In this book, historian Edward Grant illuminates just how much of today's scientific culture originated with the religious thinkers of the Middle Ages. Rather than being hostile to natural philosophy and the influx of Greco-Arabic science, medieval theologians embraced it. In the early centuries of Christianity, Christians studied science and natural philosophy only to the extent that these subjects proved useful for a better understanding of the Christian faith - not to acquire knowledge for its own sake. With the influx of Greco-Arabic science in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, their approach to science changed dramatically. Despite some tensions in the thirteenth century, the Church and its followers became favorably disposed toward science and natural philosophy and used them extensively in their theological deliberations.