Cognition, reason, rationality, power of abstract thought, intelligence, self-awareness. Man alone can think of concepts, ideas and communicate these. Voluntary agency, freedom of the will, independent choice. Man is not merely the product of that which acts upon him, he can independently choose his response to any internal or external stimulus. Man alone possesses an aesthetic faculty, the ability to appreciate the sublime.
Man alone can laugh, shed pschosympathetic tears.
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe . . . Since personality and mind can never come spontaneously from the impersonal, man's intellectual and moral nature must have originated in a Being who also possesses personality and mind. Man's nature is inexplicable on any other accounting. All agree that man is almost always characterized by belief in a Supreme Being and possessed of a religious impulse. Religious faith and practice is worldwide, at all points in history.