The World Is Almost Rational: Why I (and G.K. Chesterton) Find Christianity Convincing

"The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite." [1] These words from Orthodoxy, first published by English journalist G.K. Chesterton in 1908, kick modernist secular rationalism in the teeth and Chesterton makes no apologies. It was these words, which I only read recently, which have affirmed something I had already begun to sense in my own intellectual journey. A master wordsmith put concrete form to the nebulous thoughts whirling around in my mind 105 years before I thought them. It was a refreshing and stabilizing encounter.

G.K. Chesterton, author of Orthodoxy

In today's cultural market place, traditional Christianity is often marginalized and a secular humanism frequently overstates its case. While there are plenty of other intellectual options, naturalism and some form of monotheism are the two most plausible worldview options for most westerners. [2] I began following Christ 17 years ago, and, since then, my decision has only been affirmed intellectually. I do, however, in the spirit of intellectualism, continue to take the claims of naturalists seriously. This is where Chesterton has helped me; he reminded me why I must stay the course and reject naturalism.

Quite simply, naturalism claims that the physical realm is all there is, and it operates mechanistically, according to a set of deterministic laws and forces. If we had the digital or mental processing power, in addition to knowledge of all the variables at any instance in time, we would be able to predict the exact state of events at any point in the future. [3] However, this can only work if the universe is perfectly rational--always following the rules. Any departure from the rules would throw off the whole system. This is the problem for naturalism. There are simply phenomena for which a naturalistic worldview cannot give a plausible account. Some things just aren't quite rational.

Chesterton uses the human body as an illustration:

"Suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. A man is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left. Having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left, a leg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still find on each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin eyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one side, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And just then, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong." [4]

There are unexpected and incalculable elements of the human experience that naturalism can't explain and yet Christianity can and does explain them, even if according to a different kind of logic. Again, Chesterton: "Now, this is exactly the claim which I have since come to propound for Christianity. Not merely that it deduces logical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it has found, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right about things, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things go wrong." [5]

Naturalists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins lambast Christians (and other theists) for being irrational. As long as they are picking the logic du jour, we will obviously be thought illogical. Perhaps there is a better logic--one that includes the supernatural. If Christian "irrationalism" can make more sense of the world around us than secular rationalism, who is the intellectual winner? Forgive me for not embracing a hardened rationalism that doesn't work.

The problem of naturalism:

What are those things for which naturalism cannot account? The problems are many, and I'll propose a few here:

• The epistemological (knowledge) problem. If naturalism is true, we have no reason to believe that our beliefs and thoughts are true, including the belief the naturalism is true. In his evolutionary argument against naturalism, Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has delivered a devastating critique of naturalism, showing that it is self-defeating. Our brains would essentially be wet machines randomly "selected" by nature for survival. Therefore, our brains would not seek truth; they would seek survival.
• The problem of evil. It seems unlikely that any naturalist would say that Hitler wasn't evil. Dawkins has even claimed that anyone who denies evolution is possibly "evil." If nature is all there is, how can there possibly be something called "evil?" How can there be anything called "good," for that matter?
• The problem of love. How can sacrificial love be explained? Self-interested cooperation is perhaps explicable in Darwinian terms, but real agape love is not. Love is reduced to a bio-chemical function of the brain. Surely what naturalists feel for their wives and husbands as they lay near them at night is more than chemistry. Or maybe Jesus of Nazareth suffered from a serious chemical imbalance of the brain. (1 John 4:8)
• How do we explain the human drive to pursue justice and beauty? What are justice and beauty?
• Why do humans across time and cultures share a basic set of morality? (Romans 2:14)
• Where did the universe come from? Frankly, the claims of theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, which have been bolstered by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, that it is possible for something to come from nothing is the height of irrationality and sounds like double speak. His "nothing" is not really "nothing."

Though not following the rules of naturalistic logic, there are biblical answers, which are intellectually satisfying, for all of these questions. Until naturalism, cosmic humanism, or any other worldview, can offer answers to these basic life questions, I'm perfectly satisfied with a biblical worldview.

I'm grateful for Chesterton, despite his loathing of John Calvin. He is a master of making his reader see the world from a new perspective. I find myself repeatedly asking, "Why didn't I see that before?" Reading his work is like wading through a muddy marsh, because his prose is so dense and unconventional; however, it is well worth the effort. Read it slowly and read it often.


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[1] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2004), 95.
[2] In the eastern hemisphere, such as my own current home of South Korea, more cosmic humanist worldviews such as Buddhism enjoy more cultural capital.
[3] For a classic explication of this, check out the 19th century writings of Pierre-Simon LaPlace, particularly a "A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities."
[4] Chesterton, 95.
[5] ibid, 96.