In “Orthodoxy,” his masterpiece of Christian apologetics, G.K. Chesterton observed something interesting about bards and rationalists: “The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

I shared this observation with my eldest son, Joe, early in his college career, when he told me he’d declared math as a major. Chesterton’s warning wasn’t against using logic, only embracing it to the exclusion of all else. The topic came up again recently over dinner when Joe, now a senior, explained something counterintuitive to his old man.