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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. What does Chesterton say is the result of believing that progress is a natural, predictable happening?
(a) A person ceases to believe in progress.
(b) A person works harder to achieve this.
(c) A person looks for ethical support.
(d) A person becomes lazy.

2. According to Chesterton, what is the problem with moving slowly toward justice?
(a) The definition of justice changes too often in that time.
(b) It does not allow a man to move swiftly toward a better state of things.
(c) A man will only be able to act on old ideas.
(d) People cannot make just decisions in a large amount of time.

3. In Chesterton's argument, why can the orthodox man believe in revolution?
(a) Orthodoxy manifests itself as revolution.
(b) It's a trick question - he cannot.
(c) Revolution means restoration.
(d) Revolution coincides with orthodoxy.

4. In Chesterton's image, how did he feel once his religious opinion changed? (Chesterton 2000, pg. 235)
(a) The army had fled before the light of his revelation.
(b) The dragon had been conquered.
(c) The land was lit up even back to his childhood.
(d) Fairyland was no longer important to his thinking.

5. Why did the writings of skeptics and evolutionists push Chesterton toward Christianity?
(a) He was not convinced by their arguments.
(b) He stopped believing the skeptics and evolutionists.
(c) Traces of Christianity were found in the writings.
(d) He formulated responses to their arguments.

Short Answer Questions

1. As Chesterton contrasts miracles with progress, how does he define a miracle?

2. Why does Chesterton call suicide the greatest sin?

3. In looking at Christianity and materialism, what coincidence stopped Chesterton in his tracks?

4. At the beginning of Chapter VIII, the Romance of Orthodoxy, what does Chesterton name as the cause for busyness in modern society?

5. What was Chesterton's early progression through religious mindsets?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Chesterton explain the modern view of miracles? Is this view contradictory?

2. 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?

3. What is the common view of Christianity and Buddhism, according to Chesterton? How are they similar and dissimilar? What is Chesterton's opinion of their differences?

4. How does Chesterton explain pantheism's relation to wonder? What is the primary difference between pantheism and action?

5. As Chesterton argues, why does love seek individuality and personality? Is this true only in relation to man or also in relation to God?

6. At the end of Chapter V, The Flag of the World, what transformation does Chesterton describe? How did the transformation address his question of optimism and pessimism?

7. Why, according to Chesterton, do modern thinkers find it advantageous to modernity to change the vision of heaven constantly? What effect does this have on man's mind?

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

9. 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?

10. In Chapter VI, The Paradoxes of Christianity, what does Chesterton name the most common type of trouble in the world? How does Christianity answer this trouble?

(see the answer keys)

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