Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Spoiler alert, do not read on if you happen to want to read The Man Who Was Thursday (see Book List or click the image) fresh without knowing the end.
One last chance in case you change your mind.
Ok, so I love this book and I love Chesterton in a lot of ways. His, The Man Who Was Thursday, is basically an allegory for his interpretation of the book of Job. I won’t do a whole book review, but I want to quote my favorite portion. To set it up, Syme (the main character) and a host of others have spent the entire book infiltrating what they believe to be an anarchist group led by a man named Sunday. Throughout the story, each character realizes that they are not the only undercover officers on the job. In fact every one of them (six in all – each is code named after a day of the week) has been sent on this difficult mission by the same mysterious man whom they have never seen. In the end, after a long, arduous, and painful chase, Sunday, the very person whom each character is trying to catch, reveals himself as the Mysterious Sender, and describes himself as “The Sabbath” and “The Peace of God” (read: Sunday=God) . It suddenly seems to each agent that their journey of risk, danger, pain, and turmoil was meaningless – a big joke. Why would Sunday send them to catch Himself? Each character reacts differently. One is angry…
“I know you are contentment, optimism, what do they call the thing, an ultimate reconciliation. Well, I am not reconciled. If you were the man in the dark room, why were you also Sunday, an offense to the sunlight? If you were from the first our father and our friend, why were you also our greatest enemy? We wept, we fled in terror; the iron entered our souls – and you are the peace of God! Oh, I can forgive God his anger, though it destroyed nations; but I cannot forgive Him His peace.”
Another apathetic…
“I understand nothing, but I am happy. In fact, I am going to sleep.”
Another simply confused…
“I wish I knew why I was hurt so much.”
As we near the end, Gregory (a figure representing Satan who has been an adversary to Syme throughout the story) enters the conversation, railing against both Sunday and Syme (or God and Humanity).
“You!” he cried, “You never hated because you never lived. I know what you are all of you, from first to last – you are the people in power! You are the police – the great fat, smiling men in blue and buttons! You are the Law, and you have never been broken. But is there a free soul alive that does not long to break you, only because you have never been broken? We in revolt talk all kind of nonsense doubtless about this crime or that crime of Government. It is all folly! The only crime of the Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse you for being cruel. I do not curse you (though I might) for being kind. I curse you for being safe! You sit in your chairs of stone, and have never come down from them. You are the seven angels of heaven, and you have had no troubles. Oh, I could forgive you everything, you that rule all mankind, if I could feel for once that you had suffered for one hour real agony such as I-”
Finally, Syme in a flash of insight, interrupts…
“I see everything,” he cried, “everything that there is. Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the dreadful Council of the Days. So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man ‘You lie!’ No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, ‘We have also suffered.’ It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. It is not true that we have never descended from these thrones. We have descended to hell. We were complaining of unforgettable miseries even at the very moment this man entered insolently to accuse us of happiness. I repel the slander; we have not been happy. I can answer for every one of the great guards of Law whom he has accused.”
I love it. This might be my favorite scene in any book.
In the book of Job, Satan is “the accuser” (he is also labeled as such in Revelation 12). His accusation against Job, is that he only serves God because he is blessed…
Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 1:9-11)
Job then of course experiences suffering to the extreme, and cannot figure out why. He is a true “righteous sufferer.” He is not being punished for anything he has done, but is simply being tested.
People interpret the message of Job in different ways. Some would say that its primary message is that everything that happens to us is explicitly caused by God (largely because God directs Satan in the story) and that we should trust the each event comes directly from His Hand for a higher good. Others believe that the primary message is that, in the end, we don’t know the causes of our suffering (in the story, God rebukes Job for his presumption of knowledge). Satan is a renegade and has some control in the world. God doesn’t micro manage and there really are things that happen against His will. We will never know The Why.
Chesterton gives his own unique take. Why does humanity suffer? Why does it sometimes seem like we are on a painful and meaningless chase? In his words, “Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe?”
“So that by tears and torture, we may earn the right to say to Satan, and to the accusation that we only serve God because we lead painless lives, ‘You Lie!’”
The idea that we are “earning the right” to say that, even in the face of suffering, we choose God and choose Good, is at least an option for part of a theodicy (solution to the problem of evil) that makes sense.
We suffer. Sometimes we don’t know why. Continue to serve God and Humanity.