Orthodoxy

G. K. Chesterton — 2008

This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with all the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence. Newly designed and typeset by Waking Lion Press.

Reviews

Brigid Hogan@br1gid

Feb 28, 2022

I did not anticipate finishing Orthodoxy and finding in it a unity of my other recent reading. I thought I was picking up something serious and more arcane. But it pulled together many of the ideas from Merton, Martin, and Nouwen -- a view of the orthodox Christian life as participation in the Trinity, yoking ourselves to the love that unites three into one. Chesterton is clearly a man of his time, as are all men and all women, but his vision of wonder, mirth, and mystery is timeless. The book and ideas in it are so humane and tied to an experience of humanity that I share so I found it very connected to the emotional life of the Church in a way that reaffirmed my faith. The whole sections about Darwinism and the light sexism drove me a little bananas, but I'm sure 75% of what I say now will sound like that in a century. I definitely need to read more of Chesterton's nonfiction even if I find it challenging. (Especially because it's challenging.)