Customer Reviews

The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 3: Where All Roads Lead / The Catholic Church and Conversion / Why I Am a Catholic / The Thing / The Well and the Shallows / The Way of the Cross

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That answer is summed up by Gilbert's own words, "To get rid of my sins." Indeed, he writes..."For there is no other religious system that does really profess to get rid of people's sins. It is confirmed by the logic, which to many seems startling, by which the Church deduces that sin confessed and adquately repented is actually abolished; and that the sinner does really begin again as if he had never sinned."

And this beauty is found only on page 9. 540 delightful pages follow.

Ignatius Press has done a wonderful deed in reprinting the collected works of Chesterton. This is Volume III, and it deals exclusively with Chesterton's writings on Christ and His Church.

Like all of Chesterton's work it is a delight to read. In it he tries to answer an unanswerable question - that of his conversion.

In the end, Chesterton is left to say, "I might treat the matter personally and describe my own conversion; but I happen to have a strong feeling that this method makes the business look much smaller than it really is.... I would say chiefly of the Catholic Church that it is catholic. I would rather try to suggest that it is not only larger than me, but larger than anything in the world; that it is indeed larger than the world."

Many people don't realize that Chesterton wrote his most famous work, _Orthodoxy_ *long* before he had officially converted to Catholicism. _Orthodoxy_ was published in 1908, and Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church in 1922.

If _Orthodoxy_ was written as a defense of Christian sanity against the heresies of the modern world that were driving men mad, the works contain in this volume are Chesterton's defense of the Catholic Church as the bastion of that Christian sanity.

This volume would be worth the purchase just for the short essay, "What Do They Think?" -- or even for the reminder that "Christianity is not a religion; it is a Church." I *highly* recommend this book.

This volume contains essays revolving around GK's conversion to Catholicism. As always, GK is illuminating and entertaining--several parts of these essays had me laughing out loud. GK has a marvelous talent for utterly dismantling an argument, an attitude, or a belief, while remaining so good natured about it that even his intellectual enemies must have liked him at least a little. Here, he mainly takes on Protestantism, modernism, secularism, Liberalism, and several other "isms" of the day that challenged the Catholic Church--some of which at one time or another had even attracted GK himself. In the end, he makes as convincing an argument for Catholicism that anyone could make. In the process, he throws much light on many political and social trends that were just gearing up in the 1920's, like birth control, divorce, moral relativism and secular humanism. GK offers grave predictions for these insufficient ideas, many of which sadly have come true beyond probably even his imagination.

G.K. Chesterton has "disturbed" this reviewer again. This reviewer has read Chesterton's books with the view of critisizing his books and ideas. Yet, each time this reviewer has found Chesterton's books a joy to read and "food for thought." Volume III of Chesterton's works is yet another book that thoughtful people should enjoy.

One of the arguments that Chesterton uses in these essays is that Catholic ideas and tradition have lasted while "modern" fads have quickly become dated. One of the agruments that Chesterton uses against Puritanism is that in the early 20th. century, Puritanism was something that no reasonable person would touch with "a barge pole." One of Chesterton's theses in this book is that while Catholcism has remained consistent for 2,000 years, Protestantism has become passe and has changed into meaningless modernism.

Chesterton has an interesting comment on page 280. To paraphrase part of this page, Chesterton remarks that modern Protestantism has replaced predestination with suggestion. The Catholic theologians have defended the Faith (The Catholic Faith) with reason. Along these lines, Chesterton effectively argues that Catholic authorities and theologians helf the beliefs of the Faith in a careful balence. The Protestants and modern agnostics have distorted both their own ideas and concepts by exaggerating parts of religion at the expense of everything else. This has led to distortion.

Chesterton gives reasons for his conversion to Catholicism. He proceeds to explain why other ideas and religious views were not reasonable. He also explains the distortions historians have made regarding the Faith. Chesterton's own intellectual curiousity led him to the Faith which he viewed as more sane and more reasonable.

Chesteron demonstrates historical insight in this volume. This reviewer gets the impression that Chesterton is holding something in reserve in making his historical arguments. He may have been inviting his critics to question his historical knowledge whereby he would give the historical details and knowledge. Readers should note that Chesterton was very knowledable of history.

Another interesting aspect of this book is Chesterton's concern over distoritions of language. He comments that some of the moderns were demanding a universal language and that they got was "journalistic jibberish." Chesterton remarks that Europeans had a universal language-Latin. Chesterton remarks that Latin was a precise language which had been neglected in favor of bad thinking and poor writing.

