Orthodoxy is Chesterton's most central book, the one that best defines his life and thought. It is a personal itinerary and a sample of how the Christian faith shines amidst the smoke of some 20th century worldviews.
-text Juan Luis Lorda
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) is rightly considered one of the most significant authors of 20th century Christian thought. Y Orthodoxy (1908), a book that defines the debate between Christianity and many contemporary ideas, which, in part, as he liked to consider, are Christian ideas. "who have gone crazy" by losing his relationship with faith and, to the same extent, with common sense. What is admirable about Chesterton is that he seems to be able, without getting uptight, without rebuking anyone, to deal with everyone by means of a literally overwhelming common sense. With bold and humorous contrasts he shows the ridiculousness of so many ideas, while at the same time embracing people.
Light in the smoke
What Chesterton has before him is very similar to what we have today. In the first place, a materialism that permeates from below the mentality of the time and has a diffuse scientific foundation. It has cornered without battle other earlier fantasies of thought, idealistic for example, and turned them into antiquities without credit. This materialism is based on the simple fact that modern science, since two hundred years ago, has come to understand with certainty how the material objects and living beings that our senses observe have been made. And with that it thinks it knows everything, although it still does not understand and cannot explain why such a miracle has been produced from nothing and without any design. And neither can he explain what we humans are and think, because our consciousness with our thought and freedom is not material. But he is so sure and proud of what he knows that he does not realize what he does not know.
