Why Your Thoughts Point to God
“The physical basis of mind cannot explain consciousness or intentionality. It’s like trying to find the taste of chocolate in a chemical reaction.”
— Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos
What Is Your Mind Really Doing?
Right now, you’re thinking. Not just thinking, but thinking about something. Maybe about this sentence, maybe about whether this argument holds water, or maybe about what you’ll have for dinner. Whatever it is, your thoughts are directed at something. They refer to something outside themselves.
That’s what philosophers call intentionality—the power of the mind to be about things. It’s not optional. It’s not rare. It’s not exotic. It’s the essence of what thought is.
And here’s the radical proposal of this argument: If your thoughts are truly about something—if intentionality is real—then materialism cannot explain your mind. But God can.
The Core Argument
Let’s state the case in simple, logical steps:
- Thoughts possess intentionality—they are about things.
- Purely physical things (like rocks, atoms, and neurons) do not possess intentionality.
- If everything is purely physical, intentionality shouldn’t exist.
- But intentionality undeniably exists.
- Therefore, not everything is purely physical.
- The best explanation for intentionality is that it comes from a prior intentional mind.
- This mind must be immaterial, personal, rational, and transcendent. That is what we mean by God.
Step 1: Thoughts Are About Things
This is where everything begins. Your thoughts are not just internal noise or brain blips—they’re about something. Your mind constantly aims beyond itself: to people, places, ideas, emotions, hopes, and fears. You don’t just feel hunger. You think about food. You don’t just get angry. You think about why you’re angry.
Philosopher Franz Brentano called intentionality “the mark of the mental.” And even hard-nosed materialist John Searle admits:
“Intentionality is that feature of certain mental states by which they are directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world.”
This isn’t just wordplay. This “aboutness” is what gives thinking its meaning. Without it, you couldn’t reason, argue, or even understand this sentence.
Step 2: Physical Things Are Not About Anything
A rock is not about anything. It just sits there. A river flows, but it doesn’t mean anything by it. A neuron fires, but unless you already assume intentionality, it’s just electricity and chemicals bouncing around.
No matter how complex a system becomes, if it’s made only of non-intentional parts, it remains non-intentional. That’s the problem with saying the brain “thinks” just because neurons fire. It’s like saying a thunderstorm intends to water the crops.
As philosopher Edward Feser puts it:
“There is nothing in the motion of particles, or the flow of electricity, that has any intrinsic ‘aboutness.’ A neuron firing is no more about Paris than a rock falling is about gravity.”
Even if you build a machine that mimics a person talking about Paris, the machine isn’t thinking about Paris. It’s processing symbols. But symbols don’t mean anything unless a mind gives them meaning.
Step 3: If Everything Is Physical, Intentionality Shouldn’t Exist
If we lived in a universe made entirely of physical stuff—atoms, molecules, fields—then we should never see anything like intentionality. Nothing should be about anything. Matter doesn’t care. It reacts. It moves. But it doesn’t mean.
Some materialists try to escape this by saying consciousness is an “emergent property” of matter. But even if that were true, how does aboutness emerge from that which has no aboutness whatsoever?
It’s like trying to make music out of silence or arithmetic from sand. Emergence can explain complexity, but not meaning. It might explain how we get intricate brains—but it cannot explain how thoughts mean things or aim at truth.
Philosopher Thomas Nagel, though not a Christian, openly admits this:
“It is hard to see how the bare bones of physical explanation could ever account for the richness of mental life. Consciousness and intentionality seem more at home in a teleological than a mechanistic universe.”
Step 4: But Intentionality Clearly Exists
Here’s the kicker. Even as someone denies intentionality, they rely on it. You cannot refute the argument without using the very thing the argument is about.
Try saying, “Intentionality is an illusion.” That sentence is about something. You’re intending to deny intentionality. Which proves it exists.
William Hasker put it brilliantly:
“To deny that intentionality exists is like denying the existence of language while giving a speech.”
It’s not something you can escape. Even a skeptic’s thoughts, doubts, or jokes are steeped in meaning. This makes intentionality foundational—like logic or self-awareness. Denying it collapses into contradiction.
Step 5: Therefore, Not Everything Is Physical
If intentionality exists, and it cannot come from pure matter, then matter is not all there is.
