The way of imagination

     It's an illuminating exercise to draw a parallel between Friedrich Nietzsche and G.K. Chesterton.  They were both fully immersed in late modern thought – while one set out to destroy Christianity, the other made a surprising rediscovery of his childhood faith and determined to dismantle the reasoning of his counterpart.  While one strove to create meaning in a godless world, the other found that God was the only way to make sense of the world.  They were both prolific authors, and believed strongly in their convictions.  While one boasted of being the quintessential innovative thinker, bent on destroying the intellectual idols of western civilization, the other experienced “sailing from one point on the coast of England to another point, believing he had discovered a new world, only to realize that he was much closer to home that he thought” (cf. the introduction to Chesterton's  Orthodoxy ), i.e. he fell in love with the Christian Tradition, the ancient wisdom which fash