Campbell's rival connection between theology and social freedom
dogmas of monism, of pantheism, or of Arianism, or of necessity
The list has a particularly relevant contemporary counterpart in R. J. Campbell's The New Theology, published in 1907, the year before Orthodoxy. Campbell is more than a conjectural name: Chesterton explicitly names him later in this chapter when discussing divine immanence. His book helps recover the argument Chesterton is trying to reverse. In chapter I Campbell links his theology to scientific knowledge, but also to peace, fraternity and a fairer distribution of wealth. He treats religious renewal and social reform as expressions of one movement. The witness inspected here is Project Gutenberg's transcription of the Macmillan New York edition, published March 1907 and reprinted in April. Campbell, chapter I, closing subsections.
Campbell's position also complicates the grouping of monism with necessity. In chapter III he admits a tension between the fundamental unity of existence and individual initiative. He rejects unlimited choice while retaining a limited capacity for moral decision; he expressly recognizes that a thoroughgoing scientific monist might criticize this concession. Chesterton therefore confronts a theology attempting to combine unity, agency and reform, rather than one simply proclaiming that people cannot act. Campbell, chapter III, final paragraphs.
This does not refute Chesterton's intended argument: he is contesting what a doctrine logically permits, not merely reporting its advocate's political intentions. But it identifies the burden of proof. To establish that such theology naturally assists oppression, he must show why its effort to ground solidarity in unity defeats the freedom it means to support. Campbell's reforming commitments cannot by themselves establish his philosophy's consistency; neither can the label monism establish its political outcome. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, chapter VIII, including the paragraph beginning “Here again, therefore”.
Sources
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