Ontological reality concerns what is; lived reality concerns how what is is experienced; and formative reality concerns what a person is becoming through attention and choice over time.
In the next few posts, I’m going to discuss spiritual abuse. To kick things off, here’s a primer, the definitions pinning the foundations of spiritual abuse.
Why These Distinctions Matter
Understanding the distinctions between these reality categories helps to:
- Prevent spiritual abuse.
- Protect individual agency.
- Honor trauma reality without resorting to mysticism.
- Enable growth without moral judgment.
- Integrate theology and neuroscience in a coherent way.
- Recognize the differences among these realities.
Ontological Reality
Definition
Ontological reality refers to what exists and is true independently of human perception, interpretation, or belief.
Key characteristics
- Exists whether or not it is perceived.
- Is not created by thought, emotion, or belief.
- Includes facts, events, moral truths, and historical occurrences.
- Provides the ground against which all experience is measured.
Examples
- A harmful act occurred.
- Gravity operates.
- God exists.
- A boundary was violated.
- A contract was breached.
Common errors
- Denying ontological reality by appealing to perception (“that’s just how you feel”).
- Treating belief as causative of truth (“if you believed rightly, this wouldn’t be true”).
Lived / Perceptual Reality
Definition
Lived or perceptual reality refers to how reality is experienced, interpreted, and embodied by a person through perception, memory, emotion, and meaning-making.
Key characteristics
- Subjective but real.
- Mediated by the nervous system.
- Shaped by memory, trauma, culture, and expectation.
- Determines what feels true or threatening.
- Does not define what is true.
Examples
- Feeling unsafe despite being physically safe.
- Experiencing shame after a boundary violation.
- Interpreting silence as rejection.
- Trauma memories activating fear in the present.
Common errors
- Dismissing lived reality as imaginary or sinful.
- Elevating lived reality into ultimate truth.
Formative / Volitional Reality
Definition
Formative or volitional reality refers to what is becoming true over time through attention, choice, habit, practice, and repetition.
Key characteristics
- Developmental and process-oriented.
- Shaped by volition and sustained practice.
- Influences identity, character, and future behavior.
- Bridges present experience and future outcomes.
- Neither fixed nor instantaneous.
Examples
- Neural pathways being rewired through grounding.
- Character formed through repeated choices.
- Trust rebuilt over time.
- Patterns of avoidance or engagement becoming habitual.
Common errors
- Treating formation as fixed moral status.
- Moralizing unfinished development.
- Expecting instantaneous transformation.
A Recovering Legalist 