Chesterton: the end of doubt

Saturday, January 11, 2020
    Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915
Meditation:
    “You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD.
    “Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’
    “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”
    —Malachi 3:13-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild skepticism runs its course. It has run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more skeptical world than that in which men doubt if there is a world. It might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the absurd pretense that modern England is Christian. But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow.
    ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), Orthodoxy, London, New York: John Lane Company, 1909, p. 65-66 (see the book)
    See also Mal. 3:13-15; Job 22:17; Ps. 14:1-3; Zeph. 1:12; Matt. 23:37-38; Luke 13:34-35
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may the day come soon when all nations bow before You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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