What if a scientist told you that atoms exist? Would you believe him, even though you have never seen an atom yourself? What if he told you he could teach you how to manipulate atoms in order to release incredible amounts of energy into the world? If this is something you wanted to do, would you do what he told you to do?

What if someone told you that they consistently experience the felt presence of God? Would you believe him, even if you had never felt the presence of God yourself? What if he told you he could teach you how to structure your life in such a way that you could experience presence of God in the same way and release all kind of spiritual energy into your life? Would you do what he told you to do? Or would you balk because you don’t believe that one person can tell another how to feel the presence of God because that seems too formulaic or predictable? After all, God’s presence is a subjective reality.

Consider this quote from Ronald Rolheiser:

In a pragmatic society, science alone is given the right to establish facts. Its findings are considered objective. What is proposed by other disciplines, with a different method of knowing–metaphysics, philosophy, mysticism, poetry, or theology–is considered to be purely subjective, a matter of personal faith and blind option. Thus, for example, no one, professional scientist or lay person, has ever seen an atom. Yet none of us doubts its existence. Science not only assures us that atoms do exist, it positively manipulates them to create nuclear energy. Who can doubt their existence? Likewise, no one, professional mystic or lay person, has ever seen God in the world. Yet, we doubt God’s existence despite the fact that mystics assure us of that reality and we see in the lives of many believers fairly concrete evidence that they are experiencing something real in what they claim as an experience of God. They, too, like scientists, are splitting atoms which release energy. However, in a technological society, we see and understand only one kind of energy, pragmatic. This reduction, as we shall see later, is a debilitating impoverishment.