Orthodoxy

"I am the man who with utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before."

Perhaps no other book has had a profound impact on the formation of my faith than Chesterton's masterpiece, Orthodoxy (1908). Attempting to conjure up his own heretical faith, Chesterton -- that master of paradox -- discovered that as he "had put the last touches to it," his adventurous and wholly original religion was indeed orthodox Christianity. And so this delightful Christian classic of apologetics implores the reader to awaken to the mysterious joy of the ancient Faith.


Chesterton argues that people have a spiritual need for both adventure and security, which is essentially a tenuous balance between imagination and reason. This need is not pathological, but is necessary for sanity. 

This need is only satisfied, Chesterton argues, by accepting the Christian worldview, even with its outrageous claims of the Incarnate Word. According to Chesterton, "Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery, you create morbidity. Therefore, accepting Christianity is not only a matter of faith; it is reasonable.

And what about modern claims that orthodox Christianity is boring and repressive? According to Chesterton, speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe is simply a foolish habit. "There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity; and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad." Thus, as the madness of modernity attests to itself with its holocausts, world wars, and nuclear bombs, its claims of a utopian triumph here on earth ultimately crumbles into madness and despair.

During my journey of faith and intellect, and before I had arrived at Rome, I had never considered liberalism - or modernism, for that matter -- to be a worthwhile philosophy. Alas, the mysteriousness and joyfulness of orthodox Christianity, as fulfilled in all things in the Holy Roman Catholic Church, shone too brightly too be ignored; and its utter sanity ultimately drew me in.