The Roots of the World
During his career, the metaphysically minded journalist G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) made a number of remarkable predictions about the future, many of which have come true. He had no science of history or theory of progress, and he vehemently denied that what he was foretelling was inevitable in any way. Yet he was still able to imagine with impressive clarity so much of what has come to pass. This raises an obvious question: How was Chesterton able to be so prescient? In this book, Duncan Reyburn offers an answer by arguing that Chesterton's gift for prophecy resulted from his unique awareness of formal causation, which differs from the typical modern focus on efficient causes and effects. To understand Chesterton's attunement to the formal cause, his work is refracted through the lenses provided by four thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Marshall McLuhan, and William Desmond. These fit together to create a philosophical-theological telescope that we can look through to better see the astonishing world in which we live; as well as, perhaps, some of what might happen next.
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The Roots of the World
During his career, the metaphysically minded journalist G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) made a number of remarkable predictions about the future, many of which have come true. He had no science of history or theory of progress, and he vehemently denied that what he was foretelling was inevitable in any way. Yet he was still able to imagine with impressive clarity so much of what has come to pass. This raises an obvious question: How was Chesterton able to be so prescient? In this book, Duncan Reyburn offers an answer by arguing that Chesterton's gift for prophecy resulted from his unique awareness of formal causation, which differs from the typical modern focus on efficient causes and effects. To understand Chesterton's attunement to the formal cause, his work is refracted through the lenses provided by four thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Marshall McLuhan, and William Desmond. These fit together to create a philosophical-theological telescope that we can look through to better see the astonishing world in which we live; as well as, perhaps, some of what might happen next.
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The Roots of the World

The Roots of the World

by Duncan B Reyburn
The Roots of the World

The Roots of the World

by Duncan B Reyburn

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Overview

During his career, the metaphysically minded journalist G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) made a number of remarkable predictions about the future, many of which have come true. He had no science of history or theory of progress, and he vehemently denied that what he was foretelling was inevitable in any way. Yet he was still able to imagine with impressive clarity so much of what has come to pass. This raises an obvious question: How was Chesterton able to be so prescient? In this book, Duncan Reyburn offers an answer by arguing that Chesterton's gift for prophecy resulted from his unique awareness of formal causation, which differs from the typical modern focus on efficient causes and effects. To understand Chesterton's attunement to the formal cause, his work is refracted through the lenses provided by four thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Marshall McLuhan, and William Desmond. These fit together to create a philosophical-theological telescope that we can look through to better see the astonishing world in which we live; as well as, perhaps, some of what might happen next.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9798385226092
Publisher: Cascade Books
Publication date: 02/24/2025
Series: Veritas
Pages: 236
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.54(d)

About the Author

Duncan Reyburn is associate professor in the School of the Arts at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is also the author of Seeing Things as They Are: G. K. Chesterton and the Drama of Meaning (2016).

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“In this erudite and insightful study, Duncan Reyburn explores the philosophical roots of G. K. Chesterton’s prescience. One does not have to agree with everything that Chesterton wrote to benefit enormously from reading him, and Reyburn does an excellent job of helping us understand why this is so.”

—Mark Knight, professor, Lancaster University



“Chesterton is the prince of paradox who is also a prophet. Now, his noble name becomes associated with prescience in Reyburn’s richly researched and seminal study. It is Chesterton’s love of the ‘ordinary’ that enables him to see so precisely into the order of things. Because he knew something about formal causality he could also comment on final causality, discerning within it the direction of our divine destiny. Reyburn reads this Christian Platonist persuasively through the metaxological metaphysics of four apposite thinkers. Reyburn is well suited to this task, being a Catholic convert like his mentor. I can but warmly recommend this highly original and outstanding philosophical contribution which succeeds in putting the reader in contact with reality itself.”

—Stephen J. Costello, author of The Alchemy of Addiction: Carl Jung, the Enneagram, and Contemplative Wisdom Traditions and Ignatian Mysticism



“Obvious to popular readers, but strangely imperceptible to scholars, is the prescient quality of G. K. Chesterton’s writings. Here at last is a thorough treatment of Chesterton the Prophet—and not as foreteller of doom, but a giver of hope. Duncan Reyburn has produced an accurate picture of Chesterton’s far-seeing vision, and an insight into the Insightful One himself.”

—Dale Ahlquist, president, Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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