St. Joseph the Worker Pastorate

One Good Reason

Other Religions
This week in our continuing series on evangelization tips we're talking about evangelizing people who belong to other religions. When you encounter a person who is of a non-Christian religion, it can be challenging to know how to convince them of the divinity of Jesus and the truth of the Catholic Church. We first have  to remember that it is God who does the real work in the heart, while we only offer points for consideration. Perhaps a place to start is with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who once stated a universal truth that, "All men by nature desire to know." Despite all of our differences, one thing brings together non-Christians  who believe in God. To some degree, all of them desire "something greater." When sharing the Gospel with non-Christian  believers in God, there are many arguments that you can use in a discussion. Here are a few: 1) Lord, Liar, Lunatic or Legend, 2) prophecies, and 3) miracles and private revelation. The Lord, Liar, Lunatic, or Legend argument, developed from C.S. Lewis'  "trilemma," makes the case that Jesus can't be  simply a good moral teacher if He is not also God. He has to be lying about being God, which would make Him evil, or must be crazy to proclaim such a thing, which makes him unfit to be God. Or He's simply a legend, that is, people in the early church exaggerated accounts of Him, making Him a deity. While this argument doesn't prove that Jesus was God, it does narrow down things. When carried on to its conclusion, it shows that the best explanation for Jesus' life was that He is divine. That is, the deity of Christ (while not irrefutable) has more explanatory power than the other available options.
 
The argument from prophecies  shows that biblical prophecies have come to fruition and reveal a God who loves us and wants us to know Him. The Virgin Birth is one such prophecy which is mentioned in Isaiah 7:14. It is fulfilled in the Incarnation of Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary (Matt. 1:18-23; Luke 1:26-
38). This is just a starting point ... there are numerous more.
 
The argument from miracles and private revelation shows God's continual care and providence for His people in the present.
 
A final point: personal testimonies and stories add to these arguments by presenting a sincere witness to the Faith.
 
This evangelization tip was brought to you by St. Paul Street Evangelization. Take our course, One Good Reason for Non-Christian Believers at evangelizationschool.com.
 
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