In Chapter 4, I consider some responses to the charge that theology bases itself on a metaphysics that is onto-theological. While I do not question any potential differences between a revealed theology and a natural theology, to the extent that theology is articulated in conceptual categories, it is included in this charge. One response to this view, represented by John Milbank, strongly reaffirms a scholastic metaphysics and embraces the belief that by means of revelation, Christians can judge the world from a higher vantage point than others. In fact, according to his approach, Christians have such a high vantage point that they can have a ‘God’s-eye view’ or what is sometimes called a ‘view from nowhere’. To demonstrate a second type of response by theologians to the charge that theology can simply be dismissed as onto-theological, I examine the complex case of Marion's engagement with a number of Thomistic thinkers. While Marion does not prosecute his case with resounding success, his questions at least disturb some of the assumptions of a scholastic approach that is seen to be fundamental to Catholic theology.

In Chapter 3, I consider several ways in which philosophical discourse has become allergic to the concept of revelation. While Catholic theology is largely dependent on scholastic and, more recently, modern philosophy as it tries to articulate understandings of faith, philosophy has been part of shaping a modern and postmodern culture that is frequently hostile or simply indifferent to religious faith and its notions of divine revelation. Various philosophical approaches seek to exclude theology from the realm of academic discourse, either because revealed religion is seen to be partial and therefore detrimental to the pursuit of universal wisdom, or because it seems to articulate merely its own will to power, using a metaphysics that is oblivious to having founded itself. Bound up in metaphysical systems, all discourse potentially becomes (onto-)theological. 'Religion' has recently returned in philosophy only by means of its transformation: used in Levinas’ sense as the ethical relation with the other, it effects a powerful critique. Yet, excluding the very particularity of religious traditions is a totalitarian and secularising act.