Common Sense 101 by Dale Ahlquist

Author:Dale Ahlquist [Ahlquist, Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586171391
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2009-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

14

The Art of Defending the Christian Faith

In Matthew 10:16, when Jesus sends out his disciples to preach the Gospel, he tells them to be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves”. Wisdom and innocence. Perhaps more than any Christian writer in the twentieth century, G. K. Chesterton truly embodies these two virtues. Wisdom is about not compromising truth. And innocence means not compromising goodness. As a man and a writer, Chesterton never compromises either. His life and work beautifully convey both truth and goodness. His wisdom is evident in all his books and essays and poems, but it is also his goodness that makes him such a good writer, and what draws us to him.

But goodness should not be confused with something soft and passive. Defending the truth means fighting for the truth. And Chesterton says, “One of the best things is a good fight.”1 When he looked back on his life, he realized that he was always arguing. Not that he never did anything else, but he did find that he was always doing that, and that he seldom did anything else so well or worth doing.

I remember once arguing with an honest young atheist, who was very much shocked at my disputing some of the assumptions which were absolute sanctities to him . . . and he at length fell back upon this question, which he delivered with an honourable heat of defiance and indignation: “Well, can you tell me any man of intellect, great in science or philosophy, who accepted the miraculous?” I said, “With pleasure. Descartes, Dr. Johnson, Newton, Faraday, Newman, Gladstone, Pasteur, Browning, Brunetiere—as many more as you please.” To which that admirable young man made this astonishing reply—“Oh, but of course they had to say that; they were Christians.” First he challenged me to find a black swan, and then he ruled out all my swans because they were black. The fact that all these great intellects had come to the Christian view was somehow or other a proof either that they were not great intellects or that they had not really come to that view.2

It was almost a disappointment to Chesterton that the modern world “has far too little argument of the real sort”. Avoiding the “real” argument is a way of avoiding the truth. But “the aim of any public-spirited person” should be to find out what the truth is, and finding it, to defend it. Why? Well, there’s the slight matter of eternity, but there is also that thing that always seems of more immediate concern: the here and now. Chesterton says, without “a stable statement of truth”,3 we have nothing upon which to build a solid society. Truth is not merely a religious ideal; it is quite useful for other things, too. In fact, he says, “Theology is a product far more practical than chemistry.”4

Truth touches everything, which is exactly why it is attacked from all sides. And so defending the Faith means being able to talk about everything.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.