Quote from Socrates via Pope Benedict

I recently came across a link to a speech made by Pope Benedict XVI to the students and faculty of Regensburg University. The whole speech is very interesting (and quite dense) and concerns itself, primarily, with the relationship between faith and reason; but the following quote, in his closing, really jumped out at me:

Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being — but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss".

— Socrates, qtd. by Pope Benedict XVI

I know a lot of Christians who love to mock "all talk about being". They despise philosophy and intellectual inquiry. It could be argued that today's Protestant Christians are, in the majority, anti-intellectual, thanks in no small part to violent reactions against the the works of Kant et. al.

I don't blame Christians for being wary of the intellectual establishment, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting the headache of being around people who want explanations for why people believe in Christianity. Explanations we probably feel grossly unprepared to provide. But isn't that what the Bible says we should do? Be prepared in season and out of season to give a REASON for the hope we have?

Living a good life is certainly a great witness, but so is defending Christianity with rational, reasonable intellectualism. With Reason.