ABSTRACT
Throughout its history Christian theology has displayed an equivocal attitude to philosophical reflection. It has been viewed from the earliest beginnings of theology as a hostile source of rival ideas to the Gospel. Christianity played a part in the closure of the philosophical academies of the ancient world. St Augustine, in The City of God, saves some of his harshest polemics for the follies and pretensions of pagan philosophy. There has hardly ever been a time in the history of theology when the call to escape the false snares of philosophy in order to return to the purity of the Gospel has not been powerful.