Chesterton did not engage in ad hominem arguements and was usually generous to his critics. He did not object to comments about his size and appearance. He could laugh at himself. Yet, he offer fierce cefesne of truth and honesty when they were attacked.

Volume III of Chesteron's works is well worth reading. As this reviewer wrote before, some may consider me as skeptic. However, Chesterton's writing, knowledge and reason is enough to make anyone pay attention and read his books to learn and to understand clear thinking.

This particular volume in Ignatius Press' collected Chesterton series pulls together his specifically Catholic books. Widely read in his own time, they were later praised by Hillaire Belloc and other writers during the Catholic revival in Britain. Yet they are little read in our time. One reason is that Chesterton converted fourteen years after writing his masterpiece, Orthodoxy, in 1908, and the current Chesterton revival is fueled largely by his novels.

My introduction to these books came in the brief overviews in Dale Ahlquist's G.K. Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense, which whetted my appetite to read them. One in particular stood out: "The Catholic Church and Conversion." As with Orthodoxy, it's a lively book with a dull title. I was shocked reading his account of the three stages of conversion: 1. Patronizing the Church, 2. Discovering the Church, 3. Running from the Church. But for me, the book was full of shocks of recognition.

I generally don't like Omnibus type volumes such as the Collected Works, and would like to see Ignatius issue this book on its own, but if this is the only way to read it, I highly urge curious readers to obtain this Ignatius edition (Volume Three of the Collected Chesterton). All of the books in this volume were originally issued individually nearly a century ago, and are eminently worth reading. One of them is interesting because GKC wrote it late in life, and reviews some of the ideas in his earlier books. Were these books available individually now, they no doubt would all have reviews on Amazon. As with Orthodoxy, this volume showed me that Chesterton's non-fiction can be as startling and fresh as his fiction.

Volumes 1 and 2 of the "Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton" presented the writer's longer works like "Heretics", "Orthodoxy", "The Everlasting Man" and his biographic outlines of Ss. Aquinas and Francis. Volume 3 shows us a different side of Chesterton; in this 'collection of collections' of essays and articles, we see the great Catholic convert, thinker, and apologist winning the war of ideas in short sketches and skirmishes (including one in defense of alliteration.)

Sparring partners include various modernists, socialists, fascists, crony-capitalists and puritans, but they are not necessarily contemporaries. Chesterton has the unique ability to move through time - even, seemingly, the future - and defeat falsehood and heresy by shining light on Truth; but it's not the light of dawn or dusk where cast shadows can obscure reality and make things appear as they are not. Rather, it's a noon-day sun illuminating familiar things, and the reader sees them for the first time.

As always, Chesterton's humor is evident throughout these writings. In the essay "Idols of Scotland" from the collection "The Thing: Why I am Catholic", Chesterton takes note of the anti-Catholic bigotry that forbids Catholics to make statements of common fact about history, but employs a bit of slapstick to make his point:

"One of the peculiarities of this sort of bigot is that he cannot distinguish between provocative statements and plain inevitable statements. If I say that the Reformation was a relapse into barbarism, a return to all that was worst in the Dark Ages without anything of what was best in them, an idolatry of dead Hebrew documents full of visions and symbols without any Daniel to interpret the dreams, a stampede of brutal luxury and pride with a vulgar howl of hot-gospelling for an excuse, a riot of thieves and looters with a few foaming and gibbering lunatics carried in front of it like live mascots for luck; the return of the Manichee, the dirty ape of the ascetic, conspiring with the devil to destroy the world - if I were to say all this I should think that these remarks about Protestantism certainly had a slightly provocative flavour. But if I were to say, with Mr. Belloc, that Protestantism was the shipwreck of Christendom, I should regard it as an ordinary historical statement, like saying that the American War of Independence was a split in the British Empire. The bigot cannot see the difference between these two types of statement, whether made by us or by himself."

Ignatius Press has done a wonderful job in bringing us these collections of Chesterton's works. The softcovers are thick and durable, strongly bound with a good sized font in a generous but not-too-thick volume of about 550 pages. I highly recommend this volume, and can't wait to dip into volume 4 in the near future.

Well worth the price to have ,The Catholic Church & Conversion,The Well And the Shallows & The Thing: Why I am a Catholic,all in one volume. Chesterton's writings on the Catholic faith was one of the reasons I came back to the Church.With common sense,humour & erudition Chesterton will convince you of the Truth of the Catholic Faith. Chesterton like all prophetic writers speaks to our time as much as his own.

Chesterton's genius is unquestionable - not because of the topic(s), but because his' logic is irrefutable.