Now let us examine his intellectual position.
In the preface to Some Loose Stones[7], written before he went over to Rome, he explains his position to the modernist:
. . . there are limits defined by authority, within which theorising is unnecessary and speculation forbidden.
But I should like here to enter a protest against the assumption . . . that the obscurantist, having fenced himself in behind his wall of prejudices, enjoys an uninterrupted and ignoble peace.
The soldier who has betaken himself to a fortress is thereby in a more secure position than the soldier who elects to fight in the open plain. He has ramparts to defend him. But he has, on the other hand, ramparts to defend. . . . For him there is no retreat.
The whole position stands or falls by the weakest parts in the defences; give up one article of the Nicene Creed, and the whole situation is lost; you go under, and the flag you loved is forfeit.
[7] An answer to the volume called Foundations.
And yet:
I can feel every argument against the authenticity of the Gospels, because I know that if I approached them myself without faith I should as likely as not brush them aside impatiently as one of a whole set of fables.
They would be fables to him unless he approached them with faith. And what is faith? He tells us in the same preface: "Faith is to me, not an intellectual process, but a divine gift, a special privilege."