Apologetics
How do I convince my atheist family member to believe in God?
It's so interesting, because so many times I talk with people and they go, "Oh Father, I'm exploring Orthodoxy," or "I have a family member, a relative who's an atheist. What should I say to them? How should I approach it? What should I do?" Inside all of us is this desire, and it's really a magical desire. It's what they call magical thinking. We think, if we just say the right thing, if we just win the debate, if we just make the perfect argument, if we just present it in such a way that somebody will get it, then it's going to speak to them. They're going to believe, they're going to convert. It's a done deal, but we've got to find the right formula. What's the right formula? What's the right argumentation? What's the right approach? What's the thing that I need to do, that I can do this in such a way that it controls the other person's behavior and moves them and shifts them in a way that I want to move and shift them? And yet what do we see in the gospel? We see none of this. Christ, God of the universe, cannot change the hearts of the people around him, because this man was born blind, but their blindness was in their heart. They did not want to see this. They did not want to acknowledge it. But on a much deeper level, what did they not want? They did not want to acknowledge Christ as the Messiah. They did not want to, as the man did who was born blind, worship him. There was something inside of them that was keeping them blind, and that blindness was more profound than the man who did not have eyes. That's the reality that we often run into in our life, and we think, "Why won't this person get it? Why won't this person change? Why won't they see this?" Because spiritual blindness is much, much, much more profound than physical blindness.
Edited from his answer on camera. The clip has the full thing.
From “Why You Can't Argue People Into Believing In Christ”
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