G.K. Chesterton - The Everlasting Man [unabridged audiobook + ebook]

C.S. Lewis was an atheist until he read Chesterton’s book, The Everlasting Man, but he wasn't afterwards, prompting him to observe that a young man who is serious about his atheism cannot be too careful about what he reads. Of all of Chesterton’s literary monuments, this is perhaps his greatest, for he eloquently and concisely packs the whole human story between the covers of one book. 'The Everlasting Man' is one of G. K. Chesterton's most respected works, a witty, imaginative and sincere attempt to justify the life of Jesus as a pivotal moment in the history of human spirituality.

Dividing the book into two parts, Chesterton looks first at early 'cave men' and the ensuing development of pagan civilization, claiming that such societies effectively separated myth and philosophy. By contrast, in the second part of the book he demonstrates that, following the Crucifixion, these tendencies were successfully combined in the Christian religion. The result is a must-read ideological defense of Christianity, a book described by C. S. Lewis as among the most influential he had ever encountered.

In 1925, just three years after his reception into the Catholic Church, G.K. Chesterton published a work that proclaimed anew to the doubters of the age that the key to history had arrived nearly two thousand years before. Contra the evolutionists, he first points to the singular nature of man from his very beginnings; and, later, contra the comparative religionists, points to the uniqueness of Christianity in relation to all other paths. Two of those paths, the way of myth and the way of philosophy, were at war until Christ restored the world’s sanity in the union of Story and Truth. In Chesterton’s telling, the groaning and travail of the ancient world was answered, precisely and definitively, in the still night of Bethlehem and the Birth of our Lord. Chesterton insists the event be seen with fresh eyes: God as Child—a claim no other religion dares to make.

As Chesterton writes, “when we do make this imaginative effort to see the whole thing from the outside, we find that it really looks like what is traditionally said about it inside.” Looking at Christianity with such new-found sight, one can only be astonished at “the strangest story in the world.” The Everlasting Man is the tale of a unique creature, man, made in the image of God, and of the God-Made-Man who fully reveals this fact to him. There is a spiritual path, and mankind has wandered over it with myriad gaits through the centuries. Nevertheless, the path that leads to man’s true home begins with the Nativity and ends with the Resurrection, and in between is contained all life and all holiness.

What, if anything, is it that makes the human uniquely human? This, in part, is the question that G.K. Chesterton starts with in this classic exploration of human history. Responding to the evolutionary materialism of his contemporary (and antagonist) H.G. Wells, Chesterton in this work affirms human uniqueness and the unique message of the Christian faith. Writing in a time when social Darwinism was rampant, Chesterton instead argued that the idea that society has been steadily progressing from a state of primitivism and barbarity towards civilization is simply and flatly inaccurate. "Barbarism and civilization were not successive stages in the progress of the world," he affirms, with arguments drawn from the histories of both Egypt and Babylon.
As always with Chesterton, there is in this analysis something (as he said of Blake) "very plain and emphatic." He sees in Christianity a rare blending of philosophy and mythology, or reason and story, which satisfies both the mind and the heart. On both levels it rings true. As he puts it, "in answer to the historical query of why it was accepted, and is accepted, I answer for millions of others in my reply; because it fits the lock; because it is like life." Here, as so often in Chesterton, we sense a lived, awakened faith. All that he writes derives from a keen intellect guided by the heart's own knowledge. --Doug Thorpe --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The eBook is also included in a ZIP file in EPUB/MOBI/PDF formats.9 MP3 files corresponding with 9 discs Total length: 11:29:20