“Orthodoxy” by G. K. Chesterton

C. S. Lewis has always been a great influence in my life. I had read that his journey to Christ was greatly aided by a Christian apologetic work by G. K. Chesterton entitled “Orthodoxy.” I ordered the book and it came in the mail yesterday. It is not a large book, so I read it yesterday and today. Having finished it I am left with some definite thoughts.

First, I am left with the question: “What is the deal here?” Now I do not want to be cavalier about the book, because I am sure Chesterton was a brilliant man and even more so as a writer. But he does not speak to me that much in this work. Possibly because I am not an intellectual as was C. S.Lewis and others who were greatly affected by “Orthodoxy.” I am a common person, so argumentation that would get the attention of literary intellectuals does not speak to me so much. Perhaps if I were an atheist, or even an agnostic, who asserted that opinion on intellectual grounds the book would have had more of an effect on me than it has. But I am a simple man who has been taught to love Christ and His church from the cradle, who received the supernatural experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit at twelve years old. Consequently, then, I have never been moved by any argumentation from the intelligentsia of the academic world. Oh, I have heard the lectures and read the material of the atheist and other religions that challenge the Christian faith. But never remotely considered them. I have been more amused, rather than anything approaching concern, at any objection to Christianity.

There is one part of the book that does concern me. It is the one time Chesterton comments on the Trinity. (Now I suppose I should not be too harsh because I would not consider him a trained theologian, but he does seem to be firmly convinced that God is not One - not really.) When he references the Trinity he calls it a “society” of god-persons. Further, when he is referencing Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Chesterton states. “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 they God.’ No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems this is what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man and in a garden God tempted God.” From here Chesterton passes on to the Cross. “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.” Finally, to show the Christian God’s uniqueness, among the gods of man, Chesterton writes: the world knows “only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”  This view of the biblical God is disconcerting because it does not allow for the human nature of Christ to have been the actor in these events.

All told, and making allowances of his tritheistic view of the Trinity, “Orthodoxy” was a good read and I would recommend it to mature Christians or to those atheists or agnostics who feel as though they have rejected Christianity on the grounds of reason.