Orthodoxy

Rating:
Summary: A detective's romance
Review: Before his series of Father Brown mysteries, G.K. Chesterton wrote "Orthodoxy," an autobiographical 'detective' story of how he came to believe the Christian faith. Drawing from "the truth of some stray legend or from the falsehood of some dominant philosophy...an anarchist club or a Babylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest parish church," Mr. Chesterton playfully and inductively reasons his way toward the one worldview that best explains and preserves the phenomena in the world he found around himself.

The world around Mr. Chesterton was rife with Modernism in the early twentieth century. Based on philosophies of the late nineteenth century, religious and political traditions were being questioned. Anarchism, communism, and socialism were the parlor topics of the day; the merely symbolic importance of religion was being settled upon. These are the roots of our post-modern society today in which the meaning of nearly everything (even words, according to literary deconstructionists) is now in doubt. At one point in the chapter entitled "The Suicide of Thought," Mr. Chesterton quips, "We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table." An exaggeration even today, undoubtedly. Still, we have traveled quite a distance philosophically since the era before the World Wars, and "Orthodoxy" is an excellent snapshot of where we've come from.

But be warned: This snapshot captures a lot of active thought. It took me a couple of reads over as many years to get a handle on the structure of the book, and now the rest of it has been becoming clearer to me. Part of the problem is Mr. Chesterton's writing style. There is much playfulness in his language, and a reader could mistakenly conclude that the author's reasoning relies heavily upon wordplay, the turn of a phrase to turn the tables on his opponents. It can become frustrating if one isn't careful. Mr. Chesterton himself acknowledges this impression, "Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise the most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused." But don't miss the meat for the gravy (or the salad for the dressing, as your case may be). The potency of his arguments doesn't rely on his clever semantics but on his connections between observed facts and the ancient, corresponding orthodoxy of Christianity. Mr. Chesterton has fun with words because he can, not because he needs to.

This mixture of cleverness and careful thinking ultimately leads Mr. Chesterton to this conclusion: Christian faith is well-reasoned trust in Christ. And the desire for well-reasoned trust is a "practical romance," as Mr. Chesterton calls it--a need in the ordinary person for "the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure...an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome." A way to accept the knowable while looking beyond it toward what is yet to be known.

Mr. Chesterton wrote "Orthodoxy" for people looking for that kind of romance. "If anyone is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the phrases in an omnibus, the accidents of politics or the pains of youth came together in a certain order to produce a certain conviction of Christian orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book." However, this book isn't for everyone. "If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing." The inconvincible cannot be convinced. Yet the skeptical (such as Mr. Chesterton once was) can be because they are the doubters who're still looking around. I myself come from a skeptic's background and regard "Orthodoxy" as a plausible, if sometimes difficult to comprehend, and wonderful way someone can come to trust the claims of Christianity.

Rating:
Summary: A detective's romance
Review: Before his series of Father Brown mysteries, G.K. Chesterton wrote "Orthodoxy," an autobiographical 'detective' story of how he came to believe the Christian faith. Drawing from "the truth of some stray legend or from the falsehood of some dominant philosophy...an anarchist club or a Babylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest parish church," Mr. Chesterton playfully and inductively reasons his way toward the one worldview that best explains and preserves the phenomena in the world he found around himself.

The world around Mr. Chesterton was rife with Modernism in the early twentieth century. Based on philosophies of the late nineteenth century, religious and political traditions were being questioned. Anarchism, communism, and socialism were the parlor topics of the day; the merely symbolic importance of religion was being settled upon. These are the roots of our post-modern society today in which the meaning of nearly everything (even words, according to literary deconstructionists) is now in doubt. At one point in the chapter entitled "The Suicide of Thought," Mr. Chesterton quips, "We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table." An exaggeration even today, undoubtedly. Still, we have traveled quite a distance philosophically since the era before the World Wars, and "Orthodoxy" is an excellent snapshot of where we've come from.

