Francis Spufford, in a metaphor laden piece for the Guardian, defends his Christian faith against atheism on the basis of his feelings: “I assent to ideas because I have feelings; I don’t have feelings because I’ve assented to the ideas.” Spufford claims that no one can know if there is a god or not; God “isn’t a knowable item.” And so all he can go by is his feel of God. One might wonder what Spufford means by “feel.” Surely “feeling” means a sensation. And a sensation is how we know that we have stepped on a pin, but we don’t say that a pin is unknowable. What kind of feeling does…