How to Evangelize an Atheist

[MattAE]

Hot off the press…

anytimeevangelize.com/2011/09/30/is-evangelization-worth-it/

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Anytime Evangelize

We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received."

• Pope Benedict XVI

 

[fide]

Hot off the press…

anytimeevangelize.com/2011/09/30/is-evangelization-worth-it/

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Anytime Evangelize

We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received."

• Pope Benedict XVI

Hi Matt - fyi - the “Hot” link doesn’t work.

 

[MattAE]

Hi Matt - fyi - the “Hot” link doesn’t work.

Hm… you’re right. Thanks, Fide. Worked last night, but oh well. Here try this one.

anytimeevangelize.com/2011/10/03/is-evangelization-worth-it/

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Anytime Evangelize

We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received."

• Pope Benedict XVI

 

[MinkPink]

Speaking as someone who is sort of coming out of atheism and to the church (in RCIA now), I can tell you that it is close to impossible to convince an atheist 1) that there is a God and 2) that the Catholic church is the way to go. It wasn’t until I just got this odd feeling of being drawn to mass that I have started to come out of that. Conversion stories also are highly unlikely to convince atheists and if I do decide to become Catholic, I don’t think that my “conversion” from atheism to Catholicism would convince atheists. It’s such a personal experience that for those who find the existence of God to have no substantive, objective observable evidence and for those who say there might be a God, but they don’t know, to make that leap. Just something to think about

 

[fide]

Speaking as someone who is sort of coming out of atheism and to the church (in RCIA now), I can tell you that it is close to impossible to convince an atheist 1) that there is a God and 2) that the Catholic church is the way to go. It wasn’t until I just got this odd feeling of being drawn to mass that I have started to come out of that. Conversion stories also are highly unlikely to convince atheists and if I do decide to become Catholic, I don’t think that my “conversion” from atheism to Catholicism would convince atheists. It’s such a personal experience that for those who find the existence of God to have no substantive, objective observable evidence and for those who say there might be a God, but they don’t know, to make that leap. Just something to think about

I agree - my experience, and my generalized conclusion, is that atheists and faithful Catholics look at the world and reality in totally different ways. IMHO, their philosophical foundations of perceiving and of reasoning are completely different. There is no bridge of reason leading continuously from one to the other - there is only the discontinuous “leap” enabled by supernatural grace that can lift a person out of the restricted dimensionality of the merely material, and “transport” him so to speak to “see” by faith the full reality of God and creation.

This is not to say that persons of faith should not try to argue and explain truth with atheists! Only, it is very difficult, and will be fruitless unless the atheist begins to want to understand, and see, and reach for more. Then, God will give him the grace to begin the trip.

 

[MattAE]

MinkPink:

Speaking as someone who is sort of coming out of atheism and to the church (in RCIA now), I can tell you that it is close to impossible to convince an atheist 1) that there is a God and 2) that the Catholic church is the way to go. It wasn’t until I just got this odd feeling of being drawn to mass that I have started to come out of that. Conversion stories also are highly unlikely to convince atheists and if I do decide to become Catholic, I don’t think that my “conversion” from atheism to Catholicism would convince atheists. It’s such a personal experience that for those who find the existence of God to have no substantive, objective observable evidence and for those who say there might be a God, but they don’t know, to make that leap. Just something to think about

First of all, thanks be to God for moving you to enroll in RCIA.

Question: what were the circumstances that first led you to encounter the Mass in your life? In other words, as an atheist, how did you first hear/learn about the Mass so that you were enabled to feel drawn to it, if you don’t mind my asking?

As for the merit conversion stories, I have to say I disagree. Not every journey is identical to your own, and I’m sure that if you asked former atheists who have benefited from hearing the conversion stories of Jennifer Fulwiler or Anthony Flew or C.S. Lewis… heck, even St. Paul… you would agree. This isn’t to say that conversion stories alone lead to conversion, only that they can be helpful (immensely for some).

fide:

I agree - my experience, and my generalized conclusion, is that atheists and faithful Catholics look at the world and reality in totally different ways. IMHO, their philosophical foundations of perceiving and of reasoning are completely different. There is no bridge of reason leading continuously from one to the other - there is only the discontinuous “leap” enabled by supernatural grace that can lift a person out of the restricted dimensionality of the merely material, and “transport” him so to speak to “see” by faith the full reality of God and creation.

This is not to say that persons of faith should not try to argue and explain truth with atheists! Only, it is very difficult, and will be fruitless unless the atheist begins to want to understand, and see, and reach for more.

