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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, most things are allied with oppression. What is the one area where he sees a line past which oppression has no effect?
(a) Orthodoxy.
(b) Politics.
(c) Religion.
(d) Love.

2. How does Chesterton's example of the blue world explain modernity's attitude toward progress?
(a) Man can begin with the desire for a blue world but should not end there.
(b) Man's desire for a blue world is only illusory.
(c) Man must not be sidetracked onto changing every aspect of his world.
(d) If a man always works toward a blue world, he will eventually succeed.

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

4. How does the Christian idea of a transcendent God manifest itself in a frightening way?
(a) God is so different from man that the two cannot relate.
(b) God sometimes disappears and cannot be found again.
(c) God is so far above man that he can never be reached.
(d) God sometimes disappears and must be sought.

5. Why, according to Christianity, can passions be free?
(a) Because they are monitored by the church.
(b) Because a believer's conscience keeps him from extreme passions.
(c) Because their consequences will not come until the afterlife.
(d) Because they are kept in their proper places.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Why are people who admire Christianity, but do not believe it, uncomfortable?

3. In Chesterton's explanation, how do religions of the world differ?

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

5. What is the thesis of Mrs. Besant's book?

Short Essay Questions

1. Near the beginning of Chapter VII, The Eternal Revolution, Chesterton makes an argument concerning superiority. What is this argument? Does he satisfy the question fully?

2. 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?

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

4. 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?

5. Chesterton says that the primary evil with the pessimist is that he does not love what he chastises. How is this true?

6. 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?

7. Why did Chesterton begin to question the attacks on Christianity? What did he find as he questioned?

8. Chapter V, The Flag of the World, begins with a young girl's idea that "An optimist is a man who looks after your eyes, and a pessimist is a man who looks after your feet" (Chesterton 2000, pg 223). How does Chesterton explain this?

9. How do Eastern and Western religions differ in their understanding of seclusion in worship, according to Chesterton? How does this affect their sense of community?

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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