But be warned: This snapshot captures a lot of active thought. It took me a couple of reads over as many years to get a handle on the structure of the book, and now the rest of it has been becoming clearer to me. Part of the problem is Mr. Chesterton's writing style. There is much playfulness in his language, and a reader could mistakenly conclude that the author's reasoning relies heavily upon wordplay, the turn of a phrase to turn the tables on his opponents. It can become frustrating if one isn't careful. Mr. Chesterton himself acknowledges this impression, "Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise the most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused." But don't miss the meat for the gravy (or the salad for the dressing, as your case may be). The potency of his arguments doesn't rely on his clever semantics but on his connections between observed facts and the ancient, corresponding orthodoxy of Christianity. Mr. Chesterton has fun with words because he can, not because he needs to.

This mixture of cleverness and careful thinking ultimately leads Mr. Chesterton to this conclusion: Christian faith is well-reasoned trust in Christ. And the desire for well-reasoned trust is a "practical romance," as Mr. Chesterton calls it--a need in the ordinary person for "the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure...an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome." A way to accept the knowable while looking beyond it toward what is yet to be known.

Mr. Chesterton wrote "Orthodoxy" for people looking for that kind of romance. "If anyone is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the phrases in an omnibus, the accidents of politics or the pains of youth came together in a certain order to produce a certain conviction of Christian orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book." However, this book isn't for everyone. "If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing." The inconvincible cannot be convinced. Yet the skeptical (such as Mr. Chesterton once was) can be because they are the doubters who're still looking around. I myself come from a skeptic's background and regard "Orthodoxy" as a plausible, if sometimes difficult to comprehend, and wonderful way someone can come to trust the claims of Christianity.

Rating:
Summary: A detective's romance
Review: Before his series of Father Brown mysteries, G.K. Chesterton wrote "Orthodoxy," an autobiographical 'detective' story of how he came to believe the Christian faith. Drawing from "the truth of some stray legend or from the falsehood of some dominant philosophy...an anarchist club or a Babylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest parish church," Mr. Chesterton playfully and inductively reasons his way toward the one worldview that best explains and preserves the phenomena in the world he found around himself.

The world around Mr. Chesterton was rife with Modernism in the early twentieth century. Based on philosophies of the late nineteenth century, religious and political traditions were being questioned. Anarchism, communism, and socialism were the parlor topics of the day; the merely symbolic importance of religion was being settled upon. These are the roots of our post-modern society today in which the meaning of nearly everything (even words, according to literary deconstructionists) is now in doubt. At one point in the chapter entitled "The Suicide of Thought," Mr. Chesterton quips, "We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table." An exaggeration even today, undoubtedly. Still, we have traveled quite a distance philosophically since the era before the World Wars, and "Orthodoxy" is an excellent snapshot of where we've come from.

But be warned: This snapshot captures a lot of active thought. It took me a couple of reads over as many years to get a handle on the structure of the book, and now the rest of it has been becoming clearer to me. Part of the problem is Mr. Chesterton's writing style. There is much playfulness in his language, and a reader could mistakenly conclude that the author's reasoning relies heavily upon wordplay, the turn of a phrase to turn the tables on his opponents. It can become frustrating if one isn't careful. Mr. Chesterton himself acknowledges this impression, "Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise the most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused." But don't miss the meat for the gravy (or the salad for the dressing, as your case may be). The potency of his arguments doesn't rely on his clever semantics but on his connections between observed facts and the ancient, corresponding orthodoxy of Christianity. Mr. Chesterton has fun with words because he can, not because he needs to.

This mixture of cleverness and careful thinking ultimately leads Mr. Chesterton to this conclusion: Christian faith is well-reasoned trust in Christ. And the desire for well-reasoned trust is a "practical romance," as Mr. Chesterton calls it--a need in the ordinary person for "the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure...an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome." A way to accept the knowable while looking beyond it toward what is yet to be known.

