Who said faith seeking understanding

However, back in , the man appointed to the see of Canterbury was in fact a Frenchman no less, Saint Anselm. Saint Anselm was one of the most notable theologians of the medieval period and is famous for the development of his ontological argument for the proof of the existence of God.

He provided us with one of the most useful and lasting definitions of the discipline of theology. Saint Anselm understood clearly that we are by our very nature rational creatures and that we always have a strongly felt need to be able to describe what we mean by various proclamations of faith. And what have they failed to believe? Now it is one thing for us to say that we believe that the Father and Jesus are one — that is to make an act of faith, but it is another thing to understand what we mean by that act of faith.

So whether we are professional theologians or not, we all theologise in some way in an attempt to understand what we mean by our faith utterances. The area of theology concerned with our understanding of the relationship between Jesus and God is called Christology. These controversies reached their peak during the tumultuous fourth century when accusations of heresy flew wildly about between the different camps, and bishops were deposed and exiled, and persecutions conducted to the point of the taking of many lives.

This encounter with God, which he calls "illumination," is the attitude of a monk who having dedicated his entire being to God offers the whole of his mind, as well as his body, to knowing that truth which is beyond concepts, and to receiving it as a transfiguring experience.

This is how Anselm understood the rational basis of the monastic life-not by looking for reasons to justify it, but by seeing the truth in God. The mystics tell us that no experience of God remains static or unused, it must communicate itself.

This leads to the third of Eadmer's points about Anselm: "He expounded it to others. Anselm was not primarily a teacher, a school-man, a pedagogue. He is concerned with his personal search for God and it is significant that he uses the dynamic word "seek.

The Proslogion was also a prayer, an "exemplum meditandi" ["example meditation"], and it was written, Anselm says, to share with others the joy he had felt in his experience of God.

His concern is that everyone, even the "fool," should be brought to some experience of God whose nature it is to desire to bring sinners to repentance. Anselm's teaching always has this connotation of enabling others to experience God for themselves. He was not, like Lanfranc [Anselm's teacher who first advised him to become a monk at Bee], a master of the schools, attracting pupils from outside the monastery and teaching them according to a system.

Anselm preferred to talk with his friends, with a few intelligent monks [as well as laypersons], with whom he could discuss ideas and communicate by talking rather than by teaching. Come now, little man, turn aside for a while from your daily employment, escape for a moment from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside your weighty cares, let your burdensome distractions wait, free yourself awhile for God and rest awhile in him. Enter the inner chamber of your soul, shut out everything except God and that which can help you in seeking him, and when you have shut the door, seek him.

Now, my whole heart, say to God, "I seek your face, Lord, it is your face I seek. O Lord my God , teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. But you are everywhere, so you must be here, why then do I not seek you? Surely you dwell in light inaccessible- where is it? Who will lead me and take me into it so that I may see you there? I have never seen you, 0 lord my God , I have never seen your face. Most High Lord, what shall an exile do who is as far away from you as this?

What shall your servant do, eager for your love, cast off far from your face? He longs to see you, but your countenance is too far away. He wants to have access to you, but your dwelling is inaccessible. He longs to find you, but he does not know where you are.

He loves to seek you but he does not know your face. Lord, you are my Lord and my God, and I have never seen you. I was created to see you, and I have not yet accomplished that for which I was made.

I confess, Lord, with thanksgiving, that you have made me in your image, so that I can remember you, think of you, and love you. But that image is so worn and blotted out by faults, so darkened by the smoke of sin , that it cannot do that for which it was made, unless you renew and refashion it.

Lord, I am not trying to make my way to your height, for my understanding is in no way equal to that, but I do desire to understand a little of your truth which my heart already believes and loves.

I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe I shall not understand.

Anselm beautifully explains the desire of the Catholic thinker:. Lord, I am not trying to make my way to your height, for my understanding is in no way equal to that, but I do desire to understand a little of your truth which my heart already believes and loves. I do not seek to understand so that I can believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand.

Here, St. Anselm claims not only that the believer seeks to understand what he holds by faith, but that his belief is itself an aid in the pursuit of the truth. What could your parish do, and what could you do individually, to seek greater understanding of our holy Catholic faith? Anselm Parish in Northeast Philly. He is currently a doctoral candidate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America. Corpus Christi Watershed is a c 3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts.

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