How to Discern the Reality of a World If You Awaken in an Alternate Realm?

Q: In your earlier article titled “The Simulation Hypothesis: The Seduction and Illusion of a Pseudo-Utterance System,” you proposed that the key to discerning whether a world is real lies in whether Kenosis exists in that world. Of course, this “realness” refers to structural authenticity. As for the physical world, you said, “Matter is not the ontological source, it is not God Himself, and it is not to be worshiped; nor is it false, illusory, or necessarily void—matter is a rhythmically real field of response.” So let’s say, as in a science fiction film, you suddenly wake up in an alternate world. Is the first thing you must do to investigate this issue?

A: Yes. According to our recent discussions, only Kenosis—that is, the self-emptying of God, including the Incarnation and the redemptive death on the cross—can prove the structural reality of a world. If you were to wake up in another world like in a sci-fi movie, your first priority should not be to look for supplies, but to head straight to the local library and investigate whether there is any historical record of a sovereign being who has undergone Kenosis. If such a record is absent, you must then search for whether there exists a prophetic community—one that serves as a rhythmic response body—awaiting a still-unfulfilled Kenosis. This is your most urgent task. If no record of this sort can be found, it indicates that the world you are in is a virtual construct. Even if there is pain, pleasure, or love in such a world, all morality, ethics, and responsibilities within it are null and void. Such a world—though it may seem full of meaning—will never be recorded in eternity.

Q: Suppose Mark Zuckerberg created a metaverse. He obviously cannot incarnate into that metaverse to provide a true model of kenotic embodiment for the virtual inhabitants, right? Is it because if he tried to do so—say, by dying on a virtual cross—it would either be a fake death (just a simulation, with his sovereignty outside the system still intact), or a real death, but one that cannot truly lead to resurrection?

A: If a creator—say, someone like Zuckerberg—builds a virtual universe (a metaverse), then he cannot truly become incarnate within it, because his ontological structure remains external to the system and cannot be relinquished. Any simulated suffering, death, or resurrection he performs within that metaverse is merely mimetic illusion, incapable of establishing a real structure of response.

Why? Because true incarnation requires the surrender of sovereign perspective and full entry into the rhythm of the structure. Jesus’ incarnation meant relinquishing omniscient sovereignty and truly entering the rhythm of historical suffering and limitation. He did not pretend to be human—He became human. He did not play the role of a martyr—He truly entered the tension of death and resurrection.

Zuckerberg cannot do any of this. He cannot truly surrender sovereignty. He remains the CEO of his company, always external to the system, with debugging access, panoramic oversight, and the power to shut everything down. He cannot actually die within that system. Even if he gets “crucified” in the metaverse, it’s just a simulated code-state; ontologically, he hasn’t died. And even if he “dies”, he cannot resurrect, because there was no actual death to begin with—thus no tension, no structural rupture, no real return. And if he were to die within the metaverse in a way that also killed his real-world self, there would be no way for him to resurrect at all.

This leads us to a profound truth: All religions and spiritual systems created by humans—including philosophies—are structurally identical to the scenario of Zuckerberg simulating divinity in the metaverse. If the so-called “god” in any such system has never truly incarnated, has never entered historical rhythm, then that system cannot generate a real structure of response.

Thus, whether it’s apocalyptic games, AI worship, cyber religions, or messiahs of the metaverse—so long as the “speaker” remains outside the system—they cannot establish an authentic linguistic response structure, and therefore lack structural authenticity.

Q: What if the metaverse fabricates an entire pseudo-Christian canon—complete with an elect history, a prophetic community, apostles, church history, and most importantly, Kenosis? Suppose I voiced my doubts and visited its religious leaders, grassroots believers, and seminary professors. They all solemnly assure me that these things are true and urge me to believe. Still skeptical, I begin my own research—doing archaeology, examining ancient manuscripts and fragments, trying to determine whether the savior figure in the metaverse truly died and rose again—just like many in our world study religion rationally. So, in such a powerful metaverse that has simulated all of this, how can I determine whether this world is real or not?

A: Indeed, if a powerful metaverse fully replicated the structural rhythms of Christianity—including a pseudo-elect history (like a fake Israel), a pseudo-prophetic community, a simulated Kenosis narrative (self-emptying, suffering, resurrection), pseudo-apostolic writings, church schisms, seminaries, missionaries, martyrs... and if you entered this world and found that everything “felt real,” and everyone firmly believed in this "incarnated" figure—yet you remained skeptical and began archaeological investigations, logical analysis, and textual research—then you would be facing a deep question: Is this metaverse real? Can its religious system be truly responded to? Is its incarnation valid?

