Chesterton Lecture Tonight in Lisle, IL

Oxford lecturer, Dominican scholar headlines ‘Theology in Life’ lecture
April 9th 5:00 pm Birk 112 Click here to read the whole press release.

Lisle, Illinois ~ George [sic!] Keith “G.K.” Chesterton was a prolific English critic and author of verse, essays, novels and short stories.

Chesterton ranked with George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells among the most celebrated writers of his time. He is probably best known for his series about the priest-detective Father Brown who appeared in 50 stories. Between 1900 and 1936, Chesterton published some 100 books.

But after converting from Anglican in 1922, Chesterton’s energy turned toward defending Catholicism. Chesterton argued against all the trends that eventually took over the 20th century: materialism, scientific determinism, moral relativism and agnosticism. He also argued that socialism and capitalism are enemies of freedom and justice in modern society.

“G.K. Chesterton’s Discovery of Metaphysical Realism” is the topic of a lecture that will be presented by Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P., a renowned theologian, author and John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford, at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 9 in the Krasa Center Presentation Room.

The lecture is the first in a series at Benedictine University titled “Theology in Life” which focuses on theology for lay people and how they can relate that theology to their lives in the workplace, civil society, political society and family.

In his lecture on Chesterton and metaphysical realism, Nichols will highlight the interdisciplinary nature of Catholic intellectual life which recognizes the importance of faith and reason. Metaphysical realism is a philosophical cornerstone of Catholic thinking.

The lecture is also about Chesterton, a man known as a writer and journalist, who took his faith to the marketplace and defended it with wit, reason and humor.

Finally, Nichols will discuss how divine revelation emerges in human experience and thought, manifesting truth, goodness and beauty.

Nichols was born in 1948 at Lytham St. Anne's, England and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Oxford University. He entered the Dominican order in 1970 and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1976. He has lectured at Cambridge University and was the Robert Randall Distinguished Professor in Christian Culture at Providence College (Rhode Island).

In 2003, the Master of the Order of Preacher (Dominicans) conferred the degree “Sacrae Theologiae Magister” (Master of Sacred Theology) on Nichols. The Master of Sacred Theology is the highest canonical degree in theology.

The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies at Benedictine University and St. Procopius Abbey. It is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Christine M. Fletcher, Ph.D, at (630) 829-6263 or by email at cfletcher@ben.edu.

Benedictine University is an independent Roman Catholic institution located in Lisle, Illinois just 25 miles west of Chicago. Founded in 1887, Benedictine provides 45 undergraduate majors, 11 graduate programs,a Ph.D. in Organization Development and an Ed.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change.
Benedictine University is ranked as a Top School in the Midwest for Master’s Universities, sixth in Illinois for Ethnic Diversity, and as a Top Campus for International Students, Economic Diversity and Highest Graduation Rate for 2008 by U.S. News & World Report.

Texas!

Tomorrow, we are leaving for Texas. We'll be visiting the capitol city of Austin, to do the Art City Austin this weekend. Next weekend, we'll be at Main Street Fort Worth.

I'll have a variety of internet connections while I'm on the road, so I may post, and I may not, depending.

If you live in either Austin or Dallas/Fort Worth, please come and see us.

WikiQuote Page of Chesterton Quotes

WikiQuote is new but growing fast. Someone has put up a lot of Chesterton quotes, which have hopefully been cross referenced to our big guy's writings.

H/T David.

Seton Hall Lecture I Wish I Could Attend

A New Distributist League is forming

This news from our friends at ChesterBelloc Mandate:

