6 - The Kantian inversion of ‘all previous philosophy’

Summary

The guiding focus of our enquiry into Christian thinking continues to be the twofold preservation of integrity, both of reason and theological transcendence. If we now look back and take stock of the ground we have covered in this endeavour, especially over the last three chapters, we find that, although some important progress has been made, nevertheless at every turn we have in the end been thrown back onto some version of philosophy's perpetual polarities, or have been unable to get beyond these. Even the project of act and being, which seemed to offer a fresh promise by demonstrating that revelation (and by extension, theological discourse) demands to be approached in the full integrity of reason, even this could not deliver on that promise, but found itself succumbing ultimately either to a new kind of idealistic dogmatism, where thinking (act) declared itself ‘lord’ over being, or to a new kind of scepticism in the ‘self-entanglement’ of reason. Similarly, although MacKinnon brought us perhaps closest to a kind of conciliation between realism and idealism (or anti-realism), the progress there was mainly negative, pointing out the inadequacies of both sides and how each needed the other, yet not offering any positive way forward in the light of these polarities. In the end we were still left at the making/finding dilemma and could not advance beyond this.