Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton is one of the great thinkers of the 20^th century, but sometimes his brilliance can be blinding, and I struggle to grasp his meanings. That certainly hasn’t kept me from trying (as my book log of 17 of his titles shows!)

Chesterton is best remembered for responding to the famous skeptics of his day (George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and Frederick Nietzsche, to name a few) with his hard-hitting yet witty counter-arguments against their staunch atheism. Orthodoxy, his best-known rebuttal, outlines his reasons for embracing Christian truths. His principal reason was that Christianity is the only religion that gives a sane explanation for this world. But he is quick to say that it is more than a conglomeration of right opinions: I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me.

One quote from the book has stayed with me for many weeks. What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty had moved from the organ of ambition and has settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part that he ought not to assert – himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason. This seems to define so much of the thinking I see in our culture (i.e. the triumph of self-delusion over clear biblical precepts).

Chesterton’s sense of wonder and “joie de vivre” keep his writings from being too didactic. I especially loved Chapter 4 on how fairy tales shaped his heart to believe in God. I had always believed that the world involved magic; now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. Later he remarks, I left the fairy tales on the nursery floor and have not found any books so sensible since. (!)

His closing chapter was on the healthful confines of Christianity. Within its supposedly constricting limits, there is unrestricted joy. He writes, Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls, but they are the walls of a playground. He writes beautifully of the freedom and exhilaration of knowing one’s Creator and of knowing one’s purpose as His creatures (as opposed to the despair of nihilism.)

I’ll leave you with one final quote by G.K. on the Trinity: It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology. Suffice it to say that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and as open as an English fireside; this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart.

This was my bedtime book for many months. I read two to three pages per night because that was all my brain could handle. But I think Chesterton is better read in small, well-chewed bites. It doesn’t do to read him in a hurry. 

Blessings,