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Not a Soliloquy

And I do ask them to believe that when we try to make our sermons and speeches more or less amusing, it is for the very simple and even modest reason that we do not see why the audience should listen unless it is more or less amused. Our mode of speech is conditioned by the fact that it really is what some have fancifully supposed the function of speech to be; something addressed by somebody to somebody else. It has of necessity all the vices and vulgarities attaching to a speech that really is a speech and not a soliloquy.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows

I once took a few classes on preaching. During one of those classes, someone went on a diatribe about why they didn’t understand all the fuss about making ‘applications’ in sermons. What if a text doesn’t have any modern applications? What if you just don’t see any? Isn’t it enough that we simply ‘teach’ the text?

Chesterton reminds us that people who talk to people are not in the business of making soliloquies. If you’re making a soliloquy, then who exactly are you talking to? Perhaps you are talking to yourself. Perhaps you are trying to entertain. But you are not actually talking to people.

Does God Exist?

A little quirk happening made me think of a quote by G.K. Chesterton from The Everlasting Man:

One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, concerned a comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book about the Evolution of the Idea of God. I happened to remark that it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen. And I remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a little.

I was watching a debate on YouTube and saw the title of a video which began, “Does God Exist?…Dan Barker Debate” But in my first (very quick) glance, I actually thought it said, “Does Dan Barker Exist?” I think that would be a much more interesting video and topic of debate.

God is not to be discussed or debated. God is not a subject for debate, because He is Who He is. We are told that the unbeliever, of course, does not agree with that; and that is perfectly true; but that makes no difference. We believe it, and it is a part of our very case to assert it. Holding the view that we do, believing what we do about God, we cannot in any circumstances allow Him to become a subject for discussion or debate or investigation…God is always to be approached ‘with reverence and with godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire’…

We believe in the almighty, the glorious, the living God; and whatever may be true of others we must never put ourselves, or allow ourselves to be put, into a position in which we are debating about God as if He were but a philosophical proposition (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, pp. 46-47).

Want of Wonder

The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.

-G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

A couple of Shakespeare quotes come to mind; let’s rip them out of context and use them:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Living on a Star

If we once realize all this earth as it is, we should find ourselves in a land of miracles: we shall discover a new planet at the moment that we discover our own. Among all the strange things that men have forgotten, the most universal and catastrophic lapse of memory is that by which they have forgotten that they are living on a star.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Defendant

Behold! A new heavens, and a new earth. One of the beauties of the ‘already, not yet’ aspect of the Kingdom of God, in Christ, is that the new birth really does introduce us to new heavens and a new earth. They have not yet been consummated, not yet finally recreated, but we ourselves have; and so we relate to them in a new way. When you get new eyes, everything begins to look different.

Chesterton and Mr. Smith: Everything is Poetic

I spent some time today listening to an audiobook of Heretics, by G.K. Chesterton. This passage made me a little giddy:

The sense that everything is poetical is a thing solid and absolute; it is not a mere matter of phraseology or persuasion. It is not merely true, it is ascertainable. Men may be challenged to deny it; men may be challenged to mention anything that is not a matter of poetry. I remember a long time ago a sensible sub-editor coming up to me with a book in his hand, called “Mr. Smith,” or “The Smith Family,” or some such thing. He said, “Well, you won’t get any of your damned mysticism out of this,” or words to that effect. I am happy to say that I undeceived him; but the victory was too obvious and easy. In most cases the name is unpoetical, although the fact is poetical. In the case of Smith, the name is so poetical that it must be an arduous and heroic matter for the man to live up to it. The name of Smith is the name of the one trade that even kings respected, it could claim half the glory of that arma virumque which all epics acclaimed. The spirit of the smithy is so close to the spirit of song that it has mixed in a million poems, and every blacksmith is a harmonious blacksmith.

Even the village children feel that in some dim way the smith is poetic, as the grocer and the cobbler are not poetic, when they feast on the dancing sparks and deafening blows in the cavern of that creative violence. The brute repose of Nature, the passionate cunning of man, the strongest of earthly metals, the wierdest of earthly elements, the unconquerable iron subdued by its only conqueror, the wheel and the ploughshare, the sword and the steam-hammer, the arraying of armies and the whole legend of arms, all these things are written, briefly indeed, but quite legibly, on the visiting-card of Mr. Smith… From the darkest dawn of history this clan has gone forth to battle; its trophies are on every hand; its name is everywhere; it is older than the nations, and its sign is the Hammer of Thor.

-from G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, chapter 3 (On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small)

This could have easily been mentioned in the Ethics of Elfland chapter of Orthodoxy. After reading that chapter I have never looked at trees and apples and rivers quite the same. Now I believe I will never look at a person’s name quite the same.