Mr. Chesterton wrote "Orthodoxy" for people looking for that kind of romance. "If anyone is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the phrases in an omnibus, the accidents of politics or the pains of youth came together in a certain order to produce a certain conviction of Christian orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book." However, this book isn't for everyone. "If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing." The inconvincible cannot be convinced. Yet the skeptical (such as Mr. Chesterton once was) can be because they are the doubters who're still looking around. I myself come from a skeptic's background and regard "Orthodoxy" as a plausible, if sometimes difficult to comprehend, and wonderful way someone can come to trust the claims of Christianity.

Rating:
Summary: Witty defense of the historic faith
Review: Chesterton always brings a new twist to the reader's perspective on life. By bringing such diverse topics as insanity, elfs, and the relevance of religion to the forefront, Chesterton interweaves the ancient truths of Christianity with a realistic view of the world. He does much to show that Christianity, by its alleged irrationalities, is the only rational explanation for all the quirks of life. This is Chesterton at his best, and must be read by anyone who is at all interested in the defense of classical Christianity.

Rating:
Summary: With witty language, the excitement of real life is revealed
Review: Chesterton shows us that God doesn't fit into anyone's box -- and that true faith is the most exciting & perilous thing of all. To truly believe leads us to truly live. This book is as witty as it is insightful -- and deserves to be read multiple times. It has had a profound influence on my view of God and has made the Him seem larger. A fascinating read.

Rating:
Summary: an entertaining read, even when you violently disagree
Review: Chesterton was a gleefully confessed madman and a genius with language, but he's also very "Johnsonian" in his own way--and by that I mean that much like dear Dr. Johnson he says everything so well ... that sometimes you're so delighted by the prosity that you don't consider the message. I'm less blinded by the textual pyrotechnics than I once was, and I'm less wholeheartedly dazzled by the philosophy than I once found myself ... but it's still an interesting read and it still makes some remarkable so-obvious-you-never-noticed-it observations about life, the universe and everything.

The best thing you can say about Chesterton is that you don't have to agree with him to enjoy reading him.

Rating:
Summary: an entertaining read, even when you violently disagree
Review: Chesterton was a gleefully confessed madman and a genius with language, but he's also very "Johnsonian" in his own way--and by that I mean that much like dear Dr. Johnson he says everything so well ... that sometimes you're so delighted by the prosity that you don't consider the message. I'm less blinded by the textual pyrotechnics than I once was, and I'm less wholeheartedly dazzled by the philosophy than I once found myself ... but it's still an interesting read and it still makes some remarkable so-obvious-you-never-noticed-it observations about life, the universe and everything.

The best thing you can say about Chesterton is that you don't have to agree with him to enjoy reading him.

Rating:
Summary: FRUSTRATINGLY GOOD
Review: Chesterton's books often defy reviewing and 'Orthodoxy' is probably the prime instance of the class. The dilemma is how to praise it in a five-star mode, without burying it for its faults-I not being a skilled panegyrist or spin doctor. So, the bad news first, and I hope you bear with me.

While it is fair to say that this is a very rewarding read in the long run, I admit that even as an avid and omnivorous reader it took me about five passes to feel I grasped all of it, and I would still approach an exam question on it with trepidation. It is also dated in places, but this is trivial. Chesterton is not so much a windbag, or really repetitious, but plain garrulous. He himself admits that this is 'a sort of slovenly autobiography', and that it details the intellectual and emotional path that brought him to the orthodoxy of the church and the Apostles' Creed in a 'set of pictures rather than a series of deductions'. Even worse, our genial genius says that he sets out to write all this personal history of theology and soul-forming for 'any average reader'. It is true. He uses very few difficult terms and technicalities. But you cannot study this like a textbook or read it like a novel, unless it be taken as on odd species of the stream of consciousness type. He does not so much write as think out loud on the paper. It requires that you absorb his meaning by a sort of spiritual osmosis. And of course to do that you have to open your heart as well as your mind, which implies considerable trust in the author. An element of humility helps, as well as some patience. Is that brainwashing? In no way: the whole time you have the option to disagree or stop reading. After all, (as he would say), it is only a book which enables you to meet the author by your own free will.

