Thus ends, in unavoidable inadequacy, the attempt to utter the unutterable
things. These are my ultimate attitudes towards life; the soils for the seeds of doctrine. These in some dark way I thought before I could write,
and felt before I could think: that we may proceed more easily afterwards, I will roughly recapitulate them now. I felt in my bones; first, that this
world does not explain itself. It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But
the explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural explanations I have heard. The thing is
magic, true or false. Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some one to mean it. There was something
personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in
spite of its defects, such as dragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God
for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever made us. And last, and strangest, there had come
into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin.
Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.
Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
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The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 19
Labels:
Chesterton,
creation,
G. K. Chesterton,
origins,
Orthodoxy
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