“ If I am treating man as a fallen being it is an intellectual convenience to me to believe that he fell ”
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908). copy citation
| Author | G. K. Chesterton |
|---|---|
| Source | Orthodoxy |
| Topic | convenience |
| Date | 1908 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130-images.html |
Context
“This is the real question; this is the last question; and it is a pleasure to try to answer it.
The first answer is simply to say that I am a rationalist. I like to have some intellectual justification for my intuitions. If I am treating man as a fallen being it is an intellectual convenience to me to believe that he fell; and I find, for some odd psychological reason, that I can deal better with a man's exercise of freewill if I believe that he has got it. But I am in this matter yet more definitely a rationalist. I do not propose to turn this book into one of ordinary Christian apologetics;”
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