CHESTERTON AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Author(s): Mark Knight

Source: Literature and Theology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (December 2000), pp. 373-384
Published by: Oxford University Press
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Literature & Theology, Vol. 14. No. 4, December 2000

CHESTERTON AND
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Mark Knight
Abstract

Although Chesterton is often seen as promoting a superficial optimism in

his writing, it would be wrong to presume that he had little or nothing to

say regarding the problem of evil. This article examines Chesterton's

appropriation of the Free Will Defence (FWD), which is particularly
explicit in The Surprise. While Chesterton favoured the FWD, he also
recognised the mystery of suffering that is portrayed in the Book of Job. The

extent to which evil can be explained is a perennial question that has

recendy taken the form of a debate between theodicy and defence. The
article concludes by looking for a solution in The Man who was Thursday.

One of the complaints often levelled against G.K. Chesterton is that his
writings appear to promote a superficial optimism which fails to comprehend
the painful reality of existence. As Michael Mason reminds us: 'Some critics have

accused Chesterton of a truly infantile unawareness of the dark side of life.'1

C.F.G. Masterman voiced the opinion of many in his review of The Defendant:
'Mr Chesterton is convinced that the Devil is dead. A children's epileptic

hospital, a City dinner, a suburban at home, a South African chamel camp, or

any other examples of cosmic ruin fail to shake this blasphemous optimism.'2
Henry Murray made a similar criticism in his own review of Chesterton:
The real paradox about Mr Chesterton ... is that, with a tender and overflowing
affection for all sentient things, he seems almost completely ignorant of the

existence of sorrow or suffering ... I cannot imagine that he has ever given
one solitary individual a moist eye or a lump in the throat. Pathos and tragedy

are notes, or rather entire octaves, lacking from his keyboard. His boisterous
optimism will not admit that there is anything to sorrow over in this best of all

possible worlds.

It is easy to see how critics have formed this opinion of Chesterton's work.
While his emphasis on the joy of existence challenged his readers to look at
the world in a new way, it also threatened to ignore, or at least marginalise, the
suffering that we find in the world. And yet it would be quite wrong to presume
Oxford University Press 2000

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374 CHESTERTON AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

that Chesterton had little or nothing to say regarding the problem of evil.
Indeed, his recognition of the prevalence of evil led him to attack some of
his contemporaries for their shallow optimism: 'Men who wish to get down

to fundamentals perceive that there is a fundamental problem of evil. Men

content to be more superficial are also content with a superficial fuss and
bustle of improvement.'
Chesterton's own reflections on the problem of evil led him to formulate
a wide-ranging response. For example, his continual emphasis on the joy of
existence can be seen as an attempt to address the existential problem of
evil: 'Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental
thing in him, and grief the superficial.'5 Although many of Chesterton's writings

were oriented around the question of how we should respond to the evil that
we find in the world, he was also fascinated by the initial cause(s) of evil and
the concomitant problems that this raises for theism in general and Christianity
in particular. This, rather than Chesterton's response to the existential problem

of evil, is the primary concern of this article. With this in mind, I will con
centrate on Chesterton's appropriation of the Free Will Defence, with special
reference to his play The Surprise and his writings on the Book of Job. In recent

years, there has been considerable debate as to whether or not the Free Will
Defence constitutes a theodicy or a defence. Is it appropriate, or even possible,

for Christians to try and explain the ways of God, or should they restrict
themselves to defending the logical coherency of belief in God in the face of
evil? Both approaches have some merit, and my article will conclude by
suggesting that Chesterton's novel, The Man who was Thursday: A Nightmare
(1908), offers a version of the Free Will Defence that successfully integrates
the two approaches.
As with any apology, the Free Will Defence is given in response to something.

