As it developed, Christian theology incorporated elements from the Greek and Roman (not to mention Jewish and later Islamic) thought-worlds that surrounded it. Other elements were rejected, sometimes violently, and yet others tailored by the Church Fathers to fit the new religious perspective. This process of dialogue, critique, reaction, and creative incorporation was exceedingly complex, and has been well documented. Catholic believers regard it as no haphazard adventure through time, but rather as providentially
ordered by the Holy Spirit to enable the gestalt of Christian truth—the face of Christ—to emerge ever more clearly into view. An adventure perhaps, then, but hardly “haphazard,” because the sensus fidelium, like a homing instinct or sense of balance, enables the diversions and distractions of the journey to be integrated with the essential center of things, as revealed to the eyes of faith.
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