02-01-2011, 06:46 PM
I was reading a piece by G.K. Chesterton today, and as part of his argument he included this passage. I found it interesting as an outside observer's assessment of the chief problem with Fundamentalism. I've set what I think the most important thematic sentence in bold type.
So, even stripped of the schismatic, nitpicking, obsequious traits we all know from the broader culture of IFB-brand Fundamentalism, do "the Fundamentals" work, or is Chesterton right that they undermine themselves? Thoughts? In the interest of disclosure, I think Chesterton is dead-on.
Quote:Catholicism, in a sense little understood, stands outside a quarrel like that of Darwinism at Dayton [the so-called Scopes "Monkey" Trial]. It stands outside it because it stands all around it, as a house stands all around two incongruous pieces of furniture. It is no sectarian boast to say it is before and after and beyond all these things in all directions. It is impartial in a fight between Fundamentalism and the theory of the Origin of Species, because it goes back to an origin before that Origin; because it is more fundamental than Fundamentalism. It knows where the Bible came from. It also knows where most theories of Evolution go to. It knows there were many other Gospels besides the Four Gospels, and that the others were eliminated by the authority of the Catholic Church. It knows there are many other evolutionary theories besides the Darwinian theory; and that the latter is quite likely to be eliminated by later science. It does not, in the conventional phrase, accept the conclusions of science, for the simple reason that science has not concluded. To conclude is to shut up; and the man of science is not at all likely to shut up. It does not, in the conventional phrase, believe what the Bible says, for the simple reason that the Bible does not say anything. You cannot put a book in the witness-box and ask it what it really means. The Fundamentalist controversy itself destroys Fundamentalism. The Bible by itself cannot be a basis of agreement when it is a cause of disagreement; it cannot be the common ground of Christians when some take it allegorically and some literally.
So, even stripped of the schismatic, nitpicking, obsequious traits we all know from the broader culture of IFB-brand Fundamentalism, do "the Fundamentals" work, or is Chesterton right that they undermine themselves? Thoughts? In the interest of disclosure, I think Chesterton is dead-on.
The human mind can understand truth only by thinking. --St. Thomas Aquinas