Believe to understand: Anselm

Ken Kalis
Apr 23
5 min read

St Anselm's feast day is April 21. He is honored by Anglicans, Lutherans & Roman Catholics

Be not afraid, only Believe. - Jesus in Mark 5:36

I was born into the Gospel, I knew God loved me, and I trusted His world

What happened? The devil planted a doubt, "Hath God said?"
The falacy was that I needed to understand Him before I could believe.
Anselm saw the reverse was true; I need to believe before I can understand

Why should we not believe the One who has made us and called us to be His own?

Anselm of Canterbury* 1033-1109

By the time Anselm was born, all of Western Europe considered itself to be Christian. He came from a wealthy family in Burgundy, later a part of France but sometimes a kingdom of its own, which was often fought over. Anselm had early ambitions to become a monk and scholar, but was thwarted by illness and his father's opposition.

An asterisk* after a name means the person is in SPIRITUAL LIVES.

During his youth, he wandered through Burgundy and France, undecided about whether to manage his lands and estate or enter religious life. He was persuaded to enter the Abbey at Cluny, where he wrote his first philosophical treatise during his first year there. He was a brilliant scholar and approached life's issues with this governing principle:

For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand. – Anselm of Canterbury

Anselm approached philosophy via the works of Boethius* (480-524) and Augustine (354-430 BC), who had been the principal intellectual liaisons between Aristotle (384-322 BC), Plato* (424-348 BC), and the Greeks and Christianity. He applied reason to what he believed, and is famous for his statement of the "ontological argument" for the existence of God. Essentially, this says God must exist because we can conceive of Him.

He also advanced a new teaching on the Atonement, the "Satisfaction" theory. This holds that man's sin is a debt to God and was satisfied by Jesus' * (4BC-30AD) sacrifice on Calvary. Earlier teaching had been that this debt was to the devil and Christ's payment was to him.

Anselm wrote many learned dialogues and was the father of "scholasticism," an approach to learning characterized as a method of critical thought. In this approach, questions and doctrines were discussed, and reasoning was used to resolve difficulties and contradictions. Scholasticism became the basis for the development of the university, and Amselm's abbey became the first GREAT center of learning in Europe in the 11th century.

Anselm himself went on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, where he was less successful than he was as a thinker. His emphasis on thought and reason minimized and/or simply bypassed Scripture and thereby established an intellectual culture that bound together all of Western Europe, but at the same time created a wide divide between the clergy (at that time, most educated people) and the common people.

This GREAT divide remains with us today, and nearly all Western philosophers and theologians have elevated reason and "critical thinking" above revelation and the written Word of God.

Anselm faced the same challenge that thinking Christians face today, "Is our faith in our understanding or in the Lord Jesus Christ?" I like King Solomon's* (1034-975 BC) answer:

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. – Proverbs 3:5-6

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Jesus told the paralbe of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15: that I recap here because it illustrates the point Anselm made so powerfully.

A Father had two sons whom he loved dearly, and they knew it. When the younger son beame of age, he asked his Father for his inheritance and took off to travel with world. He lived in luxursy and wasted his substance with riotous living. He found himself feeding pigs and hungry enough to eat the pig sloip.

Desperate and at the end of his strenth he decided to go back home to his Father. He rehearsed this speech: I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

Luk 15:19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

He made the journey home, And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

He gave the speech he had rehearsed, but his Father would have none of it: But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

Luk 15:23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

Luk 15:24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

Now the older brother felt left out and was angry, but the Father said this to him: Luk 15:31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.

Those words are for you, and me, and everyone who knows the Father, and believing in Him and His love and Word understands all.

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I was so lonely, so very lonely,

When I from my Savior had wandered away;

Now I am happy, so very happy,

Since I to my Savior have come home to stay.

Refrain

I’m glad I came home, oh, so glad I came home,

From Jesus my Savior I’ll nevermore roam;

No more am I starving, weary or lone,

Since Jesus has found me, I’m glad I came home.

I was so hungry, so very hungry,