Sign in with Facebook
MihaElla 's Reviews > Orthodoxy
Orthodoxy
by
by
The Romance of Orthodoxy, or, so to say, there is faith in my honest doubt! :)
To a Christian existence is a STORY, which may end up in any way. In a thrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he MIGHT be eaten by cannibals. The hero must (so to speak) be an eatable hero. So Christian morals have always said to the man, not that he would lose his soul, but that he must take care that he didn’t. In Christian morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man “dammed”: but it is strictly religious and philosophic to call him damnable.
It is very customary to complain (view spoiler) of the strenuousness of reading when the text involves the word Orthodoxy , and this gives an apparent bustle of the intellect (view spoiler)
Doubtless Chesterton is not the most scientific man, but still his phrases are used like scientific wheels to make swifter and smoother this very mysterious path, for some even comfortable, of the Orthodoxy . For me it was and still is a very good exercise to try to think for myself. How does that sound? Nice, isn’t it? :D
Having myself entangled in this new love affair with Chesterton, I realized that I can hardly go reading without having movements of the gray matter inside my skull, so I have discovered with a thrill of horror, but also delight, that I am obliged to think. Good heavens! Can anyone fancy a harder task?
Chesterton has no mercy! He is a fearfully unmerciful man. And trust me there is not much metaphysical subtlety when I say that in fact he is a damn’ unmerciful man. But I love him! :D
All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vast and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy is concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? – that is the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The aeons are easy enough to think about, any one can think about them. The instant is really awful: and it is because our religion has intensely felt the instant, that it has in literature dealt much with battle and in theology dealt much with hell. It is full of DANGER, like a boy’s book: it is at an immortal crisis.
[…] Life (according to the faith) is very like a serial story in a magazine: life ends with the promise (or menace) “to be continued in our next”. Also, with a noble vulgarity, life imitates the serial and leaves off at the exciting moment. For death is distinctly an exciting moment.
To a Christian existence is a STORY, which may end up in any way. In a thrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he MIGHT be eaten by cannibals. The hero must (so to speak) be an eatable hero. So Christian morals have always said to the man, not that he would lose his soul, but that he must take care that he didn’t. In Christian morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man “dammed”: but it is strictly religious and philosophic to call him damnable.
It is very customary to complain (view spoiler) of the strenuousness of reading when the text involves the word Orthodoxy , and this gives an apparent bustle of the intellect (view spoiler)
Doubtless Chesterton is not the most scientific man, but still his phrases are used like scientific wheels to make swifter and smoother this very mysterious path, for some even comfortable, of the Orthodoxy . For me it was and still is a very good exercise to try to think for myself. How does that sound? Nice, isn’t it? :D
Having myself entangled in this new love affair with Chesterton, I realized that I can hardly go reading without having movements of the gray matter inside my skull, so I have discovered with a thrill of horror, but also delight, that I am obliged to think. Good heavens! Can anyone fancy a harder task?
Chesterton has no mercy! He is a fearfully unmerciful man. And trust me there is not much metaphysical subtlety when I say that in fact he is a damn’ unmerciful man. But I love him! :D
All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vast and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy is concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? – that is the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The aeons are easy enough to think about, any one can think about them. The instant is really awful: and it is because our religion has intensely felt the instant, that it has in literature dealt much with battle and in theology dealt much with hell. It is full of DANGER, like a boy’s book: it is at an immortal crisis.
[…] Life (according to the faith) is very like a serial story in a magazine: life ends with the promise (or menace) “to be continued in our next”. Also, with a noble vulgarity, life imitates the serial and leaves off at the exciting moment. For death is distinctly an exciting moment.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Orthodoxy.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
March 1, 2023
–
Started Reading
March 1, 2023
– Shelved
March 1, 2023
–
5.95%
"Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason."
page
10
March 1, 2023
–
6.55%
"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."
page
11
March 4, 2023
–
20.83%
"We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star."
page
35
March 4, 2023
–
35.71%
"
Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.
"
page
60
March 7, 2023
–
59.52%
"If our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairy-tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy-tale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the fairy-tale."
page
100
March 8, 2023
–
68.45%
"The perils, rewards, punishments, and fulfilments of an adventure must be real, or the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet I must be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting. If I challenge I must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in challenging. If I vow to be faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful, or there is no fun in vowing.
Chesterton is really worthy to read! :)))"
page
115
Chesterton is really worthy to read! :)))"
March 8, 2023
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-2 of 2 (2 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Laysee
(new)
Mar 09, 2023 03:21AM
Reading Chesterton is no walk in the park and you are smitten by him, MihaElla! That you're relishing a cognitive workout is wonderful. Have you read "The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare"? I read it some years ago and enjoyed it.
reply
|
flag
Laysee wrote: "Reading Chesterton is no walk in the park and you are smitten by him, MihaElla! That you're relishing a cognitive workout is wonderful. Have you read "The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare"? I read..."My dear Laysee, I just couldn’t help myself enjoying a strong and deep shaking belly laugh reading your awfully amazing comment! Thank you heartily :)
You nailed it so perfectly, I am very much smitten by Sir Chesterton and I was just wondering what next to dive into. And you just came at the right moment reading rightly my mind and helping me choose the right next read :D
Having finished this book precisely on the Women’s International Day, I was nicely surprised, within the closing pages, to learn that he dedicated it to his mother. In fact, he acknowledged openly and happily that he owes too much to the tyranny and privilege of women, especially when it’s about education. I was even chocking with laugh reading his words like this, For I remember with certainty this fixed psychological fact, that the very time when I was most under a woman’s authority, I was most full of flame and adventure… I have to say I haven’t read a more beautiful statement, even if in this case is about the feelings of a man towards his mother :) And next, to make things even funnier, he admitted that he has accepted Christendom as a mother…
And my brain was hit also when he concluded that the human is being born upside down and standing on his head, whilst the heavens, metaphorically speaking, are below the earth.. In a nutshell, Chesterton seems quite a fervent rationalist, who likes to have some intellectual justifications for his intuitions, and through this book he is only giving an account of his growth in spiritual certainty (he even mentioned that if he was asked, as a purely intellectual question, why he believed in Christianity, he could only answer, ”For the same reason that an intelligent agnostic disbelieves in Christianity.). In truth I like that at some point he insisted to say that he didn’t propose to turn this book into one of ordinary Christian apologetics, and I feel he did justice to his own idea.
Now I’ll go and seek for your review of ‘The Man Who Was Thursday’ to enjoy it before jumping ahead on the book itself :)
