Petrine apologetics: Hope,imagination,and forms of life

Hope and despair

That hope is the appropriate context for the apologetic task comes into sharper relief in light of the bracing lucidity of despair. Few articulate this despair as breathtakingly as the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell, who, in an article entitled “A Free Man’s Worship,” writes:

That Man [sic] is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours [sic] of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s [sic] achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built. ⁵

What Russell recognizes, even if tacitly, is that life’s central existential question is one of meaning, of whether there is any point to human existence beyond what each individual might choose to believe. According to Russell, there is not. Therefore, he thinks, we must come to terms with the “unyielding despair” that characterizes such an existence.

Although he does not put it this way, Russell himself, like anyone else, must come to terms with the unyielding despair induced by a reality that he supposes is indifferent to human existence in one of three ways, an observation made by the Christian apologist C. S. Lewis in his article, “On Living in an Atomic Age.” Lewis observed that when one “feels” as though life is significant but nevertheless believes (as Russell does) that it is ultimately pointless, there are three responses: suicide; animal hedonism; or defiant self-deceit. ⁶ Most of the time, Lewis thinks, the Bertrand Russells of the world engage in an “uneasy alternation” between the second and third responses. ⁷ In any event, what all three exclude is hope. While animal hedonism attempts to ignore despair in the interest of having a good time, defiant self-deceit confronts despair head-on but tries to wear a good-natured smile nonetheless. In the end, Lewis rightly thinks that the “idiocy of the universe” ⁸ will rub out the smile. And in the absence of hope that existence has a point, suicide becomes the sacrament of despair.

By contrast, hope longs for meaning. It embraces the feeling of significance as a sign that there is, in fact, more to life than what can be apprehended within the space−time continuum alone. In this way, hope is intrinsically transcendental. Moreover, hope is essentially eschatological. For whether there is a point to human existence beyond what each individual might choose to believe depends crucially on how all things turn out in the end. Hope looks to the end of all things for the resolution to questions about meaning.

That this forward orientation is partly what Peter had in view when he spoke of “the hope that is in you” is clear from the context of the letter. ⁹ Peter writes to believers who either are or can expect suffering. For this reason, whatever hope Peter’s first readers may be regarded as having must have transcended the horizon of their present, earthly existence. Indeed, the hope about which Peter speaks in 3:15 is oriented toward the “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” inheritance “kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” ¹⁰ In short, “the hope that is in you” is an eschatological hope. It is a hope that rests assured of meaning in the end, despite the appearance of meaninglessness, even in the form of suffering.

Making the connection between such hope and the apologetic task requires a question. This requirement is precisely why Peter presupposes an interrogative encounter. He simply presumes that those who possess the sort of eschatological hope described will prompt others to “ask:” What account can you give of the hope that is in you? What is the meaning of your hope? or, more simply, why do you have hope? The point here is that encountering one who hopes (in the manner described) is a pre-condition for apologetics. Apart from such hope, despair reigns. And where despair reigns, no purpose is served offering a logos, an account grounded in reason. Indeed, asking and arguing have no more point than the general pointlessness that characterizes unyielding despair.

But hope invites apologetics precisely because of its connection to meaning. Those who cannot make peace with despair’s sacrament, but who cannot safely build a habitation for the soul on its “firm foundation,” will be compelled to ask. They will ask, as Peter puts it, for an account of “the hope that is in you.” Therefore, hope is the ground of apologetics. It is a pre-condition of the very possibility of making a defense.

Forms of life

To say that hope is a pre-condition for apologetics is to make two claims. First, the apologist must actually possess the hope in question. Apart from this hope, any defenses made (i.e., arguments given) are not in fact reasons “for the hope that is in you” (emphasis mine). Hopeless apologists may make clever arguments of all sorts, but such arguments do not constitute apologetics as such in the absence of genuine, eschatological hope. Second, and equally as important, the hope that the apologist possesses must be manifest in such a way that those in despair’s grip are compelled to ask. In other words, Petrine apologetics, as an activity, is a defense whose need is driven by an encounter with an alien form of life.

Remarkably, this encounter is precisely what we see in the figure of Socrates, as presented in Plato’s Apology. With his life hanging in the balance, Socrates offers his own defense (apologia) against the legal charges for which he stands trial. Significantly, despite his devotion to philosophy, it is not Socrates’ ideas or teachings per se that are on trial. Rather, Socrates himself is being tried for the manner in which he conducts himself in Athens. In short, he is on trial for his way of life. ¹¹ In fact, according to Plato’s account in the Apology, Socrates’ way of life represents such a deep threat to the Athenian establishment that he is brought to trial on trumped up charges. Specifically, Socrates is charged with mercenary sophistry, with teaching others how to make “the worse argument the stronger,” ¹² and with corrupting the youth by creating doubts about the Athenian gods.

