Does man arrive at the knowledge of God as a Person, a living Person, by his reason, feeling and volition? The Word of God denies this, and, in the matter of living union with God as an experience, man's history denies it. "Canst thou by searching find out God?" (Job 11:7). Philosophy gives a positive answer, inasmuch as it is the most deadly thing to faith ; and philosophy is an intense activity of the soul, mainly on its reasoning side. Multitudes have been lost to a true and vital Christian experience through taking up philosophy as a subject. When God had breathed into the already fashioned man, something more than body and soul was there, and it was this that determined everything in relation to God's purpose through man. The soul was the meeting place of body and spirit. Let the soul surrender to the body and all is lost. Let it surrender to the spirit and all is well. ...When Adam sinned, he did so as the result of what seemed to him a sound and right argument and reason, and a judgment of what was good and desirable. But immediately he had so acted he became aware of a faculty within, which rose up and condemned his judgment, reason and 'good (?) motive'. Henceforth he lived under a sense of condemnation. The conscience which accused him and caused him to excuse, could not restore him to God's favour, but for ever kept God in his consciousness. Thus it is that to live in and to be governed entirely by our souls is not to have rest and real life. It is possible to put our wills so strongly behind our reason and thought and desire, or so to surrender our wills to our emotions and affections, as to muffle the voice of conscience so that we have little or no conflict within. But should God come into "the garden in the cool of the day", or, in other words, should we at any time seek a living knowledge of God, we are in for a very bad time with regard to this former mentality, these former reasonings, and this former affectional life. But we are not saying that the human conscience is infallible and always right. Most certainly it is not. We can have a sense of right and wrong which is altogether misinformed and false, and Satan can play tricks with conscience. We are only pointing out what conscience is as an attribute of the spirit. For conscience to fulfil all of its Divinely intended purpose in relation to God—not merely to keep man aware of something beyond his own way—conscience must (as with the whole spirit) be renewed in God and united with the Holy Spirit. Christ is God's perfect standard for conscience, and union with Christ is the only ground of life in the spirit. "Christ...was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor 1:30), and when Christ is received by faith, so that our standing before God rests upon what He is and not what we are, then we "find rest unto our souls" in this "yoke" (Matt 11:29), for we have our "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Heb 10:22). With the whole human spirit, conscience must be quickened from above, raised, enlightened, adjusted and related. From What is Man?
