But this larger and more adventurous Christian universe has one final mark
difficult to express; yet as a conclusion of the whole matter I will attempt to express it. All the real argument about religion turns on the
question of whether a man who was born upside down can tell when he comes right way up. The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary
condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality. That is the inmost philosophy of the Fall. And when rationalists say that the ancient world was more enlightened than the Christian, from their point of view they are right. For when they say
“enlightened” they mean darkened with incurable despair. It is profoundly true that the ancient world was more modern than the Christian. The common
bond is in the fact that ancients and moderns have both been miserable about existence, about everything, while medievals were happy about that
at least. I freely grant that the pagans, like the moderns, were only miserable about everything—they were quite jolly about everything else. I
concede that the Christians of the Middle Ages were only at peace about everything—they were at war about everything else. But if the question
turn on the primary pivot of the cosmos, then there was more cosmic contentment in the narrow and bloody streets of Florence than in the
theatre of Athens or the open garden of Epicurus. Giotto lived in a gloomier town than Euripides, but he lived in a gayer universe.
Orthodoxy, 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.
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, June 05, 2016
Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 73
Labels:
apologetics,
Chesterton,
G. K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy,
The Fall
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