Just as Peter seems to presuppose, Socrates’ apologia is necessitated not by a set of propositions to which he gives assent, but by a set of practices he inhabits. Consequently, when he comes before the Athenian jurors to make his defense, Socrates does not merely offer reasons for his favorite philosophical conclusions; rather, he offers a compelling account of why his peers should look favorably on his form of life. In rather unapologetic terms, Socrates declares:

Men of Athens … as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy, to exhort you and in my usual way to point out to any one of you whom I happen to meet: “Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?” ¹³

Socrates goes on to explain his “usual way” in greater detail, a way undoubtedly well-known to those at his trial since it was the very basis of his arraignment in the first place.

The details of Socrates’ way of life (i.e., the specific manner in which he would “practice philosophy”) need not detain us here. Two features of Plato’s portrait of Socrates in the Apology are important for our purposes. First, the structure of the Socratic apologia mirrors that of 1 Pet 3:15 with regard to forms of life. Peter simply assumes that his readers will inhabit forms of life that will occasion questions. People will ask. Thus, Peter exhorts his readers to be “prepared to make a defense.” Similarly, Socrates embodied a form of life that stimulated conversation among people (which, of course, resulted in questions). For that very reason, Socrates found himself in a situation in which he was compelled to provide answers about why he lived the way that he did.

Of course, Socrates’ defense was not uniquely Christian. Nevertheless, the form of life that Socrates embodied was arguably oriented toward hope. This second feature of Plato’s portrait deeply reinforces the Petrine approach. Perhaps much like the Christians to whom Peter addressed his letters, Socrates was not compelled to make a defense of his form of life merely because it was different or eccentric. Rather, Socrates’ life manifested a difference of a very specific kind. Socrates lived in a culture of Sophists. Caring little about truth, the Sophists emphasized persuasion as a means to wealth and power. Socrates repudiated this stance. Haunted by a sense of divine calling, Socrates spent his entire adult life pursuing things that transcended the culture of despair in which he lived. Quite simply, he pursued the “best possible state of [his] soul.”

To be sure, Socrates’ “hope” for a well-ordered soul falls short of a robustly Christian, eschatological hope that rests assured of meaning in the end. Still, the parallels are striking. Those who embody a hope-filled form of life inhabit a way of being in the world that transcends the horizon of their present, earthly experience. This way of being was arguably true of Socrates. And it was clearly commended to Peter’s readers. In a culture of despair (i.e., one that denies meaning in the end), hope-filled lives attract attention. Thus, if, as Peter suggests, “the hope that is in you” is the very basis for defense-making, would-be apologists would do well to reflect on the extent to which they manifest an alien form of life.

Imagination

For such reflection to be effective, it must be imaginative. This is required because imagination is the faculty that gives concrete form to the hope we embody (or fail to embody) in a way of life. ¹⁴ It gives form to hope because, as C. S. Lewis once claimed, “imagination is the organ of meaning.” ¹⁵ Hope’s conviction of meaning in the end implies that one’s present existence is part of a larger narrative. This implication is what enables hope to look beyond the horizon of one’s present experience. Specifically, it is our capacity to imagine that our present experience is caught up in a larger story whose ultimate meaning will, in the end, give significance to our part that fuels a hope-filled form of life.

One particularly apt illustration of this imagination occurs in a heart-warming scene in The Two Towers, the second part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings trilogy. Nearing the end of their trek towards Mount Doom, the destination of their quest to destroy a ring of power that they bear, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee reach a point of physical and psychological exhaustion near the stairs of Cirith Ungol, a mountain pass into Mordor, the location of Mount Doom. They pause long enough to share what might be their final meal together, wondering aloud whether they will ever find water again. Frodo, the ring-bearer, is especially overcome by the burden of his task in this “dark hour of weariness.” ¹⁶ But neither is aware of the threat that waits in the tunnels of Cirith Ungol through which they must pass.

It is at this point in their journey—a moment that is pregnant with the possibility of real despair—that Sam wonders aloud:

The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it … I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into? … I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. ¹⁷

On the precipice of despair, Sam manages to imagine that his present experience is caught up in a larger narrative. And although Sam cannot see or know exactly how the tale into which he and Frodo have fallen will turn out, his imaginative capacities enable him to apprehend that the end of his own chapter (or Frodo’s) is not the end of the whole story of which they are a part. This apprehension rekindles hope. “Why, Sam,” Frodo responds, “to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written.” ¹⁸

Of course, Tolkien’s literary illustration is not meant to serve as verification of some general feature of human psychology. It is, after all, a work of fiction (and the characters in question are hobbits!). At the same time, from a normative perspective, Sam’s imaginative encouragement of Frodo makes narrative sense of their renewed capacity to continue the quest. That is, Sam’s ability to imagine that they are part of a tale that might one day be told by firesides or read from a great book provides a normative motivation to continue when their present experience provides no grounds for the same.

