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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Chesterton, what happens when a man worships physical nature?
(a) Nature becomes twisted.
(b) Nature becomes pure as it offers salvation.
(c) Man can only then begin to search for God.
(d) Man is lifted up to God.

2. Chesterton names four standards by which people try to establish the ideals of equality and inequality. What is the first?
(a) The passage of time.
(b) God-given authority.
(c) Persuasive thinking, similar to Nietzsche's.
(d) The progression of creatures through evolution.

3. In determining his criteria for progress, what does Chesterton discover?
(a) Christianity arrived there first.
(b) Christianity could not answer any of his questions.
(c) Buddhism shed some light on his questions.
(d) Christianity could lead him to the answers.

4. What problem did Christianity solve which Paganism could not?
(a) A personal God.
(b) Balance.
(c) Forgiveness.
(d) Salvation.

5. In the Christian's view, why does a man's soul provide enough outlet for both the optimist and the pessimist?
(a) Both passions are allowed free reign.
(b) He now has reason to claim brotherhood with Christ.
(c) He is exalted as God's creation and humbled as a sinner.
(d) He has hope for a heavenly future but fear for an earthly one.

Short Answer Questions

1. How has western religion interacted with the idea of social organisms?

2. What is Chesterton's third criterion for progress?

3. According to Chesterton, what is the problem with moving slowly toward justice?

4. In Chesterton's example, why is it important for Gradgrind to give his employees skeptical literature?

5. Why does Chesterton say that miracles are eminently desirable?

Short Essay Questions

1. Christianity holds that any man who depends on a luxurious life is fallen and corrupt. What effect does this belief have on the believer, according to Chesterton?

2. The Church holds to some strict doctrines regarding man and his actions. Why is she so strict? Is it possible for her to swerve in her beliefs?

3. What argument does Chesterton make for keeping joy and anger separate? What is the danger in letting them meld together to produce some form of contentment?

4. Why are liberals not free thinkers? What argument is made in Chapter VIII, The Romance of Orthodoxy, about confusion within language?

5. Why is it better to be a progressive, according to Chesterton's understanding of the term? Why should man rebel against the new rather than against the old?

6. As Chesterton shows in Chapter VI, The Paradoxes of Christianity, what is Christianity's view of man? How can it hold to this argument?

7. What nearly persuaded Chesterton to become a Christian? Why was this thought frightening?

8. What is the first time that Chesterton felt he had stumbled onto a path that was familiar to some? How did Christianity mirror his own thoughts?

9. If Nature does improve man through impersonal means, as Chesterton claims, what must happen? What is happening in reality?

10. What does Chesterton say is the most sensible ideal for nature? Is this a valid ideal? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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