 The main problem for the idea of direct perceptual encounters with God is the fact of religious diversity and the seeming incompatibility between the outputs of rival mystical practices. One approach to this problem is to view the incompatibility as merely apparent. Building on Kant’s distinction between noumena and phenomena, Hick argues that God or ultimate reality is unknowable in itself, and that the different descriptions of this reality produced by different religions only apply within the realm of human experience (1989: Ch. 14. For critique of the Kantian picture, see Plantinga 2000b: Ch. 1–2; Menssen and Sullivan 2007: 22–30; Macdonald 2009b: Ch. 2). Nevertheless, those descriptions allow people to respond to and interact with the Real in ways that are conducive to salvation.