You’ve yet to respond to my point, made both here and on Anytime Evangelize, about the slippery slope this line of thinking results in. Allow me to demonstrate by asking you a few questions.

1. When Jesus told his apostles to go into the world and make disciples of all men, was he excluding those with world views too different from their own?
2. Was it wrong for early Christians to have evangelized to Gentiles? Surely their world views were quite far from each other, yet conversions spread rapidly, right?
3. Should we also refrain from evangelizing to Buddhists? Muslims? Jews? Other non-Catholic Christians? We certainly have different world views. Where do we draw the line?
4. When the Church teaches that evangelization is necessary, is She making a suggestion? Or is it a duty? I think the quote from Pope Benedict in my signature says it all, don’t you?

fide:

God will give him the grace to begin the trip.

Amen. And let me be clear: I’m not arguring that evangelization alone will convert atheists. What I’m arguing is that we have an obligation to nevertheless engage in evangelization in order to do our part. At times, God prefers to work through us, but if we stand idly by and throw up our hands while atheists fail to hear the Good News, we don’t allow Him to.

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Anytime Evangelize

“We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received.”

• Pope Benedict XVI

 

[MinkPink]

First of all, thanks be to God for moving you to enroll in RCIA.

Question: what were the circumstances that first led you to encounter the Mass in your life? In other words, as an atheist, how did you first hear/learn about the Mass so that you were enabled to feel drawn to it, if you don’t mind my asking?

I’m really not sure. I was raised in very conservative Protestant churches growing up that were so strict and theologically rigid with no sense of intellectual foundation or questioning (though I think you can probably find this kind of theology in any sect or religion) that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with religion after I hit my late teens. Then I woke up one Sunday morning 3 years ago and felt moved to go to mass at a Catholic church in my neighborhood. I just wanted to see what it was all about. It was really lovely and everyone was so nice, but I just wasn’t ready for all that. Then a few months ago I started getting the urge to go again, and have been going every Sunday (as well as some occasional Daily Masses). I just find it very fulfilling and enriching. As I mentioned in a thread I started, it has been a very bizarre transition for me as I have been a pretty staunch atheist for the better part of a decade, but I feel this is right for me at this point and am just doing a lot of reading and soul searching so to speak to see where it takes me.

 

[fide]

…
You’ve yet to respond to my point, made both here and on Anytime Evangelize, about the slippery slope this line of thinking results in. Allow me to demonstrate by asking you a few questions.

1. When Jesus told his apostles to go into the world and make disciples of all men, was he excluding those with world views too different from their own?
2. Was it wrong for early Christians to have evangelized to Gentiles? Surely their world views were quite far from each other, yet conversions spread rapidly, right?
3. Should we also refrain from evangelizing to Buddhists? Muslims? Jews? Other non-Catholic Christians? We certainly have different world views. Where do we draw the line?
4. When the Church teaches that evangelization is necessary, is She making a suggestion? Or is it a duty? I think the quote from Pope Benedict in my signature says it all, don’t you?
   …

As I wrote above, “This is not to say that persons of faith should not try to argue and explain truth with atheists! Only, it is very difficult, and will be fruitless unless the atheist begins to want to understand, and see, and reach for more.”

And it is also significant that the world today is different from the world of the 1st century. The world today is caught in the irrational and immoral web of philosophies that reject from the start the premises upon which rational arguments for God depend: formal causes and final causes. The Thomistic arguments for the existence of God and the existence of a natural moral law are all rejected from the start, and replaced by a faith that by chance, all has evolved as we see it. Recognition of causality itself is threatened (in an irrational way, but most of their thought is irrational) by quantum mechanics (actually or imagined). Such irrationality - I think - did not exist in the early centuries and not until the “Age of Enlightenment” or so.

Man has been distancing himself from God for a long time, that is true, but he is getting more “clever” about it, finding what he thinks are respectable arguments disproving God and non-material (spiritual) realities entirely. He thinks he is thinking rationally; he thinks he has good arguments - he cannot think rationally because he has discarded rationality, yet he thinks he is most rational. Educated atheists today have rejected the ancient Greek metaphysics that has been the epitome of rationality for many centuries. But among many today, that is no longer the case. St. Thomas took much from Aristotle, and in his light Christian rationality has been formed. Such rationality is absurdity to the modern secular mind.

