Saint Anselm of Canterbury

Today, April 21, is the feast day of Saint Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 - 21 Apr 1109), the saint I chose for my Confirmation name.

Anselm appeals for many reasons. Perhaps chief among them is his motto of fides quaerens intellectum, ("faith seeking understanding"), which posits the priority of faith in the comprehension of the divine. In our yet modernistic age, we tend to employ a more scientific methodology in diverse areas of comprehension, including religious: an intellectual examination of objective evidence will supposedly bring us to the best conclusion.

To be sure, this method is not to be discarded. Christian apologetics presents evidence to be reasoned through to persuade people toward Christian faith. Saint Thomas Aquinas asserts that a reasoned examination of the natural order should lead us to the acknowledgement of God. Saint Anselm himself is famous for his ontological proof of the existence of God.

But since the Enlightenment, the pendulum has swung decidedly away from fideism (or authoritarianism, but that is a different post) toward rationalism and scientism. The challenge for the Church today is to maintain the beneficial aspects of the application of reason while offering greater, and hopefully persuasive, emphasis on the roles of the living out of faith and Apostolic authority.

Saint Anselm's fides quaerens intellectum offers the appropriate prioritization: the fullest human understanding of God absolutely requires the setting of a lived relationship of faith with God. Though Anselm is more greatly remembered for his intellectual writings, we must never forget that it was his life as a monk, a prior, an archbishop--a life of prayer, of devotion, of faith--that provided the soil from which such understanding could grow.

Saint Anselm, ora pro nobis!

A New Freedom

I've been reading some stuff lately that continues to reinforce my idea that modernistic individualism has run rampant in our society, particularly evidenced by the substance and meaning we attach to that all-surpassing term, "Freedom".

My assigned reading from Anselm's Cur Deus Homo has led me to reflect on what necessity means for God (Anselm would argue that the only operative force on God is his own volition...hence nothing can be presumed to be a necessity for God, see CDH, ii, 17/18). Perhaps the wise, obedient, and "fitting" exercise of our human wills is another feature of our being created in the imago Dei. On the flip side, when we make decisions which serve our misguided senses of self-importance, entitlement, and ultimate autonomy, we essentially live into the very basis of our (and Adam's) sin.

Still, it seems that a popular, cultural definition of freedom panders to just this end: freedom is being able to do/choose what I want. And, of course, our corrupted desires are often molded and shaped most by self-benefit, pleasure, comfort, etc. Simplifying the equation, then, we reach the point that freedom is nothing restricting me from attaining those goods and circumstances which provide me with pleasure, comfort, etc.

Pope Benedict XVI has recently maintained that this assumption is a corruption of true freedom. " 'A redefinition of the meaning of liberty' is needed, the Holy Father said, noting that it is more and more conceived as an 'untouchable right of the individual' while the 'importance of its divine origins and communitarian dimension' are ignored. 'According to this interpretation, an individual alone can decide and choose the physiognomy, characteristics and finality of life, death and marriage,' he added. But, 'true liberty is founded and developed ultimately in God. It is a gift that is possible to welcome as a seed and to make it mature responsibly so as to truly enrich the person and society.' " (see http://www.zenit.org/article-24113?l=english)

Indeed, the Church must define liberty, freedom--and live it out--in God. It's no coincidence that self-serving autonomy flies in the face of the two greatest commandments. True freedom, rather, is not freedom from all captivity, but it is captivity to the right master (Rom. 6:15ff; cf. 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:1, 13; 1 Pet. 2:16). The hard part? Sometimes the freedom given by God doesn't feel good. Sometimes it doesn't serve my needs (read: wants).

But it is of great importance that we understand that our happiness, our ultimate fulfilment as human beings, our salvation depends on something outside ourselves. Given, that, it may even be in the interest of our happiness to accept circumstances which are much less than pleasurable, than comfortable. As Anselm put it, "...it is not unhappiness to take upon oneself a discomfort willingly, out of wisdom, not out of necessity" (CDH, ii, 12).

Freedom is decidedly not captivity to our own desires. Freedom is abandonment of our bodies and minds (Rom. 12:1-2), of our lives and ourselves (Mark 8:34-38) to the mastery of Christ, of God. Only the One who gave us life in the beginning can restore it to us once again.

Kýrie, eléison.