Distributism in Action

As John Médaille from The Distributist Review pointed out recently, various new endeavors are in preparation for the coming year.
We hinted in the past about a future conference. Now we are working in earnest to secure a site and date for the event. This will be a full day conference with eight speakers who have generously offered their time and support. Please return to our site for updates as developments unfold.
A Grassroots Movement Rising…Again
The original Distributist League initially met at the Devereux pub and spawned 24 like-minded branches across Great Britain within a single year.* These in turn hosted lectures and conferences, and coordinated with complimentary organizations such as Fr. McQuillan's Catholic Land Association.
In recent years, many have made efforts to re-introduce Distributism and, as a result, discussions surrounding the topic have been increasing on the world-wide-web. These consequences are not negligible. Book publishers, online and print journals, lectures, universities, and television programs have either touched on the topic or have dedicated themselves to it.
Short-term Goals
We would like to notify our readers of the following proposed objectives we will meet:
1. The establishment of a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to educate society about and in support of Distributism. This apostolate will engage in the dissemination of educational materials, semi-annual lecture series, and conferences.
2. A chronicle in print is in development with the intent of discussing solutions to our current global dilemmas. Conceptually the magazine will concentrate on both the practical application of Distributism, as well as analysis of various movements conformes with Distributist thought. This journal will include some of the writers featured on our online archive and debates with capitalists and socialists will also be welcome.
3. Fund-raising will play a supporting role towards keeping our costs down for events and all materials. All profits will be used toward our described efforts.
You Can Have an Impact
Send us an email and let us know whether you would like to be contacted with updates and information about said events. We will not release your information to any third parties and you will not have to provide your name if you desire not to do so. Just send us an email that you wish to subscribe and please provide us with your country of residence, city and state/province. This will assist us when preparing future events.
Ultimately we would like to lecture across the globe, so please support this effort by being a part of the mailing list
Establishing a database will allow us to quantify the existing support for these ventures, and inform our readers when and where they will take place.
Please contact us at:
societyfordistributism@gmail.com **
Country of residence:
City:
State/Province:
Sending us your information will be invaluable in our efforts to coordinate these goals
Servire Deo Regnare Est!

Richard Aleman
The ChesterBelloc Mandate
*According to John Michael Thorn's book, An Unexplored Chapter in Recent English History, these branches were founded between 1926 and 1927.
**Upon the establishment of a non-profit, we will notify our subscribers of our new email address.

Dr. Thursday's Post

The Peril - and a Bridge into Light

We ended last week, smack in the Octave of Easter (the week of eight Sundays!) with a real cliffhanger:

...there is a great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against it religious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race is to avoid ruin.
[CW1:236]

And I am sure everyone was wondering what that peril is. Good. So you can wonder just a little more, but you are about to find out - if you dare.

We are coming to the first really serious peak in our "study" (that is a pompous term for my boisterous and lengthy meanderings) of GKC's centennial book, Orthodoxy. We had a couple of weeks where we made a slight detour for the sake of the season - so just in case you let it slide and want to catch up, you ought to read (or re-read!) Chapter III called "The Suicide of Thought" - up to the paragraph end I have just quoted.

Very well. All ready to resume the hike? Good. As Hans the guide called out, "Forüt!" - "Forward!" (That's from Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, in case you've forgotten... we aren't going there today. Sorry. That leaves from Iceland in late June - wanna go?) Ahem.

What, then, is this peril? Actually, we were told about it, a paragraph or two ago:

The whole modern world is at war with reason; and the tower already reels.[CW1:235]

Yes, please read that again. These times are dark. Few things have been darker, been more misnamed than "the Enlightenment". These times, NOT the 13th century, are the Dark Ages. These times are emphatically NOT the "Age of Reason". You can find this discussed elsewhere; the philosophers, if any still are with us, must now go stand in the corner, for they have refused to help. But GKC is here, with light, with weapons, with truth... (Compare these with Milo's gifts in The Phantom Tollbooth - a book which in so many ways hints at the same things GKC tells us!)

So what is the peril? Summon all your courage, and read on - when you dare.

"That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself." [CW1:236]

Yes. You can, if you choose, think yourself into a state where you can no longer think. No alcohol, no drugs; nothing like that. You read the wrong books, listen to the wrong music, watch the wrong TV shows, visit the wrong web-sites... and Poof.

Your Mind - It's Gone!

By action of your own mind, you make yourself a PUPPET - and no longer think.

You may think this is nonsense, pure fantasy... I can think myself into NOT thinking? Ah, yes... Remember Milo, stuck in the Doldrums in The Phantom Tollbooth because he wasn't thinking? But this is not fantasy. This is for real. This can REALLY HAPPEN... and HAS HAPPENED. GKC is not so much giving a commentary (or predicting, considering its aptness for the present time!) but simply reporting.

Do you think this is profound, or find it unexpected? You will be even more surprised at what comes next:

Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape." The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."

