Most Christians would know that while the Bible is THE book to read and study, there is plenty of other worthwhile Christian literature that is worth reading. And one form of Christian writing that certainly ties in very closely with Scripture is the biblical commentary. I happen to have over 900 of them. They do NOT take the place of the Bible, but they can offer very useful information, background material, and comments and reflections on it.
The same is true of other important books by important authors. Sure, their books are not the inspired and infallible words of God as is the Bible. But key volumes by key thinkers – be it an Augustine or an Aquinas or a Calvin or a Lewis – have always been commented on and written about. These books can be very helpful indeed.
Here I want to look at one such important annotated commentary of one such important book by one such important author. I am always writing about G. K. Chesterton, and just recently I wrote two articles. One was a look at his book The Everlasting Man (EM) and the Chapter, “The Riddles of the Gospel”: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/08/25/on-the-everlasting-man/
In that second article one of the twenty books I mentioned was this one:
Ahlquist, Dale, The Everlasting Man: A Guide to G. K. Chesterton’s Masterpiece. Word on Fire, 2024.
The Everlasting Man: A Guide to G.K. Chesterton’s Masterpieceby G.K. Chesterton (Author), Dale Ahlquist (Commentary)
So here I want to look briefly at how he describes this new book of his, and then turn to what he says about EM. In his Introduction he says this:
Chesterton argues that we are too close to Christianity to see it properly. This is especially true of the skeptics and the scoffers, the ones who think they know what it is they have rejected. They need to keep looking at the thing they have been staring at but have not yet managed to see. “Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.”
The purpose of this book is to get the reader to see Christianity for the first time.
“In reading Chesterton . . . I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.” So wrote C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy, the memoir of his conversion from atheism to Christianity. The Everlasting Man was the book that changed the direction of Lewis’ life. He said it was the most reasonable explanation of Christianity that he had ever read. He often recommended the book to anyone who was thinking about – or skeptical about – the Christian faith.
Some say this book is G.K. Chesterton’s masterpiece. That’s okay for them to say that. I’m always ready to accept this nomination—and other nominations as well. I think that Chesterton’s chief weakness is that he wrote too many masterpieces: Orthodoxy, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Ballad of the White Horse, Lepanto, Charles Dickens, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas. You could also put together a large collection of his essays that are masterpieces. And then there is the whole Father Brown corpus (which features many corpses).
Even Chesterton’s critics—those who have actually taken the trouble to read him—have a favorite book or books that they cannot resist, that they completely like even against their will. Even if they refuse to arrive at Chesterton’s conclusions, they want to travel with him. Even if his paradoxical and apparently wandering style drives them bananas, they keep reading. (xii-xiii)
As to the book as a whole, Ahlquist has a chapter on each chapter from EM where the whole text is presented, accompanied by various footnotes along the way. That is followed up by another chapter offering his own commentary and remarks on that chapter.
So his Commentary chapter on “The Riddles of the Gospel” begins with these words:
For those who haven’t been paying attention and yet have somehow made it all the way to this chapter without figuring out what the thesis of the book is, Chesterton repeats it once again. I think that even I am starting to grasp it by now. He is attempting to show that the rational thesis for explaining mankind is not rational. If we put it to the test by treating man as just another animal, we quickly see that as soon as he starts drawing pictures, building cities, worshipping something – even demons – he is something quite apart. And if we treat Christ as just another man, well, we’re getting to that now. But Chesterton is proposing that if we take an honest look at Christ, we can only respond with belief . . . or bewilderment that will lead to belief.
So again, GKC tries to take on the role of “an imaginary heathen human being, staring at the Gospel for the first time.” But then he says, almost immediately, that it is impossible to do that. Everyone already has some preconception of this story. Almost everyone has a certain image of Jesus going into it, but they never get any further. They would discover that Mr. Pacifism and Platitudes walking around (as my brother-in-law once put it) “like he just had his nails done” doesn’t show up in the Gospels. The Jesus there is full “of sudden gestures . . . of enigmatic silences; of ironical replies.”
They will find that the most realistic accounts are of things that most people don’t believe are real. The miracles are very matter-of-fact. People are healed just like that. Raised from the dead. Those stories are thrown out. Anything supernatural is suspect. Especially the demons, and the Gospels are full of them. And for those who bother reading the gospels, they are bothered by what has been left out of the accounts. What of Jesus’s youth? Why so silent?
In any case: leave out the tragic ending, leave out the miracles, what’s left? Christ’s words. What did he say? What does it say that he said? When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if he had expressed Himself more clearly. (pp. 331-332)
These brief remarks should help give you a feel for three things:
-For Chesterton
-For his book, The Everlasting Man -For this volume by Ahlquist commenting on EV.
I hope you dig into all three if you have not already done so.
