This paper continues as the second part of my study of the relationship of Fr. Lawrence Dewan OP and Etienne Gilson. My first paper explored their metaphysical differences, while this second paper explores their common commitment to Christian philosophy and to St. Thomas Aquinas’ seminal work on the interrelationship of faith and reason as manifest most clearly in the interrelationship of revealed theology and philosophy. This leads us into a closer examination of Gilson's sustained treatment of this topic. However, we must acknowledge that this topic is often susceptible to unproductive philosophical and metaphysical abstraction. In order to avoid this, we depart from the standard method of treatment through an interdisciplinary appeal to the theological, philosophical, and historical implications of the bodily resurrection of Christ.

Although Étienne Gilson did not change his position on Christian philosophy as defined in his 1931 Gifford Lectures, interesting modifications occur in his later formulations. Whereas Gilson's earlier formulations emphasized philosophy searching within the faith for what can become rational, his later formulations during the 1960s placed more emphasis on its Christian aspect, i.e., faith guiding reason. In the 1960s, Gilson emphasized faith and the Church as the guardians of Christian philosophy, expressed a relative indifference to the validity of rational proofs for the existence of God, and empathized with those accepting questionable philosophical approaches to understand the faith. Post-modernism with its rejection of a “pure” or “scientific” methodology in philosophy serves as an appropriate context in which to situate Gilson's later formulation of Christian philosophy.