Finished G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy today.  Loved it.  Well worth the time.  Would like to read The Everlasting Man sometime, too – C.S. Lewis called it the best popular apologetic for Christianity he knew – but will probably wait for a while.  The final chapter of Orthodoxy, “Authority and the Adventurer,” outlines Chesterton’s case for Christian doctrines and dogmas, which he claims have not been overturned by modern science and thought.  Here’s a great sample: My own case for Christianity is rational; but it is not simple. It is an accumulation of varied facts, like the attitude of the ordinary agnostic….

Just finished chapter 8 of Orthodoxy, “The Romance of Orthodoxy,” which is Chesterton’s critique of several of the prevailing tenets of modernism.  Specifically, he argues that it is not liberal but rather illiberal to disbelieve in the possibility of miracles, that it is false that all religions are the same, and that the hope of immortality does not make life passive and empty but rather active and exciting.  There is a lot of interesting stuff in this chapter, such as his discussion of the differences between Christianity and Buddhism, or his reflection on Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, or the chapter’s…

In chapter 5, “The Paradoxes of Christianity,” Chesterton sets forth Christianity as the best explanation of the strangeness of the world: the paradoxical way in which the world is almost rational and orderly – and yet not quite so. He then surveys some of the most common modern arguments against Christianity and notes how they contradict one another: one writer accuses Christianity of being too militant; another of being too pacifist.  One writer complains that it is morbidly pessimistic; another, that it is unreasonably optimistic.  One writer says that it is inflexible and has not adjusted to the times; another that…

This is from the end of chapter 4, “The Ethics of Elf-land,” where he is describing his journey toward Christianity: I had always vaguely felt facts to be miracles in the sense that they are wonderful: now I began to think them miracles in the stricter sense that they were willful. I mean that they were, or might be, repeated exercises of some will. In short, I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed to a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious; that this world of ours…

Thus far into G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, I can only describe it by comparing it to C.S. Lewis’ writings.  It has the same winsome persuasion of argument, the same spiritual insight, the same economy of words and lucid prose.  Orthodoxy is marked by ironic turn after ironic turn, an extraordinary juxtaposition of high philosophy with mundane metaphor, an almost perfect clarity and succinctness.  Its one of those books where almost every sentence is quotable. Here are three sample quotes: 1) From Chapter II, The Maniac: A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of…

This is a real gem from G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, which I am listening to on my ipod these days and really enjoying. The fact that [the new rebel] doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself….