In case the few, yet distinguished, readers of this blog haven’t noticed, over the past month or so I have been working my way through Gilbert K. Chesterton’s book(s) “Heretics / Orthodoxy.” This book was originally 2 books, one aptly named “Heretics” and the other “Orthodoxy” but has been combined into one edition.
I say that I “worked” through this volume precisely because at times I did have to toil to wrap my brain around early 20th century vocabulary and/or cultural references. I have stated previously that I felt that Chesterton was the Dr. Albert Mohler of his day, very acutely aware of the popular philosophies that were circulating and influencing the times. And like Dr. Mohler, Chesterton has a way of cutting to the heart and/or foundation of each philosophy and uncover the fatal flaws and mistakes made by their proponents. Chesterton was up against philosophies of Nietzsche, Marx, Kipling, and Shaw to name a few.
In the first part of the book Chesterton takes on specific philosophies, deconstructs them and points out their fallacies and absurdities. Each chapter is filled with intricate, sometimes paradoxical arguments as He points out that Kipling in loving the world and its civilizations became imprisoned to a superficial knowledge of it. Chesterton demolishes Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and the Nietzsche philosophy of the super-human. He lays bare the pessimistic and non-mysterious thoughts with statements like
“The man who said, ‘Blessed he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed,’ put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth ‘Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.’”
A common thread that appears throughout the “Heretics” chapters is that Chesterton shows the reader that the philosophies of the day are little more than an idealism (and often a pessimistic idealism at that) that is not based on any sense of reality. This idealism leaves no room for mystery, takes the wonder out of life and creation and confuses morality. But what I truly found amazing was that the idealism of the early 1900’s is quite similar to the idealism of the early 2000’s. The world is so busy knowing everything that it truly knows nothing. The world is so idealistically bent toward inclusive intellectualism that it removes itself from any real moral foundation. I think that the scary difference between the early 1900s and the present is Chesterton was fighting this faulty philosophy primarily with admitted atheists and agnostics while we are battling this faulty philosophy with people who claim to be Christians.
The second part of the book, Orthodoxy, was written as a response to his critics who claimed that he attacked others philosophies without defining his own philosophy. This is basically a philosophical auto-biography of how Chesterton went from being an agnostic to believing in Christianity. In the opening chapter he defines himself as:
“the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before…I freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found that I was eighteen hundred years behind it. I did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths…but I have discovered not that they weren’t truths, but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom.”
The following chapters offer a keen insight into the thought process that God used to bring Chesterton to Christ. Of these chapters the one entitled “The Suicide of Thought” really stood out. In this chapter Chesterton demonstrates the good and the inherent danger of the strict intellectual and/or skeptic that questions divine authority.
“The peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself….It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a skeptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, “Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic?” “The young skeptic says, ‘I have a right to think for myself.’ But the old skeptic, the complete skeptic, says, ‘I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.’” And so Chesterton realizes that there must be some truth that is beyond human thought and comprehension. There must be a foundation, a standard by which mankind can reason, a standard that is fixed and yet in some ways mysterious. An intellectual and/or skeptic thinks himself brilliant for asking questions, yet Chesterton responds “We have found all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers.”
If you only have time in your life to read one chapter of this book…read “The Suicide of Thought.”
Due to its philosophical nature this book is great for world-view issues, but is not meant to be a book on apologetics. The reader will need to have a dictionary nearby and wouldn’t hurt to have a set of encyclopedias to look up vague cultural references. However the reward for reading this book is great. It stretches the mind and forces one to put his philosophical beliefs through the ringer. There are hundreds of quotes that I would love to include but I will close with this quote – a quote that summarizes the heart of the Christian experience, and the ultimate end of Chesterton’s journey to orthodoxy: “Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”
Thanks for the book review. I’ve read pieces of Orthodoxy but this has inspired me to pick up the two-volume book and dive in once again.
One area I’d like to challenge in your review is your statement: “Chesterton was fighting this faulty philosophy primarily with admitted atheists and agnostics while we are battling this faulty philosophy with people who claim to be Christians.” If this is true, it is only because “we” are choosing to fight that fight. I’ve said often that it’s a crying shame that all we can do as Christian “intellectuals” is point at each other and say “you’re wrong” when the world around doesn’t give a rat’s a. We could never know this but if Chesterton were writing today, I doubt he’d just rag on emergent or catholics.
We are confronted today with a new “breed” of atheism which is changing the face of secular culture. Agnosticism is, I would say, the dominate belief system in many areas of the country. And they don’t care if we’re calling each other heretics. Thankfully we do have some great works like “Atheist Delusions” by David Hart which are, as Chesterton probably would have, entering into intellectual dialogue with the Richard Dawkinses and other prominent atheists.
Anyway, I’m rambling a bit but in a nutshell, when we realize that most of our contemporary works of Christian apologetic are addressing “erroneous” Christian belief, we’re missing an opportunity to speak to our entire secular culture which doesn’t care, for example, if some Christian theologians question the existance of hell. Maybe we should learn from Chesterton and begin conversations with the atheists and agnostics.
There are things that Christians argue about that the world doesn’t give a rats behind about. But while some of those things might actually be worthless arguments there are others that matter greatly whether the world cares about them or not. Simply put – what the world thinks is not necessarily a barometer on whether something is important or not. (case in point – the seeker-sensitive “movement”).
But when it comes to what we believe – it is important to know what the Bible teaches so that we can present it clearly to the lost world. I actually liked Tony Jones’ post on his dinner with John Piper – and he recounted some advise that Piper gave that alas will probably go unheeded – that these confusing doctrines of the atonement do more to confuse the world than to win them to Christ.
Every generation of Christian has had to fight battles not only from without but also from within – and it’s not a recent thing as can be seen in Acts and the Epistles. The purity of the Gospel is at stake….and that makes the stakes very high!
So to balance: There are trivial things that Christians fight over that are more of a distraction than anything else…but if we trivialize the major things we run the risk of confusing the gospel if not losing it outright!
Man…right now I’m searching for the article by the prominent atheist who’s debating a Christian and has more respect for him because he doesn’t shy away from the hard / politically incorrect teachings of Scripture than those who try to gloss over the tough questions of Hell, creation, etc. If I find it I’ll post it.
Got it….here ya go…an excellent link:
http://blog.9marks.org/2009/10/what-hitchens-has-learned-from-wilson.html
“the article by the prominent atheist who’s debating a Christian and has more respect for him because he doesn’t shy away from the hard / politically incorrect teachings of Scripture than those who try to gloss over the tough questions of Hell, creation, etc”
—- You know what it is, I think that it is a gross simplification and stereotype to say that the reason some theologians and pastors do not fall completely in line with every bit of evangelical theology is because they’re “shying away from the hard politically incorrect teachings” when the reality is that many/most folks, even of whom I disagree, are not trying to be politically correct but rather Biblical, even if they come to wrong conclusions. The problem I have with alot of the neo-reformed guys is that they stopped reforming a few hundred years ago.
Thanks for the article. I just finished skimming a book by Hitchens.
It’s not that we’re ever going to find 100% agreement on everything – but where I see the “shying away” are, and have been seen historically as major, and what could be seen as eternal life changing, issues. One can be sincere…and devastatingly wrong. (kudo’s to Chesterton on that one)
As for the reformation – I’m having fun following your comment thread on Catholics / Protestants. I believe that it’s MacArthur who said to R.C. Sproul – The problem with the reformed is that you didn’t take the reformation far enough!