Jacob Bronowski’s enlightening view on human perception and creativity kindles a spark of thought involving a separate realm… religion. This glint of ideas progresses beyond the analysis of man’s view based on "biological makeup"; rather, it deals with an individual search. Bronowski offers human beings a set of directions through the convoluted mechanism that is referred to as the "human brain". Within this set of directions, there exist subtle undertones of God and religion. Bronowski not only assists humans in analyzing knowledge and imagination, but within his analysis, he offers mankind certain tools that can be utilized within the journey of searching through the "self". The idea that human perception is based on the senses, namely sight, the notion that humans think in objects and categorize themselves as objects, and the concept that humans "invent words" in closed systems that cannot prove anything outside of them (Gödel’s theory), not only relate to the human perception of knowledge, but furthermore, to the spiritual point of view of an individual.

Bronowski makes an obvious reference to God on the very first page of the book (rather, the collection of lectures) within his introductory poem: "… only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair." He explains how people employ their senses to make characterizations about the things around them while only God loves all without regard to sight. This poem is a prime example what the philosophy of most religions teaches: To "love thy neighbor" and "love without the basis of physical appearances". This leads us to a chain of questions: "But how is one to love his fellow human being when all he has are the personal perceptions conjured up by his senses?" which leads to Bronowski’s point, "This program is to ask what our knowledge of the external world rests on when we think of ourselves not as having God-given insight into it, but as being human animals penetrating it with the physical gifts we possess" (21). Then man may ask, "How is man to have "blind faith" in this God when man has vision to perceive the world, full of all its imperfections, as it was handed to him?" Most of these questions are easily dismissed with the simple cliché that mankind has repeated for centuries: "God works in mysterious ways", but the next and last question of the chain is "If God cannot be perceived through the senses humans were given, then, how is he to be reached (or found)?" It only makes sense that we must overcome our senses to perceive such a profound principle. Thus, I come to a point I emphasized in my last paper. I explained how, in meditation, the senses should be distracted in order to view the surrounding world with the soul, in lieu of one’s physical eyes. Bronowski states that his underlying theme is "how we get experience which is not directly physical through physical means." With this, it can be affirmed that the spiritual act of meditation as a physical means can lead to "getting experience which is not directly physical."

In Bronowski’s second chapter, he displays that human language is separated into words that shape and define perceptions of the physical world. Not only do these words simply describe and define human perceptions, but they also limit them. Rather than having an innate understanding of spirituality, humans must alter their perceptions by manipulating words and applying them to a realm that is far beyond the physical. For example, before language came about, it can be assumed that people had individual understandings of the way the world worked and their existence. It was an understanding without words of their souls. They didn’t question what humans, today, call "God" or "Religion". But language gave birth to the word "God", which is now assigned to be a name to describe the Creator. Now that the word has been conceived, one asks, "God? Who is that? Where did He come from? What does He do?" In order to define the word, more words must be used. So, now, we have words that "describe" a word, which, in turn, shall bring up more questions. When caught in a cycle of "descriptions," we steer further from, what Kant (the very philosopher that Bronowski bases his lectures on) may call, an innate (Kant would actually have called it "a priori"), understood truth. It is impossible to give an accurate definition encompassing all the aspects of God with simple words and descriptions. In order to truly understand religion and God one must transcend, search beyond the human senses, and surpass human language (maybe through meditation or some other practice that leads to a median between the physical world and spiritual world).

Bronowski offers an abundance of evidence proving the idea that one must ignore language and his senses in order to reach a destination within man’s spiritual search. He, in his fourth discussion, stresses Gödel’s theory that "as soon as one tries to state the axioms of a system, there are always statements that are true that cannot be proved within these axioms." In reference to his second lecture, it can be inferred that language is a closed system. Everything within language is physical. Language even causes people to characterize themselves as physical objects rather than distinct individuals with intuitive souls. Based on Gödel’s theory, since language is a closed system, it is not able to prove truth outside of it, and thus, anything outside of the physical and human realm, like spirituality and religion, cannot be proven using the system of language. Furthermore, the Rationalists maintained that "we could deduce truths with absolute certainty from our innate ideas, much the way theorems in geometry are deduced from axioms" (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy- http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/). Based on this, humans have a closed system of deduced truths concerning the world and religion from innate ideas about God and creation. So, now, one may ask, "How is it that perceptions of the world around us can be made with our senses [this acts as a deduced truth], but humans cannot make perceptions concerning the Supreme Benefactor of these gifts?" Essentially, what happens is that "God-given gifts" (senses) are used to find additional truths (like the existence or perception of God). God is introduced in the axioms; yet, is being mentioned to prove the truths of his existence. This is an example of what Gödel called "self-reference". Thus, we cannot use our senses to search within the axioms of this religious system.

Jacob Bronowski suggests many explanations of human actions, and in doing so; he has offered methods to transcend onto a spiritual plane. Through his analysis of human knowledge and imagination, Bronowski has offered mankind subtle instruments that are vital for progressing in one’s individual search for spirituality. Moreover, his theories involving human attributes and the evolution of human thought and development instigate a deeper view of human progress.