In this case, it is given in response to the charge of logical incoherence that is

levelled against theism:
At its simplest, the problem of evil can be put like this: is it possible to reconcile

the existence of evil in the world with the existence of a God who is morally
admirable, omnipotent, and omniscient? ... If God is omniscient, he knows what
this world is like; if he is omnipotent, he could either have created it differently
in the first place, or intervened to correct it; and if he does neither of these things,

he would seem to be morally at fault, and hence not good.6

In response to this predicament, the Free Will Defence argues that God gave
humanity free will, and that it was through the misuse of this free will that

sin and evil entered the world. By emphasising the role of human beings

in choosing to sin, the Free Will Defence obviates the claim that God is
responsible for evil. As Thomas Aquinas explained: '... sin is caused by the free

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MARK

KNIGHT

375

will according as it turns away from God. Hence it does not follow that God
is the cause of sin, although He is the cause of free will.'

In view of its reliance on agent-causation, it is only to be expected that

the Free Will Defence should be more concerned with moral evil than natural

evil: 'The former is evil that results from some human being's going wrong with
respect to an action that is morally significant for him; any other evil is natural

evil.' In contemporary philosophy of religion, the focus has been on moral

evil,9 and this is certainly where Chesterton's interests fie. He argued that
the moral problem was the focal point for any discussion of evil. When The
Times newspaper invited its readers to write and explain what was wrong
with the world, Chesterton's reply was simple: 'Dear Sir, I am, Yours faithfully.'

In recent years, Alvin Plantinga has probably been the most important
exponent of the Free Will Defence,10 although, as he readily acknowledges, the

essence of the Free Will Defence is not original to the twentieth century. In
various guises it has been the historic response to evil by orthodox Christianity

since the church began.11 Plantinga notes that Augustine used a form of the

Free Will Defence and we have already noted Aquinas' use of it. Along with
theologians, many Christian literary writers, including Dante, Milton and
Lewis, have utilised versions of the Free Will Defence. Chesterton is clearly
located in this tradition, as Thomas Peters, among others, has recognised:
'... Chesterton's very conception of God and his philosophy of humanity
took the free will of the human being as a foundational article of faith.'12 In
his essay 'The Outline of Liberty' Chesterton explained the centrality of free
will in accounting for the origin of evil in this world: 'Will made the world;
Will wounded the world; the same Divine Will gave to the world for the second
time its chance, the same human Will can for the last time make its choice.'13

Chesterton was critical of those who rejected the doctrine of free will,
hence his qualified praise of the optimistic theism he heard from Stopford
Brooke during his youth: 'It was a full and substantial faith in the Fatherhood
of God, and little could be said against it, even in theological theory, except that

it rather ignored the free-will of man.' Chesterton's belief in the inadequacy

of any theory which ignored free will, including Calvinism, Fatalism and
Scientific Materialism, can also be seen in 'The Doom of the Darnaways'. Father

Brown, who is frequently used by Chesterton as a mouthpiece for his own

Catholic Weltanschauung, has to remind those around him that free will is
of fundamental importance in explaining what has taken place: 'It was murder;
but murder is of the will, which God made free.'15

Chesterton's advocacy of the Free Will Defence is most explicit in a little

known play called The Surprise. Although it was written in 1932, the
manuscript was not published until some years after Chesterton's death,
when his secretary and executor, Dorothy Collins, prepared the script for
performance. The play, a 'profoundly religious play dealing with the problem of

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376 CHESTERTON AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

free will in the context of the Creation, the Fall of Man, and the Incarnation',16

was first performed on $ June 1953 at Hull University. Here, as elsewhere,

Chesterton chose to use a literary form to express theological concepts,

reflecting his belief that: 'Men tell more truth by their metaphors than by their
statements.'17 In opposition to those who argued that the freedom of the artist

was compromised by the didactic nature of theology, Chesterton defended

the presence and use of propaganda in literature: 'Personally, I am all for
propaganda; and a great deal of what I write is deliberately propagandist. But
even when it is not in the least propagandist, it will probably be full of the
implications of my own religion; because that is what is meant by having
1- .18

a religion.

