Orthodoxy

Rating:
Summary: If You Read One Book of Apologetics, Make It This One
Review: GK has a way of bringing up ideas that seem revolutionary at first blush, but upon explanation wind up being obvious. Indeed, in his introduction, he describes his own spiritual journey that way: he likens himself to a British explorer setting sail in his yacht who winds up discovering England. He begins by explaining the limitations of reason, pointing out that men go mad not by losing their reason, but by losing everything except their reason. GK says poets seek to get their heads into the heavens, but rationalists seek to get heaven into their heads. This latter process can (not must) lead to madness. Next, GK considers the leading philosophies of his day-pragmatism, determinism, and Nietzche's theory of Will-in light of this excessive rationalism. He sums up neatly: "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." On the ensuing pages GK shows how Christianity alone provides the key for how one is to live. A few aspects of his arguments struck me as exceptional. His arguments are eminently reasonable, not mystical appeals to faith. His arguments consider the whole of man, from the broadest possible historical, psychological, and political perspectives. His arguments are balanced: he is unafraid to point out the weaknesses of his position and the strengths of another. Finally, his arguments are imbued with a gentility, humility and lightheartedness that are sorely lacking in our public debate. It is a rare thing to be persuasive on questions of religious belief and morality; GK not only manages to pull it off, he provides a few chuckles in the bargain.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: In a lucid exposition, G. K. Chesterton calls it the way he sees it. Consider the fallacy of the inner light, i.e., one's own internal inspiration. He says such people who worship the god within worship themselves. He is not talking about the Spirit within in this case, he's talking about self-worship.

On health matters. He says there is something unhealthy in the mere pursuit of health. Consider his observation about courage, "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die."

On things unseen he writes about miracles and people who believe in them. "For some extraordinary reason, there is a fixed notion that it is more liberal to disbelieve in miracles than to believe in them. Why, I cannot imagine, nor can anybody tell me."
He adds that those who believe in miracles do so because they have evidence, whereas those who disbelieve do so because they have doctrine that teaches them so.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: I feel sort of silly trying to review a book by Chesterton so I'll just say this: I have read this book twice. The first time I read it I was so disappointed in it that I became angry for having wasted my time. To my eventual benefit I wrote scathing remarks in the margins of each page.

A decade later I picked it up again and that's when things got weird. As I read it a second time I got the distinct impression that I was reading a vastly different book. Had the contents magically changed? My scathing margin notes remained the same, however, and I could vaguely discern which passages from Chesterton they were allegedly referring to. I could even, with the help of my notes, reconstruct what I had once thought Chesterton was "hopelessly trying to say." Since my second reading I have come to regard it as one of my favorite writings. This is truly a masterpiece written by one of the most gifted and imaginative minds we've produced.

Rating:
Summary: From a Failed Pagan
Review: Love this book. Chesterton is sort of the Mark Twain of apologetics. Reading it I found that I was laughing one minute and seriously blown away the next. I am not a Christian, but this book gave me hope that maybe there is a place for a logic and faith based Christianity which is both orthodox and stronger than a fearful fundamentalism. I like the fact that Chesterton opposes his critics while for the most part honestly respecting them as intelligent people. It's the sign of a man secure in his ideas.

I would recommend this book to any other failed pagans out there. Would also be a good read for any agnostic interesting in the role of imagination in simple, thoughtful living.

Rating:
Summary: A Spiritual and Philosophical Marksman
Review: "Joy...is the gigantic secret of the Christian...[Jesus] the
tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect...above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall... never concealed His tears...He never restrained His anger...Yet He concealed something...shyness...There was something He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray...There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth...His mirth." (Orthodoxy)

Beautiful, isn't it! Chesterton is the Ring Master of thoughts, able to take our fragmented ideas and tame them with a perfect balance of eloquence, poetry, and logic. He is also like a skilled combatant. How is a non-believer, or a non-catholic, able joust with this man's mind? His ideas are razor sharp, liberating for those who seek the truth but deadly for those who would dare wield their clumsy philosophy. And his delivery is nothing less than a masterful marksman--right at the heart of the matter.

Rating:
Summary: A Defense of Orthodoxy
Review: Like most others who have read Chesterton, I find him enjoyable, hilarious, and utterly commonsensical. Orthodoxy is the perfect introduction to the man and his writings.

(...)The orthodoxy Chesterton speaks of is not the Eastern Christianity but traditional Christian doctrine from even before there was a division in the Church. It is akin to Lewis's Mere Christianity in that it is not in any particular denomination but mainly to be found in the early creeds of the Church which the vast majority of Christians acknowledge as authoritative (e.g., Apostles', Nicene).

In response to those who dismiss Chesterton's views as "unscientific" or "outdated," I answer, as Chesterton might, that a strictly empirical method of acknowledging reality is not defensible on strictly empirical grounds, and to assert such is thoroughly narrow-minded and dogmatic, or something to that effect. Chesterton's treatement of foreign peoples may often be characterized by ill-informed or distorted views, but I cannot recall any malice towards them. In our society so eager to be offended, many often overlook the truths within satire, or satirical writing. As for his views just being an excuse to be contrary, if anything he was seeking to be the same, similar to two thousand years of Christianity. As he famously writes "Tradition is the democracy of the dead."

