It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild scepticism 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 sceptical world than that in which men doubt if 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.
GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1909), p.65-66
It's amazing reading Chesterton how so many of his comments on what the situation was like in his day are so pertinent to today. He's one of those people I'd probably class as modern-ish prophets, except he was writing 100 years ago.
Hat tip to CQOD.
No comments:
Post a Comment