In the play a character known as the Author creates a number of puppets to

perform 'a play without a villain'. The Author's play is subsequently per
formed for a visiting Friar. However, the Author is not satisfied with his
creation. He explains to the Friar that without their freedom the puppets
remain artificial. The Author declares: 'They are everything else except alive.
They are intelligent, complex, combative, brilliant, bursting with life, and yet
they are not alive.'20 This is at the heart of the Author's problem: 'I want them
to be and not to do. I want them to exist.'21 At the request of the Author, the

visiting Friar asks God for a miracle, and the puppets gain their own wills. In
Act II of The Surprise the Author's play is repeated, only this time the results

are very different. As the play concludes and the puppets start trying to kill
one another, the Author sticks his head through the scenery to intervene: 'And

in the devil's name, what do you think you are doing with my play? Drop
it! Stop! I am coming down.'22
Although the analogy that Chesterton offers us in The Surprise is clear, he
insists on reinforcing his main point through an early piece of dialogue between
the Author and the Friar:

author: The real world is very grievous; and doubdess it is right that it should
worship a grievous god. I only say, for the world that I have made, that though

I cannot make it as real, I have at least made it less grievous. Inside that box on
wheels, though not outside it, there is a very happy universe; not cosy, but nobly

happy ... and when I come out of my little theatre, full of towering generosity
and the gestures of giants, into this wicked world, I think the world is mean as
well as wicked ...

friar: Do you know what has made the world mean and wicked?23
It is interesting to note that Chesterton hinted at the outline of The Surprise in

Orthodoxy, written twenty-four years earlier: 'God had written, not so much

a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had
necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made
a great mess of it.'24 Although Chesterton utilised the metaphor of a play to

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KNIGHT

377

depict God's interaction with the world, he was at pains to emphasise the
freedom of the actors to depart from the script. This is symbolised in The
Surprise when the Author hands over control to his puppets. The delegation
of authority enables the possibility of real adventure, as Chesterton explained
when discussing the related metaphor of Creation as a narrative romance: 'But
the point is that a story is exciting because it has in it so strong an element of

will, of what theology calls free-will. You cannot finish a sum how you like.
But you can finish a story how you like.'

While the Free Will Defence appears to provide an adequate defence against
the logical problem of evil, it still leaves a number of questions unanswered:

'Admitting that the Free Will Defence is successful but remaining convinced
that a viable argument from evil can still be mounted, some critics have shifted
the attention to what we may call the evidential problem of evil ... These critics
maintain that, although evil does not reveal theism to be inconsistent, the facts

of evil constitute evidence against theism.'26 One of the questions raised by

the evidential argument concerns God's Providence. Critics have argued that
it must have been possible for God to have created a world in which evil
occurred with less frequency and less gratuitousness. As human freedom is

already confined within certain limits, it seems conceivable that God could
have created a better world than this one without destroying human freedom.
By shifting our attention from the mere existence of evil towards its magnitude

and extent, the evidential argument challenges our notion of an omnipotent

and benevolent God who creates and sustains the world:

Now, we know that many terrible events do take place in the world, terrible
events which God could prevent, or at least limit, were he to think it desirable.
If our notion of God is of a being who remains interested in the world but

is determined not to intervene, not to prevent things happening which cause

immense suffering, then we are left with a rather unattractive concept of the
deity.27

In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas acknowledged this problem when discussing

God's Providence. As he saw it, the objection was as follows: 'Further, a wise
provider excludes any defect or evil, as far as he can, from those over whom
he has a care. But we see many evils existing. Either, then, God cannot hinder
these, and thus is not omnipotent; or else He does not have care for anything.'28

