Aelred of Rievaulx, like his Cistercian brothers, believed that the human person is created in the image and likeness of God. He analyzed the human soul therefore to understand by analogy something of the being of God. Possessing three faculties—intellect, memory, and will—the one, indivisible soul resembles the triune, simple Godhead. In that it is to some degree incomprehensible, the soul shares in the incomprehensibility of its Creator.
By ascetic discipline and by training their innate spiritual faculties, the early Cistercians sought to restore persons to the perfection in which God had created them: to remember without forgetfulness, to know without error, to love without satiety.