Further broadening the gap between the Romans and the vast majority of those who pass today for Anglicans.

One can only be grateful that our Roman friends still think the life of the mind is anything but a scandal in the service of the Kingdom of God.

If biblical theology and good exegesis are tools that Roman Catholics need more of in their theology, metaphysics and philosophy is an area where too many Protestants (and especially Evangelicals) are lacking.  Theology is, in the words of Anselm, “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum), and one of its basic premises is that God is in himself who he is in his revelation.  Because of the unique relationship between God (as Creator) and the world as created, almost every theological affirmation has metaphysical implications, and numerous heresies are consequences of inadequate ways of thinking about the metaphysics of either God or the creation.  Moreover, any area of theology that must speak of the relation between God and creation also ventures in to metaphysics.  Just a handful of examples:

The Trinity concerns both God’s revelation in history (the economic Trinity) and God’s eternal immanent relations (the immanent Trinity).

The incarnation raises metaphysical questions about how we can predicate both divine and human properties of a single subject.  The orthodox doctrine is that Jesus is one divine person with two natures, that Jesus has no human center of identity, but he does have a complete human intellect and will.

Creation, grace, and providence all have to do with the relation between God and created realities, and how God can be present to the world in such a manner that both divine and human realities retain their integrities.

Sacramental theology is one particular area in which different understandings of the relation between divine and human realities have tremendous implications.

The list goes on and one.  To the extent that Christians neglect metaphysics and philosophy, they often unintentionally embrace heresy.  For example, way too many “orthodox” Christians are either unintentional monophysites, tritheists, or modalists.  Every time one hears the “average joe or jane” make statements like “That may be true for you but it is not true for me,” one is hearing the (not too well thought out) articulations of a fundamental philosophical stance about reality, epistemology, and metaphysics.