I recently enjoyed driving a carload full of college-bound men and women 5 hours back to the academy where they attend college. Along the way, our merry band of shanters (they are attending a maritime academy and so sea shanties occasionally break out) became engaged in wondering what we could discern about our culture based on the bumper and window decals we spotted on the drive. We noted that Subaru Foresters and pickup trucks were the “loudest” and not in harmony unless you abstract out simply the “shouting”. Our game jumped the track when one of the men read, “Drive Carefully, Heaven is not Real.”
The sentiment being “shouted” down the highway disturbed my son quite a bit. He drew a parallel between this sentiment and the hypothetical act of telling someone afraid of the dark that there was only darkness. He argued against the irresponsibility of such an act, its blatant lack of charity, and what he thought he discerned in its superior attitude of being somehow in the know. Another young man wondered aloud to whom this responsibility that my son mentioned was owed. My daughter sang in a theater stage voice, “Jesus”!!! It was awesome. The next three hours quite literally flew by.
We talked about how faith comes from what is heard. The reason all Catholics who can ought to study scripture, the magisterium, and apologetics is that the man driving the car with the desperate bumper sticker was lost and leading others away from the Truth without perhaps knowing the state he was in. I seeded the ground with the classical definition of science, which was new to 60 % of my occupants, and why it is, in fact, reasonable to believe the revelation. We also explored the truth that most of what we know comes to us through faith in the testimony of others. Imagine the return drive home…I can hardly wait!
As they grabbed their gear, one young man hugged me and said that much of what he had heard in the car ride was new. He didn’t understand much of it, but it felt vast.
“That’s eternity, Son. He is real and loves you as if you were the only being in this world.”
And that’s why we study apologetics… to evangelize the culture wherever we find ourselves.