Medieval theologians deployed reason only to attack rivals, not to prove their own faith

Evidence

The Dominican missionary strategy was in line with developing thirteenthcentury doctrine, which increasingly affirmed that the truth of Christianity could not rationally be proven, for if it could, there would be no merit in faith (in the oft-evoked words of Pope Gregory I). Reason was an arm that could be used offensively to prove the “irrationality” of rival creeds or defensively to defend Christianity against the charge of irrationality, but it could not prove the Christian truth, for faith was indispensable. This affirmation is to be understood in the context not only of polemics against Judaism, Islam, and heresy but also of the controversy caused by the growing impact of Greco-Arabic philosophy on the study of theology: in 1231 Gregory IX had reiterated an earlier prohibition against teaching the scientific works of Aristotle in Paris. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1220

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the reader’s Islam-West opposition vault: the rationalist/irrationalist frame later weaponized against Muslims originates in a deliberate medieval theological scission between reason-as-offense and faith-as-basis — connects to Anidjar’s ‘reason as secularized theological weapon’ thesis.
• QUESTION: Worth tracing: does this same ‘offensive reason vs. defensive faith’ structure survive in modern Islamophobic rhetoric that claims scientific-empirical superiority?