If from all the varied analyses I have put before you I may venture to extract a conclusion from their respective conclusions, I should say that the essential result of Christian philosophy is a deeply considered affirmation of a reality and goodness intrinsic to nature, such as the Greeks, lacking knowledge of its source and end, only dimly forshadowed. ...In the first centuries of the Church, [...] to be a Christian was essentially to hold a middle position between Mani who denied the goodness of nature, and Pelagius who denied its wounds, and therewish the need of grace to heal the wounds.
-- Etienne Gilson, p. 419-420. The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy.
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