I have a friend who became an atheist a couple years ago and since then i have become catholic and he asked me “How can I have faith if I dont already have it?” For me I guess everything just happened. I dont know how to answer him. Any suggestions?
Faith is a choice for most, and a gift that we all receive in Baptism. You have to decide to act upon the gift of Faith that God is literally hurling at us.
Maybe you could ask him to read up on Blaise Pascal’s
Pensées (which is just French for ‘thoughts’). Yes, this is the same mathematical genius whose name we still use to describe a unit of pressure (the pascal, oddly enough!). In his famous “Wager”, he suggests that believing in God gives potentially infinite rewards with relatively nothing to lose. It’s basically a very philosophical and more logical way of asking, “why not?”
I’ll admit that this is a little simplistic, but your friend seems to have a common misunderstanding about faith. God is perfectly willing to give it to him, but he needs to cooperate with His Will by accepting this grace and choosing to believe in God’s promises. Sure there are examples like St. Paul who basically had no choice but to believe, but we shouldn’t be bitter about that - look at what God asked him to do in return (a martyr’s death can’t be pleasant).
When all else fails, just pray for your friend. I know how hard it is to do that (I’m dealing with similar situations in my own life), but it’s up to the Holy Spirit to work conversion in souls.
God Bless.
Edit: If you want to go the apparitions route, I’d suggest sticking to ones that the Church has deemed ‘worthy of belief.’ Yes, many people have experienced conversions from the messages of Medjugorje, but it makes more sense to stick to approved apparitions like Akita and Fatima.
