There are some scholars who suspect that the original Creation was fractured as a result of the curse in Genesis 3, and that the four dimensions presently available to us which we call the “physical world” (three physical dimensions, framed in time present) are only a subset of a more comprehensive reality: the “spiritual” world. In his book title, Michael Heiser calls it the Unseen Realm.[1]
Furthermore, the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the Law of Entropy – may be what Paul refers to as the “Bondage of Decay” [2] that the whole creation groans to be delivered from, which was also a result of the curse in Genesis 3.
It is significant that the real personality of man – both Mr. and Mrs. Man – call it “soul,” “spirit,” or whatever – is “software,” not “hardware.” The “real” you and I are simply resident in temporary bodies and are, hopefully, destined for an upgrade!
Just as the architecture of the software inside a computer cannot be inferred from observing its external behavior, neither can the architecture of our own internal software be adequately inferred from observing our behavior. The only way to comprehend the internal architecture is by consulting the Designer’s handbook. [3]
If I take a blank floppy computer disk (old school) and weigh it on a scale, it will weigh about 0.7 oz. If I spend hundreds of dollars and load it with over a million bytes of software, it will still weigh 0.7 oz. Software has no mass. Although it may be resident in a physical system, it has no mass of its own. It can even be transmitted through the airwaves.
The mass of my current residence has a bit too much mass, but that’s another problem altogether.
Time is a physical property: it varies with mass, acceleration, and gravity. Therefore, since software has no mass, it has no time dimension of its own. The real “you” – call it soul, spirit, or whatever – is eternal whether you are saved or not. That’s the problem. Where will you spend your eternity?
Will you be qualified to spend your eternity in the presence of God? Or denied the presence of a Holy God?
[1] Heiser, Michael, Unseen Realm, Available on Amazon
[2] Romans 8:21,22.
[3] Hebrews 4:12.