We all have a world view. It is what matches our phenomenological horizon and limits for us what is possible. We do not even contemplate what is not possible for us, not until someone slaps us in the face with it. It is not that such a thing is inherently impossible and we are unable to contemplate it, it’s just that we do not think of it on our own, and it certainly does not break the surface of our interest. In addition to this we all operate by faith (where “faith” is not simply a religious faith). We believe in the various tenets of our world view, and we trust them; that is often what supports our contacting (our reaching out to meet other people and the environment in general). The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls this perceptual faith (where we trust that what we see or hear is actually there). The founders of gestalt therapy refer to faith in the field, that the field will produce what is needed. It is ultimately an existential faith.So, a person whose world view includes God looks out on the universe and it makes sense as a creation. The person whose world view does not include God looks out on the universe and it makes sense that it does not make sense. The ultimate concern (a construct of the existential theologian Paul Tillich) about what happens to us after we die can only be experienced in one direction; if we experiment and die in order to answer the question, then we find out what happens all right, but we cannot go on in this life. As such, there is a direction to our living, and in many world views this directionality is purposive. It is teleological. There is a reason for it.Why do we die? How come we can learn things about our environment, the cosmos, instead of it remaining dark and unavailable to us? Why do we have a sense of our own being toward death? Why do we want to know? What are we?I am often puzzled by the atheistic world view as opposed to the theistic world view. It seems the atheist is saying, “I know what isn’t”, as opposed to the theist who says, “I know what is”. How do you prove a negative? If a person has not experienced God, has not received an enlightenment, has not encountered what the philosopher Jean-Luc Marion calls the saturated phenomenon, that person has no experience upon which to base the claim that God does not exist. The atheist is attempting to prove a negative.The saturated phenomenon overwhelms a person’s usual ways of knowing, and it is given as a gift. In the case of God it is not something one can conjure up all by one’s self, deduce, or otherwise provide out of one’s effort. It is simply received. In the case of God, it is a revelation of something that would otherwise remain unknown, because God is inscrutable.If the theist makes a claim of experience of God, of having received enlightenment and having encountered the saturated phenomenon, the theist can attest to what he or she has experienced. That is what the Bible calls having a witness. If you are a witness in a court of law, then you tell people what you have seen, heard, or otherwise experienced events that you have been part of.Now, if you encounter another human being on the street and you tell someone about it (bear witness to it), you probably describe the physical features of that person as well as anything they may have said, and you also provide your impression of what it was like to meet such a person. People can relate easily to that, and there is usually no doubt that you did, in fact, meet such a person. However, if you meet God, who has no body, and who is basically enigmatic a being of another kind than human and you start to describe that to someone else, you meet various kinds of things doubt, confusion, denial and the other person often judges you along with rejecting the reality of such a meeting. Unless their world view allows for a being such as God, they have no frame of reference and not enough interest to sustain the contemplation of your witness.I can describe my experience of God, but the best an atheist can do is to describe what it’s like not having met God. Another way to understand this is to think of the frequencies of sound and how a dog can hear things that a human being cannot. When people encounter God and “pick up” on Him, it is because they have been granted the ability to hear with the eyes of their souls. Before I met God in this meaningful way, before I picked up on the saturated phenomenon, I said to God, making an experiment to see what would happen if I addressed God AS IF God were there, “If you are real, make yourself known to me.” Then I picked up the New Testament and began to read, and it was a new day. The Bible had never made any sense to me, but suddenly it did. God met me in the pages of the New Testament, in my room, as I read. Suddenly, I could hear Him. I felt warmed. I felt moved emotionally. It became the most wonderful story, and the story came with clarity. It came with conviction. It moved me to trust and believe. As I read, the pieces of an exquisite puzzle kept fitting into place, and I felt myself responding and continuing to talk with God.Someone has contrasted the study of God that is an academic exercise, as if poking at an object that cannot respond, with the study of God that is an expression of one’s personal spirituality. The atheist speaks of “god talk” and conducts word games, making an intellectual career out of proving a negative, that God does not exist, but all the while the atheist pokes as if God will not poke back. Meanwhile, the person who believes makes the contemplation of God, the encounter with God, a matter of an ongoing dialogical relationship filled with adoration, amazement, wonder, and worship.