Reasons for Our Hope? We Do Have That Obligation, by Dr. Jeff Mirus

Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Dec 13, 2024

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org.

Over forty years ago, when I was still teaching regularly in college classrooms, I found it effortless to speak off-the-cuff without stumbling, and to make constant eye contact with the class. But five years ago, when I tried to resurrect some of my old lectures in apologetics for video presentations, I found it almost impossible to be relaxed and articulate when staring at a camera. I completed a series of four video lectures and was appalled at the result, so I also included Merle Hazard’s brilliant and uproariously funny music video “(Gimme Some of That) Ol’ Atonal music” for comic relief. It significantly eased the pain.

I recall this now because of a question about my presentations by a thoughtful priest who asked why I thought that people needed “reasons” to believe—that is, why couldn’t they simply “believe”? I did not give him a very satisfactory response when I argued that everybody needed “reasons”; I actually think he was right that this was not always true in the sense of the sorts of “reasons” that are the bread-and-butter of what we call apologetics. For example, many people believe in Christ primarily because they were raised in the faith (and along the way were sacramentally invested with the gift of faith), without paying attention to arguments or reasons much at all. …

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