The Catholic Church and conversionChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Religion
The Catholic Church and conversion
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Conversion -- Catholic Church
It is not easy to express this enormous inversion which I have here
tried to suggest in the image of a world turned inside out. I mean that
the thing which had been stared at as a small something swells out and
swallows everything. Christendom is in the literal sense a continent. We
come to feel that it contains everything, even the things in revolt
against itself. But it is perhaps the most towering intellectual
transformation of all and the one that it is hardest to undo even for
the sake of argument. It is almost impossible even in imagination to
reverse that reversal. Another way of putting it is to say that we have
come to regard all these historical figures as characters in Catholic
history, even if they are not Catholics. And in a certain sense, the
historical as distinct from the theological sense, they never do cease
to be Catholic. They are not people who have really created something
entirely new, until they actually pass the border of reason and create
more or less crazy nightmares. But nightmares do not last; and most of
them even now are in various stages of waking up. Protestants are
Catholics gone wrong; that is what is really meant by saying they are
Christians. Sometimes they have gone very wrong; but not often have they
gone right ahead with their own particular wrong. Thus a Calvinist is a
Catholic obsessed with the Catholic idea of the sovereignty of God. But
when he makes it mean that God wishes particular people to be damned, we
may say with all restraint that he has become a rather morbid Catholic.
In point of fact he is a diseased Catholic; and the disease left to
itself would be death or madness. But, as a matter of fact, the disease
did not last long, and is itself now practically dead. But every step he
takes back towards humanity is a step back towards Catholicism. Thus a
Quaker is a Catholic obsessed with the Catholic idea of gentle
simplicity and truth. But when he made it mean that it is a lie to say
“you” and an act of idolatry to take off your hat to a lady, it is not
too much to say that whether or not he had a hat off, he certainly had a
tile loose. But as a matter of fact he himself found it necessary to
dispense with the eccentricity (and the hat) and to leave the straight
road that would have led him to a lunatic asylum. Only every step he
takes back towards common sense is a step back towards Catholicism. In
so far as he was right he was a Catholic; and in so far as he was wrong
he has not himself been able to remain a Protestant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account