The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton, published 1925
Refreshing to read a powerful intellect explaining the ways that the Christian Religion is not a philosophy, and not a mythology. Christianity might be analyzed and described by a philosopher, but that description will not be equivalent to the religion of Christianity. In the 20th century it became popular for, say, a Marxist philosopher to interpret the religion through the lens of capital and labor, social classes, etc. But it is a mistake to believe that the Marxists interpretation is the same as the Christian religion. I suppose any religious person does not need to read 300 pages to come to that conclusion. But GKC is responding very eloquently to a very common problem of people trying to say that Jesus was ONLY a simple moral man, or ONLY a social radical, or ONLY equivalent to Moses and Buddha and Mohammad.
I never really thought to ask if there is any other religious messenger that claims to be the son of God. One will find many traditions that try to unlock hidden possibilities in us so that we can "become son's of God." But I think I would agree with GKC that this is not the same as Jesus claiming to be the son of God. Moses never claimed to be the son of God, nor did Mohammad nor Buddha, nor Socrates. So while Moses, Buddha, and Socrates do claim to help bring us closer to God, and become what God intended us to be, these great men never themselves claimed to be the son of God. You may not believe that Jesus is or claimed to be that son, but the Christian religion does make the claim, and that seems to be unique.
It would have been fun to know GKC personally. His writing is that of a man whose brain is truly overflowing with thoughts and words that he simply cannot write fast enough. His thoughts are so long, that after leading us through a 4 page argument that somehow connects to about twelve historical facts, while teasing out a few philosophical arguments and mythological references, he will say something like, "...all the preceding argument can be put much more simply, and even in a word:..." And he will then take us through a paragraph that spans two pages, trying valiantly to summarize. I guess for him, paragraphs ARE words.
The opening chapter should be re-read by anyone who cares about the creation vs evolution argument. Though GKC takes a whole chapter, and lays out his argument extremely well, I will attempt my own quick version of his argument by recalling the example in our time of those people teaching monkeys to talk with sign language. The expectation in the researcher's mind being that if we can only teach the monkeys to talk, then we will be able to talk to monkeys. But what has resulted is something that no researcher ever expected: the monkeys have nothing to say.
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