I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live (Deuteronomy 30:19 NKJV).
We were created with innate qualities that exist outside of what we call the brain. Man was given consciousness before he had the opportunity to think about it. It is a gift from God that everyone has.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7 KJV).
Science unsuccessfully attempts to pinpoint experiences in the human brain. It conveniently disregards that man has a soul that does not reside in the brain. For example, science can explain how we see the color red. However, the experience of seeing red is protected from scientific observation, and is a subjective experience for each individual. Also, neuroscience can pinpoint the location in the brain where our five senses store information, but it can’t locate experience, emotion, joy, peace, love, because they reside in conscious experience—in the soul—out of reach of the world of science. Looking at a concept known as “qualia” can help us understand this limitation. In modern philosophy of mind, “qualia” refers to the subjective aspects of experience—the “what it is like” of sensations—but the Latin root directly points to the idea of “what kind” or “of what sort” each experience is.
An example of this is the particular way the color red looks to you, or the distinctive taste of a ripe strawberry—these are qualia because they are personal, subjective sensations. We have become accustomed to our personal experience to the point of ignoring anything or anyone else. Yet, without qualia, we can not know God, because our own personal experience with Him is encountered at unique periods in our lives.
Behavioral responses can be void of qualia—experience or genuine engagement of the soul. If someone were to explain every word of God—language pattern, and definitions—you would have a volume of data. But without soul experience, it's just information the brain can remember and recall. When we experience God’s love, but try to package the experience for others, it is just information until they have their own encounter. No written or spoken event contains qualia; it just points to someone’s personal testimony.
Willful disregard of qualia—our existence and engagement—becomes robotic responses to a move of the Spirit. When you see a red apple, the brain knows what it is through sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch, all residing in our brain matter. But we develop experience with our senses that produces a memory outside the patterns of the brain. If our experience is relegated to a script, the soul is excluded from the depth of life’s experience—robotic, stoic, emotionless. A bat flies, eats, and feels, but it lacks the physical perception of sight and sound as we know it. In much the same way, Christians have not found the gift of sight through the eyes and ears of their heart.
By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones) (Ephesians 1:18 AMPC).
…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2 NASB95).
Experience is subjective. My interpretation of what my eye sees is tied to my experience—right or wrong. My interpretation of God’s word can be flawed if not accompanied by faith, experience, and Holy Spirit’s guidance.
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come (John 16:13 NKJV).
There is a supernatural part of us that doesn’t vanish when our body dies. In the Scriptures below, the rich man was having experience apart from his former life. This example brings qualia to a place of importance in this life. We don’t receive eternal life or any of God’s promises without it. Recreational Christianity does not possess the eternal experience that Jesus made available to us.
There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” But Abraham said, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” Then he said, “I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.” Abraham said to him, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” And he said, “No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” But he said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead (Luke 16:19-30).”
The brain is too mechanical or organic to comprehend spirit and soul realities. We limit ourselves from hearing God’s voice by depending only on our senses, and not on Holy Spirit-led experiences that are available to us. We have the opportunity now to align our experiences with God’s word, our faith, and Holy Spirit’s guidance, enjoying the innate gift of being as we were created to be—an eternal, living soul.
© 2026 Mark Rossback
*See “Live loved” for more of a glimpse of what Jesus is calling us into.