Orthodoxy

Imagine a book written arguing the case for Christianity, addressing the arrogance of unbelieving science and the ignorance of those who trust it, the worldliness and materialism of modern society, the emptiness of Buddhism and Confucianism despite their popularity, and the suitableness of Christ-centred, biblical Christianity. All told with true style and wit.

I'm sitting in Starbucks at the Quartermile in Edinburgh having just finished (at last) reading GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy and I am amazed at two things:
1 - How much I agree with this convert to Roman Catholicism
2 - That this book was first published, not in 2008 but in 1908

I won't say he's a theologian, but he is not here arguing points of theology. He makes just a passing remark or two against Calvinism and the Reformation for which we must forgive him. But he is an apologist extraordinaire.

Many Christian apologists are not taken seriously. Some put their argument across with such gravitas and academic lingo that you get lost in their rhetoric. Others pretend the arguments are so simple that they fail to address the issues. Chesterton is at once engaging and stylish in his writing whilst, at once, challenging but plain in his argument.

The reality of spirituality, of miracle, the tenacity of the scriptures, the sensibleness of the gospel and the helpfulness of the doctrine of original sin are all covered in this short work. Chesterton shows that beginning as a mere philosopher, every conclusion he ever reached by himself, he found to be the same truth as was taught in the Christian religion.

I want to give an example of his argument. Toward the end of the book Chesterton discusses the likelihood of miracle:

Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracle consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracle accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them...
The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord...
If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is you either you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism - the abstract impossibility of a miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence - it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed..."

People - get ready to think. Tolle lege.