In the next several posts I am including excerpts from a most interesting book by John Burke. It is a New York Times bestseller entitled Imagine Heaven: Near Death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilarating Future that Awaits You. I quote Burke:
“Heaven and near-death experiences (NDE) - when people clinically died, were resuscitated, and claimed to have gotten a peek into the afterlife - have been a hot topic of late. . . . Over the past thirty-five years, I’ve read or heard close to 1,000 near-death stories (there are millions out there). I started seeing amazing commonalities across stories - intriguing, detailed descriptions by doctors, professors, commercial airline pilots, children, people from around the globe. Each gave a slightly different angle to what started to look like a very similar picture. . . . You will get a thorough understanding of the picture of Heaven from the Bible . . . . If nothing else, [Burke’s book] will open your eyes to the millions of accounts out there that have convinced skeptical doctors, atheistic college professors, and many others . . . that Heaven is for real.
“Could people make up stories or fabricate detail to sell more books? Yes. For this reason, I’ve tried to choose stories from people with little or no profit motive: orthopedic surgeons, commercial airline pilots, professors, neurosurgeons - people who probably don’t need the money but have credibility to lose by making up wild tales. I’ve also included children; people from predominately Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist countries; and people who did not write books. Amazingly, they all add color to a similar, grand picture of the afterlife.”
Finally, I include these excerpts with my comments to present an increasingly compelling case for dualist interaction between the immaterial spirit and soul (mind, will and emotion) of human beings and the material neural synaptic networks of the brain. It is an interaction that also includes communion with the immaterial Mind of God, His Holy Spirit. I am also endeavoring to make the case for the eternal existence of the immaterial human spirit and soul. It is my belief that God gives mankind progressive revelation as Man is able to receive and at least partially comprehend it. Are NDE “clues” to what is to come, identified so strongly by Scripture? If so, we have hope increased for the life to come, blessed by our being in the presence of the living Jesus Christ, God with us, for eternity!