The Fortress of Rationalism

"Even Mr. H.G. Wells has half spoken in its language; saying that one should test acts not like a thinker, but like an artist, saying, "I feel this curve is right," or "that line shall go thus." They are all excited; and well they may be. For by this doctrine of the divine authority of will, they think they can break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism. They think they can escape." G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy

Once upon a time a gathering of enlightened fellows came upon an abandoned palace and, upon seeing the tattered banner of Rationalism, eagerly went inside. As soon as they had all entered they were met by a ghost whose name was Sophist, who told them that he would welcome the fellowship and clean the palace for them and be their servant if only they would agree to keep him fed on beliefs and the arguments on which they rested. The fellows heartily agreed to the deal, and one of them produced a book of philosophy to offer to the phantom. Then Sophist took from the text about ninety large pages of fine print about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and with a bitter laughter it swallowed them up and spat back a smoky cloud of musical nonsense which was full of bad logic hiding behind long words and flippant sarcasm. The enlightened friends thought the cloud highly amusing.

So the wanderers settled down in the palace, and for many months they fed their host on history, on poetry, on religion, and on philosophy. Then, after he had grown quite distinct and sonorous from his many meals, Sophist went to one of the portraits, took the hand of the  lady depicted there, and helped her to step down out of her flat prison into the restored halls. She came before the new masters of the palace and told them that her name was Naturalism. She told them that she had before been called a witch and that she had secret powers (though the actual truth was that she had only tricks which could be performed by anyone with sufficient tools and knowledge) and she told them also that she would use these powers however they saw fit if only they would permit her a room in the palace and the same freedom to roam the estate which they themselves possessed. The masters cheerfully complied, and she began her work at once.

Naturalism quickly filled the palace with fine luxuries to the delight of the moderns, and soon after she revived the goblin whose name was Industrialist and the nymph whose name was Utopia. As soon as he was again breathing, Industrialist went out to the gardens at the edge of the estate and began building up a new wing and then a guest house and then an amphitheater and then another wing and then a house for the workers that Sophist and Utopia had lured into the palace to be servants. In very little time, the palace was made to stretch out for miles and miles, and the smoke of its factories blotted out the sun, the light of which was hateful to Naturalist.

There was a time when the workers in the factories and the slaughterhouses began to murmur about justice and rights, but then Sophist raised up the twin bother of Industrialist, whose name was Socialist, and the two goblins got up on a stage and pretended to be at war. And when some of the masters who had set Naturalist loose and given food to her servant heard of the mumblings they were somewhat disturbed, but then Sophist whispered horrible lies to them about the cost of progress and the small minds of the poor and other dreadful things. He would not have dared to whisper such things before, because then they might have given the game away. But the fellows had been intoxicated by his smog for years by now, and they did not have anything in them firm enough to resist the phantom's lies. And as they nodded along, a witch named Eugenics and her brother whose name was Vivisector returned to life.

At long last, some of the masters became restless and uneasy. A few went into the library, but they found that Sophist had eaten anything worth reading. They asked "what am I?" but all they could find to answer them were books of anatomy and one little text about behavioral psychology, and these they found irrelevant. They asked why they were there, and they found many books on evolution, and the stars, and reproduction, but these were also irrelevant. They asked question after question, but any books that had even tried to answer those most human questions had already been fed to the ghost of the mansion. There was, of course, one name left for them to call upon which could break the power of Sophist. A few of the masters, driven to the most desperate of measures, invoked that name, and they escaped the doomed fortress. But most pretended they had forgotten it.

Then, when the remaining masters found the questions still confounding and worrying them, Sophist and Utopia went among them. The fellows asked their questions, and Sophist cheerily mocked the wisdom that lay behind them. Then each fellow would seize upon some bit of nonsense which the spirit had exhaled, and then Sophist would breath encouraging gibberish over that scrap. And Utopia went to anyone still human enough that they were not quite satisfied and pleasured them until they forget their concerns. And in this garden of twisted fancies, some poor fool uttered the words: "the will to power."

And then, with that dark incantation finally uttered, the iron locks broke away from the cellar doors. Like a wretched stream, scuttling horrors flowed out from the deep places of the estate. Goblins, ghouls, insectile creeps, gangrenous gnomes, mutated sprites, nameless shades, nightmarish bogies, and twisted fiends of every variety crawled across the polished floors. Behind the legion of bitter opportunists there came the ogres, the witches, and the giants who reveled in cruelty and who grew stronger in the suffering of the poor and the weak. And finally there came Ba'al into the house the masters and their former servants had prepared for him, and he did as he pleased and took what he liked.

Upon hearing the thunderous upheaval, the men and women of other lands turned to the ambassadors and businessmen of the estate. Sophist had given these things his breath, and they had taken it wherever they went. Everywhere they had found champions of every hearty creed, and these champions had argued with them long into the night. But now those champions said to them: "We have been patient and tolerant because we love truth and prize the trial of discourse which belongs to it. But now you have put truth aside and set savage might loose upon the lands. So go back to your king and repeat the last words we shall address to your kind: We will stop you. We will kill you."

