ABSTRACT
The book continues, therefore, with an examination of what counts as making sense of the ‘numinous’. It thereby provides a more detailed epistemological examination arising from the claims of the ‘reasonableness’ for believing in God, as reflected in the last chapter. It does so by examining what counts as knowledge and its foundations (which looks as if it has been dodged in the foregoing account), looking critically at those who, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, would deny there to be such a philosophical basis. This requires some examination, not only of more recent theories of knowledge (in particular those arising from the Enlightenment), but also of ‘metaphysics’ as a way of knowing. The chapter therefore resurrects Aristotelian, Thomist and Islamic philosophical traditions, arguing for the reasonableness of ‘real assent’ (as opposed to mere ‘notional assent’) to belief in God.
