The optimism of alienation

G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:

My sense that happiness hung on the crazy thread of a condition did mean something when all was said: it meant the whole doctrine of the Fall .... And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship -- even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.

I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home.

This world is not the optimum. Resurrection is not merely the ultimate good thing in a generally happy world; resurrection means redemption, reversal, and revolution. The contentment of Christianity is not complacency. It is the optimism of the victor; the evils of this world are very real, yet powerless. Christ defeated death and decay. We have hope because he faced evil and shattered it.

| Posted by Wilson at 23:38 Central | TrackBack
| Report submitted to the Humanities Desk , Life Desk