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rious terms for noting the Lord’s presence; they mediary of our own reflections”; he suggests
are usually associated with sensory perception, we communicate with God using our bodies,
such as sight, sound and taste (e.g., Job 13:1; Ps emotions, mind, imagination and intuition. He
34:8; Avrahami, 2012). In the New Testament, appears to minimize but does not exclude rea-
the Greek word translated as discernment is son. Rose Mary Dougherty (2009, pp. 5-10) si-
diakrisis, meaning to separate, sort out, or di- milarly talks about “nudges of the heart” or and
stinguish (Kittel et al, 1964, 3:949,469). It ap- “awareness of inner stirrings without analysis”,
pears that both sensory perception, or perhaps but also gives practical advice for decision ma-
intuition, and rationality are needed for dis- king. Mary Margaret Funk (2013, p. 5) believes
cernment. However, as mentioned above, I that the “logical mind usually misses the sym-
suspect that rationality has traditionally been bolic voice heard by intuitive senses”, and also
overvalued in both psychology and theology. describes “tools” for the journey, such as asking
As an aside, current research in cognitive psy- for confirming signs. She encourages the prac-
chology points to the importance that intuiti- tice of spiritual disciplines and suggests “living
on plays in our daily lives (e.g., Kahnemann, from the mind that is descended into the heart”
2011). Automatic thinking, though not without (p. 58); an interesting image for melding intui-
its biases and errors, enables us to function well tion and reason.
in the world, learn with ease, and make emer- Evangelical Christian authors also note the
gency decisions. Rational thinking is also indis- importance of both rational and non-rational
pensable, but also prone to errors. Overall we faculties. Gordon Smith (2003, p. 53) defines
need both fast and slow cognitive processing discernment as “a way of knowing and seeing
but need to be aware of which we are using. This that is experienced as a profound interplay of
topic is beyond the scope of this paper but has intellect and emotion.” He refers to the “inner
fascinating implications for spiritual discern- witness of the Spirit” (p. 10) and a “direct im-
ment with respect to the balance between intui- pression on our inner consciousness” (p. 16),
tion and reason. but also claims that discernment is intentional,
In contrast to the modern emphasis on ratio- and suggests understanding the issues, and fra-
nality, contemplatives and mystics commonly ming them in terms of yes/no choices. Smith
describe intuitive spiritual experiences. Juli- encourages humility, self-knowledge, aware-
an of Norwich (1998), for example, describes ness of context, discipline, and Bible study. Dal-
thoughts which occurred suddenly and spon- las Willard (2012) similarly appears to endorse
taneously. In contemporary Roman Catholic both intuitive and rational factors in discern-
writings, intuition continues to be emphasized, ment; he notes that impressions sometimes just
although usually with concomitant recognition feel right, and relates sensing God’s presence to
of the role of rationality. Nouwen (2013, p. 182) our intuitive ability to know when someone is
defines discernment as intuitive and percepti- staring at us. But he insists that we should be
ve; he posits that “somewhere in the right side guided by “reasonable, intelligible communi-
of our brains, or perhaps deep within what we cation, not by blind impulse, force or sensation
call the human soul, there is a spiritual organ alone” (p. 69). Evan B. Howard (2000) suggests
that can be trained to hear the beat, step to the paying attention to “intuition and imagination
music, and read the signs…”. Note that he in- (both affectively-rich operations)” to help reve-
fers that spiritual intuition can be learned. El- al aspects of divine communication. He refers
sewhere he looks at outcomes: “There is no cle- to cognitive biases and faulty heuristics, and
arer way to discern the presence of God’s Spirit notes that judgments based on feeling are fal-
than to identity the moments of unification, he- lible. Narrow intellectual paradigms can also
aling, restoration, and reconciliation” (Nouwen, hinder discernment (such as assuming all sick-
1992). This fits well with the roles of the Spirit ness is due to sin). He suggests that cognitive
discussed above. Keating (2011, p. 15) refers to biases can be transcended through active, pray-
prayer “in which the inspiration of the Spirit is erful participation in a living church.
given directly to our spirits without the inter- Most Christian authors wisely devote more

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