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  "id": "CH08.P008",
  "oid": 201,
  "kind": "paragraph",
  "label": null,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
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  "work_metadata": {
    "title": "Orthodoxy",
    "authors": [
      "G. K. Chesterton"
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    "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": "CH08",
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  "prev": "CH08.P007",
  "next": "CH08.P009",
  "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P008",
  "text": "This, as I say, is the lightest and most evident case. The assumption that there is something in the doubt of miracles akin to liberality or reform is literally the opposite of the truth. If a man cannot believe in miracles there is an end of the matter; he is not particularly liberal, but he is perfectly honourable and logical, which are much better things. But if he can believe in miracles, he is certainly the more liberal for doing so; because they mean first, the freedom of the soul, and secondly, its control over the tyranny of circumstance. Sometimes this truth is ignored in a singularly naive way, even by the ablest men. For instance, Mr. Bernard Shaw speaks with a hearty old-fashioned contempt for the idea of miracles, as if they were a sort of breach of faith on the part of nature: he seems strangely unconscious that miracles are only the final flowers of his own favourite tree, the doctrine of the omnipotence of will. Just in the same way he calls the desire for immortality a paltry selfishness, forgetting that he has just called the desire for life a healthy and heroic selfishness. How can it be noble to wish to make one's life infinite and yet mean to wish to make it immortal? No, if it is desirable that man should triumph over the cruelty of nature or custom, then miracles are certainly desirable; we will discuss afterwards whether they are possible.",
  "length_cp": 1385,
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      "revision_oid": 165519,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T18:31:03Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T18:31:03Z",
      "title": "Shaw's evolutionary will and Chesterton's miraculous shortcut",
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          "unit": "CH08.P008",
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          "paragraph": "CH08.P008",
          "exact": "miracles are only the final flowers of his own favourite tree, the doctrine of the omnipotence of will",
          "start": 838,
          "end": 940,
          "prefix": "eems strangely unconscious that ",
          "suffix": ". Just in the same way he calls ",
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        }
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            "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates",
            "question": "What contemporary Shavian account of will gives substance to the accusation, and what qualifications does its original context require?"
          },
          {
            "approach": "Quotations and attributions",
            "question": "Can the alleged judgments on miracles and immortal selfishness be traced to Shaw's own words?"
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      "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",
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      "title": "The freedom concealed in dogma: orthodoxy as a resource for reform",
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      "anchors": [
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          "unit": "CH08",
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