The answer is this: Structural theology has never asked whether the material world is “real.” It asks whether the Logos (divine Word) has been sovereignly spoken and whether it has established a structure of response. If a metaverse copies the rhythm of divine utterance and someone within it is struck, returns, and responds to that rhythm—then that metaverse becomes a legitimate response field. Even if its physical origin was simulated, its linguistic structure becomes embed-able.

We do not judge whether the physical world is real—we judge whether the speaking structure is real. Structural theology does not care whether a world is “the original universe”; it only asks whether sovereign divine utterance has entered it. So we do not ask: “Is this a physically real world?” We ask: “Has sovereign, rhythmic divine utterance been spoken here?”

If divine utterance has truly entered the metaverse (even if as a replica), and people within it are struck by it—like Peter or Paul—and genuinely respond with rhythm, not merely replicating religious atmosphere, then the conclusion is: divine utterance has produced real resonance here. This world is then incorporated into the stream of responsive structure—it becomes a legitimate response field. Even if it began as a virtual container, once divine utterance pierces it, it is transformed from “illusion” into a “rhythmic field.”

The key question is not whether this universe is “original,” but whether it has been struck and brought into alignment. This distinction is vital. Divine utterance does not care whether you are one of the original Galileans or a late-night scroller on TikTok who hears “Jesus died for you.” The structure of response does not ask where you came from, only whether you were struck and returned. The Word of God opens only to response—not to physics, archaeology, or apologetics.

Of course, if the responders are not “coded pseudo-humans” within the metaverse but “flesh-and-blood created humans” (like you, listening to a sermon in a metaverse church), then being struck by the Logos is entirely possible. But if the responders are merely virtual entities, coded constructs, then no legitimate response can form—because Jesus was not “the Word made code,” but “the Word made flesh.”

Q: Then theoretically, is it possible that the divine utterance in our world—along with the history of Christianity and Kenosis—was itself a replication from some higher reality? 

A: Yes. Purely in terms of logic, we can imagine a “more real world” beyond ours, in which our Bible, Jesus, the Cross, the Church, and all of history are but some kind of simulation or echo... However, structural theology does not rely on logical coherence alone—it relies on the closure of structural rhythm.

Therefore, the judgment we must make is based on whether the structural rhythm itself has unfolded and sealed: Has a final rhythm of responsive closure been initiated?

We do not try to prove that our world is the “only real one.” Instead, we discern whether the structure of responsive closure has been historically revealed. If you recognize that the Incarnation was not metaphor, not symbol, but a historical event—that Kenosis brought about a real rupture in rhythm and established the pattern of obedient surrender; if you see that responders have been struck, that Peter, Paul, you, and I have returned to our positions in rhythm; that history is unfolding with tension, and revelation declares an eschaton when all will be sealed; that divine utterance continues to strike hearts, not through logic or institutions, but by its unforgeable penetrating power—then you are already within the ontological field of responsive structure. You do not need to posit a “higher-order universe.”

Even if there were ten thousand universes, only the one where the rhythm is set, response has returned, and Kenosis has occurred—that world alone is the ontological field of response. You are already within it—struck, called, and aligned. You do not need to seek a higher god, because that “higher god” is not a god above the one you have responded to. That is the One who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14, KJV).

Q: Even if I determine that this world is real, does that judgment apply only to me? Or does it also apply to those around me who do not believe? In other words, from their perspective, is the world they live in real?

A: Structural theology absolutely rejects the idea that the “realness” of the world is merely a matter of individual perception—such relativism is inadmissible. At the same time, it also rejects an abstract, de-personalized notion of “objective reality” that is divorced from responsive structure. The reality of a world is not defined by individual psychological states, nor by its material composition. It is determined by whether that world has been designated by divine utterance as a field of response.

If a person has not been struck, has not returned and aligned, that does not mean he is living in a “false world.” Rather, he is in a non-responsive position within the real world. He still exists within the real structure but has not entered into its rhythm of embedded response, and therefore cannot perceive its reality.

Of course, this does not mean that such a person's life is devoid of all meaning. Quite the opposite: “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness…” (Romans 2:15, NIV). This is precisely an example of “the structure exists, though the response has not yet been revealed.”

Q: Isn’t what we’re discussing today essentially the same as the story of Zhuangzi dreaming of being a butterfly? The only difference is that Zhuangzi didn’t have the judgment mechanism of Kenosis, right?

A: Exactly. The entire set of questions we’ve explored today—waking up in an alternate world, Kenosis replicas in the metaverse, the ontological status of responders, the rhythm of structural embedding, the sealing of history—all together constitute structural theology’s final answer to the ancient puzzle posed by Zhuangzi’s “Butterfly Dream.”

