"The brilliance of Chesterton shines through, despite Steven Shroeder's lame introduction, which includes a backhanded compliment from a deeply confused 'Catholic': 'As Gary Wills has said, even when Chesterton is wrong the light of his reasoning illuminates the surrounding scenery' (pp. x - xiv).
"'These essays are concerned only to discuss the actual fact that the central Christian theology (sufficiently summarized in the Apostles' Credd) is the best root of energy and sound ethics' (p. 5).
"'Orthodoxy' is a hundred year old work. It requires that the reader look beyond some dated and inadequate language / notions, with regard to mental illness. The reader also needs to seek a more authentic understanding of 'mysticism', than what seems currently popular: 'The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad....if this be what drives men mad, what is it that keeps them sane?....Mysticism keeps men sane....ordinary man has always been a mystic....The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand....we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health....the cross, though it has at its heart a mystery and a contradiction, can extend its four arms forever without altering its shape' (pp. 20, 21).
"Chesterton maintains that 'the chief modern fashions of thought...have this effect of stopping thought itself' (p. 26). He readily acknowledges that he is only providing a 'bald summary of the thought destroying forces' (p.28). Again keeping in mind that this hundred year old work embodies some dated and inadequate language / notions with regard to mental illness, Cheterton concludes that 'madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness; and they have nearly reached it' (p. 35).
"'These are my ultimate attitudes toward life; the soil for the seeds of doctrine....I felt in my bones; first, that the world does not explain itself....Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have someone to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art....Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design....Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint....And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin....All this I felt and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And all this time I had not even thought of Christian theology' (pp. 55, 56).
"Even when he seems to slightly digress, Chesterton's writing is full of profound meaning: 'when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more....Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her....the only right optimisim is a sort of universal patriotism....We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent....According to Christianity, in making it [the world], He [God] set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it' (pp. 58 - 69).
"Thought matters - 'if some small mistake were made in doctrine,huge blunders might be made in human happiness....to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect' (pp. 92, 93).
"'All my Utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully, for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties. But again, I seem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer from beyond the world. "You have real obligations, and therefore real adventures when you get to my Utopia. But the hardest obligaion and the steepest adventure is to get there"' (pp. 114, 115).
"'The religions of the world do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach....Insisting that God is inside man, man is always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself' (pp. 121 - 126).
"Chesterton believes in Christianity because of 'an enormous evidence of small but unanimous facts....the ordinary agnostic has gotten his facts all wrong. He is an unbeliever for a multitude of reasons; but they are untrue reasons....my reason for accepting the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths....[is that it] has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing' (pp. 135 - 149)."
"'These essays are concerned only to discuss the actual fact that the central Christian theology (sufficiently summarized in the Apostles' Credd) is the best root of energy and sound ethics' (p. 5).
"'Orthodoxy' is a hundred year old work. It requires that the reader look beyond some dated and inadequate language / notions, with regard to mental illness. The reader also needs to seek a more authentic understanding of 'mysticism', than what seems currently popular: 'The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad....if this be what drives men mad, what is it that keeps them sane?....Mysticism keeps men sane....ordinary man has always been a mystic....The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand....we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health....the cross, though it has at its heart a mystery and a contradiction, can extend its four arms forever without altering its shape' (pp. 20, 21).
"Chesterton maintains that 'the chief modern fashions of thought...have this effect of stopping thought itself' (p. 26). He readily acknowledges that he is only providing a 'bald summary of the thought destroying forces' (p.28). Again keeping in mind that this hundred year old work embodies some dated and inadequate language / notions with regard to mental illness, Cheterton concludes that 'madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness; and they have nearly reached it' (p. 35).
"'These are my ultimate attitudes toward life; the soil for the seeds of doctrine....I felt in my bones; first, that the world does not explain itself....Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have someone to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art....Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design....Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint....And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin....All this I felt and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And all this time I had not even thought of Christian theology' (pp. 55, 56).
"Even when he seems to slightly digress, Chesterton's writing is full of profound meaning: 'when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more....Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her....the only right optimisim is a sort of universal patriotism....We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent....According to Christianity, in making it [the world], He [God] set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it' (pp. 58 - 69).
"Thought matters - 'if some small mistake were made in doctrine,huge blunders might be made in human happiness....to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect' (pp. 92, 93).
"'All my Utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully, for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties. But again, I seem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer from beyond the world. "You have real obligations, and therefore real adventures when you get to my Utopia. But the hardest obligaion and the steepest adventure is to get there"' (pp. 114, 115).
"'The religions of the world do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach....Insisting that God is inside man, man is always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself' (pp. 121 - 126).
"Chesterton believes in Christianity because of 'an enormous evidence of small but unanimous facts....the ordinary agnostic has gotten his facts all wrong. He is an unbeliever for a multitude of reasons; but they are untrue reasons....my reason for accepting the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths....[is that it] has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing' (pp. 135 - 149)."
