Leithart Lite

So, here is my oversimplified, though I hope not wildly inaccurate, summary of Peter Leithart's Deep Comedy.

Citing examples from antiquity - Hesiod, Ovid, Virgil, Homer, etc - all the way to modernity - Descartes, Derrida, Kant, Freud, etc. - Mr. Leithart demonstrates that all non-Christian views of history and metaphysics, as well as the literature which proceeds from these views are ultimately and inescapably tragic.

A pagan view of history is embodied in its longing for the past - the Golden Age or Utopia to which all desperately desire to return. Alternatively, a truly Christian view knows that the best is yet to come (btw, listen to Stacey Kent's version of that song! :-). Not only will there be simple resurrection, restoration or return, but the new will surpass the former in every way. That which began in a very good Garden culminates in a glorified Garden-City. This eschatology of hope is unique to the Christian view.

A pagan view of metaphysics, which precedes and instructs a pagan view of history, assumes that any expression of being, thought, word or action that is either derivative from or supplemental to the original is necessarily inferior. All movement or change from the original is a descent toward decay and death. Conversely, a Christian Trinitarian theology rescues us from this tragic descent, recognizing that "the 'Second' is fully equal to and is in fact the glory of the 'First.'" Motion, change, and supplementation are not inherently tragic, but a reflection and expression of the Creator who transforms us and the world around us from one degree of glory to a greater glory.

Because pagan literature is the creative spawn of tragic views of history and metaphysics, it too results in inevitably tragic ends. Leithart asserts that even those works which end somewhat happily, never achieve the level of deep comedy which can only spring from a view of history and theology that allows an end infinitely more glorious than the glorious original or beginning. The very possibility of deep comedy is exclusive to a Gospel-laden eschatology of hope and a Christian Trinitarian view of God.

There you go. Deep Comedy for dummies...or at least my version of it!