Since the days when the apostles turned to the Lord and asked him to teach them to pray believers have been seeking to deepen their faith by piercing the mystery of God himself and the awesome gift of his Son Jesus who brought us redemtption This quest has both spiritual and academic dimensions reflecting both the cognitive and affective dimensions of the human person As our faith goes beyond mere feelings and utilizes God s gift of intellect to understand his often mysterious ways the Church proclaims the love of God in the context of theological understandings which are both spiritually nourishing and academically challenging Seen in hindsight it seems as if one of the first tasks of the early Church was to provide her members with a coherent body of doctrine which could be easily understood and serve as an articulation of the common faith which they had received From the Council of Jerusalem to our present day the leaders of the Church have gathered t