In response, Aquinas argued: 'Since God, then, provides universally for all
beings, it belongs to His providence to permit certain defects in particular effects,

that the perfect good of the universe may not be hindered ... '29 According to
Aquinas, God's limited intervention in history has been in the best interests of

the whole universe rather than each individual situation. This argument is
difficult to assess, for it is logically possible that the amount of goodness in this

world is the optimum amount and, since no human being has the knowledge

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37 CHESTERTON AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

necessary to know what actions will work out for the universal good of the
creation, we cannot demand that God should have acted otherwise. At the
same time, Aquinas' response appears insensitive to the numerous examples of
horrendous suffering that have occurred throughout history.
It is in the face of suffering that the Free Will Defence encounters its greatest

challenge. In 'The Sins of Prince Saradine', Father Brown admits that this world
is not as fair as it should be: 'I mean that we are here on the wrong side of the

tapestry. The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they

mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on

the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.'30 Some of
Chesterton's contemporaries accused him of ignoring grief and suffering in his

fiction, suggesting that 'he seems almost completely ignorant of the existence

of sorrow or suffering'.31 In response to this accusation one could cite the

example of Flambeau grieving over the death of Pauline Stacey in 'The Eye
of Apollo'. Admittedly, there are relatively few examples of this type in
Chesterton's fiction, but this can be attributed to a general failure on his part to

develop his characters rather than suggesting that he deliberately ignored

the reality of suffering in the world. Moreover, the comparative lack of suffering

in Chesterton's fiction can also be explained by remembering that he sought

to remind readers of the wonder and joy of existence. Yet despite the optimistic

note of much of his fiction, Chesterton was aware of the reality of human
suffering and realised the implications for the Free Will Defence. This can be
seen from his obsessive interest with the Book of Job.

Any discussion of human suffering will naturally lead us to consider the story
of Job. The significance of the story lies in the question it raises: 'In a manner of

speaking, this book is a philosophical forum put in the format of an old folk
tale. It addresses the most perplexing of human problems: Why do the innocent
suffer?'32 Indeed, the Book of Job has subsequently become a classic statement

of the problem of evil. Eugene Goodheart reminds us of the literary legacy

that the Book of Job has left behind. He writes: 'Behind much of the modern
literature of suffering is the greatest single work of the Bible, The Book of Job.
We hear echoes of Job in books as different from one another as The Brothers
Karamazov, Jude the Obscure, and The Castle.'33

Chesterton was heavily influenced by the Book of Job. According to Russell

Sparkes, the struggles that he experienced during the 1890s 'left him engrossed

with the problem of evil, and with that book of the Old Testament which
treats it most explicitly'. Sparkes continues: 'References to the Book of Job crop

up in all sorts of apparendy unlikely places... '34 Christopher Hollis makes

a similar comment in his book on Chesterton: 'Of the books of the Old

Testament that which was the main influence on him was the book of Job,
for it was there that he found this problem of evil more frankly confronted
than anywhere else in literature.' Chesterton was aware that virtually everyone

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379

questions suffering at some point in their life. The relevance of Job to these
questions was one of the things that drew him to the story: 'The world is still

asking the questions that were asked by Job.' Chesterton believed that the
way in which the Book of Job treated suffering made it more valuable than
many other philosophical works on the subject. He wrote: 'The Book of Job
is better worth hearing than any modern philosophical conversation in the
whole modern philosophical world.'

God's answer to Job leaves a number of Job's questions unanswered.

Chesterton thought that this was central to understanding the tale: 'The Book of
Job stands definitely alone because the Book of Job definitely asks, "But what is
the purpose of God?" Is it worth the sacrifice, even of our miserable humanity?

... It is because of this question that we have to attack as a philosophical

riddle the riddle of the Book of Job.'38 Mystery is at the heart of the Book of Job,

as Peter Kreeft reminds us: 'If Job is about the problem of evil, then Job's
answer to that problem is that we do not know the answer.'39
The mistake that is often made when interpreting the Book of Job is trying

to explain away everything that occurs to Job. This is exactly what Job's
friends, or comforters attempt: 'They will keep on saying that everything in
the universe fits into everything else: as if there were anything comforting
about a number of nasty things all fitting into each other.'40 Later on in his
introduction to the Book of Job, Chesterton expands upon his criticism of
the answers given by Job's friends. He explains:
The mechanical optimist endeavours to justify the universe avowedly upon the
ground that it is a rational and constructive pattern. He points out that the fine

thing about the world is that it can all be explained. That is one point, if I may
put it so, on which God, in return, is explicit to the point of violence. God says,
in effect, that if there is one fine thing about the world, as far as men are con

cerned, it is that it cannot be explained... God will make Job see a startling
universe if He can only do it by making Job see an idiotic universe.41

Brian Home concurs with Chesterton's view that the meaning of Job defies
explanation. He tells us that 'there is no "solution", there is only submission to
the inexplicable facts'.

