Here's the full quote, from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:
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 very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced. He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, "Why, there is that bookcase . . . and the coals in the coal-scuttle . . . and pianos . . . and policemen." The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible.
There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of huge helplessness.
Chesterton's explanation of this "huge helplessness" goes to the heart of why I blog at all, and why I do what I do for a living. It describes (much better than I've been able to) why I often feel that explaining Catholicism to skeptics (and even sometimes to Catholics) is a nearly hopeless task--all the more reason we should never stop doing it. It also is the reason that the two sources I quote most often--on and off the air--are the Bible and the Catechism. When dealing with something this complicated, it's best to keep it simple, and to know one's limits.
In 2003, a friend sent me an essay by Dale Alquist of the American Chesterton Society, in which he used the "everything proves it" line as a launching pad to talk about what's right with the Church. In addition to motivating me to purchase Orthodoxy, the quote helped me to understand why talking about my new found faith had proven so difficult, especially in the face of the sort of drive-by questions I often got ("What about the verse that says there's only one mediator between God and man? Don't you know that God will forgive your sins when you go to him directly? Why do you Catholics pray to dead people?").
To explain devotion to Mary, one has to explain the Communion of Saints. To explain the Sacrament of Confession, one has to explain the ministerial priesthood (that's also helpful in responding to the "Call no man father" objection) and its roots in scripture. To explain the Immaculate Conception, one has to explain Sacred Tradition and its relationship to the Bible. You just can't do that in 30 seconds.
Yes, Catholicism is complicated. It is wonderfully, brilliantly complex, as great minds (as well as people like me) have contemplated its mysteries for two millennia. It is also a breathtakingly simple love story, as God strives to make himself known amid the chaos we relentlessly choose for ourselves.
Seven and a half years into my journey, I'm just peeling off the outer layers of this thing. The more I learn, the more I understand that I've barely scratched the surface. My favorite Catholic book is the Catechism; reading it daily helps to shape my world view, and constantly brings me back to what Chesterton said. The truth and beauty of Catholicism isn't found in one thing.
I find it everywhere, all the time...because everything proves it.
