THE KNUCKLEHEAD
'
S GUIDE TO COVENANTAL THEOLOGY
67
form of dehistoricized cosmology, Catholic theology as presently
constituted has nothing at all to say that could contradict Mr. Minsky.
This is why the childish thoughts of Covenantal Theology may be
so critically important, for by relying on its own higher-quality
mistakes, Catholics may be able to answer Mr. Minsky, in the only
way that Catholics will ever really have available: by appeal to the
Eucharist, the New Covenant.
As you probably have already noticed, Fr. Keefe's thought is
extremely difficult -- and not simply because he uses so many big
words. This chapter exists, so that you might also notice that, even if
his thought is difficult, it is also powerful and helpful -- in ways that
are simply not available to the current Catholic academy, whether
dissenting or faithful.
So, compare Mr. Minsky's eloquent, insightful, and logical words
with the paradigm presented in these chapters. Does Mr. Minsky not
elegantly divide the world into Cause and Chance, into the necessary
and the arbitrary? Does he not conclude to a fundamental pessimism?
To this fundamental pessimism, ironically most available to Man
precisely when he is at his brightest and bravest (for nothing much is
available to the stupid and cowardly), Covenantal Theology gives the
same answer that it always does:
the sole answer to the pessimism that Man perennially
discovers is the crucified Lord of history, the New
Covenant in the One Sacrifice, sacramentally
represented in the Church's free, public, liturgical
mediation of Her faith.
All else reduces Man either to a chaos or a necessity -- or asks him
to spend his life lying about what he nevertheless knows to be true.
Since Catholic theology itself, whether modern or traditional,
accepts a dehistoricized cosmology as its own intellectual foundation,
it can not oppose Mr. Minsky's argument in any intellectually
principled way.
So, it opposes it in unprincipled ways. In this manner Catholic
theology is reduced either to simply looking stupid -- primitive
religionists unable even to stammer in the face of science -- or to
looking smugly stupid -- primitive religionists who say they are
devoted to "reason," but who are so blandly out of touch with modern
science that they not only ignore any scientific conclusions that are
inconvenient to 'belief,' they are proud that they do so.
Mr. Minsky's vanishing middle box is therefore not an example of
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.