Dear friend,

In my previous letter, I discussed ideas from philosophy about the existence of God.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

I’m going to “jump ahead” in this letter and address a question that will come up if you continue down the path of becoming a Christian.

You may have already reached the point where you think you want to become a Christian, or you may reach it in a month or a year, but when you do, you will want to read and think about this letter.

What does it mean for you to be a Christian?

Do you need to say a prayer, or one prayer per day, or multiple prayers per day?

If you need to say one prayer at first, is it the sinner’s prayer that you may have heard about or recall from an old Sunday school class you went to at a Protestant church?

The sinner’s prayer has these components:

1. Acknowledging one’s sinfulness and need for forgiveness
2. Recognizing Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the only way to salvation
3. Expressing faith in...

Dear friend,

We’re going to get a little philosophical in this letter.

When I was an agnostic, I distrusted philosophy and lent it no credence. This was due to simply not having learned what philosophy was but also because in practice I heard about many different, contradictory philosophies, so I concluded that one could make “philosophy” into whatever one wanted.

But just because something can be abused and twisted doesn’t mean that it’s bad, just that it is misused.

One of the greatest thinkers to ever live was St. Thomas Aquinas. He lived during the 1200s and was a priest of the Dominican Order. He made a brilliant synthesis of how reason supports beliefs of the Catholic Faith, especially in his Summa Theologica.

He has a set of famous proofs of God’s existence from reason that are called “Aquinas’s Five Ways.” He incorporated the ancient philosophy of Aristotle and corrected and perfected it.

Here’s his first way, his...

Dear friend,

In my previous letter, I shared how I personally became a Christian from atheism.

As I write these letters to you, I also encourage you to take action to seek for yourself the truth of God’s existence and of Christianity in particular.

Here is how I recommend you do that:

1. Say a prayer each day for God to make Himself known to you so that you can believe.
2. Start reading St. Matthew’s Gospel.

Here’s a bit more on the prayer part of that recommendation.

God is omniscient, so He knows everything. He knows that you currently don’t believe in Him (or maybe are unsure if you do), and He knows that you want to believe in Him if He is real.

But God prompts us with His grace to seek Him. It is up to us, choosing of our own free will, to accept that grace and pray for God to help us believe. God will never force Himself onto you, because He wants our love, freely given, since otherwise it is compelled and therefore not love at all.

Therefore when you pray,...

Introduction

This is the first in a series of real letters I am writing to my agnostic friend.

It is intended to provoke thought and discussion between him and I, and hopefully ultimately result in his conversion to Christianity and the Catholic Faith. I printed this first letter and mailed it to him via snail mail.

It is not intended to be a proof-text against a hostile atheist (of which I was one), but rather someone who doesn't believe in God but is open to discussing it and considering it for themselves.

Hello my old friend,

I write to you in what I hope will become a set of letters to share with you how I became a Christian from atheism/agnosticism, and then specifically a Catholic, and how over the past twenty-three years those decisions have been confirmed in diverse ways.

My hope and expectation is that you, with whom I’ve been friends for a long time, will read and ponder these letters, as a person of good will, and also if you are inclined, will respond to any of...