When the word "orthodoxy" is used here it means the Apostles' Creed, as understood by everybody calling himself Christian until a very short time ago and the general historic conduct of those who held such a creed.
The title of this tome may be confusing to many, especially today. Fortunately, Chesterton outlines what he thinking of when he chooses this title and he does so very early on. Of course, as Chesterton himself somewhat snarkily points out; what good is knowing the particular connotation of orthodoxy if one is unfamiliar with the Apostle’s Creed.
How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town?
Chesterton is a very obliging writer. Not only does he take the time to give a specific meaning of orthodoxy, but he is also straightforward in identifying what the reader should keep in mind when trying to identify the main problem his text is trying to work out. Indeed, he considers the concept quoted above as not just those he has devoted his book to answering, but also the main problem with philosophers in general.
The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them.
The author expends a lot of words and energy on the ideas contained in fairy tales and how they relate to the real world, religious devotion and madness. He admits that the things he believed in as a child are the things he believes in as an adult. And why not? Fairy tales, he suggests, seems to exist as “entirely reasonable things.” That is the kind of admission that only someone devoted to a rigid, dogmatic, doctrinal system of faith constructed upon preternatural powers and events could say with a straight face. That is what he means by the ordinary man.
Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut.
Treading somewhat along perhaps the dull edge of Occam’s Razor, Chesterton is here making the argument that nothing stands to be lost by having faith in the idea of Christian afterlife while that which is to be gained by rejecting such faith is short-lived whatever the actual outcome. Materialism is only dependable when one has material form. When that substance is put into the ground or incinerated, you still have nothing even if rejected Christianity. Only by then the afterlife in store for you may not be what it might have been. Easy choice when based on this principle.
