They are central to the whole academic enterprise. Their role is nothing less than to point toward the whole that includes and sustains the fragmented specialties of the modern world. Unable to account for their own presuppositions and incapable of relating the disciplines together, the secular academy and civilization is condemned to flailing in incoherence. Every subject must view itself as omnicompetent. To the faint-hearted it often appears hopelessly incoherent.
Truth seems to have evanesced.
But if that is the case then the whole house of cards we call the modern academy is about to come tumbling down. When truth itself has become an endangered species, then the only resort is to what is below the sand of interminable and incommensurable debate. Human truth is grounded in faith. Without faith there would be no search for the truth and without faith what we have found cannot be held fast. Because our inquiry is always partial and finite.