{ "id": "CH05.P023", "oid": 122, "kind": "paragraph", "label": null, "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "work_metadata": { "title": "Orthodoxy", "authors": [ "G. K. Chesterton" ], "description": "G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (1908), his account of how he came to Christian belief: the full text with annotations, cited sources and commentary.", "original_publication_year": 1908, "alternate_titles": [], "subjects": [ "Christian apologetics", "Christianity", "Philosophy of religion", "Paradox", "G. K. Chesterton", "English literature, 20th century" ], "metadata_version": 2, "metadata_updated_at": "2026-11-07T20:29:57Z" }, "parent": "CH05", "ancestors": [ "CH05" ], "prev": "CH05.P022", "next": "CH05.P024", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH05.P023", "text": "This answer was like the slash of a sword; it sundered; it did not in any sense sentimentally unite. Briefly, it divided God from the cosmos. That transcendence and distinctness of the deity which some Christians now want to remove from Christianity, was really the only reason why any one wanted to be a Christian. It was the whole point of the Christian answer to the unhappy pessimist and the still more unhappy optimist. As I am here only concerned with their particular problem I shall indicate only briefly this great metaphysical suggestion. All descriptions of the creating or sustaining principle in things must be metaphorical, because they must be verbal. Thus the pantheist is forced to speak of God _in_ all things as if he were in a box. Thus the evolutionist has, in his very name, the idea of being unrolled like a carpet. All terms, religious and irreligious, are open to this charge. The only question is whether all terms are useless, or whether one can, with such a phrase, cover a distinct _idea_ about the origin of things. I think one can, and so evidently does the evolutionist, or he would not talk about evolution. And the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was a creator, as an artist is a creator. A poet is so separate from his poem that he himself speaks of it as a little thing he has \"thrown off.\" Even in giving it forth he has flung it away. This principle that all creation and procreation is a breaking off is at least as consistent through the cosmos as the evolutionary principle that all growth is a branching out. A woman loses a child even in having a child. All creation is separation. Birth is as solemn a parting as death.", "length_cp": 1687, "sha256": "8dc978823ed60a1779fc2808d9dcf4ff58e82c33357abb309b84d66f70816e32", "children": [], "annotations": [ { "id": "a_c6rceovv", "oid": 165242, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165243, "created_at": "2026-11-07T17:17:32Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T17:17:32Z", "title": "What 'in God' means in Spinoza", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH05.P023", "oid": 122, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "paragraph": "CH05.P023", "exact": "Thus the pantheist is forced to speak of God _in_ all things as if he were in a box.", "start": 667, "end": 751, "prefix": "l, because they must be verbal. ", "suffix": " Thus the evolutionist has, in h", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH05.P023#char=667,751" } ], "metadata": { "run": "chapter-05-restart-2026-11-07", "paragraph_investigator": "P023", "task": [ { "approach": "Theological contextualization", "question": "Does creation as separation exclude God's continuing presence in creatures?" }, { "approach": "Philosophical contextualization", "question": "How does the box metaphor compare with Spinoza's account of things in God?" } ], "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_c6rceovv" }, { "id": "a_6slwfmfv", "oid": 165240, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165241, "created_at": "2026-11-07T17:17:32Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T17:17:32Z", "title": "A distinct creation need not be an absent God", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH05.P023", "oid": 122, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "paragraph": "CH05.P023", "exact": "All creation is separation.", "start": 1621, "end": 1648, "prefix": "a child even in having a child. ", "suffix": " Birth is as solemn a parting as", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH05.P023#char=1621,1648" } ], "metadata": { "run": "chapter-05-restart-2026-11-07", "paragraph_investigator": "P023", "task": [ { "approach": "Theological contextualization", "question": "Does creation as separation exclude God's continuing presence in creatures?" }, { "approach": "Philosophical contextualization", "question": "How does the box metaphor compare with Spinoza's account of things in God?" } ], "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_6slwfmfv" } ], "annotations_next_cursor": null, "cited_by": [ { "id": "a_5hvc6pyt", "oid": 165710, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165711, "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:11:19Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:11:19Z", "title": "A home large enough for discovery: the developing argument of Orthodoxy", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "scope": "work", "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "oid": 2, "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1" } ], "metadata": { "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07", "pass": "argument", "task": "Developing argument of the whole of Orthodoxy", "object": "BOOK", "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_5hvc6pyt" }, { "id": "a_6erz3oqr", "oid": 165700, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165701, "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z", "title": "Loving the world enough to change it: allegiance, revolt, and the separate Creator", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH05", "oid": 8, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH05" } ], "metadata": { "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07", "pass": "argument", "task": "Developing argument of chapter V, The Flag of the World", "object": "CH05", "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_6erz3oqr" } ], "cited_by_next_cursor": null }