Modern values in the apologetics of G.K.Chesterton

Abstract

We would first like to state the reason for this study. An eminent Thomistic philosopher, Etienne Gilson, thought Chesterton's Orthodoxy «the best piece of apologetic the century had produced » '. If someone had said the same of an eighthcentury apologist eleven hundred years ago, it would not have been the same; Gilson's judgement becomes all the more interesting when we remember that Chesterton's century has been the century of the great apologetic studies, second in importance only to the epoch of the Fathers of the Church and their apologetic endeavours. Moreover, it is not just Orthodoxy that has captured our attention. Rev. Ronald Knox —himself a renowned Catholic apologist— said of Chesterton «that, if every other line he wrote should disappear from circulation, Catholic posterity would still owe him an imperishable debt of gratitude, so long as a copy of The Everlasting Man enriched its libraries» 2 . And although the honor constitutes no guarantee by the Magisterium of the Chruch on the doctrinal content of Chesterton's works in general, Pope Pius XI confered the title «Defender of the Catholic Faith» on the British apologist shortly after his death in June of 1936.