Reality Check 101

The Mind’s Next Three Witnesses

• Another clue about God is kind of a “which came first the chicken or the egg” situation that fits well with some of the history clues. It is the idea that there is a built-in part of the mind that already naturally has an interest in divine things and has an idea about what God is like. The question is, what comes first, people growing up with others around them who teach them about God or the idea being in their minds first as they work it out and put it in use? Either way, those ideas are there, and many people would say that they are there because of the way God designed our minds.  You can also think of it this way: Because most people see themselves as having a soul, it would be normal to them to think about a God who could be their spiritual connection. 

• There is also the matter of the conscience. If you really start to think about it, the conscience is kind of a mystery for scientists and philosophers. But everyday people take for granted that in order to be live with other human beings, there is such a thing as having an ability somewhere deep inside of us to be able to judge rights and wrongs and have convictions when we cross a moral line. The thing that few people seem to talk about is that there has to be a beginning for that conscience. There has to be a place that it comes from. So, the idea is that if we have a soul which has a Creator, surely, He has a connection in our minds with what He expects to be right and wrong.  That would be a clue for us that God is indeed out there.

• The third part of mind clues has to do with simple common sense. Everyone looks at evidence about anything and naturally is able to look at all the different parts and put it all together to find an answer. It is no different when we are looking at clues about God. We all think through what is around us and piece it all together. If one or two of the clues don’t seem to be very strong, we just back up to take a look at the bigger picture to see if the big picture helps to clear the fog. That’s what we’re talking about when we put all of the other six witnesses are put together. If nothing else, putting them all together as one big grand picture gives the idea of God some reasonableness and makes the need for him crystal clear.

This is not to say that the evidence is going to convince everyone. There will always be someone who simply demands some kind of direct revelation or some kind of scientific evidence and will not be satisfied with anything less. And of course, there are others who approach the whole subject and say “It’s not possible to begin with so I really am not interested in any ideas about it”. That is their choice, but it does not have to be everyone’s choice. But there is even more beyond all of this. It is a completely different approach that we’ll talk about in the next section.