Throughout his writings, Chesterton was keen to combine an appeal to

mystery with a more reasoned explanation, a point that can be seen from his
interpretation of the Book of Job: 'The refusal of God to explain His design is

itself a burning hint of His design.' Had the Book of Job wanted to suggest
that the suffering of the innocent was a complete mystery, it would surely
have left Job's questioning of God unanswered. The fact that God responds
to Job is therefore significant: 'The point of what God says, though, is not
really much to do with what he says, but lies in his saying anything at all. God

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38o CHESTERTON AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

has made explicit his relationship with Job, and by implication with the rest of
humanity as well
Furthermore, the Book of Job defends the right of man to question God. God

rebukes the assumptions implicit in Job's questions rather than the questions
themselves. As Chesterton argued: 'He [God] is quite willing to be prosecuted.
He only asks for the right which every prosecuted person possesses; He asks to

be allowed to cross-examine the witness for the prosecution.'45 God does not
attack the concept of theodicy per se, but rather the particular theodicy that Job

and his friends present to Him.

For many thinkers, the mystery of suffering appears to be incompatible with

the rational arguments propounded by the Free Will Defence. In response,

philosophers have begun to consider whether the Free Will Defence should
be conceived of as a theodicy or a defence.46 The discussion centres around
whether theism is able to explain why evil occurs, or whether it must resign
itself to explaining why it might occur:
In practice, of course, the probability of a defence will never be high on theism:
if the defender of theism knew of a story which accounted for the sufferings of

the actual world and which was highly probable on theism, he would employ it
as a theodicy. We may therefore say that, in practice, a defence is a story which
accounts for the sufferings of the actual world and which (given the existence of

God) is 'true for all anyone knows'.47

In the concluding chapters of The Man who was Thursday: A Nightmare,

Chesterton anticipated this debate by constructing a version of the Free Will

Defence that combined theodicy with defence. The use of this novel as
a means of exploring Chesterton's views on the problem of evil is justified by
Chesterton's sacramental view of the universe: 'Every great literature has always

been allegoricalallegorical of some view of the whole universe. The Iliad

is only great because all life is a batde, the Odyssey because all fife is a journey,

the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.'48 Moreover, the novel is not only
a legitimate tool for analysing Chesterton's thought, it is also a highly appro

priate one. Chesterton did not think that literature was merely a secondary
means of discourse; rather he thought that it had a unique ability to represent
ideas: 'The metaphor, the symbol, the picture, has appeared to most critics to be

a mere ornament, a piece of moulding above the gateway; but it is actually

the keystone of the arch.'49 Literature was unique because it could communicate

multiple ideas simultaneously, and this may well explain Chesterton's decision
to express his own struggles with evil in the form of a novel.50
Various critics have noted the correlation between the final section of this

novel and the Book of Job. In his discussion of The Man who was Thursday:
A Nightmare, Ian Boyd suggests that 'it may be read in the light of the dedica

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381

tory poem as a kind of extended commentary on the Book of Job ...,51 Stephen

Medcalf has also written on the link between the two works, suggesting
that seven points made in Chesterton's introduction to the Book of Job 'seem
to be systematically woven into the pattern of the last four chapters of The Man

who was Thursday'. These are as follows: First, Job asks God what His purpose
is and the six detectives ask Sunday the same question. Second, both God
and Sunday answer with riddles.53 Third, both Job and Syme are comforted

by the riddles they hear. Fourth, both God and Sunday point out the
panorama of creation to their questioners. Fifth, Medcalf suggests that the
secret of both stories is joy. Sixth, both stories suggest that the protagonists
suffer because they are the best of men rather than the worst of men. Finally,
both The Man who was Thursday: A Nightmare and Chesterton's interpretation

of the Book of Job link the suffering of the protagonists to the suffering
of Christ.

