Orthodoxy (1908) is a book by G. K. Chesterton that has become a classic of Christian apologetics. Chesterton considered this book a companion to his other work, Heretics, writing it expressly in response to G. S. Street's criticism of the earlier work, "that he was not going to bother about his theology until I had really stated mine".
This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to
put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics
complained of the book called "Heretics" because it merely criticised
current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy.
This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is unavoidably
affirmative and therefore unavoidably autobiographical. The writer has
been driven back upon somewhat the same difficulty as that which beset
Newman in writing his Apologia; he has been forced to be egotistical
only in order to be sincere. While everything else may be different
the motive in both cases is the same. It is the purpose of the writer
to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can
be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it.
The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle
and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary
and sincere speculations and then with all the startling style in
which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology.
The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if
it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence.