But I repeat: we are still to evangelize. God can change hearts and minds. Every man was made for truth, and hungers for truth. But he also loves his sin. Modern man has found ways to reject the rational arguments for the existence of God, and the moral constraints of the natural moral law. He has found ways to embrace darkness to an extent that surpasses that of former ages. Read in the Catechism (#675 to #677) the prophecy of the end times, for this world: there will be a revolt of evil. "The persecution that accompanies [the Church’s} pilgrimage on earth<Cf. Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-20> will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of *a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.

Nevertheless, we are to evangelize. “This is not to say that persons of faith should not try to argue and explain truth with atheists! Only, it is very difficult, and will be fruitless unless the atheist begins to want to understand, and see, and reach for more.”

 

[Jocko_VT]

I’m an atheist in RCIA, too.

Atheists vary a great deal, of course, so there can be no one answer to the OP’s question.

For me, I find that my atheism is closer to Catholicism than it is to protestantism (generally). Likewise, and ironically, Catholicism is closer to my atheism than Catholicism is to Protestantism.

My first step toward truly considering Catholicism was by responding to someone (in these forums) who cited certain parts of the Catechism to me (e.g., universal destination of goods). This all led me to read the Catechism on my own. I’ve read much since, and concluded that I was far enough along to go to RCIA!

But, I have to say, key aspects for me include the conceptualization of God. It’s much different according to Catholicism than it is for the evangelicals I grew up with. Theirs is very much an Old-Man-In-The-Sky god, while Catholicism’s is something much grander and much less anthropomorphic (I’m not saying Catholics are different in this way, just that Catholicism is!). Also, the modernistic individualism, combined with the backwards literalistic reading of the Bible, makes much of protestantism unpalatable. Catholocism is none of that! I had no idea! In fact, I’d say that, all this time, I’ve actually been quite Catholic!! The God I denied is not the God of Catholicism, but some other god that is a reflection of man’s fear.

Let me add my ditto to the first response to the OP, though. Be a friend, and be a good Catholic. That will go far. Secondly, PLEASE!!! do not use works by the likes of Lee Strobal!! Don’t try to take an intellectual route to drawing an atheist into Catholicism (or any other religion). It will work against you. The so-called proofs only work with people who are already on board.

 

[MattAE]

I’m really not sure. I was raised in very conservative Protestant churches growing up that were so strict and theologically rigid with no sense of intellectual foundation or questioning (though I think you can probably find this kind of theology in any sect or religion) that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with religion after I hit my late teens. Then I woke up one Sunday morning 3 years ago and felt moved to go to mass at a Catholic church in my neighborhood. I just wanted to see what it was all about. It was really lovely and everyone was so nice, but I just wasn’t ready for all that. Then a few months ago I started getting the urge to go again, and have been going every Sunday (as well as some occasional Daily Masses). I just find it very fulfilling and enriching. As I mentioned in a thread I started, it has been a very bizarre transition for me as I have been a pretty staunch atheist for the better part of a decade, but I feel this is right for me at this point and am just doing a lot of reading and soul searching so to speak to see where it takes me.

Sounds like the Holy Spirit is definitely tugging at your heart! I’ll add you to my prayers this evening.

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Anytime Evangelize

“We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received.”

• Pope Benedict XVI

 

[MattAE]

As I wrote above, “This is not to say that persons of faith should not try to argue and explain truth with atheists! Only, it is very difficult, and will be fruitless unless the atheist begins to want to understand, and see, and reach for more.”

Yes, I saw this. I’m glad we agree here, since this is, as I see it anyway, the most fundamental issue in our discussion.

I think maybe our disagreement lies in our different conceptions of the Christian-atheist divide. For you, the divide is as the east from the west, hardly able to be bridged, save by supernatural miracle. For me, we play a more significant role than that, and the divide isn’t nearly as wide as you think.

Jocko_VT’s own comments solidify this:

Jocko_VT:

Catholicism is closer to my atheism than Catholicism is to Protestantism.

I had no idea! In fact, I’d say that, all this time, I’ve actually been quite Catholic!! The God I denied is not the God of Catholicism, but some other god that is a reflection of man’s fear.

But what got Jocko_VT himself to see this was clarification of misconception (apparently, thanks to someone on this very forum), as I mentioned would at times be the only thing necessary to do so in my original response to you.

And while I of course accept that “religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth” is rampant, I don’t think that the New Atheism is called that because of a newfound “cleverness” on the part of modern atheists. In fact, most arguments against the existence of God aren’t new at all, but regurgitation of the same arguments in different forms.

Hope you don’t mind me using you as an example, Jocko

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Anytime Evangelize

“We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received.”

