In science, especially the philosophy of science that guides how science is done, a now outworn approach was called “positivism”.Positivism asserted that what you see when you look is actually there, that you see it exactly as it is, and that you can know it as it is. Scientists were positive about that. However, people eventually realised that how one looks, including the biases and backgrounds of the people who look, influences not only what they see, but what is actually seen, so that the actions of observing change the things observed.Consequently, so they claimed, it is impossible to know what is there exactly as it actually is. Then came the social constructivists who asserted that we just all make things up to suit our social needs and that we have no way of knowing whatsoever what is actually there. Furthermore, they claimed that what is actually there doesn’t matter anymore anyway; what really matters is what we think as we gather together in society and make up our own realities and our own rules to fit with our own realities. That is largely the current thinking, but it is beginning to crumble because, let’s face it, there is something outside of me and you and what we think. Sometimes it bites us or it doesn’t conform to what we want, and that is when we are reminded of how small we actually are.When it comes to God, does it matter if God is really there? Can we just make up our own spirituality as long as it serves us in the everyday world and makes us feel warm and fuzzy? Will everything still be okay? Can we live a meaningful life? Will we “go to heaven” when we die?A new way of thinking about science and how to conduct research is called post-positivism. It is a revision rather than a repudiation of positivism. One prominent form of post-positivism is critical realism, and one of the nicest descriptions of critical realism was provided by New Testament scholar NT Wright in his book ‘The New Testament and the People of God’.He wrote: “I propose a form of critical realism. This is a way of describing the process of ‘knowing’ that acknowledges the reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower (hence ‘realism’), while fully acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known (hence ‘critical’).”Thus, we know some things about the world in which we live, and we continually refine our knowledge of that world. Our knowledge of the world is not an exhaustive knowledge; it is an investigative knowledge. Our knowledge of God is not an exhaustive knowledge; it is an investigative knowledge, and we will continually be growing in our understanding of God. When I bump my head on the bed post, I am in direct contact with the bed post, and I am assessing my experience, its implications, and its significance for me as I reflect on my “knowledge” of the bed post. I may take a second, long look at the thing upon which I bumped my head. I may reach out and touch it. I might even address it as “You blankety blank bed post!” In the same way, I may need to take a good, long look at God and what He has made. I may try to touch Him through mystical or religious exercises. I may yell at God when He doesn’t do what I want, when He frustrates me, and stretches my faith.Jean-Luc Marion, in his book ‘Being Given’, claims there is a kind of "saturated phenomenon" that overwhelms our ways of knowing in direct contact and has an effect on us as a kind of revelation it is given. However, Jean-Louis Chrétien, in his book ‘The Call and the Response’, says that we cannot know the call (of a phenomenon that is given) but through the response of the "contacted” the experience of receiving the call. These are two ways of thinking about contact that each require a form of realism. They come in the wake of the philosophers Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Contact is essential for psychotherapy; yet, contact is not possible without “contactor” and “contacted”, (therapist and client) and so the fact of contact yields the realisation that there is something rather than nothing, and we can learn about it through contact. Thus, critical realism.In one of the more salient examples of the application of critical realism (for psychotherapists) the issue of the relationship between individual agents and social structures has been explicated by Margaret Archer. Referring to her work in the ‘Journal of Documentation’, Wikgren noted that in the critical realist philosophy, the very possibility of social theory is based on the existence of real social structures and systems that are emergent entities which operate independently of our conception of them, conditioning but never determining intentional agential activity, being nonetheless dependent on that human activity to endure or change.The social structures in which we live are formed by the activities of the individuals who fill roles within them. Structure influences individual choice and responsibility, but the roles we play in relating to one another give rise to the social structures. The mutual influence runs both up and down in such an emergent dynamic. Both therapist and client function in multiple roles in society that influence how they experience themselves with one another in the process of psychotherapy.This is also true in the church. St Paul described the church as the body of Christ, one body, but with many members. Further, he described those members as having diverse gifts, with diverse roles, with multiplying effects. The church is constantly reshaping according not only to the gifts of its members but also according to the roles they play and the ways in which they relate to one another. This is why Paul pointed to a better way than the limited focus on spiritual gifts; he pointed to love, which is a fruit of the Spirit and a relational quality. When the fruit of the Spirit leads the way in a church, then the body of Christ emerges in its midst.I am positive. That is real.