Knowing What’s Real
We can take seriously a different kind of knowing. It's a very ancient kind of knowing--the ancients called it intuition. Unfortunately, in our world, intuition is seen as kind of a weak thing. It's associated with women's intuition, a vague hunching or something like that. But the ancient meaning of the word "intuition" or “intuitive knowing” is direct knowing, a knowing that's not dependent upon verification. A synonym for intuitive knowing would be mystical knowing. There are people in every culture who have had what they regard as direct knowing experiences of God or the sacred. That kind of knowing is possible, and for me personally, it's that direct knowing, that intuitive knowing, that is the most persuasive soft data for affirming that God or the sacred is real.

--Marcus Borg
From the question “How can I know the truth about Christianity if I question the Bible’s status as the literal Word of God?”