From time to time, John Guillaumier, a self-confessed atheist, provides readers with his hackneyed and cynical diatribes against the faith of believers in God. He asserts that reason and faith can never “meet” (October 10).

Sometimes, I wonder whether Guillaumier’s faith in atheism is simply an intellectual pose, or snobbish caprice, or thoughtless superficiality. Indeed, a number of my atheist friends are level-headed and do not fit into this pitiable mould.

The conversion of the late Antony Flew must have come as a most uncomfortable jolt to Guillaumier and his fellow militant atheists. Before he passed away, Flew, a one-time staunch atheist, endowed with a stellar philosophical mind, concluded that his discovery of the Divine proceeded from a purely natural level, without any reference to any supernatural phenomena. Flew’s lifelong commitment to “follow the argument wherever it leads” contributed to his theism.

Flew’s There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind makes for compelling reading.

Some people possess a power that transcends reason but is not alien to it. For instance, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali was a great jurist, philosopher, theologian and mystic of the 12th century. Al-Ghazali argued that it would be as absurd to deny that such a faculty exists as if somebody who is stone

deaf claimed that music was an illusion simply because he himself could not appreciate it. Al-Ghazali firmly believes in the Divine.

In her book A History of God, Karen Armstrong writes:

“The God of the mystics is to be approached through the imagination and can be seen as an art form, akin to the other great artistic symbols that have expressed the ineffable mystery, beauty and value of life.

“Mystics have used music, dancing, poetry, fiction, stories, painting, sculpture and architecture to express this Reality that goes beyond concepts.”

A commitment to an attitude of passive waiting and an open mind is one way of reaching God.