Truth Exists

1. The conforming of one’s mind to reality

2. The correct correlation between one’s thoughts and how things actually are

3. Something is true despite what we want, like, or know

   1. Example: It is raining outside. “I don’t want it to be raining. I don’t like the rain. I didn’t know it was raining” It doesn’t matter, it is raining. That is the truth.

   2. Example: God is real. That is either true or false. There is no in between. 

God is Real

1. Science cannot prove or disprove God

2. Therefore, both belief in God (theism) and no belief in God (atheism) are both leaps of faith with no 100% scientific proof

3. The mathematical probability (odds) that God exists is far greater than the probability that God does not exist.

Evidence for God

1. Love - love cannot be proved with science but it is the realest most fundamental part of being human. God is love and the love we experience is an experience of God.

2. Right and wrong - morality cannot be proved with science but it is something we share as humans and that we know in our hearts.

3. The universe could not have just appeared from nothingness - that goes against science - there must have been something outside the universe that created it (God)

If we choose to live our lives completely according to our own desires and without God, we are taking a huge risk. If we cannot disprove God and there is a good chance of his existence, why would we risk our eternal soul (and our children’s souls) by not doing all that we can in this life to have a relationship with God? God exists and a relationship with him is the most joyful and important thing we can have in this life.

Catechism: The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery (passion, death, and Resurrection) along with the cross: Christ is risen from the dead! Dying, he conquered death; To the dead, he has given life.

Look at the historical facts about Jesus that are not disputed by historians:

1. Jesus was a man who lived in Palestine who claimed to be God.

2. As he went about with his message the people that were with him said they saw him do amazing miracles and he had a large following.

3. He convinced the people that were closest to him that he was God.

4. After he was tortured and killed on a cross by the Roman Empire, hundreds of people confessed and attested to seeing Jesus risen from the dead.

5. The people who saw the risen Jesus after he was killed led to them spending the rest of their lives telling everyone about Jesus and they went to their deaths refusing to deny the resurrected Jesus

Evidence of Jesus’ Resurrection - The only thing that needs to be proven is the Resurrection. If Jesus truly died and then rose from the dead three days later, he is God and everything he said is true.

1. Historical figure - multiple primary sources - Jesus was a real, historical person. There is no debating if Jesus actually lived. Jesus was killed by the Roman Empire by crucifixion and laid in a tomb. Roman Guards (ancient form of Navy Seals) guarded the tomb. 

2. Witness of the apostles*** - Apostles were ordinary, sinful men. They were fishermen who were no better than anyone else. Peter denied Jesus three times during Jesus’ most critical night on earth. Each apostle had their faults. After Jesus was killed they were hiding! At times, they were cowardly, average men. However, once they saw that Jesus rose from the dead, it changed them completely. Each one of these “cowardly” men would dedicate their lives to spreading the message of Jesus. And each one of them (all 12 except for John) would be killed, in horrible, painful ways, because they refused to say that Jesus was not God. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, if he was not God, why would all of these men go to their torturous deaths for a lie??? They wouldn’t. They were willing to die for Jesus because they knew it was the truth that he rose from the dead. That they may die in this life but they knew of the joy that heaven would bring. The odds of regular, sinful, fearful men becoming revolutionaries for a lie is basically impossible. The witness of the apostles may be the most convincing evidence we have for the proof that Jesus rose from the dead and that Jesus truly is God.

3. 500 eyewitnesses of Resurrected Jesus - 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 

   1. St. Paul wrote this letter to Corinth only 15 years after the Resurrection. He is telling the people of Corinth that over 500 eyewitnesses saw Jesus and met with him after he was crucified. 

   2. St. Paul is telling the people of Corinth, if you don’t believe me, go ask the eyewitnesses yourself. This is a primary source of history. Paul would never encourage people to seek out witnesses if it was not true. 

Liar, Lunatic, Lord

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic  or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - C.S. Lewis

Evidence for New Testament on Jesus and the Resurrection

1. Early testimony - written prior to 70 AD

2. Eyewitness testimony - details specific

3. Embarrassing details - bad things written about the author and founders of the faith

   1. Disciples run away on Good Friday

   2. Peter and Paul’s failings

4. Excruciating witness of the apostles

   1. Witness of the apostles - they went to their deaths for telling people about the Resurrection

5. Expected prophecies

   1. Prophecies

   2. Over 300 prophecies that predict the coming of the Messiah

      1. Jesus fulfills every one of them

6. Extra-biblical sources

   1. 10 sources within 100 years of Jesus’ life that are written about the early church and Jesus