A Reaction to Chesterton's “God in the Cave”

            Chesterton was an interesting read.  It was slightly difficult to understand what he was talking about.  From what I can gather he was talking about man and how he began.  What I think he was actually talking about though was the fact of God always being involved in our lives since before time even existed and the psychological side effects of it.

            Chesterton opens his discussion by talking about cave drawings in various areas and throughout history.  He then starts telling the story of the birth of Jesus and how he was born in a cave that had been made into a stable.  He describes this scene as such, “But in that second creation there was indeed something symbolical in the roots of the primeval rock or the horns of the prehistoric herd.  God also was a Cave Man, and, had also traced strange shapes of creatures, curiously colored upon the wall of the world; but the pictures that he made hand come to life.”

It appears that Chesterton is using the story of the birth of Jesus to talk about psychology.  A couple examples of this are, “But about this contrast and combination of ideas one thing may be said here, because it is relevant to the whole thesis of this book.  The sort of modern critic of whom I speak generally much impressed with the importance of education in life and the importance of psychology in education.” and then he later goes to explain how various people of other religions grasps this story whether they are aware of it or not; “Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes it or not, an association in this mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars.”

Throughout this discussion Chesterton references Confucius, Aristotle and a few other known philosophers and theorists.  He uses some of their thoughts to try and help support his argument.  The one thing that I still do not understand is what his plot is.  He keeps referring to the Nativity story, but I must be missing exactly what the relevance is for it.  I do understand him talking about psychology and it’s relevance within our education and throughout life, but other than that I have not been able to grasp exactly what his lecture is about directly.  An example of him referencing other people in such a manner is as follows.  The topic that I am quoting is on the topic of “learned men”, “Confucius would have found a new foundation for the family in the very reversal of the Holy Family; Buddha would have looked upon a new renunciation, of stars rather a jewels and divinity than royalty.  These learned men would still have the right to say, or rather a new right to say, that there was truth in their old teaching.  But after all these learned men would have come to learn.  They would have come to complete their conceptions with something they had not yet conceived; even to balance their imperfect universe with something they might once have contradicted.”  When looking at all of this it seems as though each paragraph is a different topic and he attempted to connect it all at the end.  The only think that seemed common throughout the discussion was the reference back to the Nativity story.

Chesterton, as I said early, was an interesting read and the fact that he used the Nativity story as an analogy was interesting, but confusing at the same time.  The language was easy to understand, at least for me.  Just as well, the fact that he used other philosophers and theorists within his discussion was also good and helped me to see that he was not just talking about this from his opinion only, but from other’s opinions and lectures as well.