The spiritual realm


The spiritual realm is merely that which contains non-material non-physical reality. This, in contrast to the physical realm.

The Bible refers to the spiritual realm, calling it "heaven", or "heavenly".

There seems to be various non-material aspects of reality, such as:

  1. natural selection resulting in teleonomy (apparent purpose)
  2. the human mind having teleology (planned willful directed purpose)
  3. consciousness

Since these things seem non-material, there must be a spiritual realm within which they reside.

Examples of things residing within the spiritual realm:

  1. The subjective experience of consciousness and its contents (ideas, feelings, thoughts, passions).
  2. The truths of reality (which exist apart from the brain, whether or not there are humans).
  3. The intelligent designer(s) who established the laws governing the universe with its constants of nature and who launched the universe at the big bang.

We can't know anything about the structure or functioning of the spiritual realm except from the Bible.

In discussing my view of the spiritual realm, I sometimes use the analogy of another dimension outside space and time. But to clarify: The spiritual realm is not merely another dimension within the physical realm, within the universe. Rather, it is dualist (mind-body dualism), not materialist/physicalist.

Purpose is merely information embedded within the structure of matter. Our conscious mind is able to examine matter and see the information. (How does the brain do this?)

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There is more to reality than the physical material world. The subjective experience of consciousness demonstrates this, as do the mental faculties of human reason and the human mind.

And so:

  1. There is a spiritual realm containing everything not physical.
  2. There are creatures residing in the spiritual realm (including souls).
  3. There is communication between the physical realm and the spiritual realm (probably via the so-called randomness of quantum mechanics).
  4. Symbols, ideas, thoughts, memories, and etc. all reside in the spiritual realm.

Evidences of the existence of a spiritual realm (mind-body dualism):

  1. Subjective experience of consciousness.
  2. Randomness of quantum mechanics.
  3. Irreducibly complexity argument along with evidence of design in every aspect of the universe.
  4. Evolution demands an intelligent designer; neither randomness nor natural selection are designers.
  5. The universe as mathematical (and mathematics is clearly mental having ideas, not physical).
  6. The existence of the universe itself, with its natural laws and properties and starting conditions