The Catholic Book Club discussion

2) With all the devastations the ideologies depicted in Toward the Gleam have wrought, why are they still alive and well today?

I find the discussion of John with his student about Sir Richard the philanthropist, who is reported missing after a suspicious murder, unsatisfactory. The student's argument is as old as time, and Tolkien would have been able to answer him.

Mariangel wrote: "I find the discussion of John with his student about Sir Richard the philanthropist, who is reported missing after a suspicious murder, unsatisfactory. The student's argument is as old as time, and..."

Or even the own C.S. Lewis.

Mariangel wrote: "I find the discussion of John with his student about Sir Richard the philanthropist, who is reported missing after a suspicious murder, unsatisfactory. The student's argument is as old as time, and Tolkien would have been able to answer him."

True, but face to face discussions are always unsatisfactory. We always find out later what we should have said and didn't. In this sense, this discussion is true to life.

Manuel wrote: "Mariangel wrote: "I find the discussion of John with his student about Sir Richard the philanthropist, who is reported missing after a suspicious murder, unsatisfactory. The student's argument is a..."

I agree with Alfonseca ocasionally you can not say the suitable Word in a discussion. However in this age this kind of discussion between atheist and christians are fashionable. Chesty, C.S. Lewis, and Knox participated in them. In some of them it is not necessary to win, for instance Arnold Lunn defeated to Ronald Knox in the discussion, but at finally he conluded to convert to the catholic religión. Some critics said joking that the only person, who believes that he defeated the discussion was the own Arnold Lunn. After his convertion Lunn continue debating with other atheist between Haldane, who debated with C.S. Lewis. And Arnold Lunn won the debate, in this discussion he knew to his wife :-).
Now we live in a time, where the atheist would eat to G.K. Chesterton, because they interrupted all time, besides the world have changed and it is nowadays antichristian at least in Europe.

Manuel wrote: "Mariangel wrote: "I find the discussion of John with his student about Sir Richard the philanthropist, who is reported missing after a suspicious murder, unsatisfactory...

True, but face to face discussions are always unsatisfactory."

I must correct myself. I thought Mariangel's comment referred only to John's conversation with his student. In the next chapter (his conversation with Chesterton) I have noticed that he was actually half-convinced by the argument on evil, until Chesterton points correctly that the fall of a "saint" proves nothing but the fact that man has fallen.

I now agree that John's reaction is not in character, if we identify him with Tolkien, even though at that time he was the youngest teacher in Leeds University.

By the way, I'm not aware that Tolkien ever met Chesterton, although he was strongly influenced by his writings. Does anyone know?

We speak of "coming out of the woods" when something that has been opaque has become clear. We are no longer lost in the minutiae, we see the big picture, know how the pieces fit together to form the whole.

In the chapter "Scotland, Old Forest" we encounter relativism. Gosdier Jones leads John randomly through the woods down paths only he can discern just like the discussion that's going on parallel to the wanderings has no inherent logic, safe for introducing John to relativism. Jones refutes everything that is tangible, which, of course, is absurd.
In my mind I could see John Cleese portraying Gosdier Jones with his lanky walk and silly outfit traipsing through the woods spouting absurdities a la Monty Python.

I found it striking that he sees Nazism and Communism, antithetical as they may seem to each other, as equivalent, both tossing out any objective morality or faith.
Their ongoing appeal comes from original sin, doesn't it, the desire to determine one's own right and wrong rather than accepting God's determination? And of course the appeal of "science," as if we should do anything we can do.

Jill wrote: "I found it striking that he sees Nazism and Communism, antithetical as they may seem to each other, as equivalent, both tossing out any objective morality or faith."

I am not sure I follow. National Socialism and Communism at their core are the same thing. Both are rooted in secular, left-wing command and control ideology. They only differ in their outlook, one focused on the nation, the other on the worker.

Manuel wrote: "Manuel wrote: "I thought Mariangel's comment referred only to John's conversation with his student. "

It striked me first during the conversation with the student, but it is true that he needs Chesterton to convince him. On the other hand, Tolkien wrote this to his son:

"Our love may be chilled and our will eroded by the spectacle of the shortcomings, folly, and even sins of the Church and its ministers, but I do not think that one who has once had faith goes back over the line for these reasons (least of all anyone with any historical knowledge). "

Of course, he was a young teacher in the book, and an older man with an adult son when he wrote this. But he also adds in his letter:

"I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests; but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for me would mean leaving the allegiance of Our Lord) for any such reasons: I should leave because I did not believe, and should not believe any more, even if I had never met any one in orders who was not both wise and saintly. I should deny the Blessed Sacrament, that is: call Our Lord a fraud to His face."

This, combined with a different letter in which he states that he fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament as soon as he became Catholic as a child, makes his position in the book doubtful. He might not have been able to articulate it as well as in this letter when he was younger and in a face to face conversation, but he wouldn't have needed Chesterton to convince him.

Manuel wrote: "Manuel wrote: "Mariangel wrote: "I find the discussion of John with his student about Sir Richard the philanthropist, who is reported missing after a suspicious murder, unsatisfactory...

True, bu..."

Indeed they did not meet it is a poetic licence of the autor. Only C.S. Lewis said something of G.K. Chesterton in his allegory of love when he cheered up to write a book about the Italian Epic, but G.K. Chesterton was too ill for doing it. With all J.R.R. Tolkien complained G.K. Chesterton of his ignorance of norse mythology, although Tolkien was influenced in three books by G.K. Chesterton "The Niggle Leaf", "Giles the Farmer of Ham". Tolkien admired the G.K. Chesterton`s books "The Napoleón of Notting Hill"! (at least i found coincidences), "The Flying Inn), and The Ballad of the White horse, also Chesterton influenced a lot in the moreffoc or mythology of the tree, and G.K. Chesterton appeared in five ocassions in the Tolkien`s essay abnout fairy tales (i have a discussion with Eduardo Segura, and i won the debate he said that he quoted in one ocassion), curiously Christopher Dawson appeared in two ocassions in notes. Besides i know that the Inklings had thought to read the Man was thursday.

I think communism, fascism, socialism, progressivism (and liberalism?) all whisper in man's ear "you can be as gods, you can know (and decide) good and evil, you can control your own world and you can create heaven on earth." People believe because they want to believe.

John wrote: "I think communism, fascism, socialism, progressivism (and liberalism?) all whisper in man's ear "you can be as gods, you can know (and decide) good and evil, you can control your own world and you ..."

Oh yes!

Cardinal Ratztinger pointed out somewhere (I wish I remembered where, it could have been Christianity and the Crisis of Culture) that all ideologies are incomplete or fractured. Meaning, that from the whole of human experience they only pluck certain aspects that form a quasi whole. They are logical to a certain extent, but when eternal truths and/or truths of the human experience that are outside the confines of the ideology intrude, the whole construct is not only threatened, but the irrationality of them gets exposed. When it comes down to it, all ideologies are absurd. Now it is plain to see why they are so dangerous. To uphold them everyone and everything that doesn't belong has to be neutralized.

Indirectly ideologies confirm the truth of Catholicism. For Catholicism encompasses the whole of human experience in its most comprehensive form.

Kerstin wrote: "Cardinal Ratztinger pointed out somewhere (I wish I remembered where... For Catholicism encompasses the whole of human experience in its most comprehensive form."

Perhaps in Introduction to Christianity, which we read in this club one year ago. In chapter "Christ the last man" he says:

This is the encompassing horizon of Christianity, as far from pure metaphysics as from the ideology of the future typical of Marxism.

That's possible too. It's been over 10 years since I read it. Last year I didn't have time to join in.