In volume two of The Faith of a Moralist, the theme of Taylor’s text/lectures is natural theology and the positive religions. At the outset, in connection to his previous lectures, the author points out that there are three great supernatural implications for the moral life: God, grace and eternal life. Taylor argues that these may be called the central themes of the great historical world religions. In the end, Taylor posits that the source of the apparent incompatibility of so many of the central themes of the great positive religions with a rationalistic metaphysic seems to lie in a rooted prejudice of the metaphysical mind against ascribing reality and significance to the historical. The positive religions ascribe so much more reality to the temporal than is conceded by many metaphysicians. Thus, the author argues, there exists the ultimate tension between history and religion, the temporal and the eternal, reason and faith.