Believing but Still Not Fully Understanding

Yesterday's discussion was particularly enlightening because the mysteries of the Incarnate Word reminded me so vividly of St. Anselm's Proslogion, specifically his notion of understanding God:

   "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." [1].

Perhaps the Prosologion resonated because of my atheist upbringing. I felt like I have gained new levels of understanding while becoming more rooted in the Christian faith. Thus, I think there are multiple distinguishable levels of "understanding" the Incarnate Word, and I shall roughly define them. Note that this is based on my own experience and my own journey in faith.

Level 0: Jesus was an innocent man who died on the cross under false charges. 

This was what I first took as the core of Christianity whenever I went with my friends to church. There is no God in the picture—only Jesus as a morally righteous teacher and man who was free from sin. It takes seriously the parts of the Gospels that depict the "many [who] bore false witness against [Jesus]" even as Pontius Pilate asked what evil he had done. [2].

It takes less seriously the idea that God sent Jesus, the Son, to die on the cross. Jesus was just some innocent, good man and the divine aspect is just some flowery, metaphorical tale that defies human biology.

Now, one can stop at the above or seriously weigh parts of the Gospels that depict the divinity of Jesus having been sent by the Father. Take John, for example: "The next day, John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world." [3]. This leads to what I will call "Level 1," where belief in the divinity of God having sent his only Son to die for man's sins begins.

Level 1: God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for man’s sins. 

Jesus is no longer just some nice man. He is our Savior who God, our Creator, sent on earth to atone for humanity's sins. Man is forgiven for his trespasses as Jesus who, blessed by the Lord, obeyed God and gave up his fleshly life.

Personally, I think this answer would have satisfied me temporarily after becoming Christian. After all, this was what I learned at almost every Sunday service. The only difference was that now I believed Jesus to be divine, coming to earth to save man, and ascending to Heaven after commissioning his disciples to spread the Gospel.

Needless to say, this is where the Prosologion idea of believing in order to understand really kicked in for me. If I believed in God and he was so powerful enough to send the Son to save his creation, why did he do it this way? If God is almighty and powerful, why go through the pain of sending his own son to die? This was a question touched upon in Tuesday's discussion. It immediately makes me think of Romans:

"For why did Christ, when as yet we were weak, according to the time, die for the ungodly? For scarce for a just man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die." [4].

As asserted by Professor Fulton Brown’s paper, Anselm differed from Peter in that “Peter attempted to take the burden of payment upon his own body” whereas Anselm insisted that “recompense. . . was a weight only Christ could bear; and his sacrifice for humanity was, correspondingly, a debt that could never be repaid.” [5].

The underlying logic of this is more important. God cannot “absolve sin” incurred because it would violate his notion of justness. Sins, being acts of evil, must be rightfully punished. Man’s sinful nature, stemming all the way back to Adam, is an infinite debt that is unpayable by man himself. Thus, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his dwelling upon men, and his ultimate death were the only way in which such debts were justly paid off. He could only do so because he was born a man free of sin. As described in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, “he who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in him.” [6]. 

Anselm’s work reflects a clear knowledge of these implications. He knew his own debt as a sinner was unpayable and subject to the mercy of God. It is only if one accepts this complex layer of understanding such that Anselm’s language of “continually mourning,” the “horrible chaos of hell,” and “the wrath of the judge” makes sense. [7]. He was lamenting of a debt he could never pay in his lifetime.

Thus, Anselm, like Paul before him, thanked God for his mercy. Paul writes, “But God commandeth his charity towards us,” while Anselm writes, “yet my soul will pay its debt by some sort of praise and thanks, not as I know I ought, but as I can.” [8].

Hence, Level 2.

Level 2: God sent his only Son—who is free of sin—to die on the cross, taking on the sin of man. It was necessarily done so because the justice of God requires an equal payment for the debt incurred by man’s sin and utterly unpayable by man himself.

The story certainly does not end there. The understanding of the Incarnate Word fundamentally changes once one accepts the Holy Trinity. To me, this is where the mysterious, marvelous element of the Incarnate Word reveals itself: if God, being three-in-one, created the world and then “sent his Son” to die in order to recompense for his creation’s sins, does that not amount to him entering his own creation to die for his own creation? Who even is “his Son?”

This is where, I think, Hugh of St. Victor comes in with his more metaphysical analysis. There were parts that I found compelling, especially his Aristotelian-like analysis of distinguishing the flesh and the soul of Christ. However, other parts were less satisfactory, such as his analysis of the Mary’s holy conception: “Therefore, Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit . . . because through the love and operation of the Holy Spirit nature provided the substance for the divine fetus. . .” [9].

Perhaps, I am just stuck at Level 3—attempting with human-level intelligence to comprehend divine metaphysics. Nonetheless, I can try describing it.

Level 3: God—being the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—entered his own creation to take on its sins, was rejected by his own creation, and “died” on the cross to pay the debt incurred by the sins of his own creation.

Hugh recognizes this sheer complexity: “If you do not understand, nevertheless believe. It can be believed, if it cannot be understood.” [10]. The beauty of this is that it circles back to Anselm. Perhaps we may be forever stuck at Level 3. But we needed to believe to begin with in order to get there.

Level 4: ??? 

—PJZ

Sources:

1. St. Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward (Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1973), 244.

2. Mark 15-16 (DRV).

3. John 1:29.

4. Romans 5:6-7.

5. Rachel Fulton Brown, From Judgement to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 176.

6. 2 Corinthians 5:21.

7. St. Anselm, 223.

8. St. Anselm, 93.

9. Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of Christian Faith, trans. Roy J. Deferarri (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1951), 229.

10. Ibid., 10.