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An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton Randy Huff Kentucky Mountain Bible College

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An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton Randy Huff Kentucky Mountain Bible College Inklings Forever Volume 5 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Fifth Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Article 14 Friends 6-2006 An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton Randy Huff Kentucky Mountain Bible College Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Huff, Randy (2006) "An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton," Inklings Forever: Vol. 5 , Article 14. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol5/iss1/14 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume V A Collection of Essays Presented at the Fifth FRANCES WHITE COLLOQUIUM on C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS Taylor University 2006 Upland, Indiana An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton Randy Huff Huff, Randy. “An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton.” Inklings Forever 5 (2006) www.taylor.edu/cslewis An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton Randy Huff G.K. Chesterton was regarded by friend and foe as he enters, it is built wrong.”6 In the conclusion to a man of genius, a defender of the faith, a debater and What’s Wrong with the World, he sums it up thus: conversationalist par excellence. As a journalist he “all institutions shall be judged and damned by wrote thousands of essays; as a biographer he whether they have fitted the normal flesh and confounded the scholars. His large body of fiction is spirit.”7 most well-known through the Father Brown Mysteries 2. Truth transcends time: He believes it is possible which are still published, as is much of his work.1 He to speak from verities fixed in human nature and inspired C.S. Lewis, who listed The Everlasting Man in thus not subject to times and seasons in any the top most influential books in his life. His biography fundamental sense. If all notions are determined of St. Thomas Aquinas was hailed by eminent Thomist by pre-conditioning then everything devolves scholar Etienne Gilson as “without possible backwards until ultimately, there are no ultimates— comparison, the best work on Aquinas.”2 He was all is bias. There is, he says, a “degrading modern successful in marriage and with his extended family, heresy that our minds are merely manufactured by and though he and Frances bore the pain of accidental conditions, and therefore have no childlessness, they were greatly loved by children. relation to truth at all . This thought is the end Chesterton lived from 1874 to 1936, and his task in of all thinking. It is useless to argue at all, if all our life was to trumpet the truths that are rooted in common conditions are warped by our conditions. Nobody sense and the very nature of things. He believed that we can correct anybody’s bias if all mind is all bias.”8 can discern what is from life as we see it (the fall being Thus, Chesterton’s argument for marriage and fundamental to such a vision). For Chesterton, “The family is an attempt to give us some ‘ultimates,’ business of a man is to discover reality and, having some foundational truth. discovered it, to hand it on to his fellows.”3 3. Truth does not proof-texting: For Chesterton, a My task today is to present his defense for marriage man who lived require and wrote within the and the family. For Chesterton, the family is integral to continuing rise of rationalism and secularism in what it means to be human. Tradition, convention, and, early 20th century London, the apologetic had to as he put it, the “dumb certainties of experience”4 are present the sanity of orthodoxy without quoting the votes of the dead which we ignore to our peril.5 Scripture or even referencing theology as such.9 Chesterton believed the fact of marriage and family as This, he says, is a very restrictive requirement, but central realities with intrinsic norms expresses some of necessary, given the audience. He believed the those certainties, and he had a great deal to say about experience of generations of humanity revealed it. We will look at some of what he said, but before we some indelible facts about life, and that these facts do, a glance at his apologetic approach is merited. I see were discernible and fixed, not to be tampered three main points in his apologetic: with. With an apologetic thus grounded in life, it is hoped that his argument for marriage and the 1. Truth fits the human spirit: So far from leaving family can speak to any listener who is deaf to God out, this approach insists God is very much in, Scripture and the Christian tradition but, being for He created the human spirit, and created it in alive, cannot be entirely deaf to life. His very image, no less. Thus, for Chesterton, if a thing doesn’t fit the human spirit, it must go. “If a If you know Chesterton, you know that the word house is so built as to knock a man’s head off when “systematic” has little bearing on his mode of An Apologetic for Marriage and the Family from G.K. Chesterton ● Randy Huff expression. He casts about, one wonders where or why, And so we ask: “How is the family foundational?” only to confound you by drawing it all together in a First, in the way the family reflects the Holy Family piece you never imagined possible. And so, though I and the trinitarian vision therein.15 In this, admittedly, love that genius, it can make the analytical task we are into theology proper, unusual for Chesterton, maddening. However, I believe such a problem is and contra his apologetic approach as noted above. integral to the subject at hand, for it is so close to life Since he is going to the soul of things here—trying to that we are swimming in the subject while trying to explain reality, it is perhaps permissible for him to push understand it. As he suggested, trying to systematize things to theology, for how else does anyone get to the innate reality is like landing Leviathan with a hook and ultimates a without defining god thereby; or in this case, line.10 My solution is to attempt to reflect his thinking in letting God define those ultimates. a similar style. While I have divided today’s discussion Be that as it may, Chesterton said that as the holy into two main divisions, there will be several defenses family of Bethlehem brought the Saviour to the world, throughout—defenses that inter-relate, casting about, so the human family is a ‘sacrament’ of grace, a daily attempting to reveal the life that shines through any true means of redemption for all who celebrate it by discussion of marriage and family. In the process, let us partaking in and of it as they are able. Of course he is hope the Truth Chesterton defends is the Leviathan that using Bethlehem as the starting point. When he speaks lands us. of family as a trinity, he is clearly speaking to the idea that the family reflects the Holy Family—the mystery of Celebrating Family as Foundational to Life Trinity that is the Godhead. Within this Trinitarian model one finds the basis for understanding family as it “the oldest of the earthly cities” 11 should be understood. That being true, as marriage is the foundation of the family, it would be hard to find a Chesterton defended marriage and the family, first stronger case for its importance; for when we of all, by celebrating the family as the central reality of participate in marriage and family, we are human life. As he put it: demonstrating, and participating in, an expression of the very nature of God.16 “I really think there was a moment when I Approaching this theme from a different angle, could have invented the marriage vow (as an Chesterton says we must celebrate the distinction Institution) out of my own head; but I between the sexes; that to call a man ‘manly’ or a discovered, with a sigh, that it had been woman ‘womanly’ is to touch the deepest philosophy.17 invented already.”12 Chesterton has many fascinating treatments of the diversity of the sexes and the natural divide between And then, them, coupled poignantly with the mad desire to be joined. As he put it, “Those whom God has sundered, “I do not dream of denying, indeed I should shall no man join,” his artful way of reminding us that take every opportunity of affirming, that only God could join such impossibly divided persons.18 monogamy and its domestic responsibilities One of my favorite references to this diversity within can be defended on rational apart from union is this selection, well worth its length: religious grounds.”13 “. the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; And finally, if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to “Two facts must be put at the very beginning find out that her husband is a selfish beast, of the record of the race.
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