Faith Seeking Understanding 2- the confessional goal, and overcoming mindless parroting of words

This is the second in a series on Anselm’s faith seeking understanding approach. https://jotsandscribbles.blog/2024/10/18/faith-seeking-understanding-1-evangelical-suspicion-of-anselms-faith-seeking-understanding/

The lack of Bible in the arguments for Christian faith in Anselm’s “Faith seeking Understanding” seems troubling (see previous post). But it is worth understanding that the goal Anselm is aiming for is not set by a free ranging logic. He is not Descartes, starting from himself and only accepting what he can reason.  Instead, Anselm is a confessional Christian. What he is seeking to explain and demonstrate are the confessional truths of the Christian (and for him Catholic) faith. He believes, and now he seeks understanding of what he believes. He is not seeking understanding in order to believe.

The creeds function for Anselm as reliable summaries of the Biblical teaching. So also, to a lesser extent, do the teachings of the church fathers. Anselm already believes these truths, and will continue to believe them even if his project of “faith seeking understanding” fails to make progress. By faith he accepts the God revealed in the Bible, summarised in the Creed.

That confessional goal, that shooting for orthodoxy, suggests that this approach might be helpful for evangelical explorations of faith. By setting the goal as confessional orthodoxy, this approach avoids many of the errors which follow from pushing novel biblical interpretations to unbalanced or eccentric conclusions.

This confessional orthodoxy is not a narrow thing. The end point of Anselm’s argument is set as that which the rule of the catholic faith requires him to believe, doctrines that all Christians accept by faith. Anselm does not attempt to slim down the doctrine of God which he will aim to understand in this work. He sets out in detail creedal beliefs about God as Trinity in uncompromising form. Nor is this a theology that leaps from what is clear in Scripture to speculative new outcomes. We need revelation to set the target before we seek to understand.

But if confessional orthodoxy is the goal, why does Anselm see a need for his “faith seeking understanding” approach. Anselm lives in monasteries and cathedrals full of people reading, saying, and singing these truths, and yet he’s not sure they understand them. Richard of Saint Victor, following Anselm’s approach, says: “I frequently hear or read all these things, but I do not recollect having read anything about the reasons that prove them.” The words had started to become hollow repetitions, which Anselm is looking to reignite with meaning. If you cannot express the same truth in different terms, if you cannot see the internal coherence of a story or set of truths, then you haven’t understood them. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/I,345: “Interpretation means saying the same thing in other words.” And to do that task it is not enough to rest on great theological works from the past, even by Augustine. We speak a different language, we inhabit a different thought world. We have to express the internal coherence, the reasons, in our own situation.

The confessional goal of Anselm’s faith seeking understanding shows a godly humility (he accepts the core summary of faith as it has been handed down through the generations) and protects against a desire for novelty leading to heterodoxy. The caveat to add here is that there is also a valuable place for the work of scholars working on the interpretation of the Biblical text, but Anselm’s confessional approach enables controlled creativity in understanding and communicating.

Mere confessionalism runs into the problem of words repeated becoming mindless and dead. The truth must be restated and explained in words and reasons that resonate with us today. That is why a faith seeking understanding approach is helpful for Christians.

But as we seek to express the truth of God in Scripture faithfully and relevantly today, we must remember (as Anselm shows in his prayers) that in the end only the Holy Spirit can make the words we read or hear God’s living word transforming our hearts. Indeed, Anselm starts his Proslogion in prayer: “And come now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, and how it may find you.”

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