Augustine, the Psalms, and the Meaning of the Bible

One of my articles just got published: "A Trinitarian Ascent: How Augustine’s Sermons on the Psalms of Ascent Transform the Ascent Tradition." It's available online for free here.

My article is about Augustine's sermons on the Psalms of ascent and how his Trinitarian theology transforms the Platonist version of the spiritual ascent tradition. You could read it or skim a few paragraphs if you're interested. I'm not planning to elaborate much here. Instead, here's a thesis that's not in my article; but it's an idea I'm toying with that would make a great article if it's correct:

Augustine's preaching here, and a lot of his other writings, is magnificent philosophy. It's even good theology in a sense--philosophical theology, that is. But it's pretty lousy biblical theology.

To explain a bit:

Augustine's writings are about as good as you could ask for on a philosophical question like "What's the ultimate point of everything?" Delight in the goodness of G-d is even a great answer if you want to ask questions like that about the Gospel: "What, ultimately, is the point of getting right with G-d anyway?" And taking the Platonic idea of ascent to a higher, non-physical reality and reconsidering it as the climb of the church, adding some Trinitarian theology, adding the Incarnation, explaining that the love of G-d and neighbor is the ultimate goal of the whole thing . . . well, amen to that!

But these sermons are not very good explanations of what the Bible actually says.

Maybe. It's an idea I may work on eventually. But I haven't written that article yet!