In Newman's beautiful words: ‘two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator', the believer recognises these as the real terms united by religion. Religion is the sacred, unutterable intercourse between a limited, sinful creature and Being and Holiness. Between the living God, as the Scriptures so often call him, and his living image, there is a personal and dramatic relationship, in which dread and tenderness, awe and love, hope and anxiety are mingled.

The ideas of the psychologist on a mysterious experience of this sort are very often perplexing to the theologian or the lay Christian. To do justice to psychological works on religion, one must bear in mind the various levels at which religious phenomena can be viewed. Empirical methods of psychology cannot alter a metaphysical truth, still less supernatural faith. They are unable to prove or disprove the validity of religious belief. But morality, religion, faith are lived by means of human acts which are partially subjected to psychology