Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book AwardsIncredible Journeys: What to Make of Visits to Heaven
Since we've been able to locate where in the brain spiritual experiences are enjoyed, many neuroscientific theologians conclude, these experiences are merely electrical and chemical reactions as the brain tries to deal with impending death.
This argument is not convincing to everyone. And it's particularly interesting that Alexander, the neurosurgeon who had a near-death experience (NDE), argues vigorously for a new kind of body-soul dualism. He was a materialist before his experience, but now is a vigorous apologist for the existence of a spiritual world. In an appendix to his book, he explains why he rejects nine purely neuroscientific hypotheses regarding NDES, doing so in technical terms and concepts meaningful (I trust) to those in that intellectual stratosphere.
It's not hard to grasp that people experience these spiritual realities in certain parts of the brain. We also know that, given the right instruments—drugs or electrical probes, for example—scientists can stimulate parts of the brain that cause the subject to have something not unlike a spiritual experience. But does this suggest that spiritual experiences are merely physical responses in the brain?
Not necessarily. It could simply mean that God uses certain parts of our brains to communicate spiritual realities.
Does it suggest that an induced spiritual experience is the same as one caused by an outside spiritual entity?
Again, not necessarily. When I make love with my wife, some parts of my brain are deeply engaged in this extraordinary erotic experience. Then again, I also know that if I look at pornography, those very same centers of the brain are activated. It's also true that a neuroscientist could artificially stimulate that part of the brain while I lie on a table in a hospital, so that I again would experience sexual passions. But I don't know by what calculus one could say these three experiences are the same simply because the same parts of the brain were stimulated, or that the experience of making love to my wife is merely something happening in my brain.
To be fair: Christians have known for a very long time that one can have experiences that seem spiritual but are just abnormalities of the body. Spiritual directors are alert to diet, sleep, and adrenalin—to name three factors—that can lead to experiences that seem spiritual but are not. We call it the discernment of spirits.
So there seems to be no definitive scientific grounds for outright dismissal of near-heaven experiences. But given the church's experience, there's no reason to take each one at face value either.
Reliable Witnesses
One reason this writer is disposed to believe many of these stories, at least initially, is because they fit with what I as a historian have come to trust as real and true.
Star Trek Into Darkness
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Daniel Holmes
There is a serious spiritual trap that this article has not addressed. You can find an NDE to endorse any theological position that you want. Betty J. Eadie's original NDE blockbuster book, Embraced by the Light, squarely endorsed Mormon theology as did another book by an LDS named Angie Finnemore. Eadie goes so far as to say that she was told in the afterlife that the LDS church is the truest church on earth. Both their testimonies are on YouTube. If you want to hear a former Mormon tell you that Jesus commanded her to leave Mormonism, lest she go to hell, you can hear the testimony of Key Lynn Trimble who appeared on the 700 Club in the 80's (based on how young Pat R looks). If you want to hear that there is no hell and no sin, you can find it. If you want to hear that homosexuality is OK, and even caused by God, look up Christian Andreason's testimony. In short, NDE stories are a very confusing place, and hopefully you will end up back at the foot of Christ with your Bible in hand.
David Hallowell
Early in my ministry in Ukraine a brother who was suffering from blackouts came to me for help feeding his family. During our conversation he told me what caused the blackouts. He had been a long-haul truck driver. He had a wreck and went into a coma for 7 days. During this time he found himself on the outside of a beautiful city with golden gates and had visited his aunt who had died a believer some years previous. He was not a believer then. He heard, "Your time is not yet." Next he saw his body then woke up in it. Long after that he came to Christ. Now he drives once more. During 64 years in the faith I noticed that we tend to decide what is real by our own experience or dogma. Teachers of cessation theology believe that today God does not do any "Miracles," nothing obviously supernatural as in scripture. But in 20 years serving the Lord in Eastern Europe I have seen many miracles of healing and guidance, I now believe there is much more to the spiritual world than we yet know.
Rick Dalbey
Hugh, I just don't think there is a big market for articles and books about I died and went to hell. There are a few written from the perspective of those that were given a chance to repent. But for the most part, if an unsaved person had an NDE and experienced judgment or the torments of hell, they are going to try to forget it as soon as possible and as best as possible, not write a book about it. When I was a teenager in the 60s I inhaled nitrous oxide from a cocktail chiller and whether I died or just had a bad trip, (I'm not sure which it was), it was horrifying. Teens do commonly die from inhalants. I felt it was eternal, and when I came to, I tried to forget it as much as possible and as quickly as possible. Never did that again. But 3 years later I got saved and was delivered of the fear of death and judgment I felt.