There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed. It only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own...
[CW1:236, emphasis added]

An aside: I wonder, did John Paul II read this before he wrote his 1998 encyclical called Fides et Ratio? (That is, "Faith and Reason"!) Alas, he did not quote GKC; I checked. (If you are seeking a doctoral topic, perhaps a study comparing these two great works might be most profitable.)

The surprise, I am sure you noticed, is that there is an answer, and it is in what MOST people nowadays consider the most unlikely place: the greatest support of Reason is in Faith. In fact, one cannot even have Reason unless one first has faith.

The few real philosophers with us are nodding happily. They are delighted that GKC has taken the Three Great Self-Evident Principles of Thought as his starting point, even though he doesn't state them explicitly. They will not mind that I review them for you:

(1) The existence of the thinking subject.
(2) The principle of contradiction: "A thing cannot at the same time be and not be."
(3) The natural capacity of our reason to know the truth.
These are also called the first fact, the first principle, and the first condition of certain knowledge.
[See Scholastic Philosophy by Michael W. Shallo, S.J.>

These three principles cannot be proven, but must be accepted, or you can do NOTHING AT ALL. Not even write a journal article for a philosophy magazine. Or even post a comment on a blogg...

Yes, if you never resume reading this book, nor ever read any GKC again, please memorise this ONE line.. OK, these three sentences - at least the one in BOLD:

"It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all."

Aren't you glad you kept reading? You thought all you were going to hear about was that awful peril - and here Chesterton is handing us a weapon! Wow. What a GREAT tool we now have! We have beaten flat most of the last few centuries of philosophers, and can now toss their books into the trash. They are all LIARS, rather, they are HYPOCRITES, doing what they refuse to admit is possible:

[The "moderate realism" of Thomism and Scholastic Philosophy] is the only working philosophy. Of nearly all other philosophies it is strictly true that their followers work in spite of them, or do not work at all. No sceptics work sceptically; no fatalists work fatalistically; all without exception work on the principle that it is possible to assume what it is not possible to believe. No materialist who thinks his mind was made up for him, by mud and blood and heredity, has any hesitation in making up his mind. No sceptic who believes that truth is subjective has any hesitation about treating it as objective.
[GKC, St. Thomas Aquinas CW2:542-3]

But you want to know more. GKC immediately gives an example from one of his "Heretic" friends, H. G. Wells. (Note: I call him that because of Chapter 5 in GKC's Heretics, and not from any personal criticism; GKC considered him a friend.)

...already Mr. H. G. Wells has raised its ruinous banner; he has written a delicate piece of scepticism called "Doubts of the Instrument." In this he questions the brain itself, and endeavours to remove all reality from all his own assertions, past, present, and to come. But it was against this remote ruin that all the military systems in religion were originally ranked and ruled. The creeds and the crusades, the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were not organized, as is ignorantly said, for the suppression of reason. They were organized for the difficult defence of reason.

Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all - the authority of a man to think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her throne. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. [That's almost literally the definition of the above three principles!] And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; and his head has come off with it.
[CW1:236-7, emphasis added]

Wow, did you catch this: "in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority" - isn't that horrifying! For that is the secret aim of so many of these philosophers! It's a war, after all - remember GKC's last words? "The issue is now quite clear. It is between light and darkness and every one must choose his side." [Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton 650] And we'll see, perhaps next week, how this idea will link to other matters - big, nasty, debate-making matters - that you might not expect.

But for today, just look at this - doesn't something seem familiar here? Remember: "If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell - or into Hanwell."[CW1:224; cf Mt5:30, 18:8] Ah, yes - but here, there's someone else doing the pulling!

I was about to list names of these Dark Powers - but that would just make noise and waste your energy. (You'll hear one of them in the near future anyway; no it's neither "Sauron" nor "Voldemort".) Let them remain in the dark - you know who they are - I shall just call them the Dark Powers of Evil - those who have rejected the Good - these are all at work, claiming to advance "Reason" but really attacking it! They are hard at work, to pull off the mitres we all wear, in our sworn dedication to Faith... Indeed, the tower already reels.