Finally, I believe that any unprejudiced person, while perhaps not agreeing completely, would find it difficult to deny out-of-hand Chesteron's characterizations of man, man's sinful nature, and his wonder at the universe. And at the very least, his style is engaging and Orthodoxy is certainly great reading.

Rating:
Summary: Quite Good, with some exceptions
Review: Chesterton, not unlike Peter Kreeft, is a Roman Catholic thinker who has gained a noticeable readership among the ranks of evangelicals. This particular book is regularly referred to and relied upon in evangelical works on all sorts of subjects. As such, it is a book that evangelicals should read and take notice of. And clearly, it is a book that many Roman Catholics will empathize with due to its clear advancement of the Roman Catholic church as the purest and most correct source of religion.

As has been pointed out by others, in advancing Christian orthodoxy, Chesterton takes a decidedly unorthodox approach. Instead of advancing objective evidences or elaborate philosophical arguments, he chooses instead an approach that is actually quite funny in a way - an approach that at its core, resembles Calvinistic presuppositionalism. This is funny since Chesterton, on more than one occasion in this book, flippantly rejects all things Calvinistic, yet I found his entire book to be rooted in an apologetic approach that is in many ways similar to Van Til. He asserts, consistently with Van Tillianism, that those who offer objections to Christianity fundamentally lack an epistemic basis to do so since their objections presuppose and rely upon Christian values, the origin of which they later argue against. This is brought out very clearly in his 'Paradoxes of Christianity' chapter where he critiques the hopeless inconsistency of Christianity's critics. This was a real treat to read.

In the end, Chesterton advances the view that wonder, happiness, joy, and a proper balance between optimism and pessimism can only be found in Christianity. This conclusion is based upon his own experience, and bolstered by many hypothetical and theoretical examples meant to further the point.

I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 for reasons that others might deem unfair. While there were many sections of this book that were very insightful and on point, there were also sections where Chesterton seemed to be rambling toward no particular end. This might be an unfair criticism because the book was not meant to be a systematic apologetic for Christianity, but instead a semi-autobiographical account that charts Chesterton's own thought process. As a result, the reader will also notice that Orthodoxy is a work that is nearly devoid of Biblical references, much less exegesis. I found this problematic precisely because one could read this book, conclude that Chesterton was completely right in everything he said, and still be able to reject Christianity completely since the book did not interact at all with Biblical truths.

Lastly, I must say having read this book, it is no surprise to me that a guy like Philip Yancey would be bonkers over it (Yancey wrote the introduction to the edition of the book I read). Chesterton was a man who embraced Roman Catholicism in a Protestant environment, and did so defiantly. In many ways, Chesterton writes as if he is an army of one. Not coincidentally, this also tends to be the attitude that Yancey has adopted relative to his views within evangelicalism. As such, Yancey's introduction to this book mindlessly strikes out against other evangelicals who don't see the world the way he does, and it is clear that his inspiration lies at least in part in Chesterton. I couldn't help but get the feeling that both of these individuals, to greater or lesser degrees, came to embrace the idea of being contrary for the sake of being contrary, and then justifying it with language extolling the virtue of being revolutionary, as if this is supposed to be an end in itself. It is admittedly hard for me to have much respect for such views, and maybe I'm misreading both men. But that was certainly the indication I got after reading this book, and it is a position that is not only anti-intellectual, but easily becomes completely self-serving.

In the end, the book is a good read which makes many insightful points. Chesterton clearly believed that truth should translate to joy and wonder. This is certainly a message that all believers should pay attention to, and to this end, I think this book succeeds.

Rating:
Summary: I wanted to like this book
Review: I myself recently returned to the Catholic church, and I really wanted to like Chesterton's book. And I did *enjoy* it. His style is entertaining, and as a long-time C. S. Lewis fan I now know where Lewis got his own style.

But in the end, what Chesterton seemed to have written was not Why I am a Christian or Why I am a Catholic, but Why I am a European. And he seems to have thought this amounted to the same thing.

His dismissal of Islam as being cruel and suited to people from dry places is astonishing. His dismissal of knowing God within as leading to....Tibet is likewise astonishing! A lot of his argument seems to be prejudice dressed up as reasons. That he likes romance and adventure, and finds Christianity romantic and adventurous is all very well, but if Christianity is true, it is intended for Tibet and the dry places of the earth as well as the cozy English countryside that he loves.

Rating:
Summary: Who Should Read This?
Review: I really liked this book, but to recommend something without discretion is not always wise.
I would recommend this book to the person who feels poisoned by the eminent despair and boredom of modern thinking.
Secondly, I would recommend it to the thoughtful and sincere agnostic as an aid in his or her efforts in searching for the answer.
Lastly, I would recommend it to the thoughtful Christian (and I would like to encourage all fellow Christians to be thoughtful).

I feel that I should also note this: Chesterton was not concerned so much with elaborate arguments and defenses of Christian faith when he wrote this book, rather it is a challenge to our basic assumptions upon which the vast majority of our arguments lie.

Rating:
Summary: Chesterton is one of the greats!
Review: After finishing this book I had a question...why can't more books be like this?

Chesterton is a masterful writer with humor and wit that entertains and with a sharp mind and tongue that keeps you wanting to know more about his beliefs. He follows the belief that there is nothing more exciting or dangerous than having an orthodox christian belief. Writing from a Catholic perspective, he truly is one of the greatest authors of this century. No wonder CS Lewis admired him so much, Orthodoxy is a masterpiece of literature and storytelling.