Near Death Experiences

Anyone who has read anything about life after death and near death experiences has certainly read reports of people seeing a light at the end of a long tunnel and feeling like they were being pulled towards that light. Others, such as Don Piper in his book "90 Minutes in Heaven", say they never saw such a tunnel and light.

Though Piper did not see a tunnel, he was "enveloped" by a very bright light. Others talk about seeing their body laying on the ground before seeing the tunnel and/or light. Motley Crew bassist Nikki Sixx had a near death experience following a drug overdose in the 1980s. He claims to have had such an experience.

While there are differences in NDE accounts, there does seem to be some similarities. A bright light, a tunnel, seeing their body, hearing voices, etc. While not all NDEs contain each of these things, they are common.

I think the question we have to ask about these experiences is: Are these experiences real? Or are they the result of some brain activity (dream, hallucination, etc)?

Personally, I have always been much more willing to look seriously at the NDE accounts in which a person can describe, in detail, events that were going on (on earth) while they were "dead". In their book "Beyond Death", Gary Habermas and JP Moreland give several such accounts. The reason that I take these accounts more seriously is that we can verify the details and thus the experience. NDE accounts that lack these verifiable elements simply cannot be checked. We don't know if they were real. Maybe the tunnel, light, and heaven experience was just a dream? We just can't be sure about those NDEs since there is nothing verifiable about them.

I also think the verifiable NDEs are more useful to the field of apologetics. After all if we can use such verifiable experiences to prove that the human mind can exist outside of the physical brain, life after death must be taken more seriously in the realms of science. In a sense, that would end the debate. The atheist would be silenced and silenced by the very thing they thought would help their cause, science.

At this point I believe a word of caution is in order. Even if such verifiable NDE experiences end up proving life after death, we dare not make the mistake of putting too much trust in such experiences. After all, NDEs are by their very nature "near death" experiences. Therefore such experiences cannot be trusted to provide detailed information about things like heaven, hell, and God. For final and authoritative answers we must look to the Bible, the Word of God. Human experience, no matter how interesting, is not the final truth. The final truth is God's Word and therefore we must examine everything in light of that Word. Any NDE that contradicts God's Word must be dismissed as a dream, a lie, or a deception. So while NDEs are interesting, and while some of them may end up being an important part of the debate with the atheist, we must take each of them with a grain of salt.

 

==Those NDEs in which people's account contradicts clear Scriptural teaching must be dismissed as lies, deceptions, or dreams. Scripture contains NDE accounts (ex: 2Cor. 12:2-6, etc). Modern NDE accounts must be accepted or dismissed in light of Scripture. However I generally dismiss all NDE accounts that could be a dream. Don Piper's is a good example of this. While I don't believe him to be lying or suffering from demonic deception, I do think his "heaven" experience was the result of a dream or dreams. This is a man who spent large amounts of time under heavy medication. Anyone who has been in that situation, as I have, knows that time and reality can get very fuzzy when one is in the fog of medication. The people who see their bodies and can describe, in detail, events that were going on while they were "dead" must, in my opinion, be taken more seriously. Of course their experiences prove nothing about heaven or hell. At the most their experiences only prove that human consciousness can exist outside of the physical brain.

 

==These are the type of NDE experiences I like to look at. Though he was "dead" or unconscious, he was watching what was going on. That is very interesting.

==That is interesting. I would say, based on Scripture, that it was not his time to go. After all Scripture says that it is appointed unto man to die once and then judgment (Heb 9:27). He may very well have been given a "taste".

Makes me wonder what Lazarus experienced in the few days he was dead.

 

==Paul died, went to heaven, and returned. That, by its very definition, is a near death experience (NDE). We could also look at Stephen in Acts 7 when he saw the Lord Jesus. These are what we would classify as near death experiences.

==The OP is talking about "near" death experiences. Once death has occured there is no reversing that unless God does it. An NDE is an experience that occurs at the moment of death or when a person is very, very close to death. This is why I cautioned, in the op, about trying to read too much into NDEs. At best, verifiable NDEs only prove that human consciousness can exist outside of the physical brain. For those of us who are believers in Christ, that is an obvious statement. However when we are dealing with atheists are secularists the statement is not so obvious to them. So there is a certain level of apologetic value to a scientific investigation into this matter. That is what men like Gary Habermas, JP Moreland, and Randy Alcorn have done (from a Christian perspective). These are men who believe the Word of God and are looking to NDEs to find whatever apologetic value can be found in them. Of course there are many non-Christians looking into this as well. I believe the University of Virginia has actually started investigating this. In many respects their results are unBiblical, but their research might be able to give us some information that we can use.

 

==This is why I put the caution at the end of the op. We must judge all experiences, including NDEs, by God's Word. However there are various aspects of the NDE phenomena that do not contradict or conflict with Scripture in anyway. These would include a moment where the person sees their body, a tunnel, and a light. Even though these things do not contradict Scripture we must make sure we judge each alleged NDE by Scripture. Anyone who has an NDE and claims that they were told there was no hell (etc) should be warned that they may have been deceived.

 

==I agree 100%. We can't base our theology on any NDE experience (even if it agrees with Scripture). Truth is determined by God's Word, not our experience. Demonic deception is certainly present in many NDE cases. However I don't think all of them can be dismissed as demonic deception. I also think that there a small element of apologetic value to certain aspects of some NDE claims (see my op).