For thousands of years, the bulk of humanity has joined together to search for an understanding of the physical world around them in order to thrive and find their righteous purpose under God. But lately this pursuit has been abandoned by many who feel it is better to find refuge in an alternate reality that primarily serves the will of the Self. To do so not only involves the creation of an artificial environment to their liking but necessitates the destruction of any opposing elements that might threaten its existence, including God Himself.
This kind of willful rebellion against our Creator is not new, of course, but it has been emboldened in recent years by our advancing science and technology which has given us the potent tools in which to create alternate realities on a scale that has never before been seen. With the power of artificial intelligence and digital control over every stream of information, the minds of the unwitting masses are in danger of being systematically brainwashed to accept the creation of a new world without God.
Thus, as we witness the technological rise of the Digital realm over and above the Analog world, we find that this latest attack against God and His creation has resulted in the manifestation of a great societal divide between two opposing parties, which journalist N.S. Lyons has dubbed, “the Physicals and the Virtuals.”
THE “PHYSICALS” VERSUS THE “VIRTUALS”
Generally speaking, the Physicals are the salt-of-the-earth folks often found in the “working” class who joyfully engage their minds and hands in the real, physical world as carpenters, farmers, mechanics and the like. Though they may find happy occupation in the white collar sector, their overriding desire is to find purpose and fulfillment in their active interaction with God’s physical creation.
The Virtuals, on the other hand, are the “thinking” class and ruling elites who wish to remove themselves from the messiness of the natural world and have dedicated themselves to the task of building ideological “safe zones” and acquiring the informational control of the world’s financial systems, science, technology, academia, media, and so forth.
With this control of information, therefore, the Virtuals stand to be the gods of the Digital realm, or as Lyons rightly frames it from a spiritual perspective, our “priestly class, and the keepers of the Gnosis” who primarily sit in front of their screens in a digitized temple of power dispensing or censoring information as they see fit. Though they appear to be progressive, their ownership of data and knowledge actually thwarts any real moral enlightenment or cultural progress when they suppress raw truth that might bring critical pushback against their godless, dehumanizing agenda and thus undermine their position of power (Romans 1:18).
In his book The Revolt of the Elites, Christopher Lasch brings incredible insight into why these Virtuals (or who he calls the “thinking classes”) are so intent on building up the Digital as a better, more satisfying world in which they alone can prosper while enslaving the rest of us:
The thinking classes are fatally removed from the physical side of life… They live in a world of abstractions and images, a simulated world that consists of computerized models of reality — “hyperreality,” as it’s been called — as distinguished from the palatable, immediate, physical reality inhabited by ordinary men and women. Their belief in “social construction of reality” — the central dogma of postmodernist thought — reflects the experience of living in an artificial environment from which everything that resists human control has been rigorously excluded. Control has become their obsession. In their drive to insulate themselves against risk and contingency — against the unpredictable hazards that afflict human life — the thinking classes have seceded not just from the common world around them but from reality itself.
The central problem with the building of the Digital, therefore, is not so much in our advancing digital technology (which certainly can have its place in proper measure), but rather in the wayward philosophy of the Virtuals who desire godlike control over the world in which they exist. Even among the common Virtuals who only hold sway over their personal space and a small circle of influence, their flawed solution is to create their own artificial environment in the Digital so they can gain that divine power and thereby eliminate God and His controlling will from their lives.
As N.S. Lyons further explains:
“For the Virtual elite, the most unforgivable thing about the Physicals, and the physical world in general, is that they stubbornly refuse to yield to full, frictionless control. There is a reason the dominant informational class is today most comfortable in a purely virtual environment — it’s one where they can have direct, instantaneous control over virtual matter. Real matter is stubbornly resistant, a reminder that the self doesn’t control the universe. It’s dirty, polluting, a reminder of one’s vulnerability, even mortality.”
To many thoughtful, God-fearing people, such vulnerability in our human condition is an opportunity to trust more in God who supplies all our needs in this world (Matthew 6:30-33; 7:11; Philippians 4:19). Indeed the very fact of our earthly mortality, as John Gill wrote, “serves to humble the pride of man, when he considers he is of the earth, earthy, dust, and ashes.” Yet to the Virtuals, this reality is all too much, and their pride and fear of death drive them further away from God to build a virtual world under their own personal control.
THE SPIRITUAL IMPORTANCE OF GOD’S REALITY
What the Virtuals (which include technocrats and all varieties of trans-ideologues) fail to realize, however, is that God has created a world that has been perfectly constructed to give mankind every opportunity to thrive. Even with the devastating introduction of sin and death through Adam, the world is still fundamentally an environment where men and women can “be fruitful and multiply” for the glory of God if they choose to live for that righteous purpose and submit to His will.
This, of course, is what the Physicals well know (at least in their God-given consciences) as they carry on with the noble task that God gave mankind to have dominion over the earth to “work it and keep it” as representatives made in His image (Genesis 2:15). Instead of wasting their precious, fleeting days in pursuing fancies, they find it fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all their toils under the sun while they live in this world as ordained by God (Ecclesiastes 5:18).
Indeed this is especially known by Christian workers, who we might call the “Spirituals,” who seek the favor of the Lord to “establish the work of (their) hands” (Psalm 90:17) with the happy knowledge that their toils are not in vain because “whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). Born again by the Spirit to see the grace of God found in Jesus Christ, they no longer feel weary and burdened by the world, but have found rest for their souls by laboring under the easy yoke of their Savior (Matthew 11:29-30).
Above all, the Bible has informed the Physicals and the Spirituals of the great truth of God’s creation which the Virtuals have desperately tried to suppress:
Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:15-17). For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4).
If Creation, therefore, was placed on a foundation deemed good by God before the fall of man, and it is known that Jesus Christ the Son of God holds all things together by His power and grace, why do the Virtuals still refuse to receive God’s creation with thanksgiving and, with faith, look to Christ for their reconciliation with God?
Thankfully, by God’s grace, even the most rebellious ones among the Virtuals can one day see the sinfulness of their suppression of God’s reality and come to the knowledge of His truth (1 Timothy 2:4). Trusting in this divine work as former rebels saved by His mercy, all Christians should therefore pray for those lost in their virtual delusion in the hope that God might “open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ” (Acts 26:18).