The situation for the first readers of Peter’s epistle is arguably similar. In addition to the suffering to which Peter alludes throughout his letter, he makes explicit reference to “various trials” that have “grieved” his audience. ¹⁹ Thus, when Peter charges them to hope (“set your hope fully” ²⁰ ), he must provide grounds for this charge that transcends the horizon of their present experience. As we have seen, he provides these grounds partly by orienting his readership toward their eschatological inheritance. But, just as importantly, Peter situates this eschatological orientation in the context of the entire narrative axis of God’s redemptive work in the world. ²¹ In appealing to this narrative, Peter, like Sam with Frodo, attempts to capture the imaginations of his readers. The hope of which Peter speaks is rooted in the on-going story of God’s redemptive work in the world. And that hope takes root in hearts with a capacity to imagine that present experiences are part of larger narratives that will prove meaningful in the end.

Conclusion

When Peter admonishes his readers always to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,” it is, in my view, doubtful that his exhortation included much of what has come to be known as “apologetics” today. I doubt, for example, that Peter had in mind that Christians ought to have responses to the logical problem of evil or several arguments for God’s existence, much less fully-developed epistemological stances on such issues as presuppositionalism or evidentialism. As I have tried to make clear, Peter’s apologetic point is much simpler. Specifically, Christians ought to exhibit forms of life that embody eschatological hope (i.e., hope for meaning in the end) in cultures of despair. Moreover, since such lives are imagined by the narrative they inhabit, Christians ought to be ready to give an account when asked: why do you hope?

Of course, nothing I have said here entails that the on-going work of contemporary apologetics (as a professional subfield of Christian philosophy or philosophical theology) is not worthwhile. However, if my sketch of Petrine apologetics is right, what might follow is that the value of contemporary apologetics requires recalibration. This need for recalibration is because apologetics is frequently viewed as a handmaid of evangelism. According to this perspective, conversion to Christianity often requires the removal of intellectual obstacles that able defenses of the faith provide. Thus, the contemporary apologist must continue to provide all manner of apologetic arguments since the success of the Church’s evangelical mission partly depends upon it. While it is undoubtedly true that rigorous argument is occasionally instrumental in Christian conversion, broader trends seem to tell a more sobering story. After all, Christianity is arguably on the wane in the West in an era which, measured by the argumentative riches available, might be characterized as a Golden Age of Christian apologetics. Something here seems amiss.

My suggestion is that what is missing is precisely what I have articulated in this article. To whatever extent contemporary apologetic arguments are “ineffectual” (measuring in terms of persuasion), it is because such arguments are completely divorced from forms of life that embody “the hope that is in you.” To put it differently, contemporary apologetic arguments have become de-contextualized, detached from the ebb and flow of incarnate lives whose way of being in the world exhibit hope. One might even say that some of the arguments provided by contemporary apologists are answering questions that no one is really asking, or not asking in the ways they are being answered. If my hunch here is right, it would partly explain how such powerful apologetic arguments appear so powerless in shaping the very culture that produced them. What, then, is the remedy?

Contemporary Christian apologetics desperately needs an infusion of renewed imagination. Specifically, Christians need to imagine (and then live!) forms of life that signal that their present existence is grounded in a larger narrative, the ultimate meaning of which is secure. Such lives will exhibit a quiet moral confidence that avoids the “uneasy alternation” between animal hedonism and defiant self-deceit that characterizes those who inhabit a culture of despair. Unlike the latter, Christians need not engage in self-deceit about moral choices, the economic utility of which does not compute in light of the “idiocy of the universe.” Instead, they ought to live in the humble assurance that the Bertrand Russells of the world have the story wrong. This assurance is the reason that, for the Christian, animal hedonism can and should be relinquished. Thus, to say that lives of hope will exhibit a quiet moral confidence is to contrast them to those whose fervor for earthly gain reveals the tacit conviction that the end of their own chapter is the end of the whole story.

The life of quiet moral confidence that we are to imagine is nothing short of exhilarating, requiring the aid of our full intellectual, spiritual, and physical capacities. This circumstance is because the shadows of despair’s darkness constantly shift, adjusting in ways that require different kinds of light. This shift is why imagination, as opposed to mere ratiocination, is essential in the apologetic task. For while the latter is a guarantor of truth in a system in which some measure of it is assumed, only the imagination is capable of apprehending meaning in cultures bereft of it.