Chesterton & Lewis

So our Bible study has been reading G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy." I think it's interesting, but I like C.S. Lewis better. Lewis's writing is a hundred times clearer, for one thing, and I think he is more logical. But Chesterton can be extraordinarily poetic at times, which I really enjoy. One of his analogies is about the logic of Christianity, and he uses the image of a cross in such a way that it reminds me strongly of the 17th century metaphysical poets like Donne and Traherne:

At one point in the text, he compares a madman's severe logic (because he can, indeed, be logical) to a bullet--it is round, but so is the earth. The bullet is just as perfect, but it leaves a lot out. The example he gave was of a madman who suffers from paranoia--every validation he gives you of his paranoia makes sense if you take it by itself, but it leaves out bigger facts that would prove it highly unlikely. It misses the bigger picture, just as solely scientific logic without a little spirituality mixed in misses the point of God and some of the paradoxes that come along with Him (free will vs. predestination, for example). His point is that we have to leave room for God to be bigger than us, and therefore for some things to seem paradoxical to us which are clear as day to God. Then he goes on to say this: "As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed forever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound."

Do I understand all of that? Not hardly. But I can understand and visualize enough of it to be somewhat taken by it.

I believe that Chesterton's apologetic works were some of the things that C.S. Lewis read when he was considering Christianity. If you are familiar with Lewis's work, you can see how a lot of his ideas sprang from Chesterton's, which I think is interesting.

A note about how much I love C.S. Lewis: I just think that not only was he a fabulous writer in every genre he attempted [not only children's literature, but also science fiction, apologetics, short fiction, and literary criticism (don't forget he was a Cambridge don in Medieval and Renaissance literature)], but I like him as a person, based on what I've read about him. In my parallel dream life, Jack and I are friends and enjoy discussing Christianity and literature while having tea in leather chairs next to a brisk fire. Oh, and also, in my dream life, I am smart enough to contribute intelligently to said discussion. :)