The Distinction Between the Words ‘Real’ and ‘Exist’
How distinguishing between the two helps us understand what is real versus what is imaginary.
Reality is coherent.
Every successful discipline quietly assumes this long before it attempts to explain it. Science assumes it. Mathematics depends upon it. Engineering trusts it. Medicine relies on it. We build bridges, launch spacecraft, diagnose disease, and predict eclipses because we expect reality to behave consistently. We assume that the world tomorrow will not suddenly abandon the principles that governs it today. Without this assumption, knowledge itself would be impossible.
The remarkable thing is that reality continually rewards this expectation.
When our theories are wrong, reality corrects us. When our measurements are inaccurate, reality exposes the error. When our assumptions fail to align with the way things actually are, reality refuses to cooperate. We do not persuade reality to conform to our ideas, we refine our ideas until they conform to reality. This is what objectivity means. It is the discipline of allowing reality, rather than ourselves, to determine what is true.
Science succeeds because it takes this discipline seriously. Its success is evidence that reality possesses an objective structure that continually preserves coherence. Reality does not change to accommodate our beliefs. Instead, our beliefs must change to accommodate reality. The more faithfully we align ourselves with reality, the more coherent our understanding becomes.
This may seem obvious, yet it has an important consequence. If reality is objective enough for science to work, then reality cannot be objective only in the laboratory. Objectivity is not a property that appears only when we perform experiments. It is a property of reality itself. If reality is objective anywhere, it is objective everywhere.
This essay begins with that simple observation.
It is not an argument for science. Science has already demonstrated its success. It is an attempt to understand what that success tells us about reality itself.
To answer that question, we must first distinguish several words that modern discourse often treats as interchangeable: existence and reality.
At first glance, this may seem like an exercise in semantics. It is not.
Precision is never dismissed as splitting hairs when success depends upon it. Engineers distinguish force from pressure because confusing them collapses bridges. Physicians distinguish symptoms from causes because confusing them costs lives. Physicists distinguish mass from weight because confusing them produces false conclusions. Every mature discipline advances by making distinctions that at first appear subtle but eventually prove indispensable.
The distinction between existence and reality is no different.
What Exists?
Everything that exists possesses identifiable characteristics.
A mountain exists because it has distinguishable properties. A tree exists because it has distinguishable properties. A person exists because they possess identifiable characteristics. Even abstract objects, such as mathematical relationships, exist in the sense that they possess definable structures by which they can be identified and distinguished.
Existence is therefore the category of identifiable contingent reality.
Contingent means that something depends upon conditions beyond itself in order to be what it is. It does not exist independently or necessarily. A tree depends upon sunlight, water, soil, and a larger ecosystem. A person depends upon biological, physical, and environmental conditions. A planet depends upon the conditions that brought it into existence and continue to sustain it.
Contingent things are real, but their reality is dependent. They could have been otherwise, and they require an explanation beyond themselves.
This is the defining feature of contingent reality: it consists of things that exist, but whose existence is not self-sufficient.
What we commonly call “exists” belongs to this category of contingent reality. Within this essay we will use contingent reality and existence interchangeably.
Everything that exists can be recognized by what makes it distinct from something else. It possesses features, properties, relationships, or characteristics that allow it to be identified. In this sense, existence is the domain of the observable, the describable, and the distinguishable.
Everything that exists is real.
This point is important because the argument of this essay is not that existence is somehow illusory or insignificant. Quite the opposite. Existence is undeniably real. It is the world we investigate, measure, compare, and experience. Science concerns itself primarily with this domain because this is the domain in which observation, experimentation, and measurement take place.
The modern mistake is not in recognizing the reality of existence. The modern mistake is assuming that existence exhausts the category of reality.
To say that everything which exists is real does not necessarily mean that everything which is real must exist in the same way.
That distinction is easy to overlook, but it is the difference between describing reality and understanding what makes reality coherently intelligible in the first place.
What Is Real?
If everything that exists is real, then why distinguish reality from existence at all?
Because existence describes what is identified, but reality describes what makes identification meaningful.
In other words, reality makes existence make sense.
To identify anything, we already rely upon a deeper assumption: that reality has an objective structure that allows things to be distinguished, compared, and understood. A measurement requires a standard. A comparison requires a reference. A judgment requires a criterion. Before we can determine what something is, reality must already possess a coherent order that makes such determination possible.
This reveals an important distinction.
Existence is the realm of identifiable contingent reality.
Reality is the broader category that includes both contingent reality and the necessary reality that makes contingent reality coherent and intelligible.
Contingent reality consists of what can be identified as existing. It is dependent, changing, and limited. The things we observe, measure, and interact with belong to this category. They exist within reality, but they do not account for the coherence that allows reality to be understood.
