Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton

I never finished this--it was written two years ago--but here it is.   I have no idea where I was going with the last sentence.


Prior to reading Orthodoxy the first time, my expectation was that it would be a grand apologetics for Catholicism and Christianity, and I was greatly disappointed.  But near the end of that first reading, however, I had read somewhere that G.K. Chesterton had never intended to write an all-encompassing apologetics but rather to simply explain why Catholicism appealed to him. That is, it was his personal witness to the faith and to the truth. After that first reading, I accept and respect that.

Reading the text was like sailing to a far-off corner of the world and then going on an extended journey through an unfamiliar jungle--it was vast and strange.  The first reading was just an immersion.  The logic overwhelmed and drowned me.  For sure, his criticisms of evolution are obsolete.  He criticizes evolution from a philosophical viewpoint, and he seems to conflate science and philosophy.  When I finished, I knew that I would have to read the book again to understand it.

In the chapter, "Maniacs," Chesterton destroys the idea that people who are absolutely sure of themselves carry authority, are necessarily credible, or are otherwise to be trusted.   His analogy of the lunatic reminds me Luigi Giussani's statement that logic can be configured to prove anything.   He mentions religious thinkers who, in an effort to deal with the issue of sin, decided that the concept should be eliminated altogether.  That reminds me of the quote from Reinhold Neibuhr, often by Giussani that, "Nothing is so incredible as the answer to a question that is not asked."

The chapter afterwards is "The Suicide of Thought,"  but I think he already proved that in the previous chapter.