What eludes Cowling is a sacramental sense of man's historical existence, the sense of the truth that persists inviolate through the vicissitudes of time and change. To believe that would mean that we could lose a tradition of understanding but we cannot lose the substance that persists through all the gains and losses of traditional formulations. 

Perhaps Cowling believed something like this, but it would be hard to find conclusive evidence for it. Ian Harris approaches something on this order in suggesting that Cowling interpreted English politics and religion "in ways that corroborated the mystery through historiography by using it as an instrument in historical understanding — and ways too that implied not only the past but also the future may belong to ‘historic Christianity'". This is a use of Cowling's work in ways that he did not undertake himself. 

Philip Williamson, in a very comprehensive essay, points out that Cowling insisted on taking arguments seriously. He did not try to reduce arguments, even the arguments of those with whom he disagreed most intensely, to sociological explanations. He did not take arguments to be mere epiphenomena of underlying, impersonal processes. In this respect, a way is paved for philosophic reflection to take flight; Cowling was no reductionist, reinforcing Alexander's implication that philosophic reflection is not ruled out by what Cowling did. But one can see, in comparing these essays to each other, that there are two directions which Cowling's legacy is likely to promote: one is towards a comprehensive philosophic argument "from above"; the other is to use minute historical analysis in an effort to demythologise all intellectual flights in fear and suspicion of their pretensions. 

Thus Robert Crowcroft writes: "It is impossible for scholars to separate their work from their assumptions. Cowling was right in that respect...Political practice generates resentment and brutality, ambition and competition..." and what we must do is "search for the realities of public life, and its sole requirement is an Oakeshottian scepticism". Perhaps it is fair to say that Butterfield, Cowling and Oakeshott all had to live in the tension constituted by the modern loss of faith in philosophy and the rising but misplaced hope for certainty in ideologies of which "philosophies of history" are notorious examples. All three rejected ideology, but they also paralysed the reconstitution of philosophy (and theology) for fear of lapsing into ideology. Cowling criticises many of his fellows for this, but he does it himself. 

Simon Green sees this in referring to Butterfield's exhortation to hold fast to Christ and otherwise remain uncommitted, arguing that Cowling subscribed to this in Religion and Public Doctrine:

The abiding merit of Cowling's efforts lies in the fact that by fulfilling his religious duty so idiosyncratically and his historical calling so faithfully, he simultaneously furnished all open-minded readers not merely with a decent range of argument for and against all or any such sacred and profane commitments, but also with sufficient evidence to reach their own conclusions about whether or not ‘secularisation' is truly ‘just a phase of intelligentsia life', whose ‘permanence it would be absurd to assume'. Thus informed, they might also fruitfully ponder whether or not ‘that instinct for religion which looks beneath the (contemporary) indifference of the public mind may yet surprise by its willingness to be led astray by Christianity'.

Kenneth Minogue, on the other hand, puts the problem this way: 

The process of secularisation meant that many people had discarded the sacred half of the secular/sacred distinction on the ground that it was merely a superstitious survival from less enlightened times. That explanation would leave us with two problems. The first is what is left of Cowling's view that religion is the central core of public discussion. And the second is that if Christianity disappeared from the scene, has something else taken its place?...Cowling was concerned with the practical question of finding a commitment that would restore a sense of national identity to British life. Such a commitment would find expression in the doctrinal centrality that should at least be culturally accorded in European states to Christianity, but which no longer corresponded to the actual beliefs and some current practices of the English.

Green is more hopeful in his interpretation but Minogue's may be closer to what Cowling actually argued for. What he could actually argue for certainly has some foundation in traditional Anglican thought, namely, a commitment to values that are taken to have profound merit even if belief in a compelling metaphysical foundation for them dissolves. Inasmuch as cultural tradition is both a ground but also developmentally open-ended through time, it is a fundamental issue whether what Cowling wanted can be pursued without a serious philosophical/theological effort requiring another kind of genius than historical study by itself can produce.