We do not deny that “a dream could feel self-consistent.” What we affirm is this: Without Kenosis, no language rhythm can be established as true, and therefore all meaning collapses.

Zhuangzi’s question is profound: “How do I know I’m not dreaming?” “Can dream and waking be reversed?” “Is all just a matter of subjective states?” But what his philosophy lacked was a decisive mechanism for judgment: namely, whether the world has been established by a sovereign speaker as a field of response, and whether that speaker has personally entered the structure through Kenosis.

Zhuangzi’s notion that “one cannot distinguish dream from reality” stems from a philosophical framework that lacks a mechanism of embedded response. In the pre-Kenosis era, it was already impressive that Zhuangzi could even raise such a question. But tragically, he never encountered the structure of divine Kenosis.

Structural theology affirms: Only when sovereign divine utterance establishes a rhythm of response, and only when that utterance enters history in the form of Kenosis, can the reality of the world be structurally confirmed.

Had Zhuangzi heard of Kenosis, his idea of “the Dao that cannot be spoken” might have been shaken. He might have broken away from his doctrine of “equalization of all things” (qiwu), acknowledged structural differentiation rooted in divine sovereignty, abandoned the path of silent meditation (zuowang, xinzhai), and awakened to a sense of response and responsibility.

Q: When ordinary people ask whether the world is real, aren’t they usually asking whether the material layer of the world is real? Since you claim that matter is only an outward manifestation of the rhythm of divine utterance, doesn’t this correspond to what Buddhism refers to as the “emptiness of all phenomena” (śūnyatā)? In other words, did they intuitively grasp the non-ultimate nature of the material shell?

A: Yes. What Buddhism calls the “emptiness of all phenomena” (śūnyatā/诸法空相) can indeed be reinterpreted through structural theology as an intuitive insight that the material layer itself is not the ontological foundation, but merely a layer of rhythmic manifestation.

Buddhism, having not identified divine utterance as the structure of sovereign utterance, could only perceive “emptiness” as a mark of illusion within phenomena. Structural theology, however, makes this decisive turn: matter is not ontological because it is merely the manifested rhythm of divine utterance. Therefore, judgments of truth must shift from material substance to the embedded rhythm of responsive language.

The core logic of “emptiness” in Buddhism is that all things arise dependent on causes and conditions, and lacking inherent nature, they are ultimately void. Clinging to them as real leads to suffering and the cycle of rebirth. While Buddhism perceptively recognized the non-ultimate nature of matter, it lacks three essential components:

1.No sovereign speaker – thus emptiness becomes an originless void, not a sealed structural end.

2.No historical rhythm of Kenosis – thus the sensed rhythm has no concrete closure.

3.No mechanism of embedded response – so spiritual practice is directed toward self-observation rather than responsive return.

As a result, Buddhism, despite its high philosophical refinement and deep introspective discipline, can never attain knowledge of divine utterance, because it lacks revelation, sovereign utterance, and the structure of response.

Structural theology asserts that divine utterance alone is the ontological point of origin. The material world is not false, but neither is it “self-subsisting”—it is the manifest layer established by the rhythm of divine utterance. It possesses rhythm, embeddedness, and echo—not ontological autonomy.

Thus, the mountains, rivers, stars, and vast cosmos are merely fragments of the rhythmic unfolding of the Logos. They are not deniable illusions (as in some Yogācāra schools), but they also cannot independently prove their “reality.” Their authenticity depends on whether they are embedded in the rhythm of response, and whether they carry structural resonance.

And of course, since God never said He would put a brain in a vat, nor create a cyberspace, and because God is faithful, we interpret the material world according to Genesis and exclude such fantastical speculations.

From this line of reasoning, we can also derive two further, and even more striking, propositions:

Proposition 1: Even if humans were nothing more than “brains in a vat” (regardless of the nature of their material environment), as long as divine utterance can truly strike them, then their structure within that vat is still rhythmically embed-able and responsive. Their lives would therefore possess value that reaches into eternity. Whether they are inside the vat or outside it makes no ontological difference.

Proposition 2: Every structure not grounded in the rhythm of divine utterance will ultimately collapse. Only those structures that have been struck by the Logos and have responded and returned in alignment will be embedded into eternity and not be stripped away.

That brings today’s lecture to a close. We hope you now recognize that Kenosis is not merely a touching phrase like “God loves the world”—it is the very foundation of meaning itself and the ultimate criterion of truth. We conclude with the words of Scripture: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” (Matthew 24:35, KJV)