"The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut...Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded." (Heretics, concluding remarks)
Seems to me that Chesterton is coming to the false conclusion that non-believers believe nothing, or that those who drop certain doctrines hold none.
ReplyDeleteAny dedicated atheist would be happy to speak of the doctrines, dogmas, systems and definitions of atheism.
"Seems to me that Chesterton is coming to the false conclusion that non-believers believe nothing, or that those who drop certain doctrines hold none."
ReplyDeleteNot at all.
I think he would be on the atheists side in this argument. I believe he is speaking against skepticism. He is arguing against having (or purporting to have) no beliefs whatsoever. An atheist, in his view, is at least being human.
He doesn't actually make any reference to Christianity per se.
However, he would not, and did not, hesitate to engage the atheist either. He would fight that fight with a different argument.
I just went and read the next paragraph (for context) and he does indeed congratulate other writers (Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, etc) for being believers in something. He says they are all wrong; but at least they have dogmas.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification, though I still don't agree with his point that we can fall back into an animalistic state of being free of doctrine, we can simply slip into a state of confusion where we are blind to our doctrine. A similar analogy might be Canadians stating we are cultureless. These individuals are no less cultured, they are just blind to their culture.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you there...doubting all dogma or believing we can't know anything is really just another doctrinal system.
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