"There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully practical about its practice. And while I reiterate that many of its more eloquent agents are probably quite innocent instruments, there are some, even among Eugenists, who by this time know what they are doing. To them we shall not say, 'What is Eugenics?' or 'Where on earth are you going?' but only 'Woe unto you, hypocrites, that devour widows' houses and for a pretence use long words.'"  G.K. Chesterton in Eugenics and Other Evils

The Pilgrim at the Graveyard

Once upon a time there was a pilgrim who left his home and all that he could not carry on his back to seek Jerusalem. He went out through the city and walked for days without seeing the end of it. As he went he passed by many people talking and many televisions playing and many newspapers lying on the sidewalk. He spoke to many while he walked and asked if they knew they way to Jerusalem, and they laughed and told him to turn around. Some though there was no path. Some though he could reach it by any path, which was no help at all. Some told him there was a path, but it was a dark and wicked road and so they would not reveal it. And in all he heard and read he found this unwavering assumption that all he loved and clung to was a blatant lie. And a horrible suspicion began to creep into him. He did not know what discovery had been made, what brilliant experiment had been performed, what supercomputer had spat out such an undeniable formula, but he feared that if he encountered it then he would lose his dearest love.

And then one day he met a man who was a skeptic and a freethinker, and the pilgrim knew this because the freethinker told nearly everyone he met about it, just as the pilgrim told nearly everyone he met the place to which he was going. This was in part frightening and also a very great relief to the pilgrim because everyone else he had met had been too polite to tell him plainly why they thought his doctrines wrong and many were too polite to even tell him that they thought the doctrines wrong even when it was obvious that this was what they thought. It had confused the pilgrim very much that they thought it rude to advocate truth, and now he was happy to meet one who could at least tell him that secret, thought it might destroy all he loved. And so he asked the freethinker if he thought the Covenants wrong and why he thought as he did.

"Indeed," said the freethinker. "I do think they are wrong, and, as to why, I will do better than telling you. I will show you the decisive proof!"

So the freethinker took the pilgrim to a graveyard and led him to a marble statue of a bearded man sitting on a throne and of this place he said, "This is the graveyard of the gods. Here is Zeus, or Jupiter if you please. Here is the date of his birth, and here is the date of his death. Look around you, each of these were once worshiped as you worship the palestinian, and now they are all gathered and forgotten in this place. There are thousands of them here, thousands who were all believed to be eternal. That is why we know your god is dying. We have even reserved a plot for him over there."

Upon hearing this, the pilgrim was filled with joy and mirth which poured out of him in uproarious laughter. He said to his startled guide, "Thank you, kind sir. I had been nearly convinced until now that there was a secret discovery which would be my ruin. I had become afraid to say where I was going or to pray in any obvious manner. It was good for me to be made small and meek, but there is something about which I should be bold and loud, and you have set it free again."

Seeing that the freethinker did not understand, the pilgrim explained further. "You told me that Zeus was worshiped in the same way that the Nazarene is worshiped, but this is obviously not true. No one was ever told to save their life by spitting on the works of Homer and then chose instead to kiss them. And when the pagans went to other lands, they believed they had left their gods at home. And though Zeus was called immortal, he was not called timeless. He was born of Chronos and his wife, and before that he did not exist in any form. You have pretended that these are all the same as the I Am, but that is clearly nonsense. They are not all even the same as each other. That doll over there was a household god, and it was said that the god and the doll that represented it were one and the same. Ra's power stretched as far as the Nile, but that doll was not said to have power even at the other end of town. I tell you, spend one hour reading the facts of the case and you will know without doubt that they are not the same."

"And there is something else," said the pilgrim before the angry freethinker could object. "You said that you have prepared a plot for Adonai, and then I saw your chest puff up with pride. I think that you have supposed that it was skeptics who killed these gods and dug their graves, but that is wrong. Some of these died because their worshipers were killed, but that is not how Zeus was killed. I know who killed Zeus, and He is the Nazarene. But He did not kill him as those household gods from Mecca were killed. The splendor and might of Jupiter was laid to waste by the weakness of the martyrs. The pagan worshipers of Jupiter killed the worshipers of the I Am again and again until the blood of the martyrs washed the idols out into the sea. Many of the pagans gave up oppressing and joined the oppressed believers, and the rest died of exhaustion without any successors. Nothing they told their children could convince them that Zeus was more substantial than the Jewish Messiah from the eastern land. That is how this one died, and many others died in the same way. Some others like Quetzalcoatl were killed in war by wicked men desiring power and loot, but there are men like that everywhere and dwelling in all great creeds. And to be honest, Quetzalcoatl was an unusually wicked idol that wanted for a quick and decisive death. And while there are many that were killed in that way, the greatest of these dead gods were put down by slaves and martyrs."

So the pilgrim thanked the freethinker for showing him this field of victory and for renewing his faith, and with great vigor and eagerness the pilgrim set out again in search of Jerusalem.