In an age when the worst of sinners implicitly accepted the teaching of the , what we now regard as "honest doubt" was universally looked on as a sor… - E. B. Osborn

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In an age when the worst of sinners implicitly accepted the teaching of the , what we now regard as "honest doubt" was universally looked on as a sort of leprosy of the soul, a monstrous and highly infectious plague. The heretic was a germ-carrier to be ruthlessly routed out; the more virtuous his life, the more conspicuous his zeal for truth-seeking, the greater the danger of his example to the community. So the philosopher, who was not a theological first and last was apt to fall into bad odor with the conservative churchmen such as , who distrusted the study of logic and protested against any attempt to understand the mysteries of the Faith. , however, who was afterwards , thought that heresy must be fought by its own weapons, and he sought with much success the "necessary reasons" underlying the tenets of the Church concerning the nature of and His relations with his creatures.