• Pope Benedict XVI

 

[fide]

Yes, I saw this. I’m glad we agree here, since this is, as I see it anyway, the most fundamental issue in our discussion.

I think maybe our disagreement lies in our different conceptions of the Christian-atheist divide. For you, the divide is as the east from the west, hardly able to be bridged, save by supernatural miracle. For me, we play a more significant role than that, and the divide isn’t nearly as wide as you think.

Jocko_VT’s own comments solidify this:

But what got Jocko_VT himself to see this was clarification of misconception (apparently, thanks to someone on this very forum), as I mentioned would at times be the only thing necessary to do so in my original response to you.

And while I of course accept that “religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth” is rampant, I don’t think that the New Atheism is called that because of a newfound “cleverness” on the part of modern atheists. In fact, most arguments against the existence of God aren’t new at all, but regurgitation of the same arguments in different forms.

Hope you don’t mind me using you as an example, Jocko

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Anytime Evangelize

“We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received.”

• Pope Benedict XVI

I’m glad that you have a heart to evangelize! I am in no way trying to discourage you from that work, which is an essential mission of the Church. As Paul VI said, the Church exists to evangelize. I am not so sure, however, that you fully understand the expanse of the “chasm” you are reaching across. I recommend a book by (Catholic philosopher) Edward Feser, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism.

Here is a portion from it:

So, whereas [Daniel C.] Dennett* proposes explaining “religion as a natural phenomenon,” I propose interpreting naturalism and secularism as religious phenomena. Or rather, if secularism is not precisely a religion, it is what we might call a counter-religion. It has its countersaints (Darwin, Clarence Darrow, Carl Sagan); its “Old Testament” counter-prophets, stern and forbidding, brimming with apocalyptic doom or at least pessimism (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud); and its kinder and gentler “New Testament” counter-apostles, hopeful for a realization of the Kingdom of Godlessness on earth via “progressive” educational policy and other schemes of social uplift (Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens - and into the bargain, each member of this foursome even has his own Gospel). It affords a sense of identity and meaning to those beholden to it, a metaphysics to interpret the world by and a value system to live by, even if all of this is little more than a negation of the sort of metaphysics and morality associated with religion: that is to say, a counter-metaphysics, a counter-morality.

And yet it is also a belief system that is, as I have said, deeply irrational and immoral, indeed the very negation of reason and morality. Thus do I call it the last superstition: not merely “last” in the sense of being the superstition that remains when all the others have purportedly been abolished by it, but also “last” in the sense of being the ultimate superstition, “the mother of all superstitions.”

Things to come

The burden of the following chapters, then, will be to show that:

1. the so-called “war between science and religion” is in fact a war between rival philosophical or metaphysical systems, namely the classical worldview of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas on the one hand, and modern naturalism on the other;
2. the naturalistic worldview, on which secularism rests, makes reason and morality impossible, though they are perfectly intelligible on (indeed only intelligible on) the classical view; and
3. secularism therefore cannot fail to manifest the irrationalism and immorality it falsely attributes to religion, while the religious vision enshrined in classical philosophical theism cannot fail to commend itself to every rational and morally decent human being who correctly understands it, free of the falsehoods and caricatures of it peddled by secularist critics.

*see Dennett’s book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomena

It is the part in bold, in #2 above, that the book makes clear, and that I am clearly not succeeding in clarifying here. Modern secularism (atheism) rests on an irrational metaphysics, fundamentally opposed to the metaphysics upon which Catholic Faith has been understood and made intelligible since Thomas Aquinas.

You may not want to invest the time or money to get and read and think about the book, but I think it would greatly help you in your chosen work.

 

[fide]

How does one evangelize an Atheist?

Below is an account of a beautiful testimony of a former atheist, changed by beauty. An interview by him is from EWTN, here.

The testimony of former atheist Kiko Argüello.