That said, it is a happy and good-hearted story as much as an intellectual odyssey. Everyone who successfully writes a book of this type succeeds in a very personal style. (Augustine's 'Confessions' and C.S. Lewis's 'Pilgrim's Regress' spring to mind.) Chesterton is a deeply modern Victorian, which is why he is constantly being republished. He accurately perceived the worldview and mood of his day and foresaw where it would lead in the future-our today. He is a whole and wholesome person. His faith is integrated. He knows how to enjoy himself. His disposition to the body, the mind, and the heart is holistic, even Gestaltic. They all function as they should in a fully whole person, a sum which is far more than its parts. It is good psychology and sociology, much more so than a shelf-full of academic textbooks on these subjects, I know, I have a few shelves-full.

A chapter synopsis runs the risk of being absurd, but here it is:

Chapter 1: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else
His motivation statement, to produce a positive account of his personal belief.

Ch. 2: The Maniac
'Sin' not being a popular concept he proposes the tendency to madness or sanity as the test of a good philosophy. What stops us being merely happy on earth? Egotism/self-centredness a universal problem.

Ch. 3: The Suicide of Thought
Reason itself is a matter of faith. No faith leads to no thinking. The errors of (philosophical) materialism; Evolutionism (not the theory of evolution itself); nominalism (philosophical not churchmanship); moral relativism; pragmatism/utilitarianism.

Ch. 4: The Ethics of Elfland
Nature of tradition and democracy and their relationship. Myths/fairy tales and magical stories are not mere tall tales but forms of great truths. Myths capture meaning and follow an inner core of rationality despite being 'unscientific' in magical spells and items. Logic in Elfland is always logic, but in the real world scientific 'laws' are not laws, just 'weird repetitions', containing mechanism but not meaning. [Hence the need for science fiction, to put the myth back into science.] The greatest myths contain the 'Doctrine of Conditional Joy'. Eg, the apple in the garden of Eden in Genesis; Cinderella's instruction to leave the ball before midnight; and Pandora's Box. There is a pervasive meaning in all things, or meaninglessness in all things.

Ch. 5: The Flag of the World
Contra relativistic sociology/anthropology, common morality (fairness, respect for life, restraint of violence) is common to all civilised peoples of history. Being and existence is fundamentally good, not neutral, therefore we must have 'universal patriotism...a primal loyalty to life'. Humanism is a weak-willed reality-denying error. Suicide condemned as rebellion and rejection of life.

Ch. 6: The Paradoxes of Christianity
Christianity accused of wildly and almost impossibly opposite errors. Eg, Christianity is morbidly fixated on sin and damnation, but is also somehow a rose-tinted spectacles pie-in-the-sky type of religion. Or, Christianity is soppy-for gullible children and old-maidish, but also too aggressive, producing Crusaders like Richard Coeur de Leon. Is it possible to coherently compound the elements of truth in these accusations?

Ch. 7: The Eternal Revolution
Is human progress possible, and what do we mean by progress? Evolution. Marxism simplistic, bound to fail [and yea, verily, it came to pass]. Doctrine of original sin.

Ch. 8: The Romance of Orthodoxy
Miracles. Creeds. Science. Buddhism. '...to a Christian existence is a story'.

Ch. 9: Authority and the Adventurer

Trinitarianism. Free will and rationality. Jesus and the Church. Why the Roman Empire fell, why the life of Christ is the life everlasting.

