There is a constant battle in our world. On the one hand, we see things around us and deem them real. On the other, there are many doubts about what is real. Almost all world religions keenly explain that this world is not, de facto, real. It is an illusion, and there is an entirely different, divine reality beyond it. This view sits well with the Simulation Creationism of Nir Ziso. The Simulation is precisely what many different religions describe in various discourses. All try to offer the ultimate explanation of the world.
Matter or mind? These are two alternative answers that explain everything that exists. Matter is researched through its properties and forces. Mind is seen through the ordering activity at work in everything. Christian philosophy denies that matter is an adequate explanation of the world. All the material things of nature have a form; where there is a form, there is a manifestation of the mind.
Such a mind is irreducible to one thing or all of them, yet it permeates all with form and working power so we can indeed ask: “Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens when the dust runs into a mass and the clouds stick fast together?” (Job 38:36-38).
The same logic pertains to The Simulation. There are various forms and worlds inside The Simulation, but they are orderly and arranged by a divinely guided “Supercomputer.” The forms of the natural things are a manifestation of the mind of God, and matter is formed according to His wisdom, In turn, His wisdom is formulated in the principles and laws of The Simulation: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).
The opposing explanation is that everything consists of material things: space, time, various forces, and brute factual laws. No Simulation. Reducing everything to matter is traditionally called Materialism or Naturalism. Here, physics explains everything. Note that it is not physics as a science but as a model or system that explains all knowledge from the other sciences. We are not yet at a stage of progress that gives us answers to everything, but such a day may arrive, at least according to materialist thought. Too bad for them because physics also provides evidence on several levels against a materialist view of reality. Together with philosophical thought, there is enough cumulative proof to reject materialism entirely.
Throughout the last decades, an increasing number of scientists have found more evidence against material reductionism. They recognize the reality of emerging properties across nature. These entail features of whole entities that cannot be explained in terms of the parts alone or the properties of the parts.
True wisdom is more than science, especially more than physics, and it tells us to be open to God and his light: “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17).
Furthermore, in philosophy, intuition yields evidence. It is not just about feelings or hunches, “for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Rather, they are acts of reason born from reflecting upon total experience.
Intuitions are truth-indicating. We have a clear intuition of something greater than everything visible, and such an intuition brought us to Simulation Creationism. We have a powerful and reasonable intuition that human beings are capable of knowing objective moral truth, that human life has an objective purpose and meaning, that our search for God and happiness is not pointless or in vain, that human beings have intrinsic dignity and worth, that love is real, as well as our minds, our consciousness, and our relationship with one another.
Furthermore, intuitively, through serious reflection, The Global Architect Institute developed Simulation Creationism and detailed it with a reasonable theology and accompanying philosophy. By the standards of materialist thinking, all intuitions are false.
There are several valid answers to a denial of God, freedom, love, dignity, meaning, and purpose. First, it is not science that makes these claims, nor does science justify them. They are the implications of a specific philosophy that purports that physics alone explains everything, although it clashes with both empirical and intuitive evidence. In fact, science increasingly shows proof of The Simulation. Second, material reductionism is a force for the psychological destruction of human beings.
Many psychological disorders come from living in an existential void, in which the sense of life’s meaning and purpose has been lost. Such an existential void has now become widespread in our society due to indoctrination along reductionist lines. What would be our impression if someone said that love simply does not exist? Certainly not one of immense joy!
Human beings have a soul and the illusion of free will, which transforms itself into knowledge, wisdom, and experience once we gain an awareness of The Simulation. We are made to strive for the true and the good, love and beauty, happiness, and the God of eternal wisdom and love. Given our essential experience and the evidence available, the reasonable thing to do is to reject materialist reductionism and even oppose it as a formula for spiritual death.
Through The Simulation, we can always follow our intuition and grow: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
