G. K. Chesterton on the Paradoxes of Christianity

…G. K. Chesterton gives a very interesting description of the theme of paradox in Christianity in his book Orthodoxy. Christianity, observes Chesterton, is “attacked on all sides for all contradictory reasons.” For example, the doctrine of the depravity of man was ridiculed as excessive pessimism, while the doctrine of heaven and the salvation of the world was written off as a fairy tale. Chesterton writes,

“One great agnostic asked why Nature was not beautiful enough, and why it was hard to be free. Another great agnostic objected that Christian optimism, “the garment of make-believe woven by pious hands,” hid from us the fact that Nature was ugly, and that it was impossible to be free. One rationalist had hardly done calling Christianity a nightmare before another began to call it a fool’s paradise.”

What, asks Chesterton, are we to make of the strange claims of Christianity? Perhaps, he wonders, the wide range of errors of which it is accused actually reflect a diversity of errors in the thoughts and attitudes of its attackers – pride in the one who regards the idea of the sinful nature as an insult to humanity, a lack of proper desire, joy, or awe towards reality in the one denies that there is a spiritual reality beyond the physical (seeing no reason why there should be any; C. S. Lewis wrote in “The Weight of Glory” that we are far too easily pleased), or life beyond death, a stubborn lack of imagination in the one who sees no order or beauty in Nature, impatience in the one who sees moral rules as restrictive or legalistic, etc. (I am merely speculating here as to what might be the cause of peoples’ views.) Perhaps Christianity, although it is accused from all sides, is in fact the right shape, the norm, the center. Perhaps these paradoxical claims balance each other with a beautiful irregular symmetry such that neither side is compromised, but rather both shine undiminished:

“We want not an amalgam or compromise, but both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both burning…the idea of this combination is indeed central in orthodox theology…both things at once and both very thoroughly.”

“Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved.”

“The Church not only kept seemingly inconsistent things side by side, but, what was more, allowed them to break out in a sort of artistic violence otherwise possible only to anarchists.”

“Christianity was like a huge and ragged and romantic rock, which, though it sways on its pedestal at a touch, yet, because its exaggerated excrescencies exactly balance each other, is enthroned there for a thousand years.”

In view of this “great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium,” Chesterton concludes that “there never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.”

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The Paradox of the Cross

…The way of life described by these paradoxes is demonstrated supremely by Christ, and it is from the ultimate Gospel paradox of his death and resurrection that these beautiful paradoxes are derived (see “The Victory of God”). It in the cross of Christ that we see most fully what it means to be last, to be foolish in the world’s eyes, to lose one’s life, to know sorrow, to bear a burden, to be empty, to be nothing, to die. And it is in the victorious resurrection of Christ that we see most clearly and brightly the last becoming first, foolishness becoming wisdom, sorrow giving birth to joy, emptiness overflowing, and death turned to life. Evil is used as a means for the greatest good, the greatest pain purchases the highest joy, and the death of God himself makes possible the defeat of death, the most complete revelation of God, and the eternal life of his children. This is the ultimate paradox, the center of Christianity, and the most beautiful thing I know – I describe it much more fully in “The Victory of God.”

It must also be remembered that these paradoxes describe life in a fallen world, and in them we see what it means for the world to be fallen and broken (see “The Paradox of ‘Beauty Marred’: A Fallen World”). I believe that God intended a fallen world to exist so that there would be a place for the cross, which was God’s perfect design from the beginning (see “The Cross Predestined”). To make it possible, he set the stage for the fall of man and then for his own incarnation. We still live in that fallen world, and we must follow Jesus to the cross. It is for this reason that life in a fallen world, and especially life for followers of Christ, is marked by paradox.* It all revolves around the cross of Christ, for which the world was made and in light of which we live.

*One last thought: finite temporal life itself seems paradoxical. The more one lives, the closer death approaches. The more life one has experienced, the closer one is to losing life. Thanks to my friend Josh Sales for this thought.

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A Variety of Language, But One Paradoxical Truth

… The last shall be first, the ‘foolish’ receive a hidden wisdom, he who loses his life will find it, joy will grow from sorrow, our burden is light and easy in Christ, to be empty is to be filled, to have nothing is to have everything, and death will give birth to life. These paradoxes are closely linked. I see them as describing one truth with different language, or approaching one truth from different perspectives or in different contexts. Furthermore, it is not as if the language used in Scripture for each perspective is separate or compartmentalized from the language used for the others. Rather, they overlap, thus illustrating the continuity and relatedness of the paradoxes. Here are some specific observations:

