ERGO SOMETHING OR OTHER:

QUOTE: G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Orthodoxy [1909] (CQOD)

It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild skepticism runs its course. It has run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more skeptical world than that in which men doubt whether there is a world. It might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the absurd pretense that modern England is Christian. But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow.

Even if you've no desire to read his apologetics, Chesterton's fiction is great and there's a pretty good Alec Guiness version of Father Brown you might find at the video store. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 11, 2003 3:24 PM