# The wreck presupposes a good ship

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P034](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P034/#char=1292,1371): "all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin"

The wreck image joins two convictions that can otherwise look incompatible: the world deserves passionate affection, and something has gone seriously wrong with it. The qualifier matters: Chesterton calls this an impression and places it among the ‘soils’ in which doctrine might grow. He has not yet supplied a theological history of the catastrophe.

Augustine provides a useful comparison. In the *Enchiridion* (written after 420), chapters 10–14 distinguish the goodness of created being from the corruption that diminishes it. Evil depends on an existing good: complete destruction of the good would destroy the thing itself. Chesterton's salvaged goods similarly suggest damage to something worth saving. But Augustine's claim is stronger and more precise: even a damaged being remains good insofar as it exists. Goodness is therefore not merely a handful of fortunate exceptions in an intrinsically evil material world. This comparison helps keep the wreck metaphor from becoming a condemnation of creation itself. [Augustine, *Enchiridion*, 10–14](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm).

The inspected witness is J. F. Shaw's translation in *Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers*, First Series, volume 3 (1887), as revised for New Advent. The comparison establishes a theological affinity, not evidence that Chesterton derived this image from Augustine; nor does the paragraph by itself identify every natural defect with a particular account of the Fall.

## Sources

- [Augustine, Enchiridion / Handbook on Faith, Hope and Love](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm), Chapters 10–14; introductory dating notice; About this page (Shaw translation, NPNF I.3, 1887)

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