The final chapter of The Man who was Thursday: A Nightmare finds Syme and
his companions wrestling with the question of why they had to suffer. In view

of the autobiographical elements within the novel, the answers that Syme
discovers to this question can be seen to mirror those discovered by the young
Chesterton. The answer to suffering that Chesterton discovers in The Man who
was Thursday: A Nightmare, provides us with a paradigm of how the Free Will

Defence can be combined with the mystery that we find in the Book of Job.
Part of the answer clearly confirms the Free Will Defence as a theodicy. Syme

discovers that this is a world where men act freely and live with the
consequences of their actions. He even thanks Sunday for this freedom: 'I am

grateful to you ... for many a fine scamper and free fight,'54 echoing the
association that Chesterton himself made between freedom and adventure.

Syme also discovers that the good in the world outweighs the bad, and that the

cost of man's freedom is worthwhile. This is the 'impossible good news' with
which he departs from the nightmare.55 This theodicy provides him with the
foundation required to trust God for that which he does not fully understand.

As Chesterton said of Job: 'Job does not in any sense look at life in a gloomy

way ... He wishes the universe to justify itself, not because he wishes it to be
caught out, but because he really wishes it to be justified.'56
Because Syme is confident that there is sufficient reason to believe that the
problem of evil has an explanation, he feels able to offer a speculative defence in
response to the questions that remain. Hence his suggestion that humanity has

to suffer so that it can 'buy the right to say to this accuser [Satan], "We also
have suffered" '.57 Similarly, although the Free Will Defence can only explain
part of the problem of evil with any degree of certainty in terms of theism; this

provides it with the necessary foundation to offer more speculative solutions to

other aspects of the problem of evil. As the Free Will Defence moves from
theodicy to defence, it needs only to offer solutions that are 'true for all

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382 CHESTERTON AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

anyone knows'. In this way, it can be combined with the mystery that we find
in the Book of Job.

Chesterton recognised that life could only be explained by taking this

middle ground between reason and mystery. He declared: 'The real trouble with

this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is

a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reason

able, but not quite.'58 In terms of suffering, he adapted the Free Will Defence to

provide an explanation that respected the numerous problems involved. In

doing so, Chesterton heeds the warning given by his fictional character, Gabriel

Gale: 'Oh, I know that people have written all kinds of cant and false comfort
about the cause of evil; and of why there is pain in the world. God forbid that

we should add ourselves to such a chattering monkey-house of moralists.'59

6 Maiden Court, West Barnes Lane, New Maiden, Surrey KTj 4PW
jomark@globalnet.co.uk
REFERENCES

M. Mason, The Centre of Hilarity (London:

pp. 36571; and J.L. Mackie, The Miracle

Sheed & Ward, 1959) p. 239.

of Theism (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982)

C.F.G. Masterman, 'The Blasphemy of

pp. 162-76.

Optimism', The Speaker (26.4.1902) p. 116.

H. Murray,'Gilbert Keith Chesterton', Hie

Bookman (May 1910) pp. 64-5.

G.K. Chesterton, 'On Original Sin', Come
to Think of It... (London: Methuen, 1930)
p. 155.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908; repr.

London: Bodley Head, 1927) p. 294.
G. Hughes, The Nature of God (London:
Roudedge, 1995) p. 153.

St Thomas Aquinas, On Evil, trans. J.

Oesterle (Indiana: Notre Dame UP, 1995)

11 While the Free Will Defence has been the

dominant theodicy in church history, it has

not been the only theodicy. For example,

John Hick has argued for an alternate

theodicy which he traces back to the
thought of Irenaeus, while others have
used process theology as the basis for a
completely different approach to theodicy.

12 T. Peters, Battling for the Modem Mind:

A Beginner's Chesterton (Missouri:

Concordia, 1994) p. 151.
13 G.K. Chesterton, 'The Oudine of Liberty',

p. 106.