• All of these paradoxes were taught by Jesus. From the whole of his teaching, it seems clear that he saw then as closely related.
• Paul used much of the same language in his writing, focusing in particular on the foolish/wise, sorrow/joy, and death/life paradoxes. He used this wide range of language to describe one thing: the Gospel, and how it affects our lives.
• The last/first and foolish/wise paradoxes are much the same idea (see earlier posts), although the language is different. The main difference is Paul’s application of the foolish/wise language to the “word of the cross.”
• The lose life / find life (death/life) and sorrow/joy paradoxes are also particularly similar. As with the “foolish wisdom,” the sorrow/joy language is used mostly by Paul.
• The empty/filled paradox is, again, much the same idea, although I have connected it to love because, I think, the language lends itself to that idea well.
• The obedience/freedom paradox is less tied to the others. It is more of a distinct, separate idea (see earlier post).
• 2 Corinthians 6:9-10, “as dying, and behold, we live, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing everything,” brings together the death/life, sorrow/joy, and last/first paradoxes.
• James 3:13, “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom,” brings together the foolish/wise and last/first paradoxes.
• “In him are everlasting strength for the weak, unsearchable riches for the needy, treasures of wisdom and knowledge for the ignorant, fullness for the empty” – The Valley of Vision, p. 21

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The Paradox of the Empty Cup Overflowing, “Having Nothing, Yet Possessing Everything”

…How, one might wonder, will there be any life or joy or strength left if we are continually laying down our lives and giving ourselves sacrificially, becoming weak, nothing? The paradox, the mystery, the miracle is that it is in this self-emptying act that we ourselves are filled – it is in giving that we receive (Acts 20:35), in losing all that we gain everything, in emptying ourselves that we are filled to the point of overflow. Father Rodney Kissinger writes, “Love is always fulfilling itself by emptying itself. This is the kenosis of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery and this is the new math of Christianity: you add by subtracting.”

God’s love is ‘expended in self-giving, wholly expended, without residue or reserve, drained, exhausted, spent,’ and yet, paradoxically, his love is infinitely deep, without end, constantly overflowing – there has been love within the Trinity from eternity past, and God will never cease to love. God is never empty, his cup of life and joy never runs out! Although he has poured it out fully, emptying himself unto death, his cup became fuller than ever – it overflowed in the very act of emptying! He gained victory in the very act of dying! From the cross, the tree of death he hung, and from the same tree burst fruit, even eternal life! One day perhaps we will enter the kingdom of heaven and see “the river of the water of life” (Revelation 22:1) flowing from God’s throne and giving water to “the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit” (Revelation 22:2). And perhaps beside that tree will stand another tree, the very cross of Christ, adorned with the leaves, fruits, and flowers of the tree of life. Even as “the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (22:2), so also is the cross for the healing of the fallen, the redemption of the lost. They are the same tree. It is the same cup that is emptied in sacrificial love that overflows eternally.

Just as God, although he empties himself, is always full, so we who are “partakers in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) will, although we must become nothing like Christ, be filled to the point of overflow and inherit the “treasures in heaven” (Mark 10:21, Matthew 6:20) we store up in this life. We will partake in the community of the Triune God, the persons of whom have, from eternity past, loved one another with the self-emptying yet ever-overflowing divine love, and although the love shared in that community will be the same love Christ showed in making himself nothing, we will be, at the same time, always full, lacking nothing we desire. To be empty is to be full, “to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21),¹ “having nothing yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10). It has been called “the secret of Christianity, the secret of spirituality and the secret of happiness.” There is indeed, I think, a great secret in this paradox – a mystery woven into the very pattern of reality.²

“He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.”
– Isaiah 40:28-31

¹ Surely in death the secret of secrets is hidden. Death is the climax of our earthly life, an end and a beginning to prepare for eagerly beforehand, not put off or dread. Death is not a mere end or obstacle to what we seek to achieve in life – it is itself the goal, the great challenge. It is to prepare ourselves and others for death that we must live now.
² And a mystery which ultimately reflects something about God. What that is I do not know. We have certainly glimpsed paradox in the Trinity.

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The Paradox of Love

6. The Paradox of Love

I have called this last paradox “the paradox of love” because I think that love is in fact what it describes. Jesus, having washed his disciples’ feet and thus shown “the full extent of his love” (John 13:1), says, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Their Lord and Teacher, their Savior and God, has emptied himself (Philippians 2:7) of his divine fullness and become flesh (John 1:14); he has humbled himself to servanthood, even death on a cross (see “The Paradox of Christ: God and Man (Philippians 2)”). He has made himself the last of all. All this he has done out of love for his disciples, and for all men, even though we scorned him.

