THE KNUCKLEHEAD
'
S GUIDE TO COVENANTAL THEOLOGY
115
no freedom of will. "Vanity" is the total meaning of their acts, for they,
and all their acts, are 'flesh' -- unless bread and wine can be Offered,
Consecrated, and received in Communion.
So, we need never fear the total physicality of 'flesh,' its
total finitude, its total immersion in time -- unless we
need to be concerned about the similar status of bread
and wine.
The fact that, within the vocabulary of Covenantal Theology, the
Catholic optimism regarding 'flesh' can be readily articulated within
the vocabulary given within the Eucharistic Event itself, is perhaps
some evidence that Covenantal Theology makes mistakes of much
higher quality than either New Class or traditional Catholic thought
when it "searches" to understand the reality of that free Event and the
free response to it.
Not only is it impossible to articulate the meaningfulness and
intelligibility of human sexual acts by standing outside the Eucharist
(for example, within some time-less theory, whether of 'natural' law or
of 'totality'), it does indeed seem possible to "stand to understand"
these acts within the Eucharist itself. This is a kind of experimental
support for re-turning all Catholic theology to the Eucharist.
Let us explore what we have just said a little more. Any Catholic
theologian who re-turned his intellectual and scientific method to the
Eucharist in the manner that Covenantal Theology proposes would
"stand to understand" within the Eucharistic Event itself. He would
assume the precedence of the Eucharistic Event to all of reality as a
matter of fundamental intellectual and scientific method.
But remember: the Eucharistic Event is the sacramental re-
presentation of the New Covenant, "one and the same" -- that's basic
Catholicism. But if the New Covenant is prior to all reality, then
obviously, there wasn't any 'nature' before the New Covenant. Because
of the reliance of Catholic theology on dehistoricized cosmology,
Catholics have often intellectually assumed that there just 'has to be'
some 'place' prior to the New Covenant.
I hope your instincts are getting better. As soon as you make that
assumption, you opt for the existence of a time-less 'place' prior to the
Lord of history himself. You inevitably place yourself into the
thoroughly pessimistic world of 'flesh' alone -- and begin the process
of trying to stuff the 'time-full' free liturgical mediation of the faith of
the Church into Mr. Minsky's middle box.
Maybe you needed a reminder of that, but you probably only
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.