“St. Thomas was willing to allow the one truth to be approached by two paths, precisely because he was sure there was only one truth. Because the Faith was the one truth, nothing discovered in nature could ultimately contradict the Faith. Because the Faith was the one truth, nothing really deduced from the Faith could ultimately contradict the facts. It was in truth a curiously daring confidence in the reality of his religion.” That is G. K. Chesterton, in his book St. Thomas Aquinas. … [Read more...] about Be Like Aquinas
G. K. Chesterton
Dreams: Chesterton, Gaiman, and Lewis
“We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep”Shakespeare’s Prospero declares that in The Tempest. Figuring out exactly what it means is the task of a lifetime. So, we won’t do that, today.But, what are dreams? G.K. Chesterton’s The Coloured Lands is a collection of some of his early work. Stories, poems, musings, and doodles, all with that Chestertonian air of paradox embedded within. The book defies summary. Think of it as the flotsam and jetsam of a … [Read more...] about Dreams: Chesterton, Gaiman, and Lewis
Christie and Chesterton
Agatha Christie meet G. K. Chesterton. Imagine a young Agatha Christie. She wants to write Crime Fiction. But, who should be her role model? On the one side, she can pattern her work after Arthur Conan Doyle. Hercule Poirot becomes the modern day Sherlock Holmes, using his little gray cells to solve puzzles. (Or as Christie would actually write, his little grey cells.) The clues are all handed to the reader along with an array of red herrings. The reader tries to be as clever as the … [Read more...] about Christie and Chesterton
Yea, Faith Without a Hope
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hopeFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without loveFor love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faithBut the faith and love and the hope are all in the waiting. That is T. S. Eliot in “East Coker.” The trio of faith, hope, and love is straight out of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church. The oddity or intriguing thing about the way Eliot uses that trio is the idea of having one without the others. With no hope … [Read more...] about Yea, Faith Without a Hope