Now he says “you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” And in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” As he has loved, we are to love. As he has emptied himself for others, we are to empty ourselves for others. As he said “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34), we are to “love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). As he became poor for us (2 Corinthians 8:9), we are to “sell what you possess and give to the poor” (Matthew 19:21). As he submitted, as he laid down his life, so we are to lay down our lives. To become nothing, to give ourselves. This is love: “in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3), to pour oneself out for others, as Christ did.* The washing of feet, described as an act of love, is clearly also an act of humility – one cannot love fully without humility. We are to value the good of others, even at great cost to ourselves – to exchange the natural inclination to value ourselves first for a humbling, emptying, others-centered love (see “The Love of God”)…

*This is how we are to be known as Christians to the world, how we are to shine the light of Christ as a city on a hill, as the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13-16). We are to demonstrate to the world in our own actions the sacrificial love of Christ, and thus not only tell but show people the Gospel. Many in the Church are doing this, but many more are not. Pray that we will give the world an accurate impression of what Christ did for us in what we do for others.

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The Paradox of “My Yoke Is Easy, and My Burden Is Light”

5. Freedom in Obedience

“I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.” – Psalm 119:32

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30, see also 1 John 5:3

This paradox in the Christian life is related to our paradoxical position as sinful creatures (see “The Paradox of Sinful Man”). Since we are fallen and sinful, we are naturally inclined towards disobedience (for example, abuse of the gift of sexuality, or taking vengeance into our own hands in our excessive hatred and anger). God commands us to stand strong against our sinful inclinations. This often seems restrictive and legalistic, when we are inclined to do otherwise. Yet obedience, according to Scripture, gives a new and better freedom, the freedom from sin that comes from new life in Christ (see “Saint Paul and C. S. Lewis: Death to Self and Life in Christ”).

You might look at it this way (thanks to Dr. Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton College, for the analogy): A gorilla is free to play a piano with total autonomy. He has no restrictions at all – he can move his hands wherever he wants and play as hard as he wants. What could be better? Quite obviously, listening to the music of a seasoned pianist. He has a different and much better kind of freedom, the freedom of understanding the notes and chords so that he can play beautiful pieces of music. Nothing is preventing the gorilla from doing this, but he doesn’t understand the secret of knowing and understanding the rules of the piano.

¬Similarly, it can be a joy to learn God’s commands and, by his grace, obey them. Yes, there is, I suppose, some short pleasure in being able to bang on the keys however you want in life, but there is a greater joy in knowing and following Christ. What a joy it is to submit to God, surrender to God, give up oneself, and be given a new life in which one is no longer trapped in sin, but freed from the prison of pride – free to live without the fear of failure or the burden of having to prove anything, because Christ is already victorious, and our “success” as the world calls it, our honor, is in him. This freedom from pride, a freedom to live for something greater than oneself, is truly liberating – it is something I long for. Although it takes time, God will give to those who seek him joy in obeying his commands out of gratitude and honor for him. He gives the strength to obey with a heart of gladness and bears with us the burden of obeying his commands (Matthew 11:30) – because Christ himself was obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8).

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C. S. Lewis and A. W. Tozer on Joy and Longing

…Pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow are often mingled in this world. Yet another paradoxical effect of living in a bittersweet world can be seen by looking at the human experience of perceiving and desiring beauty. We find glimpses and hints of it in the beauty of the world, but final contentment eludes us (see “Whispers of Eternity”). To perceive beauty is to perceive something unfulfilled in this world. It is to see a beam of light from beyond the walls of the world – we cannot yet approach the source of that light. One cannot find joy in this world for long without desiring something more. Even in our happiest and most beautiful moments, the height of the beauty only points all the more to heights of beauty that are higher still – indeed so high that they reach into eternity. A deep longing to climb yet higher fills us even when we are on the peaks. C. S. Lewis spoke poignantly of this in his autobiography Surprised by Joy – it was what led him to God, that thirst for fulfillment that always seems to be one step ahead of us. For Lewis, joy itself was desire, pleasure was filled with longing. Or, in A. W. Tozer’s words, “I long to be filled with longing, I thirst to be made more thirsty still” (The Pursuit of God 20).

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The Paradox of Awaiting Eternity: Matthew 6 and 1 Corinthians 7

…The authors of Scripture say still stranger things concerning grief and joy. Paradoxically, we are to grieve as though we were not grieving, and to be happy as though we were not happy:

“Let those…who mourn [live] as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.” – 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Why are Christians to live in such as strange way? Because, says Paul, the present form of this world is passing away. This is not a world of permanence, for which we long, but a passing realm, a frail and fleeting vapor (see “Whispers of Eternity”). It therefore makes little sense to invest our emotions so heavily in the momentary pleasures and pains this life offers – they are nothing compared to the larger Story that is being told. We must live fully, yet not as though this world is the fullness of life. We are travelers, and our home lies beyond death, through which we must pass. Jesus has a very similar message in his famous words in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also...Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” – Matthew 6:19-21, 25-33

The reason for this paradox – not building treasures in this world, or being anxious, or as Paul says, rejoicing as though we were not – is much the same as that for the paradox of joy and sorrow being intertwined – it is the nature of a fallen and passing world – not a world that is being destroyed, but a world that is being redeemed, and must therefore die first.

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