Schall On Chesterton

In this book of essays, Father James V. Schall, a prolific author himself and a prominent Catholic writer, brings readers to Chesterton through a witty series of original reflections prompted by something Chesterton wrote--timely essays on timeless issues.

Noting the widespread concern about the quality of education in our schools, Schall examines what is taught and read (and not read) in these schools. He questions the fundamental premises in our culture which do not allow truth to be considered. Schall lists various important books to read, and why.

The jovial journalist, philosopher, and theologian G.K. Chesterton felt that the world was almost always in permanent danger of being misjudged or even overlooked, and so the pursuit of understanding, insight, and awareness was his perpetual preoccupation. Being sensitive to the boundaries and possibilities of perception, he believed that it really was possible, albeit in a limited way, to see things as they are. Duncan Reyburn, marrying Chesterton's unique perspective with the discipline of philosophical hermeneutics, aims to outline what Chesterton can teach us about reading, interpreting, and participating in the drama of meaning as it unfolds before us in words and in the world. Chesterton's unique interpretive approach seems to be theimplicit fascination of all Chesterton scholarship to date, and yet this book is the first to comprehensively focus on the issue. By taking Chesterton back to his philosophical roots - via his marginalia, his approach to literary criticism, his Platonist-Thomist metaphysics, and his Roman Catholic theology - Reyburn explicitly and compellingly tackles the philosophical assumptions and goals that underpin his unique posture towards reality.

His premise is that civilizations have “life spans,” and the Western civilization that produced America and Europe has been replaced, in our lifetime, and before our very eyes. To people whose minds were made by the West, the civilization we now find ourselves in often feels wrong, evil even, but we also find ourselves feeling oddly affectionate toward this strange new world. And the more time that passes, the more “normal” the New Civ gets to feel. We sometimes have to “pinch” ourselves to remember that society once had roots in a universe that knew something of moral absolutes, where the horrible behaviors we now read about in every morning newspaper were so rare that one such event in a year would have felt like the world is just about to end. But these things are what passes for “normalcy” today. We are still able to be reminded of what we know in our bones, although it gets harder all the time: something has gone terribly wrong. That’s what this book is about.

Fr. Schall writes profoundly and charmingly about people, places and things, giving a Christian perspective to the importance of little things and particular moments. His essays on a variety of interesting topics combine fun, substance and serious reflection.

Edited by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. This next volume in Chesterton's series of collected works contains four of his books and four shorter "English" essays. Three of the books are accounts of his travels, two to Ireland and one to Palestine via Egypt. The fourth book is Chesteron's own effort to explain English history to Englishmen as well as to other interested parties, particularly the Irish. All of these books date from about 1920, except Christendom in Ireland, which concerns the 1932 Dublin Eucharistic Congress, which Chesterton attended.

Father James Schall, the well- known author and professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, inquires about the various orders found in the cosmos, the human mind, the human body, the city, and he seeks to reflect upon the unity of these orders.In a world in which the presence of reason and order are denied presumably in the name of science in favor of chance explanations of why things are as they are, it is surprising to find that, in the various realms open to the human intellect, we find a persistent order revealed. At first sight, it may seem that this reality can be explained by chance occurrence, but after a point, there is a growing sense that behind things there is, in fact, an order. This order can be traced in the many areas that are open to the human mind. As Aquinas has noted, the order within the cosmos points to an order outside of it, since the cosmos cannot be the cause of its own internal order. Philosophers have long inquired about the curious fact that the order of things implies not a mere relationship of one thing to another, but a hint that the universe is created with a certain superabundance. Why is the universe, and the things within it, not only ordered but, ordered with a sense of beauty? Not only is there an order in things, but also the human mind seems attuned to this order as something it delights in discovering. This relationship implies that there is some correspondence between mind and reality. What is the relationship between the mind and reality? The Order of Things explores this question. Relying on common sense and the experience available to everyone, Schall concludes that it requires more credulity to disbelieve in order than to experience it. Finally, Schall explores the fundamental cause of order, what it is like? Having looked at the order of the created universe, it is not surprising that the revelation of the Godhead is itself ordered in terms of an inner relationship of Persons.