You may think it is funny to consider all humans wearing the mitre, the conical hat of bishops, the symbol of pontifical power - but these things are serious, and come up in so many places in GKC. You need to ponder what it might mean to be a "pontiff" = "to build a bridge" - and how that must be both a matter of faith as well as reason. If you need a reading assignment, see GKC's memorial at the death of Francis Thompson, ILN Dec 14 1907 CW27:603, or look up the life and work of John Roebling (the Brooklyn Bridge designer), or of St. Benezet. Or, perhaps, even the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, where you'll read:

Thus alms are besought for the building of a bridge, or church, or for any other work whatever that is conducive to the common good..." [Summa II-II Q187 A5, emphasis added]

But - yes, yes - unless you read it in GKC, some of you won't believe it. So:

"...when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity."
[What's Wrong With the World CW4:128]

Or if you prefer the fictional version:

"'All ceremony,' he said, 'consists in the reversal of the obvious. Thus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women."
[Napoleon of Notting Hill CW6:247-8]

Why is this relevant? Because women are nearly always the first teachers of children. Remember, you cannot spell M-A-N without M-A - a truth which confutes all the feminists!

Let me end this very difficult and complex - but extremely important - stage of our journey with another quote from that excellent book on Education - no not Newman, but GKC. Another one you ought to memorise:

"A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching."
[What's Wrong With the World CW4:162]

I know at first you'll think that bit about women has NOTHING to do with pontiffs. You'll need to think about that - and perhaps read that book after we're done with this one.

Yes - please think carefully about all of this - while you still can. They are already attacking!

--Dr. Thursday

P.S. I must insist on this bridge matter as being a wonderful symbol for intellect and reason. Reason is, in a sense, a bridge we build from our inmost self to Reality - and like all bridges, requires faith and a firm foundation. It's most thoroughly human: "Building a bridge seemed such a clean, heroic thing for a man to do." [said of Roebling in David McCullough, The Great Bridge p.82-83] I could quote many additional demonstrations, but I shall give just the one which I first learned from Fr. Jaki:

The rebuilding of this bridge between science and human nature is one of the greatest needs of mankind.
[GKC, The Defendant 75 quoted in Jaki, Chesterton a Seer of Science 45]

Rod Bennett to Discuss Cecil Chesterton's History of the United States

Join in the conversation, where he'll be posting excerpts daily for discussion.

ChesterCon08 Schedule ready for viewing/registration

The 27th Annual Chesterton Conference is announced!

Go register now, before everyone else does.

The Suprise

We watched The Surprise again as a family yesterday and really enjoyed it. As Dale explains at the start, it was slated to be revised, but that never happened. It does end rather abruptly, but Dale comes back in for a nice fireside chat about the meaning of it all.

Looking for a great gift for a graduate, confirmandi, or just something to watch together as a family? The Surprise fits the bill.

Alive and Young: Chesterton Thing 2

Creative Paul Cat made this very cool sphere of Gilberts.

ChesterTeens Create New Chestertonian Easter Egg

Creativity abounds.

Easter: Dr. Thursday

Authority: Riddles and Puns, Burglars and Police

Alleluia!!!

Ah - the Octave of Easter! It's a week of eight Sundays. (No this is NOT an allusion to The Man Who Was Thursday.) The Canadian rock group "Rush" has a song called "Time Stand Still" - but here we have just a hint of that mystic eternity as the Church suspends all other feasts for these eight days! (the Annunciation, which falls during this week in 2008, yet cannot be suppressed, shall be celebrated next Monday.) Yes, despite some curious and confused looks from the less attentive in the congregation, the careful and reverent priest will chant sed in hac potissimum die or "...on THIS EASTER DAY" in the Preface of each Holy Mass during this week.

Yes, indeed, O ye rockers! Time DOES stand still. How? Click here to find out.Truly we HAVE to celebrate during this week of Sundays, because this Son was dead and has come to life again - this Brother of ours was lost - and now He is found!!! [cf. Lk 15:24]

"Early in the morning of the first day of the week, when the Son had risen..." [cf. Mark 16:2]

Puns - did you say puns? Yes, of course - there are lots of puns to handle - one of the funniest is this thing about RISING - which occurs during the feast of Azymes, the ancient Pasch, the Time of the Unleavened - where we are the New Leaven. [1Cor 5:6-8] Leavening, for those of you who don't bake, is any agent added to dough to make it rise - to make it get lighter than it is... (And we hear our big-billed toucan friend murmur, "Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly." CW1:325) Typical leavening agents are lard or butter, baking powder, baking soda and some acid, and so on, but most of all, yeast, which is zumh = "zyme" (long E) in Greek.

