Anselm of Canterbury and Directing Our Thoughts Heavenward
A foundational truth for our relationship with God
I was reminded of a profound truth this morning from Anselm (1033–1109) about the relationship between the image of God and our knowledge of God. Here’s the passage that gripped me:
O God, you are life, wisdom, truth, bounty, and blessedness, the eternal, the only true God; our God and our Lord, you are our hope and our heart’s joy—we acknowledge with thanksgiving that you have made us in your image, and that we may direct our thoughts to you. Lord, make us know you aright, that we may love, enjoy, and possess you more and more; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.1
Notice, among other things, what Anselm recognizes in this prayer: “we acknowledge with thanksgiving that you have made us in your image, and that we may direct our thoughts to you.” Because we are made in God’s image, we may direct our thoughts to him. Amazing. Our creator God has designed us in such a way that we may have fellowship with him, that we may literally “direct our thoughts” to the Almighty.
A Foundational Truth
In his prayer, Anselm is working out of a profound truth of our humanity, a truth seen in Genesis 1:26–27,
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
We are made in God’s image, after his likeness. At this we are tempted to sigh like David and confess, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6). The mystery of this aspect of our creation is such that we cannot plumb its depths, but we can see something of its wonder in Anselm’s words. After all, isn’t being in relationship with God at least in part what “directing our thoughts to God” means? Animals, as none image bearers, don’t direct their thoughts to God. Only humanity has this special relationship with God; only humanity as redeemed in Christ participates in the New Covenant promise of Ezekiel 36:26–28,
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Thank you, Anselm, for reminding me of the breathtaking truth of being creating in the image of God and how this reality allows me to direct my thoughts to God, to be in relationship with my Creator. So I pray with Anselm, “Lord, make [me] know you aright, that [I] may love, enjoy, and possess you more and more; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Jonathan Gibson, Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship (Wheaton: Crossway, 2021), 63.