‘Orthodoxy’: A Spirited Defence of Christianity
A review of ‘Orthodoxy’, by G.K. Chesterton, Hodder & Stoughton, 1996.
You will remember that in Heretics, G.K. Chesterton rebuts the ruling secular views of his age and defends Christian orthodoxy in a series of essays. He considered Orthodoxy a companion piece, one in which he attempts ‘an explanation, not of whether the Christian faith can be believed, but of how [he] personally [has] come to believe in it’. He had been attacked by G.S. Street, a critic has for the most part been forgotten, and wrote it in response. As Chesterton explained, Street was ‘not going to bother about his theology until I had really stated mine’. In other words, Chesterton was under pressure not just to condemn those with whom he disagreed, but to set out his own stall.
So this is a personal book, if not quite a spiritual memoir in the style of, say, The Seven Storey Mountain or The Long Loneliness. Orthodoxy traces Chesterton’s journey to embracing the Christian worldview. And he starts by saying that Christianity met the needs of both his reason and imagination – needs that do not necessarily sit easily next to one another. Indeed, Chesterton argues in the first chapter that human needs are always in conflict. Life is full of paradox. And so is Christianity. But this is not proof of error: as Simone Weil tells us, ‘Contradiction is the criterion of the real’. Christianity, says Chesterton, balances seemingly opposite truths, such as justice and mercy.
As Simone Weil tells us, ‘Contradiction is the criterion of the real’.
That is the theme of a chapter titled ‘The Paradoxes of Christianity’. Each chapter tackles a distinct theme. ‘The Maniac’ explores the dangers of pure rationalism. ‘The Ethics of Elfland’ celebrates the mystery and magic of Christianity. But the theme of contrast: logic against madness, modernity against tradition, scepticism against belief, runs throughout. Christianity is humble and bold. It calls the faithful to say they are sinners and act like saints. And the chief contrast (which, upon reflection is revealed not to be a contrast) is faith and reason. The Christian worldview, writes Chesterton, is both rational and poetic. It satisfies the mind’s need for truth and the heart’s need for beauty. Materialism is much too narrow: it strips life of its power to inspire wonder. Christianity allows for mystery and joy without devaluing truth.
Of course, this will trouble you if you find it tricky to indulge the possibility that the world belongs equally to the scientist and the philosopher. The Mona Lisa is pigment on canvas and a woman with a cryptic smile. We are primates subject to causality and human persons endowed with free will. Love is neurochemistry and a sacred feeling worth of respect. And so on. For Iain McGilchrist, these two ways of looking may correspond to the functions of the different sides of the brain: the left sees a world of static parts; the right, a flowing whole. Bergson saw time as a series of instances (temps) and a single unbroken flow, like a river (durée). The Buddhists speak of the conventional and the absolute: the world of everyday objects and the real world, which is an undifferentiated Gestalt. The Christian faith, for Chesterton, helps us to reconcile ourselves with this basic duality.
Still, the thing is dense. Every sentence is charged with meaning. There is wit, wordplay, uncountable citations. Chesterton is a good writer, but also imaginative, and imaginative people tend to jump between topics, often speaking in subclauses and subclauses within subclauses. Consequently the arguments Chesterton mounts can feel indirect, even chaotic. He leans heavily on analogy and metaphor, which will vex those who seek firm, clear ideas and explanations. Not that Chesterton would care: he was a cheerful sort of bloke. His vivaciousness and buoyancy shine through, even when he is taking what he sees as quite serious errors in contemporary thinking to task.
The arguments Chesterton mounts can feel indirect, even chaotic.
This is part of what makes Orthodoxy work: it mixes reason with that almost childlike wonder that faith? on Chesterton’s view, helps to nurture. And this is why Chesterton was fun to read: he was both philosopher and theologian, thinker and storyteller. There is none of the dryness and solemnity we have to come to expect from academics and intellectuals (to say nothing of the devoutly religious) even as we are asked to consider such serious questions as the purpose of life, the enchantment of the world, and the coherence of our own particular Weltanschaaung.
You do not have to have grappled with the centuries-old debate between faith and reason or even be religious to like a little book like this one. It might even be the case that those for whom religious belief is utterly baffling will get more out of Orthodoxy that a card-carrying Christian. At any rate, whether you pick it up or don’t, Chesterton is never boring.