An aside: if you're wondering why "zyme" sounds familiar, it's in the word "enzyme" (something found IN YEAST)... But we're not going to talk biology today, as exciting as it might be, and even though this feast is about the resurrection of the BODY...

No: instead, we'll take just a tiny glance at one paragraph from Orthodoxy, then we can resume our festival.

Here it is:

The sages, it is often said, can see no answer to the riddle of religion. But the trouble with our sages is not that they cannot see the answer; it is that they cannot even see the riddle. They are like children so stupid as to notice nothing paradoxical in the playful assertion that a door is not a door. The modern latitudinarians speak, for instance, about authority in religion not only as if there were no reason in it, but as if there had never been any reason for it. Apart from seeing its philosophical basis, they cannot even see its historical cause. Religious authority has often, doubtless, been oppressive or unreasonable; just as every legal system (and especially our present one) has been callous and full of a cruel apathy. It is rational to attack the police; nay, it is glorious. But the modern critics of religious authority are like men who should attack the police without ever having heard of burglars. For there is a great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against it religious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race is to avoid ruin.
[CW1:235-6]

We've had a pun or two already, and will probably have more. So... perhaps you are wondering, does GKC actually advise us to do physical harm to the officers of the law? Of course not. Perhaps you'd prefer to think of posting negative comments in a policeman's blogg, or writing editorials against the idea of Law Enforcement.... Well, again, it's not quite that either.

Let me try something. Anyone who has read many of the best "Boy's Books" - like, let's say, The Mad Scientists' Club or even The Phantom Tollbooth, or to vary the genre, the Sir Henry Merrivale mysteries by John Dickson Carr - if you HAVE read such things, you know that boys of all ages especially like to do daring tricks, and play hilarious pranks. Not real crimes of course, but pranks... Wrong, perhaps, but NOT (emphatically NOT) evil...

Such is the kind of "attack" GKC is suggesting. Pranks, I say, not crimes, things no "mature adult" would do, more out of embarrassment than out of "respect" for the Law, at the border where there's still some light to the humour even though some shadows are looming....

There is a certain rebel in so many of us, which gives rise to practical jokes, to boldness - but this is not a "Boy's Book". We are NOT talking about playing tricks in the town square! No, as usual, GKC is desperately trying to construct a metaphor about a exceedingly complex idea, and one which will bring out far more argument and debate than any merely civil power, police force, bad cops, or corrupt city governments have EVER had.

Let's just say, for discussion, that GKC really meant to "attack the police" - let us take this in its extreme sense to mean "to abolish the police utterly"... to destroy Authority.

BUT!!!!

GKC tells us how stupid it would be to reject the idea of police as if we had never heard of burglars...

There IS something real that threatens us, something dangerous in this life, something we need protection from...

GKC is about to reveal that the authority "in religion", just as the authority "in the police" or "in the Law", exists for a very good reason, and was placed there as a protection against a Very Real Threat.

And that threat is NOT what you might otherwise have guessed. But for the answer you will have to come back next week.

For now: back to the feast! It's still Easter Sunday for another three days...

--Dr. Thursday

The Cassette's Sing Chesterton

From Stephen, either the leader of the band, or just a band member:

I play in a secular band called the Cassettes from the Washington, DC area. If you watch the video for the song "Rogue Gnome" to the end, you'll hear a rather familiar paraphrasing of a quote from one of our favorite authors [Chesterton].
Made up of myself, a Catholic, a Muslim, a lapsed-Romanian Orthodox/Non-denom Protestant, and a "secular" Jew, The Cassettes don't have any particular religious stance, but I should say that we are fighting, in our small way, towards what I would suggest is something close to Distributist ideals. We try to work and play with local and small-minded (in the Schumacher sense) folks as much as possible, including playing on street corners for passers-by when the mood strikes us.

Check here for more of The Cassette's music videos.

