As I indicated earlier, this is the year for me to read and learn from G.K. Chesterton. My first book is Orthodoxy. Several of you indicated you would read Orthodoxy along with me.
Here is a quick update.
I have read chapters one and two.
After reading chapter two, I scratched my head and said wha? In other words, I didn't get it. So, I re-read it again. And then again.
The stuff about the madman really threw me for a loop. It was one of the oddest starting points of an apologetic discussion I have ever seen. After the third read I think I get it.
The idea that reason breeds insanity and mysticism keeps men sane represents a paradigm shift in thinking. Most people, including me, will reject that idea at first glance. I had to let Chesterton's argument marinade a while before agreeing with it.
In the end, I believe Chesterton is right. It is not the poets who go mad, but the logicians. There is a sacred mystery to life that must be respected and will allow us to keep our sanity. If materialism is true, then there is a logical explanation for everything in life. Common sense, however, tells us otherwise.
Neuroscientists would have us believe that we are the products of our brains, for example. Everything is reducible to the firing of neurons in our genetically determined neural wiring. But if that is true, then what the neuroscientist is telling us is nothing more than the genetically determined neural wiring in his brain -- so why believe it?
Chesterton is right. The materialists either become fatalists and nihilists and go mad, or they become determinists and contradict themselves. Either way, it is a straight road to the nuthouse. And even the materialists cannot deny there is a nuthouse -- we can all agree to that -- accept for the really nutty people, but who takes them seriously anyway?
My favorite quote was this:
The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.
I love how Chesterton pokes fun at those who want to deny the reality of sin as a starting point for understanding everything.
The book just gets better...wait until chapter 4, "The Ethics of Elfland". (~Quivering in anticipation~) If you know C.S. Lewis, like I said before, you'll soon pick up on the lucid ramblings of Chesterton.
Now, onto The Suicide of Thought...
Posted by: Anna | January 15, 2007 at 14:44
Ahh, I am not the only one who gave the first part of the book a hearty sigh!!! I have had to put it aside for now (homework, fathers health etc) but I shall keep along as best as I can.
I hope that you are having a great weekend, and Chesterton yields himself to you in a kind and eye opening manner.
Posted by: Carl Holmes | January 15, 2007 at 15:29
Glad you are enjoying Orthodoxy a great work .For many years I was a member of the New York City G.K.Chesterton Society and met monthly with the worlds great Chesterton and Belloc scholars.Two of my scholar friends have written books about them . But stress I am no scholar but own and have read most of Chesterton books and newspaper articles .Would suggest you read next " The Everlasting Man " by G.K. I believe it is his greatest work . God Bless.
John
Posted by: John Rowland | January 15, 2007 at 21:47
"Neuroscientists would have us believe that we are the products of our brains, for example." That seems a gross simplification of their argument, because:
"Everything is reducible to the firing of neurons in our genetically determined neural wiring." is just plain wrong - neural wiring isn't genetically determined. I was about to qualify that statement, but I'm struggling. So let me qualify it this way - I'm about as far away from an expert on these things as it is possible to be, but to the best of my knowledge your statement is flat-out wrong.
Posted by: Paul | January 16, 2007 at 04:32
I look forward to chapter 4, Anna!
Sorry you are dropping out of our virtual small group, Carl -- but I totally understand.
John, thank you for the recommendation on the next read. That was going to be one of my questions: what should I read next?
Paul, not all neuroscientists are reductionists and physicalists, obviously. The Christian ones are not, for example. I am talking about the materialists who think you are your brain.
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | January 16, 2007 at 07:43
I just finished listening to an audio book version of the Orthodoxy (available at www.freechristianaudiobooks.com). Like other commenters here, I had to listen to most of it multiple times in order to untangle the thread of his argument. Well worth the effort.
One valuable insight that I got from the book is Chesterton's assertion that a way out of madness and deterministic materialism is not more arguments but more "air," taking into account a greater portion of reality in order to break out of one's narrow sufficating worldview.
I think the same remedy could be applied to milder kinds of mental malady, such as depression and anxiety, as well as theological narrow-mindedness: for example focusing excessively on one attribute of God (His wrath for example) to exclusion of other attributes (God's love for example) that would provide a more complete and balanced picture of God.
Look forward to the discussion of this great work.
Maxim
Posted by: Maxim S | January 16, 2007 at 12:14
Even the most reductionist of neuroscientists doesn't believe what you assert. Identical twins have identical genetic material, but clearly they are not two copies of the same person and nobody I'm aware of claims otherwise.
Posted by: Paul | January 16, 2007 at 17:06
Jeff: Could another interpretation of Genesis be as a polemic? I searched STR and CADRE for an article that stated that Genesis should be interpreted as a polemic against Egyptian cosmology. I couldn't find it, but the basic idea, as I remembered it, was that each day of the week was attributed to an Egyptian god and that the description of the week-creation was a statement of Yahweh's sovereignty over all and a direct slap at Egyptian cosmology.
Posted by: Mike the Geologist | January 17, 2007 at 07:26
The Everlasting Man is probably Chesterton's greatest book, and the first book by him that I read. At some time you SHOULD read it, but to read it right after Orthodoxy might seem like all work and no play. I suggest one of Chesterton's novels next, preferably The Man Who Was Thursday.
Posted by: Sean P. Dailey | January 17, 2007 at 11:17
Thanks Sean!
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | January 17, 2007 at 19:02