The Common Man (London: Sheed &

A. Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity

Ward, 1950) p. 236.

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974) p. 166.

In his comprehensive assessment of theo
dicy, Barry Whitney notes that 'there has

14 G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography (1936;

repr. Kent: Fisher, 1992) p. 174. Stopford
Brooke was the Unitarian minister at

not been as much work [comparatively]'

Bedford Chapel, where Chesterton used

on natural evil. B.L. Whitney, Theodicy: An

to go as a child with his father.

Annotated Bibliography on the Problem of Evil

ig6o-iggo (New York: Garland, 1993)

p. 123.

This observation is made on the grounds

that he is consistently cited by other writers

as the main authority on the Free Will

Defence. See J. Hick, Evil and the God of
Love, 3rd edn (London: Macmillan, 1985)

15 G.K. Chesterton, 'The Doom of the Darn

aways', The Incredulity of Father Broum (1926;

repr. Middlesex: Penguin, 1958) p. 165.

16 D. Conlon, 'Introduction', Collected Works
Volume 11: Plays, Chesterton on Shaw (San
Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p. 28.

17 Chesterton, "Objections to the Party

System", The Illustrated London News

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MARK
(1910; repr. Collected Works Volume 28: The

Illustrated London News 19081910, San

Francisco: Ignatius, 1987) p. 648.
18 G.K. Chesterton, The Thing (1929; repr.
London: Unicorn, 1939) p. 113.
19 G.K. Chesterton, The Surprise (1953; repr.
Collected Works Volume 11: Plays, Chesterton

KNIGHT

383

E. Goodheart, 'Job and the Modern

World' in Sanders (ed.), Twentieth-Century
Interpretations of the Book of Job, p. 98.

'Introduction' to R. Sparkes (ed.), Prophet

of Orthodoxy: The Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton

(London: HarperCollins, 1997) p. 63.

C. Hollis, The Mind of Chesterton (London:

Hollis & Carter, 1970) p. 42. Chesterton's

on Shaw) p. 321.
20 Ibid., p. 324.

interest in the Book of Job went back a long

21 Ibid., p. 323.
22 Ibid., p. 340.
23 Ibid., p. 300.

way. One of his Notebooks, dated around

poem (see Notebook 73321B, 1892, p. 27,

24 Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 141.

'The Department of Manuscripts', British

Library, London).

25 Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 252. For a

more detailed analysis of adventure in
Chesterton, see W.L. Isley Jr, The Adven

ture of Life: Romance in the Writing of

G.K. Chesterton (unpublished PhD thesis:
Drew University, 1986) p. 195. Isley devotes
a section of his thesis to the link between

human freedom and adventure (pp. 191-6).

Further discussion of this theme can be

found inj. Coates, 'Chapter 6: Chesterton

and Adventure', Chesterton and the
Edwardian Cultural Crisis (Hull: Hull UP,
1984).
26 M.L. Peterson, God and Evil: An Introduction

to the Issues (Colorado: Westview, 1998)

p. 43. Although Peterson argues that the
Free Will Defence is generally accepted
as having dealt with the logical problem

of evil, he acknowledges that it is not

universally accepted as having done so.
27 O. Leaman, Evil and Suffering in Jewish

Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

1995) P- 195.

28 St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica,

1892, lists the Book of fob as his favourite

G.K. Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows

(London: Sheed & Ward, 1935) p. 66.

G.K. Chesterton, 'On Long Speeches and
Truth', The Illustrated London News (1906;

repr. Collected Works Volume 27: The

Illustrated London News 1905-1907, San
Francisco: Ignatius, 1986) p. 132.

G.K. Chesterton, 'The Book ofjob' (1907;

repr. in G.K. Chesterton, Selected Essays,

London: Methuen, 1949) p. 96.

P. Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life (San
Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p. 61.

Chesterton, 'The Book of Job', Selected

Essays, p. 98.
Ibid., p. 101.

