In my newest book, Controversies, I gather examples of high-level Catholic apologetics. The eight selections—little known even by today’s defenders of the faith—were written by John Henry Newman, Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox, Arnold Lunn, and Herbert Thurston and are among my favorite apologetical writings. The collection concludes with an afterword from which the following paragraphs are borrowed. They may give you a hint about the book’s content and about my attitude toward intellectual give-and-take.
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While shopping for a new automobile a few years ago, I took the obligatory test drive. The salesman got in beside me and cranked up the radio as soon as the engine started. As he began to explain how well balanced and powerful the eleven speakers were, I stretched out my arm and pushed the off button.
“You don’t want to see how good the sound system is?”
“I have no interest in the sound system. I don’t plan to use it.”
“You don’t? What do you do on long drives?”
“I think.”
He fell silent. I imagined him saying to himself, “Thinking—what a novel idea!”
It is a pity that private thinking has gone out of fashion, because that means that public thinking has gone out of fashion. One consequence is that public religious discussion—what little there is of it—has lost much of its savor. No matter how lofty the topic, not much can be said if the parties fail to think things through. . . .
Around the middle of the twentieth century the idea that religion matters because it is true lost out to the idea that religion matters because it is useful. There indeed is a utility to religious truth—”The truth shall set you free”—but truth should be more than a key to a locked door. It once was valued for its own sake. For many people, truth still is a good to be pursued, but such people no longer are the ones leavening society. In terms of influence, thinkers have been supplanted by emoters, and if there is one thing that emoters shy away from, it is controversy. One may be excused for being boring, flippant, or even crass, but stepping over the line into controversy puts one beyond the pale. That is because controversy is a knife. It cuts truth from error, setting a placet here and a non placet there. . . .
Those who have shied away from thinking things through and therefore from drawing conclusions will be succeeded, in terms of influence, by those who relish mental swordplay and who appreciate it even in those with whom they disagree. Pilate’s question—”What is truth?”—was delivered dismissively, but, taken in another sense, it is the key question for every man. Unless we inquire what truth is, we will not search for it. Unless we search for it, we will not find it. Unless we find it, we will not find him who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” In the long run, nothing else matters.