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I've gotten started on this book two times before, and quit before or at Chapter 2. I guess it was a bit hard reading; I had to remember (or reread) what the author talked about before, to understand what point he's trying to make. It seemed circuitous... I'm liking it better now. I'm glad for the Philosophy course I took, because I could tell in one place where Chesterton kind of referred to Descartes without naming names - the extreme sceptic that disbelieves even his own senses, who believes in demons and spirits, but not in material things. Of course Descartes argued back to believing his senses, but that was the start: that he couldn't tell whether everything was a dream or reality... I came across this sentence on page 103 about the saints: "They, being humble could parade themselves, but we are too proud to be prominent." It might seem like a paradox unless you have some context, but I liked this powerful statement. It tells me that it's okay to have high goals, if they are the right kind of goals. The last few pages of the last chapter were confusing. I still don't know what he was trying to say there. Oh, well. I'll try rereading in a couple of years, to see if I understand better. ---- In the last chapter Chesterton answers a question that a hypothetical agnostic may ask a person who has found truths in certain doctrines, "But even supposing that those doctrines do include those truths, why cannot you take the truths and leave the doctrines? [...:] If you see clearly the kernel of common sense in the nut of Christian orthodoxy, why cannot you simply take the kernel and leave the nut? Why cannot you simply take what is good in Christianity, what you can define as valuable, and leave all the rest, all the absolute dogmas that are in their nature incomprehensible?" The answer he gives essentially is that he has looked into the many and various objections to Christianity and found them false, based on incorrect assumptions. The truths of the Christianity however just add up, so to speak. The bottom line is this: "... my reason for accepting the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths out of the religion. I do it because the thing has not merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophies say the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but is true. Alone of all creeds it is convincing where it is not attractive; it turns out to be right..."

2022-11-14 18:18