B. Home, Imagining Evil (London: Darton

Longman & Todd, 1996) p. 21.
Chesterton, 'The Book of Job', Selected
Essays, p. 100.

Leaman, Evil and Suffering in Jewish

Philosophy, p. 22.

Chesterton, 'The Book of Job', Selected

Essays, p. 99.
Michael Peterson tells us that the distinc

Part I, Question 22, Article 2, Objection 2

(3 vol., trans. English Dominican Fathers,

one of the main areas of debate in con

London: Burns & Oates, 1947-48) p. 122.

temporary philosophy of religion. See

29 Ibid., Part I, Question 22, Article 2, Reply

Objection 2, p. 123.

tion between theodicy and defence is

Peterson (ed.), The Problem of Evil:

Selected Readings, pp. 14-17. Outside of

30 G.K. Chesterton, "The Sins of Prince

this debate, a number of theologians

Saradine", The Innocence of Father Brown

have argued that both defence and theo

dicy constitute an ill-conceived response
to the problem of evil. For an example

(1911 ; repr. The Annotated Innocence of

Father Brown, Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1988) p. 169.

31 Murray, 'Gilbert Keith Chesterton', p. 64.

of this approach, see T.W. Tilley, The Evils

Problem of Evil: Selected Readings (Indiana:

of Theodicy (Washington: Georgetown

UP, 1991).
P. Van Inwagen, 'The Problem of Evil, of

Notre Dame UP, 1992) p. 23.

Air, and of Silence' in God, Knowledge, and

32 M. Peterson, in M.L. Peterson (ed.), The

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384 CHESTERTON AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Mystery: Essays in Philosophical Theology
(Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995) p. 74.

48 G.K. Chesterton, The Defendant (1901;

repr. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1918)

the Bible that Chesterton grew up with,

was translated on the assumption that he

was a hippopotamus. But in the Catholic

bible which his brother and other friends

p. 68.
49 G.K. Chesterton, 'The Bones of a Poem',

were using by this time, the beast is some

A Handful of Authors (1901; repr. London:

point: an elephant. The effrontery of this

last apparition is Chesterton's slyest way

Sheed & Ward, 1953) p. 103.

50 'I was still oppressed with the metaphysical

nightmare of negations about mind and

matter, with the morbid imagery of evil,
with the burden of my own mysterious
brain and body; but by this time I was in
revolt against them ... All this part of the
process was afterwards thrown up in the

very formless piece of a fiction called

thing more fitted to the story at this

of establishing that Sunday is Job's

riddling God.' G. Wills, 'Introduction' to
G.K. Chesterton, The Man who was
Thursday: A Nightmare (New York: Sheed

& Ward, 1975) p. 13. In view of Wills'

suggestion, it is interesting to note that

Aquinas identified the Behemoth as an

elephant. See J.E. Hartley, The Book of Job:

The Man who was Thursday.' Chesterton,

The New International Commentary on the

Autobiography, pp. 98-9. The autobio

graphical impulse of the novel is also

Old Testament (Michigan: Eerdmans, 1988)

visible in the dedication to E.C. Bendey.

51 I. Boyd, The Novels of G.K. Chesterton:

p. 523.

54 Chesterton, The Man who was Thursday:

A Nightmare, p. 160.

A Study in Art and Propaganda (London: Paul

55 Ibid., p. 163.

Elek, 1975) p. 51.

56 Chesterton, 'The Book of Job', Selected

Chesterton, The Man who was Thursday:

A Nightmare (1908; repr. Oxford: World's
Classics, 1996) p. xxv.

57 Chesterton, The Man who was Thursday:

52 S. Medcalf, 'Introduction' to G.K.

53 In connection with this second point,

Gary Wills speculates on the relationship
between Sunday's escape on the elephant,
and God's answer to Job: 'Behemoth, in

Essays, p. 97.
A Nightmare, p. 162.
58 Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 146.
59 G.K. Chesterton, The Poet and the Lunatics

(1929; repr. London: Darwen Finlayson,

1962) p. 91.

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