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On the face of it, this passage may seem to imply \-\- contrary to what is expressly said, in one way or another, in both of the other passages \-\- that, while Christian faith (as well as, in its way, Christian theology) involves a risk or venture, this is not true of metaphysics or philosophy. But I rather doubt that any such implication could be fairly taken to follow, in the light of what is said in the immediate context (85, 88) about Christian faith and theology, on the one hand, and our common faith as human beings and philosophy, on the other. "\[J\]ust as philosophy is the fully reflective understanding of our common faith simply as selves, so Christian theology . . . is the attempt to become fully self-conscious about specifically Christian faith." But "philosophy and Christian theology are not only closely analogous but because of the peculiar relation between their respective objects, between our basic existential faith and specifically Christian faith, also overlap or in a certain way coincide. From this it follows that Christian theology necessarily presupposes philosophy . . . in the quite particular form of philosophical theology or theistic metaphysics. Because theology and philosophy by their very natures finally lay claim to the same basic ground, appeal to the same historical evidence \-\- in short, serve an identical ultimate truth \-\- their material conclusions must be in the last analysis mutually confirming if either is to sustain its essential claim. This does not mean, of course, that their complete mutual confirmation must be actually realized, either now or at sometime in the future. The essentially historical character of reflection, not to mention such other constants of the human equation as finitude and sin, hardly permits this as a real possibility. We simply have to reckon with the indefinite continuation of our present more or less irreducible pluralism of philosophical and theological positions. But in doing so, we have no reason whatever to set aside the ideal that philosophy and theology alike establish as governing their relationship{-}{-}even though we have the best of reasons for suspecting all claims to have already realized this ideal. So long as philosophy is a serious undertaking it involves the confidence, which it attempts to justify, that the truth of its material conclusions can only be confirmed by any true conclusions of Christian theology \-\- and theology, naturally, involves and seeks to justify a corresponding confidence about the confirmation of its conclusions by those of philosophy."