The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God; it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude. It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment. By his deliberate actions, the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience. Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth. With the help of grace they grow in virtue, avoid sin, and if they sin, they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son to the mercy of our Father in heaven. In this way they attain to the perfection of charity."

- Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 1700)

Imagine a world where divine revelation never happened. Or at least if it did, no one paid attention. What would we do if we wanted to know why we exist? What is the point of life, the universe, everything?

This is exactly the world that Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox, the main characters of Douglas Adams' THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, find themselves exploring.

This is an interesting state of affairs, seeing that as Catholics we already know the answers to those questions. We know that God exists, and that He is infinite truth, beauty, and goodness. We know that nothing happens outside of God's will, and we can trust that He is always in control. We know we are His beloved children, created to be perfected in charity in order to join with Him for all of eternity in heaven. Oh gracious God, how good You are!

But.... what if we didn't actually get any of those messages? What if God were silent and left us to ourselves to figure things out? Could we ever have figured out this divine plan for human existence, with only our unaided reason?

According to St. Thomas Aquinas (and, presumably, Douglas Adams) .... not a chance. In Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas holds that the quest for wisdom-our natural human desire to have an organized understanding of the world and our place in it-is a desire to know God. If a searcher wishes to know the answer (or the question) to life, the universe, and everything, he won't go very far unless he starts with trying to learn about the One who created all things. That One would presumably be in the best position to give answers.

So: we can't know much of anything unless we first start with God. That is the only logical place to begin. And in this kind of search, Aquinas gives natural reason it's due-there are some things we can know about God just with the use of our human intellectual capacities. For example, we can figure out that He exists, and that there is only one of Him. Aquinas-unlike Oolon Colluphid-asserted confidently that our natural philosophy demonstrably proves God's existence. We could even use natural reason to extrapolate further and make some conjectures about human beings, such as the likelihood that our intellect and creativity appear to be a finite, small-scale reproduction of the divine intellect.

But as far as anything else about the nature of God or the nature of man? Natural reason alone fails; it must be supplanted and surpassed with faith.

What does that mean? To a Christian, that means that we heard the Gospel-an account of things from God Himself-and decided we believe it to be true. We believe, even though we have no means of proving it. In fact the means of proving this kind of truth is, by definition, completely outside of our grasp. But we believe because having read God's own words, we find the communication trustworthy. Going forward we commit the use of our natural reason, illuminated by faith, to the task of increasing in our knowledge, love, and service of God.

In this life, the only real issue is whether or not to believe the answers that God has given. There are some serious related issues here of course, such as interpretation and application. But while the devil is certainly in the details, we are blessed to avoid the impossible task of figuring out things like the Trinity or the beatific vision for ourselves.

In THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, Adams presents a world where the desire to know the ultimate meaning of life is achingly, anxiously familiar. But the idea of asking God about the matter is implicitly dismissed. The person of Jesus Christ is referenced early in the novel as just a guy who suggested we could all be nice to each other, and gets himself killed for the trouble. No other faith system or theology is referenced. There is a frustration amongst all the creatures of the universe-if God exists, then He surely has a lot to answer for! But alas, He won't answer a thing, so something else must be figured out.

In this kind of environment, the quest to know the point of everything doesn't just go away. Instead we do what humans do best-we try to figure it out on our own. THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE is an impressive, absurd, and entirely realistic tale of one way we might try to do that: by building a supercomputer.

Interestingly enough, even though Adams tries to create a world where there is no divine revelation, in reality we do live in a world where the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection have occurred; where God has revealed Himself as Trinity; where He has told us of His love and His beautiful plan to divinize humankind; where He has told us that the entirely of creation quite decidedly revolves around us. It is impossible not to know what one knows. So even in the thought experiment of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE, the end result is that Adams can't help but make a universe where human beings are the most important figures.

The Lion and the Lamb

Besides the quest to know the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE illustrates another inescapable fact of divine revelation: original sin.

The Lord revealed to us through Sacred Scripture that because our relationship with Him has been damaged through disobedience, we are lost sheep. We don't know who we are, why we exist, and how we got here. Some of us respond to this severance with a deep, painful need to restore this relationship with truth. Others respond differently. They'd like to know how this need can be exploited for personal gain.

In the world of HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE, there are those who quest for wisdom, and there are those who wish to personally profit from the quest. Adams spares few words describing the shallow profiteering that is displayed by many of his characters, such as the philosophers who insist that the supercomputer will put them out of work. Another example: the mice who wish to get answers from Earthlings are not interested in the content of the knowledge itself, but rather in how much money they can make by selling it.

Original sin is not only the cause of our abandonment anxiety, but also the catalyst for the industry of false prophets. For every sincere sojourner of truth, there are at least a dozen snake oil salesmen, petty cult leaders, and would-be gurus ready to push their version of truth in exchange for money and power.

To the false prophets, the actual existence of God is quite inconvenient. They want to be God themselves, or at least claim the kind of deference and power that a god would possess over others. The grief and pain of original sin-separation from God-is so twisted that it becomes a cynical covetousness. Who needs the real God, who exists independently and cannot be controlled? That kind of God can leave. On the other hand, becoming your own God gives a sense of full control, even if that control is totally illusory.

If you go far enough down this path, then the possibility of divine revelation can only be responded to with horror. Any information about or from God Himself must be silenced, lest the masses turn away from false prophets in favor of the real thing. Alternatively, false prophets can be persuaded to tolerate the existence of the real God...if they can control His message. They have to be the ones on the talk show circuits, spreading the message for a pretty coin. No one claims to love God quite like a prophet for profit.

Adams may or may not have been aware that his constant indictment of false propheteering is something our Lord Jesus Christ spent a good amount of time on as well. Indeed nearly every exchange that Jesus had with the Pharisees could be interposed over the lampooning passages of HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE.

The end result of Adams work is an interesting rendition of the Gospels without Christ-our state of affairs if God gave us no communication. It is a hilarious, absurd, endearing take that makes one so very affectionately grateful for divine revelation!

As far as the answer (and the question) to the ultimate meaning of life, the universe, and everything? In his first papal homily, Pope St. John Paul II passionately proclaimed that human beings have two questions that emanate from the depths of our hearts: Lord, who are You, and who are we? The answer to both those questions is: the person of Jesus Christ. He is the answer to every question, the truth of who we are and why we exist. Amen and Alleluia!