The Dawn Treader

I continue to read and enjoy Chesterton's classic book Orthodoxy.  I want to do some posts on Chapter 3, The Suicide Of Thought.

Chesterton continues to play offense in his defense of Christian orthodoxy.  In the suicide of thought, Chesterton exposes the folly of unbridled skepticism.  His critique is timeless, of course, because skepticism ... indeed cynicism ... persists today ... 98 years after Chesterton penned this chapter.

The problem of the modern skeptic is that he is 'mentally modest', to borrow Chesterton's phrase.  Modesty is a virtue when it is directed toward self.  Modesty is a vice when it is directed toward thought.

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt -- the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn.

Indeed, skepticism out of control creates mental midgets.  The modern skeptic doubts the existence or knowability of truth.  Without truth, there is no real knowledge.  Without knowledge, there is no understanding.  With no understanding, there is no reason.  Unbridled skepticism is an acid that ultimately burns through itself.

Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem.

Modern thought ... which tries to be politically correct and assert that no one is really wrong ... breeds intellectual helplessness.

In the midst of this interesting chapter is a pithy commentary on evolution.  It appears in his critique of the modern thought that stops thought.  In other words, modern philosophies that are poisonous to rationality itself.  (note: take note of Chesterton's dissing of determinism ... illusion, mechanical ... as well)

Lest this should be called loose assertion, it is perhaps desirable, though dull, to run rapidly through the chief modern fashions of thought which have this effect of stopping thought itself. Materialism and the view of everything as a personal illusion have some such effect; for if the mind is mechanical, thought cannot be very exciting, and if the cosmos is unreal, there is nothing to think about. But in these cases the effect is indirect and doubtful. In some cases it is direct and clear; notably in the case of what is generally called evolution.

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."

Notice that Chesterton's critique is not against theistic evolution.  He, apparently, sees no problem with theistic evolution.  His critique is against the oxymoronic modern notion that the only constant is change.  In other words, man is evolving as well.  Everything is evolving.  "Man", per se, is just one bus stop along a long route called evolutionary progress.  In such a view, there really is no such thing as an ape or a man ... everything is the same, in a sense ... just at different stages.

I agree with Chesterton that this progressive type of thinking is an attack on thought.  It is absurd.  That is the natural by product of using evolution as your paradigm to explain anything and everything ... absurdity.  I also agree with Chesterton that a personal God, who lives outside of time, could do things slowly or quickly and it would be no difference.  However, since we have the Revealed Word of God, which gives us enough detail on how God created man to rule out evolution, I disagree that evolution is stingless for the most orthodox Christian to believe in.  One small nit in an otherwise brilliant chapter.  More later...