“We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton

Bolšec, Nikola

doi:10.34075/cs.60.1.5

Church in the World : Church in the World, Vol. 60 No. 1, 2025.

Review article

https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.60.1.5

“We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton

Nikola Bolšec ; Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

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APA 6th Edition

Bolšec, N. (2025). “We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton. Crkva u svijetu, 60 (1). https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.60.1.5

MLA 8th Edition

Bolšec, Nikola. "“We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton." Crkva u svijetu, vol. 60, no. 1, 2025 https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.60.1.5. Accessed 17 Mar. 2025.

Chicago 17th Edition

Bolšec, Nikola. "“We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton." Crkva u svijetu 60, no. 1 https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.60.1.5

Harvard

Bolšec, N. (2025). '“We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton', Crkva u svijetu, 60(1). https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.60.1.5

Vancouver

Bolšec N. “We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton. Crkva u svijetu [Internet]. 2025 [cited 2025 March 17];60(1). https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.60.1.5

IEEE

N. Bolšec, "“We may still be in the Garden of Eden” Imagination - contemplation - visio beatifica by G. K. Chesterton", Crkva u svijetu, vol.60, no. 1, 2025. [Online]. https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.60.1.5

Abstract

In his works, journalist, writer and thinker Gilbert Keith Chesterton gives readers a new and deeper view of reality by using paradox, which is essentially analogical knowledge, and by understanding imagination and contemplation as excellent activities of the spirit. We will best understand these factors if we start from the thought of Thomas Aquinas, with whom G. K. Chesterton had a conaturaliter relationship because it gives us a starting point in considering the works of the English writer. The travel essay collection Tremendous Trifles best demonstrates the characteristics of Chesterton's approach to reality. In selected essays, we see how walking in nature and observing the world around us, using imagination and contemplation, provide the possibility of a deeper understanding of the world. Through written words, Chesterton shows how things by communicating – informing – their characteristics also communicate truths about man, the world and God, and that man is capable of seeing the deepest truths even through the smallest things. With G. K. Chesterton our view becomes transformed, which fulfils man's natural purpose, but also gives a foretaste of his final purpose, which is the beatific vision of God.