Alive and Young: Chesterton Thing

Alive and Young's Paul Cat has been learning some graphic design, calling attention to himself on airplanes, and playing with GKC's image. Check it out here: Alive and Young: Chesterton Thing
I think it's amazing the creativity inspired by Chesterton. Tomorrow I'm going to tell you about this band that plays Chesterton. And then there's this Chesterton Easter Egg...and did I tell you about the Chesterton cornflake that got $1300 on eBay?

Happy Easter!

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden,
in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.
--G. K. Chesterton The Everlasting Man CW2:345

Good Friday/Holy Saturday Chesterton The Everlasting Man

They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden; the Romans setting a military guard lest there should be some riot and attempt to recover the body.

There was once more a natural symbolism in these natural proceedings; it was well that the tomb should be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulture and guarded by the authority of the Caesars.

For in that second cavern the whole of that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over; and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a very great thing called human history; the history that was merely human.

The mythologies and the philosophies were buried there, the gods and the heroes and the sages. In the great Roman phrase, they had lived. But as they could only live, so they could only die; and they were dead.
--G. K. Chesterton The Everlasting Man CW2:344-5

Thanks to Dr. T.

George MacDonald: Mary Magdalene

A beautiful poem for today.

Good Friday Thoughts from Chesterton's Orthodoxy

God the rebel, God with his back to the wall, God for atheists

That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; but that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents for ever. Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete.

Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point - and does not break.

In this indeed I approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss; and I apologise in advance if any of my phrases fall wrong or seem irreverent touching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justly feared to approach. But in that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt.

It is written, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." [Mt 4:7 quoting Dt. 6:16] No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism.

When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. [Mt 27:46 quoting Ps 22:1] And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt.

Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist. [cf The Everlasting Man CW2:344]

--G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy CW1:343
Thank you, Dr. T.

Holy Thursday

This is Holy Thursday, and just as the Church shifts the calendar of fixed dates to accommodate the variable, we also shall shift our focus. The wonder is that we shall nevertheless consider the very next bit of Orthodoxy, since it plays a role in today's considerations.

As those who attend the evening Mass today shall see, although this Mass is the Mass of Masses - the anniversary, as it were, of the first Mass - the gospel reading for today is not about the Eucharist. It's about Subsidiarity. Yes. Did Dr. Thursday just say subsidiarity? Why? Click here.It's where Jesus washes the feet of the Apostles [John 13] Here we see the truth set forth in very clear, though quite horrifying detail. Horrifying, that is, to the ancient Aristotelian view of society with its slaves serving at the bottom and its "best" people ruling (Greek "aristocracy"= rule by the best) at the top. Horrifying, too, to the modern corporate mind which sees their megastructures built from the top down, paying the do-nothing executives VAST amounts and the least minimum possible to the underlings who actually do the work. (What? Not much different in 2300 years?)

But from Subsidiarity, we learn that the higher orders exist to serve the lower - which Jesus demonstrated by washing the Apostles' feet. Ever think about that? Those were bare, or at best sandal-clad feet, that had recently stomped through dust and mud and trash and ... ah... other things one might find on the horse and donkey and camel-travelled roads of that time.

Hey! That's slave work - being done by the Master? Yes: "He took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men..." [Phil 2:7]

Why do I use this word "horrifying"? What does that have to do with Orthodoxy, or with the current moment in the liturgical cycle?

Well, when one is about to die, one has to try to deal with the most important matters in one's life. As we know from St. Paul, and from the three Synoptic evangelists, the Eucharist was established amid the Passover rituals, as the new and everlasting passover-covenant. St. John reports how Jesus repeated this dogma six times, [see John 6] utterly scandalizing many who heard it, so much that they went away. We also know, from St. John, the lengthy prayer-instruction which Jesus gave just after the evening meal [John 14-16] - within which are more clues to this mystery.

But as I said, echoing St. John (13:1), Jesus knew he was about to die. This is the single most talked-about death, the single most dramatic death, the single most important death to occur in history, or even in fiction. This death is, as I have harped on previously, an important thing to remember. Dickens told us how important it was that we know, at the outset of the "Christmas Carol":

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. ...
There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
[C. Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"]

Likewise, we have to enter into this matter of Christ's death - and be fully convinced of it, in order to proceed into these next days.

But "Horrifying"? Why? Because of the death? Because of the manner of death?

