It is not a truth, but a truth-telling thing. That Christianity possess the unique ability to discern ‘illogical truths that the monstrous divergence between man and animal is in need of an explanation that Christianity is capable of balancing seemingly opposing forces, and that it is this balancing (as opposed to a compromising) of these opposing forces which sets it above the rest – what might be called the paradoxes of Christianity. Rather, it is a vast accumulation of reasons. When he comes around to discussing Christianity one cannot pin down any overarching epiphany due to which Chesterton accepts Christianity, for the reason that it isn’t any one reason. It has no more questions to ask it has questioned itself… It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers.” The culmination of this rests in the end of ‘free thought’: “It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. As Chesterton notes: “When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom… I did try to found a heresy of my own and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.”Ĭhesterton’s apologetic is one of the common sense, taking the reader turn by turn through each philosophy which pushed him away from the world and towards Christianity. His analogy is one of an adventurer setting off to discover a new land – or a thinker setting out to formulate a new philosophy – only to find upon completion that his new land was really the old one, that his new philosophy had been set forth over two-thousand years before. The flow of the book follows what Chesterton points out as being his own journey in discovery of the Christian faith. Wells’ essay ‘The Skepticism of the Instrument’, and much of what Chesterton writes in Orthodoxy seems to be a rebuttal to Wells’ skepticism. The former was formed as a rebuttal to all the popular thinkers of Chesterton’s day, and having been criticized for not having offered an alternative he set out to write Orthodoxy.Ĭomplimenting Chesterton’s antagonistic nature the book’s structure parodies the format to H.G. The book is what one might call the second in a series, preceded by Heretics. I think I may say with some certainty that it is the book which spurned me to think critically about my faith, to delve into the pool that is theology. There are few books which I am more indebted to than Chesterton’s Orthodoxy.
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