Just recently, I was rereading Chesterton’s
Everlasting Man.
I often cite to classes Nietzsche’s (he
is a favorite of mine, by the way) "the last
Christian died on the Cross."
This witticism was designed as a criticism
of the lack of virtue of Christians.
Nietzsche implied that he would be a believer
if Christians themselves were believers in
their actions.
He seems to have forgotten the famous dictum,
ex bono, sequitur et bonum et malum, that
is, it is perfectly possible for one to witness
good and do evil, and vice versa.
Chesterton, who began to write just after
Nietzsche died in 1900, has the perfect response
to this view: "It was the anti-clerical and
agnostic world that was always prophesying
the advent of universal peace; it is that
world that was, or should have been, abashed
and confounded by the advent of universal
war.
As for the general view that the Church was
discredited by that War — they might as
well say that the Ark was discredited by the
Flood.
When the world goes wrong, it proves rather
that the Church is right.
The Church is justified, not because her children
do not sin, but because they do."
Christianity never predicted a time in this
world in which men would not sin and therefore
would not need the graces of repentance and
forgiveness.
This understanding is the only solid foundation
of all realistic theories about human nature
and what to expect of it.
It has divine origins, in fact.
