| The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is 30 years old this month. To be precise: the first episode of the BBC radio series, which subsequently became the book by Douglas Adams, was broadcast on 8 March 1978. Thus begin the adventures of Arthur Dent, after his planet, Earth, was destroyed by a Vogon constructor ship to make space for a hyperspatial express route. As he travels among the stars, theological matters arise with notable regularity.
The first concerns the Babel fish — a creature that feeds on brain waves, and, as a by-product, automatically translates all languages into the vernacular, if you plug it into your ear. This extraordinarily useful feature is so unlikely that it seems to prove the existence of God by intelligent design — except that God cannot be proved, since that would destroy faith. And so, as the book puts it, God disappears in a puff of logic.
It is, however, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything that is perhaps remembered most — first heard by humans on 29 March 1978, or episode four. For seven-and-a-half million years, a supercomputer, Deep Thought, had chewed over the ultimate issue. When it awoke, vast crowds gathered. It warned: “You aren’t going to like it,” and delivered the result: 42.
Hitchhiker’s geeks have speculated endlessly about what it means. They have argued that 42 is the average number of lines on the page of a paperback, and so Adams was paying homage to books. A more literary allusion links it to Lewis Carroll: Rule 42 in Alice in Wonderland states that anyone who is more than a mile high must leave the court, which becomes a problem for Alice.
There are many more theories, which provide much entertainment for websites. There is, however, a serious side to the answer. It could be taken as nothing more than a sad joke, the ridiculous digits implying that there is no answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. But perhaps Deep Thought showed real wisdom, making the point that the answer to life is not found in abstractions, but only in lives actually lived.
It seems that Socrates, the Buddha, and Jesus alike never wrote a thing. These three were key figures in the Axial age, the stretch of history when religious innovations had a massive impact on the development of civilisation. Their zero written-word count is, therefore, extraordinary, given that they changed the world.
Socrates talked with people. He believed that the key to wisdom is not laying out what you know on the page. Instead, it is understanding the limits of your knowledge, your character, your actions, your life. That can only be grasped by reflection.
Similarly, Plato refused to write anything for years, fearing that people would assume he believed philosophy was about highfalutin’ theories. He was not wrong. To this day, philosophers routinely ignore the big hint he gave when eventually he was persuaded to put quill to scroll. He wrote in dialogues, depicting real people struggling with the personal implications of “the examined life”.
The Buddha conducted discourses, too, which were eventually written down in the first century BC. Yet, after his momentous meditation, sitting under the bodhi tree, when he first achieved enlightenment, he realised that he could not share his insights by writing. People had to experience it, and become the kind of person who could.
There is a single record of Jesus’s writing something, in John 8, when a woman caught in adultery is brought before him, and he is asked to pronounce judgement. He does not do so, but scribbles in the dirt, and whatever he inscribes is blown away.
The message seems to be this: words come and go like the wind. In themselves, they do not bring life, and they risk substituting faith with formularies. Life in all its fullness could be discerned only by being with him. The woman had that experience, and was freed. The Pharisees did not.
It is like St Francis’s comment: “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” Perhaps this is why Jesus did not instruct his disciples with Gospels or letters. Like Plato, he feared that they would end up quibbling over the letter, and forget the spirit. Or, like the Buddha, he sought to instil insight, not merely to transmit instructions. So he was with them, and promised to continue to be with them.
This is what the disciples on the Emmaus road discovered. It is why communion is the central Christian act: participation, sharing, union; being with. It might even be said that this is the reason why there are not one, but four Gospels. People inevitably fail to know Jesus by acquaintance, and so something written down becomes necessary. In their differences, though, the Gospels embody a safeguard against mistaking the flat word on the page for the living Word of God.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide, another computer is built after Deep Thought supplies its apparently unsatisfactory answer. This new machine is to address a new problem: not the ultimate answer, but now, the ultimate question. It is another good joke. This time, however, it is not a machine that is built. It is the Earth. I reckon Douglas Adams had the same thought: if you want to know about meaning, life itself is what counts.
Mark Vernon is the author of 42: Deep Thought on Life, the Universe, and Everything, published by Oneworld this month.
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