Best known these days for his Father Brown detective stories (which he dashed off to support himself and publishing projects such as G. K’s Weekly), G. K. Chesterton was also a leading and feisty champion of Christianity. For Paul’s essay on Chesterton’s ideas on politics, society and religion see his website dpcrook.wordpress.com (under Blog), or click here:

G. K. Chesterton on Religion

Newman

John Henry Newman’s theology of development – a significant nineteenth century doctrine – has often been compared with Darwin’s theory of evolution. But just how valid is this comparison? Click on Paul’s essay on Newman below.Newman

Buddhism sees time as an illusion. Past, present and future may seem different to us but in “pure reality” they are a seamless whole.

Is there an echo of this in C. S. Lewis’s writings? This is what he says in Mere Christianity (1952):

“Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty – and every other moment from the beginning of the world – is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames….

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all”.

[Fontana, 1960, pp. 142-143].