Week 6: Chapter VI — The Paradoxes of Christianity

1.The chapter opens with the image of a mathematical creature from the moon who, having correctly deduced that the human body is symmetrical (two arms, two legs, two ears), wrongly deduces that there must be a heart on each side. Chesterton says Christianity is like knowing the heart is on the left — knowing where the world "goes wrong" in ways that pure logic cannot predict. What does this image tell us about the nature of Christian insight?

2.Chesterton was reading anti-Christian literature and noticed that the charges against Christianity were mutually contradictory: too pessimistic and too optimistic, too warlike and too passive, too restrictive about sex and not restrictive enough. He says he initially concluded Christianity must be "very wrong indeed" — but then had a different thought. What was that thought, and why did it change his view?

3.His new hypothesis: perhaps Christianity is not an odd shape but the right shape — the normal, and all its critics are mad in various directions. He tests this by asking whether the accusers have something morbid that might explain their accusations (e.g., Swinburne, who accused Christianity of making life grey, was himself a pessimist). Do you find this a fair test? What are its limits?