Despite the fact that we have just admitted such inaccuracies exist, we, as humans, have no experience of any situation where we were actually thinking something different to what we thought. Of course, straight away this is an impossibility. We may have our perception altered if we have had too much to drink, or if we are high on medication, but at no point do we actually lose the ability to experience the present, whatever state we may be in when we experience it. And those who deny the fact that individuals can experience God in this way are really arguing beyond their evidence. 

 

Any contention of this kind depends upon validity of logic. If a Christian ‘feels’ God, that is, if he or she is able to experience a form of communication with Him that is, naturally, unavailable to those who do not know Him, then it has to follow that what he or she is feeling must be very different from all other kinds of human knowledge, feeling and perception. And this means, in one sense, that those who claim that there is no proof of God’s existence, might have to admit that popular thought is mistaken - for if human cognisance produces verification that certain emotional states exist, then the Christian claim that a personal relationship with God exists is no less valid than the claims of naturalists. 

 

And here we have perhaps found the answer to the bigger question of the cosmos. The answer is that logical thought must be totally relevant to the cosmos, for if we do not think it is, then we have no reason to believe anything at all. Knowledge of the cosmos is gained through inference; so therefore, our knowledge of God must be gained by the same process, except that it could quite easily be directed by God Himself. Any naturalistic claims which tell us the importance of inference must have a sound reason for telling us that inference of the experience of God is invalid. And of course, they have no way of doing that.

 

We can conclude from this that the laws of rationality are completely compatible with the laws of nature. But we must be careful here not to suggest that we can justify any purely materialistic account of rationality, for this is something that we cannot justify. The human brain may be in various relations to, say, a pebble on the beach; it is a relation of space and time, and also a quantitative relation - but to suggest that every bit of matter is related in the same way must be nonsense. 

 

In the second place, to know that knowledge, experience and logic are valid we must also know that reason and the universe have some form of dialectic. And we see that when our own reasoning process tells us something about our own feelings, nature corroborates that claim. Now many non-theists will tell you that this is precisely because nature produced the mind. How then can they justify this statement if nature is, by herself, completely mindless? To claim that our own reasoning process is part of a randomness, distilled from initial entropy is one thing; but to say that this reasoning power which we posses is, and always has been, part of nature’s plan all along is something quite different. It does not explain, if reason is nothing but matter and is all part of the same fundamental laws, why it does not exist in other things too. 

 

If reason, which is operative in our own minds, is really the result of complete mindless randomness, then the laws whereby nature commands us to think, turn out to be the same laws connected to every event in the universe’s space-time manifold. Those who think that this is probable do not really know how far off the mark they really are. By the same suggestion, you would expect to see some form of reasoning occurring in fruits, vegetables and trees, which, although not comparable to creatures that have the necessary parts to process further their reasoning, would have something tantamount to reasoning power within their own make-up. And this is surely absurd. 

 

If the validity of cognisance or awareness cannot be explained by randomness then we must look for the answer somewhere else. If thought is merely a characteristic of sentient creatures, it does not explain the origin of those thoughts. Where reasoning is strictly in accordance with the laws of logic, it must surely be related to something outside of the cosmos, or at least something older than nature, for we have seen clearly that these things cannot be a part of nature all by themselves. And whether this is viewed from the theists’ perspective or the naturalists’ perspective, we are forced to admit that any strictly rational thoughts, whether they are part of nature, or if they are God kindled, would have to come to us from outside our own heads.  Rational thought would have to exist in the universe somewhere, for if naturalists are now claiming that it does not, how can they claim that it occurred, in its incipient stages, as a random flux of atoms? 

 

They are stuck in a ditch with no rope to pull them up. Therefore, unless we take all human reason to be illusory, we are forced to admit that when we are thinking clearly, we are responding to something greater that human reason; something with which the cosmos has always been saturated.

 

If we return to the question of rationality; I have attempted to show that it is not possible to say that all rationality is invalid. On the other hand, it is perfectly obvious that we do make errors in our own reasoning process - if we do not have all the facts, or if we are too preoccupied with something else, or perhaps from something inside our own unconscious. We are therefore forced to infer that inference itself often provides us with accurate conclusions but also that inefficiencies impair our inferences on other occasions.

 

I am not here saying that reality contradicts rationality; I am saying that reason which is beyond nature is able to correct human rationality when it goes wrong. When your inaccurate rationality is put right you are fully aware of the errors; your true logical rationality takes up into itself that which was primary in your cognitive power to begin with; that which was right all along. You are not transported into a new place - a place not familiar to you, you are given more of what you initially had in small doses. 

