A review by allisonjpmiller
Heretics by G.K. Chesterton

4.0

Being a collection of essays, some struck me with more force than others. But overall, this is a wonderful representation of how Chesterton functioned as a debater: each essay "slams" either a single person or a group of people for their thinking, but Chesterton slams so good-naturedly, and with such respect for his opponents, that in the end it doesn't feel like a slam at all. If only today's thinkers would be so gracious and generous with each other! Chesterton always points out his opponents' sound thinking and good intentions before he dissects them. He is interested in the truth, and how both good and bad, "right" and "wrong" thinking, can get people there.

I completely agree with his final sentiments:

I apologize to the rationalists for even calling them rationalists. There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them... Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the skepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith...

The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still: this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face.