections." Importantly, this awakening of the affections shows the weak to be "children" who need to grow up into adults. By thus growing, they mount up to "higher things" and "abandon the lower things." What Augustine is driving at is a movement from affections and earthly metaphors in Scripture (children, weak) to the mind and spiritual sight (adults, mature).

Augustine himself models this method throughout the rest of De Trinitate, as he seeks to purify his mind in his pursuit of knowing God.

Two Ways Scripture Speaks of God

But it is important to recognize that for Augustine, Scripture is written in two ways. The first way as noted above says things that are not "actually so" but only "spoken of as being so." The second way is to ascribe things proper to God. He explains:

"But the divine Scripture rarely mentions the things that are properly ascribed to God and which are not found in any creature, as for example, that which was said to Moses: 'I am who am,' and 'He who is, sent me to you.' For, since, to be, is also used in some sense with reference to the body and the soul, it [Scripture] would certainly not speak thus if it did not want the words understood in some special sense. And this is also true of that which the Apostle says: 'Who alone has immortality.' For, since the soul is also called immortal and is so in a certain sense, he would not say 'who alone has' unless he meant that true immortality is unchangeableness, which no creature can have, because it is proper to the Creator alone. James also declares: 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no change or shadow of movement,' and David likewise: 'Thou wilt change them and they are changed, but thou art the same'" (1.1.2).

Here, Augustine points to several places in which Scripture ascribes something proper to God. The first is the unique mode of God's existence—"I am who I am"—and the second refers to God's unchangeableness.

While Augustine has a wide biblical rationale for his position, he sees himself as following Paul who says in 1 Corinthians 3:1–2 (1.1.3): "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready."

Readers Must Purify Their Minds Before They Can Know Scripture's Subject: God

It sounds strange, but Augustine's primary requirement here for a right reading of Scripture is a reader's pursuit of purity. In his words, "the purification of our soul is necessary in order that it may be able to see that ineffable thing in an ineffable manner" (1.1.3). He seems to admit that anyone can know the Scripture ad litteram or according to the historical sense. That is easy.

What is hard, according to Augustine, is to know the God that Scripture testifies to. In fact, he thinks that an overly focused view of the letter of Scripture could lead to a misinformed view of God. The third group of readers that he envisions reading De Trinitate do just that.

But using Paul's language cited above, we have to admit that many Christians are "infants in Christ" and need milk before they have solid food. Augustine means no sleight against anyone, but he as a pastor recognizes that Christians come in all sorts of maturity levels.

From Letter to Spirit

Augustine's approach to Scripture reveals a profound understanding of the reading process itself. For him, reading Scripture is not merely about acquiring information or historical knowledge, but about a transformative encounter with the divine. The text serves as a mediator between the human mind and God, but this mediation requires a progressive ascent from material metaphors to spiritual realities.

What makes Augustine's approach so compelling is his recognition that Scripture meets readers where they are. For those still bound to material thinking, Scripture provides bodily metaphors. For those more spiritually mature, it offers knowledge of God's true nature through infrequent declarations of His proper attributes. But in all cases, Scripture's ultimate purpose is to lead readers from the text to a purified vision of God.

Conclusion: The Purified Mind as Scripture's Interpreter

Augustine's hermeneutic in De Trinitate challenges modern approaches to biblical interpretation that often focus exclusively on historical, grammatical, or literary elements. For Augustine, these are important but preliminary steps. The ultimate goal of reading Scripture is to know God, and this requires not just technical skill but spiritual purification.

In our age of information abundance, Augustine's emphasis on the reader's spiritual condition reminds us that to truly understand Scripture's message about God, we must purify our minds. Only then can we begin to see "that ineffable thing in an ineffable manner," which is to say, to know God as God truly is.

Augustine's approach ultimately suggests that the best reader of Scripture is not necessarily the most educated one, but the one whose mind has been most purified to receive the truth about God that Scripture conveys.

Learn more

To learn more about Augustine, I am offering a class on Augustine’s De Trinitate this Summer. In it, I will lead students through a chapter-by-chapter study of Augustine’s magisterial On The Trinity to understand the biblical, theological, and historical rationale for the Christian doctrine of the triune God.