“Mr. Blatchford and his school point out
that there are many myths parallel to the Christian story; that there were
Pagan Christs, and Red Indian Incarnations, and Patagonian Crucifixions, for
all I know or care. But does not Mr. Blatchford see the other side of this
fact? If the Christian God really made the human race, would not the human race
tend to rumours and perversions of the Christian God? If the center of our life
is a certain fact, would not people far from the center have a muddled version
of that fact? If we are so made that a Son of God must deliver us, is it odd that
Patagonians should dream of a Son of God?”
Chesterton goes on to break that down further ...
“The Blatchfordian position really amounts to this — that because a certain thing has impressed millions of different people as likely or necessary therefore it cannot be true.Me too.
The story of a Christ is very common in legend and literature. So is the story of two lovers parted by Fate. So is the story of two friends killing each other for a woman. But will it seriously be maintained that, because these two stories are common as legends, therefore no two friends were ever separated by love or no two lovers by circumstances? It is tolerably plain, surely, that these two stories are common because the situation is an intensely probable and human one, because our nature is so built as to make them almost inevitable.
Thus, in this first instance, when learned skeptics come to me and say, ‘Are you aware that the Kaffirs have a story of Incarnation?’ I should reply: ‘Speaking as an unlearned person, I don’t know. But speaking as a Christian, I should be very much astonished if they hadn’t.’ ”
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