Chapter 5: The Flag of the World
In this chapter, Chesterton makes his first encounter with Christianity as he sifts through and attempts to understand the world. At this point in his investigative journey he begins to see a half-buried parallel of his views to those of Christianity; he is beginning to see evidence that the path he is walking on is well-tread.
Up to this point he has been talking and making distinctions about the optimist and the pessimist. Then he writes this gem of a paragraph:
No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.
Chesterton has spent a little time discussing how loyalty comes before admiration; how one belongs to something before asking if it is a nice thing to belong to; how we can feel at once both at home and homeless in the same place.
This seems to echo that wise philosopher Paul of Tarsus who wrote these seemingly paradoxical statements:
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” ~ Romans 12:2a (NASB)
“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.” ~ 1 Corinthians 9:19-22 (NASB)
Previous posts from The Gospel Coalition (GC) and Mere Orthodoxy (MO) in this series:
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Introduction (GC)
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Chapter 1 (MO)
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Chapters 2 & 3 (GC)
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Chapters 4 & 5 (MO)
Previous posts from Risen Hope in this series:
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 1
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 2
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 3
- Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 4a