Program / Course 26: Comprehensive Assessment / Lesson 2.2
What you will learn
- Lay out a self-administered historical theology examination with three kinds of question.
- Write short answer questions on periods, controversies and primary texts.
- Include dates with honest marks of uncertainty.
- Take the examination under timed, closed book conditions.
The big idea
A historical theology examination asks three kinds of question. Period questions ask what happened and in what order. Controversy questions ask what was disputed, who held which position, and how the dispute was settled. Primary text questions ask what a particular source says and what it shows. The plan suggests 20 to 25 short answers, with dates marked c. where they are uncertain. As with every part of this course, the exam is private, self-marked and uncertified.
Key terms
- Primary source
- A text from the period being studied, such as a creed, a letter or a sermon, as opposed to a modern book about it.
- Secondary source
- A later work that discusses the period, such as a survey or a monograph.
- Christology
- Teaching about who Christ is, including how his divinity and humanity relate.
- Trinitarian
- Concerning the doctrine that God is one in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
- Anachronism
- Placing an idea, word or custom in a period where it did not belong.
- Short answer
- A written answer of one to three paragraphs that states the main points and the key terms.
Background
The question types below are suggestions. A student may change them. Their purpose is to find out whether the student has a working map of Christian history and can reason with it, and not whether the student can recite a list of names.
The course plan suggests writing short answers to 20 to 25 questions on periods, councils, controversies, figures and primary texts, with dates. A reasonable division is about eight questions on periods, eight on controversies and six to eight on primary texts. A timer of two hours is common, with a break if needed.
Fairness matters here as in every part of the program. Many controversies were conducted by people who each believed they defended the faith. Accounts of them written by the winning side can be one sided, and an honest answer shows awareness that the sources for some losing parties survive mainly through their opponents.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Period questions
Write about eight questions asking for an account of a period. Examples: describe the situation of the church in the first three centuries, including persecution and the formation of the canon and creeds; explain what changed after the conversion of Constantine; describe the main developments of the medieval church in East and West.
Step 2: Controversy questions
Write about eight questions on controversies. A strong set includes the Arian dispute, the Christological disputes leading to Chalcedon, the Pelagian controversy, the iconoclastic controversy, the filioque, the Reformation debates over justification and authority, and later debates such as that between Calvinists and Arminians. For each, the question should ask who held what, and how it was resolved or not.
Step 3: Primary text questions
Write six to eight questions tied to texts in the program: the Nicene Creed, the Tome of Leo, a passage of Athanasius, Augustine’s Confessions, a section of Anselm or Aquinas, Luther’s Small Catechism, the Westminster Confession or the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Ask what the text says, why it was written and what it shows about its time.
Step 4: Mark the uncertain dates
In the answer key, write whether each date is firm, approximate or debated. In the exam, write dates with c. where needed. An answer that gives a firm date for something uncertain should lose a mark for accuracy.
Step 5: Sit the exam
Close the notes. Set the timer. Write in short paragraphs. Afterward record the date, the time used and any interruptions. Nothing is submitted. The results stay in your notebook.
- Have I covered each period, including the medieval and modern?
- Does every controversy question ask who held which view and why?
- Are my primary text questions tied to texts I have actually read?
- Have I included Eastern as well as Western Christianity?
- Does my answer key mark which dates are firm and which are not?
- Have I allowed enough time to write rather than just list?
Examples
A controversy question
Describe the Pelagian controversy: the main positions of Pelagius and Augustine on human nature and grace, and how the church responded. (A sample question.)
A primary text question
Read the opening of the Nicene Creed. State what it says about the Son, and explain which earlier teaching the phrase of the same substance was meant to exclude. (A sample question.)
A period question
Explain how the Protestant Reformation began and name two of its main early figures, with their principal concerns. Add a sentence on the Catholic response. (A sample question.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic historical teaching presents the church as a continuous institution under the successors of Peter, with doctrine developing in a way consistent with what was handed down. Catholic students are likely to describe the Reformation as a rupture and the Council of Trent as a reform.
Orthodox
Orthodox historical teaching presents the faith as preserved without addition, with the first seven councils as its great expression. Orthodox students are likely to see the filioque and papal claims as departures from the common tradition.
Protestant
Protestant historical teaching often presents the Reformation as a recovery of the gospel against later accretions. Protestants differ on how early the church began to drift, and many honor the Fathers and the early creeds.
Scholarly
Historians aim to describe events without taking a doctrinal side. They treat political, social and intellectual causes alongside theological ones, and often point out that the groupings later called orthodox and heretical were fluid at the time.
Why it matters
A structured exam turns a mass of names and dates into usable knowledge. It shows whether the student can explain why things happened and not just when. The attention to primary texts keeps the exam grounded in what people actually wrote.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Church history is only a list of dates.
Correction: Dates are a frame. The substance is the questions people asked, the answers they gave and the reasons for them.
Misunderstanding: The losing side in a controversy was obviously foolish.
Correction: Many were serious thinkers with arguments. Sources for them often survive only in the writings of opponents, which calls for caution.
Misunderstanding: A historical exam must take a side on which church is right.
Correction: The exam asks the student to describe positions accurately. A student may hold a view, but the answers should state each tradition’s account as its members would.
Knowledge check
What are the three kinds of question in a historical examination?
Period questions on what happened and in what order, controversy questions on what was disputed and how it was settled, and primary text questions on what a source says and shows. Together they test the frame, the reasoning and the contact with actual sources.
Why should primary texts be included?
Primary texts show what people wrote, and not only what later writers say they wrote. Questions on them test whether the student has read the sources and can interpret them in their setting. They also guard against repeating a standard summary without having checked it.
How should uncertain dates be handled?
They should be written with c. or as a range, and the answer key should mark which dates are firm, approximate or debated. This avoids claiming more than is known and trains the habit of accuracy about the limits of evidence.
Who grades the exam?
Only the student. The site does not receive or grade it, and there is no certificate, accreditation, credit or degree. The suggested standard of 70 percent is a target for personal use.
Think it through
- Which controversy do you find hardest to describe without taking a side?
- What can be lost if you study only the winning side of a dispute?
- Which primary text from the program would you most like to be asked about?
- How would you explain the difference between an approximate date and an invented one?
Independent assignment
Write the historical examination
In your own notebook, write 20 to 25 questions in the three groups, with a time limit and an answer key that lists key terms and marks each date firm, approximate or debated. Then take the exam under closed book conditions on the date you set. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.
Further study
- Council of Nicaea (325) and Council of Constantinople (381), The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed Use for primary text questions on the creed.
- Leo I (Pope Leo the Great), Letter 28, the Tome of Leo A primary text for the Christological questions.
- Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word A primary text for the Arian controversy.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions A primary text for the Western tradition.
- Martin Luther, The Small Catechism A primary text for the Reformation.
- Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 volumes) For the development of doctrine across periods.