Can You Love God Before You Know Him?

Reflecting on Augustine's eighth book of "On the Trinity"

In On the Trinity Book 8, Augustine wonders if we can love God before we fully know him.

His argument begins with a question: can we truly conceive of something that is not material?

He answers: If God is simple and spiritual, then we must first purify our thoughts before we speak of loving him.

Matthew Levering explains the transition in Book 8:

“On the basis of Books 1–7, Augustine turns to explore the revealed truth that humans are in the image of the Trinity. Although this is the main task of Books 8–11, he asks a preliminary question in Book 8: Is it possible truly to conceive of something that is not material?” (Augustine, 167).

Augustine answers by affirming God’s simplicity and spirituality. We must begin with what God is not—what theologians call the via negativa. “If before we can know what God is, we are at least able to know what he is not” (8.2.3). Any changeable quality must be excluded from our thoughts of God: “As for spiritual conceptions, anything that is changeable about them must not be thought to be God” (8.2.3).

Yet Augustine does not stay content with affirming what God is not. Positively, he declares, “In this way you will see God, not good with some other good, but the good of every good” (8.3.4). God is the source of every genuine good we encounter (justice, beauty, truth, etc.) and these created goods participate in his goodness. Even if we do not yet see God directly, we can love the goods that come from him, and through loving them, begin to love him.

One might remember the words of Peter: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:3–4). Or even the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8).

This is the kind of “seeing” that Augustine speaks of. A seeing that uses, in Paul’s words, “the eyes of your hearts” (Eph 1:18).

Levering summarizes:

“We love all the good things around us. Can we move from cleaving in love to these good things, to cleaving in love to goodness itself, in which the finite things participate? Our goodness comes from the divine Creator: Augustine quotes Acts 17:28, ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ In order to be truly good, our soul needs to love the creative source above the creatures” (168).

Augustine cites a few examples to show that we can love what we do not yet fully know. He knows Carthage because he has been there, but he can know something of Alexandria even without visiting it. The image of a big city has already entered his mind. So he knows something of a city that he has not visited.

Similarly, one may know that Paul was a just man and love him for that justice. Justice, as a universal good, reflects something of God. In this way, our love for virtues like justice and our neighbour leads toward love for God, who is their source.

This link is especially clear in the command to love our neighbour as ourselves. To obey it is to love love itself. And “God is love” (1 John 4:16); when we love others, we abide in God. True love is divine because it comes from God (8.7.10).

Some might object: if God is love, where is the Trinity in love? Augustine answers by showing that love has a triadic shape to it:

“Now love means someone loving and something loved with love. There you are with three, the lover, what is being loved, and love” (8.10.14).

This triad—lover, beloved, and love—has Scriptural grounding and provides a starting point for contemplating the divine life. God is love, and we are made in his image. To love truly, even before we fully know him, is already to begin to live toward him.

In conclusion, Augustine believes we can know something of God, who is simple. And even this general knowledge of God as the source of all created goods means we can love him. Though we have not (yet) seen him, we love him. As Paul says, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12).