The Poet and the Lunatics

I have been following up a few footnotes to my paper for next week's Society for the Study of Theology conference in Manchester next week and ended up reading a few pages of a book that gets filed under the heading "I can't believe I haven't read this yet."

Far as I can tell, where we join the story the main character, Gabriel Gale, is being questioned by police for the way he ended a debate: By literally tying his opponent to a tree. In the course of that questioning he asks that they consult the man on the tree to find out if he'd like to press charges. By way of telegram the man responds only with gratitude--for in his view Gabriel has actually saved his life. Now here is some of Gabriel's defence. I've highlighted the quote I was following up in bold, and another quote lower down that I've heard many times before, most recently in a paper on the Lutheran doctrine of the Eucharist.

There is no cure for that nightmare of omnipotence except pain; because that is the thing a man knows he would not tolerate if he could really control it. A man must be in some place from which he would certainly escape if he could, if he is really to realize that all things do not come from within. That is the meaning of that mad parable or mystery play you have seen acted here like an allegory. I doubt whether any of our action is really anything but an allegory. I doubt whether any truth can be told except in a parable. There was a man who saw himself sitting in the sky; and his servants the angels went to and fro in coloured garments of cloud and flame and the pageant of the seasons; but he was over all and his face seemed to fill the heavens. And, God forgive me for blasphemy, but I nailed him to a tree."

He had risen to his feet in a suppressed and very unusual excitement; and his face was pale in the sunlight. For he spoke indeed in parables; and the things of which he was thinking were far away from that garden or even from that tale. There swelled up darkly and mountainously in his memory the slopes of another garden against another storm. The skeleton arch of a ruined abbey stood gaunt against the ghastly light, and beyond the racing river was the low and desolate inn among the reeds; and all that grey landscape was to him one purple patch of Paradise... and of Paradise Lost.

"It is the only way," he kept repeating; "it is the only answer to the heresy of the mystic; which is to fancy that mind is all. It is to break your heart. Thank God for hard stones; thank God for hard facts; thank God for thorns and rocks and deserts and long years. At least I know now that I am not the best or strongest thing in the world. At least I know now that I have not dreamed of everything."

Needless to say, I'll be checking the library for this book on my way home today. At lunch, however, I'll be presenting my SST draft to some of my peers for their critique. We do this to each other every week and I'm supremely grateful to have found people here who want to try to do theology in community. By the way, here's the abstract, which I sent in months ago and will be more or less presenting on Tuesday afternoon:

“Winsome Witness: G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday as Narrative Apologia”

As borne out by the phenomenon of William P. Young’s The Shack, the narrative mode of theology has not only a wide audience and a certain appropriateness to its subject matter, but also a large margin of error and a need to know its proper place. As a guide forward, G.K. Chesterton’s 1907 novel The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare charts a better course. In it a secret council of seven terrorists (named for each day of the week) is infiltrated by a philosopher-poet turned undercover policeman who, perplexed by both the absurdity and wonder of existence, is caught up in a harrowing pursuit of Nature personified, only to get around front and finally see the fleeting face of God. Spurred in part by Chesterton’s dedicatory poem, naming it his tale of “emptied hells”, readers have long noted the story’s wildly autobiographical element and elusive meaning. The novel merits close attention because, as a narrative apologia, it demonstratively avoids overstating its own argument on one hand and spiralling into mere narcissism on the other. Furthermore, as narrative theology, instead of undermining dogmatics or supplanting Scripture, the story serves them both—probing where systematic theology can’t reach without posing as a stand-in for its precision. As such, it is a winsome witness and fine example of the proper relation of theology and the arts.

You can probably see why I was tracking down the above quote.