This doesn’t mean we reject science. Far from it. But it does mean science cannot tell the whole story, because science only studies what things do, not what they mean. Meaning lies outside the reach of microscopes and equations.
This cracks the door open to something beyond physics. Something immaterial. Something mind-like.
Step 6: The Best Explanation Is a Prior Mind
If matter alone can’t explain intentionality, what can?
The only thing we know that naturally possesses intentionality is a mind. Your mind. My mind. Minds don’t just move—they mean. They think, reason, imagine, remember, and aim at truth.
So the most natural explanation for the intentionality in our minds is that our minds come from a greater Mind.
And not just any mind, but one that is:
- Immaterial — not made of parts or neurons.
- Intentional — capable of thoughts about all things.
- Rational — the source of logic and meaning.
- Personal — capable of creating persons.
- Transcendent — beyond the physical world and time.
That’s a rich description of what Christians call God.
The Gospel of John echoes this beautifully:
“In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.” (John 1:1–4)
The Logos is the eternal mind of God—the source of meaning, order, and life. Our intentional minds bear the imprint of His.
Objections and Replies
Objection 1: “Intentionality is just brain chemistry.”
Reply: Chemistry can explain how neurons fire, but not why those firings are about anything. Correlation is not causation. Brain states may accompany thoughts, but they don’t generate meaning. That’s like saying the feeling of grief is caused by electrical storms in the brain—as if losing a loved one is just a surge of chemicals, and not the sorrow of missing someone you love. The biology is real, but the meaning lies beyond it.
It’s like watching a candle flicker beside a photograph. The flame may cast a shadow on the wall, but the shadow isn’t about the person in the picture. Only you are. The brain may generate patterns, but only a soul can intend, remember, hope, or mourn.
Objection 2: “AI shows machines can think.”
Reply: AI simulates language, but it doesn’t understand it. It processes inputs and outputs using syntax, not semantics. A chatbot may say “I love Paris,” but it isn’t thinking about Paris. It isn’t thinking at all. John Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment drives this home: symbols need a mind to give them meaning.
As philosopher Peter Kreeft once said during a dinner with a group of scholars—including an AI developer defending artificial intelligence:
“But no one is there.”
That line cuts to the essence. Machines can replicate behavior. But there is no one home. No awareness. No self. No intention.
Human intelligence isn’t just function—it’s presence. We don’t just process language; we mean things. We don’t just simulate agency; we possess it. And that presence, that interior someone, is what we call a soul.
Objection 3: “We’ll figure it out with more neuroscience.”
Reply: Neuroscience can map which parts of the brain light up when you recall a memory or speak a word. That’s valuable. But it’s like mapping the keys on a piano and expecting to find the melody. You can chart the movement, the pressure, the vibration—but the music isn’t in the keys. It’s in the mind that plays them, and the soul that hears.
Imagine a young mother reading a bedtime story to her child. Neuroscience could tell you what parts of her brain are active, how her voice is modulated, or what chemicals are being released. But it could never tell you why she chose that story, what it means to her, or why the child clings to every word. You can study the mechanics—but you’ll miss the meaning.
And here’s the kicker: the very fact that you’re reading this blog, forming an opinion, weighing evidence, perhaps even steelmanning or objecting to the argument—that very mental activity proves intentionality exists. You’re not just experiencing a sequence of brain states. You’re about something. You’re thinking toward something. That “aboutness” cannot be reduced to chemistry. It requires a conscious subject.
You can’t find purpose with a microscope. You need a mind to see it. Intentionality is not a neural event—it’s a window into something immaterial, irreducible, and deeply personal.
Meaning Means Something
Intentionality is the mind’s ability to point outward—toward meaning, purpose, truth. It is the reason you can read these words and understand them. It is the reason you can love, question, ponder, create, and believe.
In a purely physical universe, this shouldn’t exist. But it does. So either the universe is lying . . . or materialism is wrong.
Every thought you think is a quiet witness. Not only that you exist, but that Someone exists—greater than you, beyond you, who thought of you before you ever thought of Him.
Your thoughts are about things. But they may also be about Someone.
And perhaps . . . His thoughts have always been about you.
Tom's Theology Blog 
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