How Has Boethius's Appeal for Ratio Fared?

Except for minority voices to the contrary, for example, Tertullian in the early church and Protestant Reformation leaders more recently, the mainstream Christian tradition has valued and utilized human reasoning powers in the service of understanding and defending Christian faith. An injunction from Boethius, that celebrated philosopher at the dawn of the medieval period, captures the tenor of the philosophical project: Faith and reason should be yoked together as much as one can do it. Taking this injunction as a kind of generic task, the following essay illustrates four specific articulations of the yoking: how Boethius himself did it, how Anselm did it, how Aquinas did it, and how Intelligent Design proponents do it today.