The main conflict in the eleventh century is between those who see theology as little more than Bible commentary and those who feel that rational analysis and argument was needed. The first group argued that God was such a mystery, so intellectually inaccessible, that we could hope to talk about him at all only in the symbolic language he himself had graciously given us for that purpose. Nor could we expect to get beyond that language, to infer other truths from it by reason. On the contrast we have a second division of this time that sees God as friendly and sensible and believes there must be reason and rational behind faith. During this time period we see the development of Neoplatonic Philosophies.…
