Biblical Reality vs. Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) rules at the box office and often in life. Movies such as Surrogates and the upcoming remake of Tron, and even country songs, such as Brad Paisley’s “Online,” deal with the rewards and the risks of virtual reality.

Gamers regularly enter into VR worlds to compete against human and even VR opponents. Yet virtual reality has applications greater than just entertainment. Surgeons use VR to practice difficult surgical procedures. No risk, no “uh-oh’s,” no blood. Virtual reality offers an escape from the pain and difficulties of this world.

With VR, soldiers can experience the feel of battle and enhance their training. Architects use VR to help their clients choose designs for rooms and storage spaces.

The ultimate goal of virtual reality is to give the user the illusion that the computer-created world is real. The problem is that no matter how sophisticated VR becomes, a person will always have to return to ER, the “experienced reality” in which he lives.

The surgeon will eventually risk the life of a patient, and the patient will undergo pain during recovery. The soldier may lose his life in battle, and the carpenter may still smash his thumb building VR-designed cabinets.

People are incapable of creating a perfect world—even a virtually perfect reality—because our human nature is flawed. Humans tend to destroy even the most beneficial and perfect system.

Biblical reality (BR), which reveals true reality (TR), recognizes this flaw in every person, and experienced reality (ER) confirms that evil plagues all people in every culture.

The Bible points out that man needs someone to correct his flaws and bring him into TR.

Players of VR games leave their ER to live in a virtual world of their own creation. In contrast, the Creator of TR chose to enter the real world of His own making and take on the form of one of His own creations—a man. Jesus chose to experience all the pain, suffering, and hate that we experience and even followed our experience to its ultimate conclusion—real death on behalf of sinners. Yet He defeated even that ER by returning to life. He proved He could offer everyone who trusts in Him an escape from the ER of death. Only by trusting the Creator of TR can we escape the pain and death of ER.

Only when we trust what BR says about TR can we ultimately live with Jesus in His PR—Perfect Reality.