The Everlasting Man

G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925)

G. K. Chesterton — English journalist, novelist and defender of the faith

Vast, genial, and walking through history with a large stick and no map.

Catch rate: 56 / 255
Base research: 268
Stat total: 354

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina96

Contend90

Defend88

Popularity80

Total354

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 96

STAMINA — High. It is long, and it carries the whole story of humanity from the caves to the Church.

Contend 90

CONTEND — Solid. It argues by setting Christ next to the myths and religions and letting the difference show.

Defend 88

DEFEND — Solid. It is not a scholar’s book, but it has been leaned on by people who were.

Popularity 80

POPULARITY — Moderate. Lewis said it was the best popular defence of the faith he knew.

Cited for this book

Chesterton wrote The Everlasting Man in 1925 as an answer to H. G. Wells’s history of the world. He says that if you look at humanity as a stranger would, the human being is stranger than any animal, and that the Church, set beside the other religions of the world, is not the same kind of thing at all. C. S. Lewis said it was the book that first showed him the whole Christian outline of history.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

The Everlasting Man→
Lv 65

The Works of Chesterton

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
1	The Identification Is Not Complete	Rationality	Argument	82	100%	15
14	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
26	A Unique Thing, and a Supernatural One	History	Argument	86	100%	10
30	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
38	Larger Than the Creed	Rationality	Argument	84	100%	15
48	A Trick of the Row	History	Argument	90	100%	10
56	A God Who Knew the Way Out of the Grave	History	Argument	96	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“The best authorities identify Sul with Minerva; but this has been held to show that the identification is not complete.”
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925), Part II, ch. 5 (public domain, Project Gutenberg #65688).public domain

The Identification Is Not Complete

RationalityArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameA joke Chesterton tells against comparative religion. A professor shows him a carving of a local god. The best authorities say the god is Minerva. That, the professor adds, shows the identification is not complete. Chesterton says that is how most such comparisons end.

Strong against

×2.5The Many Faiths, One Realan argument · why?

Chesterton’s professor said the best authorities identify the local god with Minerva, and that this showed the identification was not complete. Every attempt to say all the faiths are the same has ended in that sentence.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“Christianity, appearing amid heathen humanity, had all the character of a unique thing and even of a supernatural thing. It was not like any of the other things; and the more we study it the less it looks like any of them.”
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925), Part II, ch. 6, “The Five Deaths of the Faith” (public domain, Project Gutenberg #65688).public domain

A Unique Thing, and a Supernatural One

HistoryArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate

In the gameChesterton’s claim for his whole book. When Christianity appeared among the pagans it looked like nothing else, and the more you study it the less it resembles anything it is compared with.

“They are never able to make something larger than the Creed without leaving something out.”
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925), Part II, ch. 5 (public domain, Project Gutenberg #65688).public domain

Larger Than the Creed

RationalityArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameEvery attempt to make a bigger religion that takes in all the others has to leave something out. Chesterton says the Creed already holds more of what people love than anything built to replace it.

“We are accustomed to see a table or catalogue of the world’s great religions in parallel columns, until we fancy they are really parallel. We are accustomed to see the names of the great religious founders all in a row: Christ; Mahomet; Buddha; Confucius. But in truth this is only a trick; another of these optical illusions by which any objects may be put into a particular relation by shifting to a particular point of sight.”
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925), Part II, ch. 5 (public domain, Project Gutenberg #65688).public domain

A Trick of the Row

HistoryArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe religions of the world are printed in parallel columns and the founders listed in a row: Christ, Mahomet, Buddha, Confucius. Chesterton says the row is a trick of the eye. Put things side by side and they look alike. Look at them closely and they are not the same kind of thing.

Strong against

×3The Many Faiths, One Realan argument · why?

Hick’s hypothesis needs the religions to look like a row of the same thing. Chesterton says the row is an optical illusion: line up any objects and they seem to belong together. Put Confucius beside Christ and you have put a philosopher beside a claim that a man rose from the dead. They are not alternatives in the same list.

“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave.”
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925), Part II, ch. 6, “The Five Deaths of the Faith” (public domain, Project Gutenberg #65688).public domain

A God Who Knew the Way Out of the Grave

HistoryArgument · power 96 · 100% accurate

In the gameEurope has been turned upside down again and again, and each time Christianity has been counted dead, and each time it has been found on top. Chesterton’s reason is short. The faith has died many times, and it has risen again each time, because its God knew the way out of the grave.

Strong against

×3No Big Storyan argument · why?

Lyotard’s century thought the big stories were finished. Chesterton points at the one that has been declared dead over and over and has come up each time. He does not claim it is stronger than the others. He says its God knew the way out of the grave.