In „Tradition as Gift: On the Theologian’s Responsibility to Tradition”, Rodney Howsare defends theological thought against the accusation that its stewardship of tradition’s legacy is irrational. Together with Blondel, Howsare argues that modem philosophy has diminished the scope of reason by either reducing its purview to „facts” or utterly withdrawing truth from history. „What Blondel finds missing in both extrinsicism and historicism is the twofold truth that God reveals himself in the concrete (in time and space, and through a particular person) and that God reveals himself in the concrete" Recovering the roots of Christian tradition in the economy of salvation, Howsare recalls that this gift, even as it transcends time, is shared in order for its plenitude to be ever-more richly unfolded in the Church’s memory by the Holy Spirit.
