What Is Apparent… Real…?

WED., JULY 24, 1996, 8:39 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

The dominant perception of your culture is that “reality” is what you can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel. Oh, there are a few exceptions to this, but you must agree that this perception fits with a pragmatic, materialistic approach to life. Science grew out of a naturalistic, pragmatic seed bed, developing the dictum that reality had to be proved in an objective way. Prove it! This has become an imperative in the life of your culture.

And yet I can’t be “proven” in any objective form. You say you write what I am saying, but if you were asked to prove that these words, sentences, and ideas (even punctuation) are Mine rather than yours you couldn’t do it. However, most Christians who claim, loudly or not-so, that I answer their prayers and that I influence their lives have nothing as tangible as these pages of yours. Yet their very tangibility makes them suspect. Why would the Holy Spirit come to you… and not similarly to others? It is unlikely that these Teachings are reality.

What else is unlikely? It is unlikely that the 5.8 billion humans now inhabiting this planet earth all came from two fully functioning humans named Adam and Eve, but this is fundamental Scripture. Or… even I have told you that a flood would cover all land on the planet, so that all human and animal life, except that on Noah’s ark, was destroyed, is unlikely. This, too, is fundamental Scripture. It is unlikely that I, as God Almighty, spoke through prophets, and only the ones included in the Old Testament, as Scripture.

Despite the reality attributed to the New Testament, it is unlikely that I, as God, came into the earth as the baby Jesus, grew to manhood, had a tangible, written-down (by disciples and others) ministry and then willingly was executed, still as a young man. If there is a God, which can’t be proven objectively, would He act in such a way? Would He say that He would return, but not do so, in the flesh, for nearly 2,000 years?

Much that is claimed to be mystical cannot be proven… and may not be real. At this moment babies are being born and other persons are dying. This can be proven, so life must be real. It begins, in utero, and it ends when brain waves cease, for some agreed-upon time span.

Spirit can be affirmed, as part of reality but such can’t be proved. Is spirit an automatic “dimension” of each and every baby? Where does spirit go when the body dies? I have told you that spirit can leave a living body, for a time, but generally “hangs around” until physical death has occurred. The spirit usually leaves a comatose body unless it is very undeveloped. But is there any reality in the notion of spiritual growth and development? I tell you there is an incredible range in maturity of spirits, and there are many ways in which spirit can be manifested… and many ways that lead to growth. Can any of this be proven… objectively?

You have a moderately strong sense that your spirit, as a developing soul, has been embodied in the earth before this above average life as Bob Russell. Can you prove this? Of course not. I can tell you this is so, but if I did, I would lose credibility with most Christians, for such affirmations have been declared anathema. That is historically real. But is it then actually real, or only apparently real?