No. Because it was so unreasonable, so inappropriate.

Peter, always the spokesman for the others, certainly thought so: "Lord, far be it from You [to die]..." (Mt. 16:22) And also, St. Paul called the crucifixion (1 Cor 1:23) a "stumbling block" to some - apparently the Greek word is "scandal" - that is, "the distressing effect on others of unseemly or unrighteous conduct". He also called it "foolishness" to others. That is, something quite irrational- the Greek word apparently is "moron".

Now, if you take just a few minutes from your day and read the next two or three paragraphs from Orthodoxy CW1:235-6. But don't worry if you cannot, we shall talk some more about them in the future. What does GKC tell us there? The critical line is in that first short paragraph, near the bottom of 235:

...what peril of morbidity there is for man comes rather from his reason than his imagination.

Well! Chesterton, if we are reading him right, seems to be hinting that the problem we men face comes from expecting REASONABLE things - presumably in places where things are just not going to be reasonable.

Or - maybe - just maybe - he's giving some kind of strange paraphrase ... ah ... of St. Paul.

Did I just write that?

Yes, I did. Just last week I was considering something, and I have begun to note some interesting alignments - maybe we might say that GKC is a disciple of St. Paul. I am not arguing this in any strict sense; nothing more, perhaps than a "slovenly poetry", without rhyme or even rhythm. Unreasonable, perhaps, but imaginative.

But there was one thing, NOT from Orthodoxy which hit me, as I thought of the events we recall this week, and considered my writing on our present book... this idea of a journey. And I recalled this, which I warn you may seem very blunt, and perhaps horrifying:

...the life of Jesus went as swift and straight as a thunderbolt. It was above all things dramatic; it did above all things consist in doing something that had to be done. It emphatically would not have been done, if Jesus had walked about the world forever doing nothing except tell the truth. And even the external movement of it must not be described as a wandering in the sense of forgetting that it was a journey. This is where it was a fulfilment of the myths rather than of the philosophies; it is a journey with a goal and an object, like Jason going to find the Golden Fleece, or Hercules the golden apples of the Hesperides. The gold that he was seeking was death. The primary thing that he was going to do was to die. [see Mt 16:21, Lk 12:49-50] He was going to do other things equally definite and objective; we might almost say equally external and material. But from first to last the most definite fact is that he is going to die.
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:339, emphasis added]

OK, now compare that with this:

For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ: and him crucified.
[St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 2:2)]

I know; the words are not even close. I said I was NOT making that kind of argument! But the thought is the same. It's what I said before; it's the Dickens opening. It's most unreasonable, it's putting the End - (isn't death an End?) at the very beginning. It's upside down. Of course it is! He told us so himself, feeding, as it were, GKC with whole rafts of paradoxes. "I have come to serve, not to be served, and to give his life..." [Mt 20:28, emphasis added; this verse is the very kernel and object of Subsidiarity!] Mary, his mother, carrying Jesus within her as an embryo of just a few cells, stated this of God: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble." [Luke 1:52] And Jesus repeated that this inversion shall occur [Lk 13:20] and, as we heard, demonstrated it by washing those dirty feet.

((An aside: Don't let anyone ever tell you Chesterton is the Master of Paradox. Really, that's just another title of our Lord. Just check out the gospels, and you'll see it's true.))

You look a bit concerned: Is that all? I'm still confused. Isn't there any more?

Sure there's more. There's a lot more - to Dickens, to St. Paul, to GKC - and to our remembrance of these next days. There will be, in a future chapter, very powerful and bitter - and shocking - comments about this death, and we shall see a courageous God, a God with his back to the wall, a God who was a rebel, a God who seemed to be atheistic (See CW1:343) But for today that is all you ought to consider.

May God give you the grace "to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified".... "to begin with. Or nothing wonderful can come of the story" you are about to hear. [1Cor2:2, cf. Dickens' "Christmas Carol"]

--Dr. Thursday

Catholic Blog Awards

Congratulations American Chesterton Society Blog!

We won!

Well, we came in Eleventh Place (with 20 votes) in the "Best Group Blog" category. Yeah, us!

We also came in 93rd (with one vote) in the "Most Informative and Insightful" blog.

Thanks to everyone who voted.