At the Royal Academy Argüello went through a profound existential crisis, of which he gives a vivid account in an interview. He wondered how it was possible “that we live in a world full of injustices when inside we have a desire for justice.” Through his involvement with a theatre group, he “learned something of the philosophy of Sartre, (No Exit, The Flies, etc.), and in the end Sartre gives us an answer: that the world is absurd, everything is absurd, that we have a craving for justice and live in an unjust world because everything is absurd.” Argüello tried to live “consciously, existentially” the “reality” of Sartrian atheism. He dedicated himself to art, won a National Prize and appeared on television, but to his surprise “it meant absolutely nothing” to him. “In the end I asked myself: but people, how can they live if I can’t?.. I’d get up and say: to live, for what? To paint. And why paint? To make money. What for, if nothing satisfies me? I knew that sooner or later I’d shoot myself, I’d kill myself.”
At the height of this crisis, however, Argüello read another philosopher, Bergson, “who says that intuition is a… way…, deeper than reason itself, of arriving at truth. And, surprised, I found that, deep inside, my artist’s intuition did not accept the absurdity of existence; I was aware of the beauty of a tree, of the beauty of things; there is something there that can’t be absurd. Then if the absurd is not the truth, if there is a reason for being… the next step was: then somebody created us… At that moment… something in me told me that God existed… that God loved me… that I was a son of God. And with great surprise I found… that this God that appeared in my heart, in my deepest soul, was Jesus Christ, the Jesus Christ of the Catholic Church.”

 

[MattAE]

fide:

I am not so sure, however, that you fully understand the expanse of the “chasm” you are reaching across.

I think we may just have to charitably agree to disagree here.

fide:

It is the part in bold, in #2 above, that the book makes clear, and that I am clearly not succeeding in clarifying here. Modern secularism (atheism) rests on an irrational metaphysics, fundamentally opposed to the metaphysics upon which Catholic Faith has been understood and made intelligible since Thomas Aquinas.

You may not want to invest the time or money to get and read and think about the book, but I think it would greatly help you in your chosen work.

Actually I started reading that book through Google Books months ago… didn’t get very far with just a preview, though. In any case, to your point, I agree that the naturalistic viewpoint makes reason and morality impossible, precisely because it is unrealistic and without basis for morality. But does that mean it’s impossible for atheists to act reasonably or morally, or understand reasonableness and morality when it is articulated to them? I don’t think it does, and I’m not convinced Feser is asserting that there.

What it does is simply give us a different starting point when evangelizing to atheists than when we evangelize to other groups, and that’s perfectly fine.

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Anytime Evangelize

“We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received.”

• Pope Benedict XVI

 

[Jocko_VT]

Hope you don’t mind me using you as an example, Jocko

Not at all. I think it’s important to note, given the context of this thread, that the person who cited that part of the CCC was not arguing for the existence of God (nor was I arguing against it). We were discussing morality. The sophistication of the Catholic Church’s moral teachings (and part of this is due to the to central place of tradition and community as opposed to Protestantism’s individualism) coincides with the understanding of morality that I’ve gained reading social theory. The recognition of man as inherently good rather than as inherently evil (i.e., the Catholic take versus the take of much of Protestantism) is essential, also.

What would be useful–and this speaks to the supposed debate between the New Atheists and Christianity, too–is to make it clearer what the Catholic God is to the public. Not that you need an advertising campaign, but there’s no reason why I or anyone else outside the Church would think that your God was any different that that of Reverend Phelps of the Westboro Baptists. But, your God is something ineffible! He’s not an old man in the sky, but something much more. In this, I don’t think the New Atheists and the Catholic Church so much disagree as they just speak past one another. And, for this, I think a lot of the blame must fall on the shoulders of Catholocism. Of course, there will always be problems when, say, Catholics want non-Catholics to live by Catholic standards they don’t agree with. Much of the problem, I think, however, is because the Catholic Church has remained quite a mystery, and unnecessarily so. I suspect part of this is because the typical Catholic doesn’t know that much about Catholicism!!

 

[fide]

… I agree that the naturalistic viewpoint makes reason and morality impossible, precisely because it is unrealistic and without basis for morality. But does that mean it’s impossible for atheists to act reasonably or morally, or understand reasonableness and morality when it is articulated to them? I don’t think it does, and I’m not convinced Feser is asserting that there.
…

It all depends on what the atheist wants. His intellect is severely wounded, but he can become re-oriented toward reason, if he wants to. God can use an evangelizing Church to be an occasion for His “re-orienting” grace, to help him want to. And if the atheist wants, he can receive and cooperate with such grace.

 

[MattAE]

It all depends on what the atheist wants. His intellect is severely wounded, but he can become re-oriented toward reason, if he wants to. God can use an evangelizing Church to be an occasion for His “re-orienting” grace, to help him want to. And if the atheist wants, he can receive and cooperate with such grace.

Of course you’re right. If we’re talking with someone who has no disposition toward genuine dialogue, we might as well be talking to a wall. Only, this could be said for any and every group, not just atheists.

In the end, this has been a engaging conversation. Thanks, Fide. Let’s pray for each other.

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Anytime Evangelize

“We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. … It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God’s grace, we ourselves have received.”

• Pope Benedict XVI