y that it deduces
logical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it has
found, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right about
things, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things
go wrong. Its plan suits the secret irregularities, and expects the
unexpected. It is simple about the simple truth; but it is stubborn
about the subtle truth. It will admit that a man has two hands, it will
not admit (though all the Modernists wail to it) the obvious deduction
that he has two hearts. It is my only purpose in this chapter to point
this out; to show that whenever we feel there is something odd in
Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd
in the truth.

I have alluded to an unmeaning phrase to the effect that such and such a
creed cannot be believed in our age. Of course, anything can be
believed in any age. But, oddly enough, there really is a sense in which
a creed, if it is believed at all, can be believed more fixedly in a
complex society than in a simple one. If a man finds Christianity true
in Birmingham, he has actually clearer reasons for faith than if he had
found it true in Mercia. For the more complicated seems the coincidence,
the less it can be a coincidence. If snowflakes fell in the shape, say,
of the heart of Midlothian, it might be an accident. But if snowflakes
fell in the exact shape of the maze at Hampton Court, I think one might
call it a miracle. It is exactly as of such a miracle that I have since
come to feel of the philosophy of Christianity. The complication of our
modern world proves the truth of the creed more perfectly than any of
the plain problems of the ages of faith. It was in Notting Hill and
Battersea that I began to see that Christianity was true. This is why
the faith has that elaboration of doctrines and details which so much
distresses those who admire Christianity without believing in it. When
once one believes in a creed, one is proud of its complexity, as
scientists are proud of the complexity of science. It shows how rich it
is in discoveries. If it is right at all, it is a compliment to say
that it's elaborately right. A stick might fit a hole or a stone a
hollow by accident. But a key and a lock are both complex. And if a key
fits a lock, you know it is the right key.

But this involved accuracy of the thing makes it very difficult to do
what I now have to do, to describe this accumulation of truth. It is
ve