In answering this question we run into certain difficulties.
Just as Protestant theologians have written very little on the
subject of festivity, perhaps as a result of the Protestant preoccupation with the moral and intellectual aspects of religion,
so also there is very little written either by Protestant or
Catholic theologians on fantasy. In fact, there is not much
theological literature on this subject at all. There is, however,
a long tradition, especially in Roman Catholic thought, of attention to what has sometimes been called “intuition” or
“theoria,” a type of thinking that is not immediately concerned
with solving problems but is more or less pure thought. “‘Theoria,” according to this tradition, is to pragmatic thinking what
play is to work. It is free, noninstrumental, and engaged in for
its own sake. As Josef Pieper says, “theoria’” occurs only when
we see the world as something more than a field for human
accomplishment.’ ““Theoria,” like fantasy, is an activity that
defies all existing canons of the “useful” or the “realistic.” By
putting together what Catholic thinkers have said about “theoria” with what Protestants have said about “myth,” we come
close to a theology of fantasy.