Rating:
Summary: Quite Good, with some exceptions
Review: Chesterton, not unlike Peter Kreeft, is a Roman Catholic thinker who has gained a noticeable readership among the ranks of evangelicals. This particular book is regularly referred to and relied upon in evangelical works on all sorts of subjects. As such, it is a book that evangelicals should read and take notice of. And clearly, it is a book that many Roman Catholics will empathize with due to its clear advancement of the Roman Catholic church as the purest and most correct source of religion.

As has been pointed out by others, in advancing Christian orthodoxy, Chesterton takes a decidedly unorthodox approach. Instead of advancing objective evidences or elaborate philosophical arguments, he chooses instead an approach that is actually quite funny in a way - an approach that at its core, resembles Calvinistic presuppositionalism. This is funny since Chesterton, on more than one occasion in this book, flippantly rejects all things Calvinistic, yet I found his entire book to be rooted in an apologetic approach that is in many ways similar to Van Til. He asserts, consistently with Van Tillianism, that those who offer objections to Christianity fundamentally lack an epistemic basis to do so since their objections presuppose and rely upon Christian values, the origin of which they later argue against. This is brought out very clearly in his 'Paradoxes of Christianity' chapter where he critiques the hopeless inconsistency of Christianity's critics. This was a real treat to read.

In the end, Chesterton advances the view that wonder, happiness, joy, and a proper balance between optimism and pessimism can only be found in Christianity. This conclusion is based upon his own experience, and bolstered by many hypothetical and theoretical examples meant to further the point.

I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 for reasons that others might deem unfair. While there were many sections of this book that were very insightful and on point, there were also sections where Chesterton seemed to be rambling toward no particular end. This might be an unfair criticism because the book was not meant to be a systematic apologetic for Christianity, but instead a semi-autobiographical account that charts Chesterton's own thought process. As a result, the reader will also notice that Orthodoxy is a work that is nearly devoid of Biblical references, much less exegesis. I found this problematic precisely because one could read this book, conclude that Chesterton was completely right in everything he said, and still be able to reject Christianity completely since the book did not interact at all with Biblical truths.

Lastly, I must say having read this book, it is no surprise to me that a guy like Philip Yancey would be bonkers over it (Yancey wrote the introduction to the edition of the book I read). Chesterton was a man who embraced Roman Catholicism in a Protestant environment, and did so defiantly. In many ways, Chesterton writes as if he is an army of one. Not coincidentally, this also tends to be the attitude that Yancey has adopted relative to his views within evangelicalism. As such, Yancey's introduction to this book mindlessly strikes out against other evangelicals who don't see the world the way he does, and it is clear that his inspiration lies at least in part in Chesterton. I couldn't help but get the feeling that both of these individuals, to greater or lesser degrees, came to embrace the idea of being contrary for the sake of being contrary, and then justifying it with language extolling the virtue of being revolutionary, as if this is supposed to be an end in itself. It is admittedly hard for me to have much respect for such views, and maybe I'm misreading both men. But that was certainly the indication I got after reading this book, and it is a position that is not only anti-intellectual, but easily becomes completely self-serving.

In the end, the book is a good read which makes many insightful points. Chesterton clearly believed that truth should translate to joy and wonder. This is certainly a message that all believers should pay attention to, and to this end, I think this book succeeds.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Apologetic Literature
Review: CS Lewis is hailed as perhaps the most widely-known Christian apologist. This may be true, but Chesterton is by far the most satisfying apologist from a literary standpoint. In Orthodoxy, he writes in response to a newspaper journalist's attacks on Christianity, and does so in such compelling prose that this is considered not just a Christian classic, but a literary treasure. He delves into parallels and metaphors so perfect that they lend credibility to his arguments and serve to maintain a reader's interest throughout.

Do not be deceived, however, into thinking this is an easy read. It most certainly is not. Chesterton's prose is written in the English of his time, which may seem antiquated to some readers, and his style is very dense and requires concentration. Not the concentration required for, say, Ulysses, but neither is it fluff to be read in an afternoon. To the reader willing to devote the time and energy, this is a treasure.