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Orthodoxy

G.K. Chesterton

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Aug 25, 2009 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: theology, christian-apologetics

Chesterton was one of the premier Christian thinkers of his generation, fully engaged in the intellectual debates of his day (which turn out to be not much different from those of our own!). His writing is frequently characterized by love of paradox, exuberant humor, and intellectual rigor which can make his thought demanding to follow in places (a quality mitigated by his clear effort to tailor the presentation to the average educated reader). All of those qualities are in evidence here. It's a Chesterton was one of the premier Christian thinkers of his generation, fully engaged in the intellectual debates of his day (which turn out to be not much different from those of our own!). His writing is frequently characterized by love of paradox, exuberant humor, and intellectual rigor which can make his thought demanding to follow in places (a quality mitigated by his clear effort to tailor the presentation to the average educated reader). All of those qualities are in evidence here. It's also important to keep in mind the purpose of the book; he's not trying to lay out a universally rounded, all-bases-covered systematic apologia for Christianity. Rather, he sets himself the much more limited task of indicating the psychological processes behind his own initial and continued acceptance of Christian belief. He invites the reader to follow his thoughts and feelings; how much apologetic value they have will depend on the degree to which individual readers can relate to them. (The book is also not --though its title might create that impression-- an attempt to provide an exhaustive and "authoritative" hair-splitting definition of just what "orthodoxy" believes; which is fortunate, since I tend to be suspicious of and impatient with such attempts at rigid definition. :-))

As the Goodreads description of the book indicates, Chesterton makes it clear that his embrace of Christianity was not irrational as such; indeed, he characterizes himself as a "rationalist," and submits rational reasoning on behalf of Christian truth claims. But he also makes clear his conviction that the success of reasoning as an approach to truth is heavily dependent on its first premises, and that the latter can be as (or more) validly grasped by intuition as by reasoning alone. (More on this below.) Another very valid and important insight here, IMO, is the assertion that the acceptance of big ideas (such as Christianity, or any other worldview) is not usually the result of one intellectual tour-de-force of reasoning, but rather the gradual result of a myriad of observations and impressions from many areas of human experience, all finally recognized as tending in the same direction. (I would add that this latter point tends to reinforce my conviction that people usually are not "argued into" believing in Christianity. Dealing with honest intellectual questions about Christian evidences is legitimate and helpful, both for believers and non-believers, but I think people accept Christianity, if at all, when they're ready inside --psychologically, emotionally and morally-- to do so, and not before.)

It's impossible to summarize the thought of a nearly-300 page book in a short review. Some of Chesterton's major points, however, are that Christianity uniquely meets the paradox of apparently opposing human psychological needs; that the moral critique of the existing order implicit in the doctrine of the Fall provides both the psychological spur for social reform and a consistent ideal for reform to aim at, in ways that some of the rival philosophies do not; that philosophies based on negation necessarily wind up negating the basis for confidence in Reason itself; and that a priori rejection of all empirical evidence for the miraculous on the grounds of its metaphysical impossibility is the opposite (not the epitome!) of evidence-based investigation.

Critics of Christianity who aren't ready, in the sense I referred to above, to be convinced obviously won't be convinced by this book. This is particularly true of spokespersons for hate-based "New Atheism," a few of whom have generated trash talk about Orthodoxy based on a "I'll hold my nose and read this horrible #@1*&(: just so I can expose its infamy to the world" approach. That's not an approach that usually produces any results that are intellectually worth replying to; but it might be pertinent here to address a few howlers. First, Chesterton does not attack reason as such here; his factual demonstration that insane people are often rigorously "rational," given their premises, isn't designed to prove that reason itself necessarily leads to lunacy, but that reasoning based on false premises can support lunacy. Second, the role of his references to "fairies" in the chapter "The Ethics of Elfland" and elsewhere in the book are clearly metaphorical, used in much the same way that his contemporary Francis P. Church uses Santa Claus in his famous "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" editorial (which also makes the statement, "You might as well not believe in fairies!" :-)); they serve as symbolic embodiments of a dimension of reality that includes the mysterious, the affectional, the intangible and immeasurable, that melts the hard iron "practicalities." (It's a metaphor, of course, with a humorous cast; and fanatics of any stripe aren't psychologically well-equipped to appreciate either metaphor or, especially, humor.) Third, Chesterton's contrast of Zola and Torquemada, in one of his characteristic paradoxes, neither states nor suggests that the former was morally inferior to the latter --their relative merits aren't even the subject of the contrast!

The 1908 diction here is clear enough for the average modern reader, and the book is actually a fairly quick read, except where you have to take some time to digest the thought. Some British place names, and a few references to other writers/thinkers of Chesterton's day, will be unfamiliar to most modern American readers; but the substance of the thought, and the issues being dealt with, aren't at all dated. I would recommend the book highly to readers of all stripes who enjoy grappling with serious ideas and existential questions. ...more

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