 

To say that rationality is part of an immutable law of nature is to say that all our false logic could be corrected by more of the same type of logic, and that must be nonsense. And it stands to reason that the cognitive powers necessary to understand the origin of some greater reason would have to be something beyond human understanding. No human mind could hold together such information. But we see this is not a limitation of reason itself, just of human minds. 

 

Having established that in our heart there lies an allegiance (however dormant) to the Creator of the universe, we then have to find out how this prospective relationship can be attained and how this ultimate reality can be reconciled with the rest of our desires. The problem is not much different to that of mathematics - we keep on going until we get the right answer, and if we find we are getting no closer, we go back to the beginning. And in fact, if we start at the beginning, the part where God tells us that we all fall short of His glory, we will be on the right track; ready to explore the rest of His claims - which culminate in the glory of Christ.

 

I have seen along every step of the way that realisation of God involves wisdom; that is, a direction of belief which leads towards certain states of mind. Thus if one was trying to find God by being humble, he would have a better chance than by locating Him throughout a period of self-satisfaction. In some cases, the strength of God’s revelation depends on the sincerity of our emotions towards Him. And if I find seemingly divine-inspired cognitive processes occurring within my own mind, I can either ascribe them, foolishly, to the self or, much more sensibly, to God. If I link a particular judgement to another particular reason and find harmony, I should expect that, if I had prayed for, say, clarity, the clarity that was occurring was from God - for I see no reason why clarity should occur by self-inducement. I can induce certain feelings and emotions perfectly well, but there are others that I cannot. And if I find within my own reasoning power that nothing has swayed my mind towards falsity, that is, if nothing partisan has affected my thinking, I can comfortably start to explore the presence of the Lord in my life through the resultant feelings, emotions, wisdom, and clarity which must have come as a result of prayer, because they could not have been, under most circumstances, induced by the self. 

 

We are really asking that God communicates to us in way that tells us it is really Him, for all of us who know God need to know how to distinguish God from the self. If, on the other hand, I cannot get past the belief that my rationale is tainted by my own wishes, then I ought to conclude that my reasoning, obvious and good in normal circumstances, is not clearly attuned to God’s reasoning. I know for sure that if Christianity is true, God, who can change my reasoning power in a second, is wholly able to show me the difference between His divine wisdom and my own earthly wisdom. And even if I admitted that God does not always show us the distinction (unless He chooses to do so), even the most hardened sceptic would have to admit that if an all-powerful God does exist, He would easily be able to show creaturely minds (by thought transposition) that He does exist. 

 

There is, perhaps, one objection to this that I have not yet covered - What about if you are mistaken; what about if you only think it is God? It seems reasonable to suggest that the sceptics might have a good prima facie case. How can I find out if it is really God and not my own imagination? And secondly, how can I show the sceptics that it really is God working inside me? Admittedly, the second question is very difficult to answer - and it is perhaps impossible without God’s intervention. But I think there is an answer to the first question which might go some way in shattering certain illusions that sceptics might have. 

 

Let us first take the situation in hand, and juxtapose it with the objection that is usually felt. We can see at once that the actual juxtaposition is between a perceived event (and a correlative, that is, an actual consequence of that event), and an alternative consequence that would occur if the event were false. But we are forced to admit at once that the sceptic’s contention as to what might happen if either were true is one of speculation, due to his lack of knowing God. If he had had an experience of God, he should, if God chose to tell Him, know that it was God. And if he had had a moment where he thought he might be having some spiritual moment, but later found out that it was just his imagination, he ought to be able to describe the sensation. But if no such sensation occurred, it is doubtful whether any concept of what happens if it is not God is anything more than an imaginative method for giving a rhetorical, and easily explainable, record of what did occur within his own cognition. 

 

The accusation that ‘It was not God, it was all in your mind’ is only valid if we admit two things. 1) That the sceptic has the resources to recognise what occurs in one’s own mind if it is false, and 2) That the sceptic can say with certainty that the Christian cannot experience anything within his own mind that is not receivable in the non-Christian’s mind. Straightaway we see that both points are wild speculation. Therefore, even if we cannot ourselves prove to others that we have communication with God, we can offer a sound explanation as to why the alternative argument is fundamentally flawed.

 

Having shown all this, we can now invite the sceptic to explore our avenues deeper. If God can do this to us, He can, equally, do it to the sceptic. He can show Himself to anyone. And surely we can see that if the sceptic opens up his mind, in order that he might receive God, he will soon come to realise that that which he thought was his total composite reasoning power actually has several roads coming out of it which God can channel Himself through. And if the sceptic chooses to disregard such an opportunity, he can no more claim that it is all nonsense, unless he is a fool.