Necessary reality is different. It is not another object within existence. It is the independent, invariant, non-derived ground upon which existence depends in order to remain coherent. It is not identified as one more thing among other things, because it is the condition that allows things to be identifiable at all.
This is why reality is greater than existence.
Existence tells us what is there.
Reality tells us why what is there can remain coherent enough to be understood.
A ruler measures length, but the ruler does not create the concept of measurement. A clock measures time, but the clock does not create the order that allows moments to be compared. A scientific instrument reveals patterns in nature, but the instrument does not create the consistency that allows those patterns to exist.
The instrument participates in reality.
It does not produce reality.
The same principle applies to knowledge itself. Human beings do not create coherence by agreeing with one another. We discover coherence by aligning our understanding with the objective structure that contingent reality consistently reflects. This structure is what is studied through ontology: the study of what it means for something to be and the conditions that make coherent identification of reality possible.
This is why reality has authority over belief.
Reality can correct us because reality is not dependent upon us. A belief can change. A consensus can change. An interpretation can change.
But reality remains.
This is the foundation of objectivity. Objectivity is not simply the absence of bias. It is the recognition that there is an independent structure beyond the observer that determines whether the observer’s understanding corresponds with reality.
The purpose of inquiry is therefore not to create a reality that satisfies our preferences. It is to remove whatever prevents us from recognizing the reality that is already there.
This is why the most successful systems in human history share the same principle. They work because they submit themselves to objective structure. Engineering succeeds because materials obey consistent properties. Medicine succeeds because the body operates according to discoverable mechanisms. Science succeeds because nature behaves according to patterns that remain true regardless of who observes them.
Reality constrains, and the observer adapts.
This relationship is what separates objective knowledge from subjective projection.
But this creates another question.
If reality is greater than existence, does that mean everything beyond identifiable existence is real?
The answer is no.
Reality includes more than what exists, but not everything beyond what exists belongs to reality. The distinction is whether something is grounded in the necessary structure that makes coherence possible or whether it merely depends upon contingent beings to maintain the appearance of coherence.
That distinction brings us to the imaginary.
What Is Imaginary?
The imaginary is not simply what is unknown.
Unknown things may still be real.
The planets within our solar system existed before we discovered them. Microscopic organisms existed before microscopes revealed them. The laws of nature governed reality long before we formulated them.
Ignorance does not make something imaginary.
The imaginary is something different.
The imaginary is what cannot account for the source of the coherence it presupposes in necessary reality.
This does not mean that everything dependent upon contingent reality is imaginary. Many things depend upon contingent beings while remaining coherent with reality. Languages, systems of measurement, and forms of social organization all depend upon human participation, yet they remain coherent so long as they continue to correspond with the objective structure of reality—necessary reality—they are intended to describe or operate within.
The imaginary begins when that grounding is lost.
An imagined thing may influence reality, but its influence cannot originate from itself.
A fictional character can inspire millions of people. A myth can shape a civilization. A false belief can motivate individuals to act. Yet the consequences do not come from the imagined object itself. They come from the real minds, emotions, decisions, and actions of contingent beings who engage with it.
The imaginary therefore borrows its influence from contingent reality.
It cannot generate coherence independently.
A story may contain internal consistency. A fictional universe may have rules. A mythology may have an elaborate structure. A philosophical system may be intellectually sophisticated. A cosmological model may explain many observations. But internal consistency alone does not make something real. A dream may remain internally consistent while it lasts. A fictional world can be logically constructed. A false explanation can be carefully organized.
Coherence within an idea is not the same as coherence with reality.
Reality imposes an external constraint.
The imaginary does not.
This distinction is why every proposed explanation of reality must be evaluated by more than its elegance, popularity, or explanatory power. Every framework must answer a deeper question:
Does the framework preserve coherence from first principles through the expanding complexity of reality?
By first principles, it does not mean merely the assumptions someone chooses as a starting point. First principles are the foundational conditions that account for the source of coherence upon which a framework depends. Without accounting for that source, a framework merely assumes the very coherence it relies upon. They are the conditions that make observation, reasoning, measurement, and evaluation possible in the first place.
This question applies universally.
It applies to scientific theories, philosophical systems, moral frameworks, political ideologies, and religious claims alike.
No framework should be exempt from evaluating the source of its coherence simply because it is ancient, popular, academically established, or widely accepted. A framework remains reliable only so long as it continues to account for the source of its coherence and preserve that coherence as reality reveals itself in greater depth and complexity.
A framework preserves coherence at first principles only if it accounts for the necessary reality that objectively constrains it. If it cannot account for that necessary reality, then it merely borrows the coherence it relies upon without explaining its source. Its internal consistency may remain intact, but its coherence with reality is imaginary.
The purpose here is not to determine which frameworks succeed or fail by that standard. It is simply to recognize that the same standard applies to all of them.
The imaginary is therefore not defined by whether it is emotionally meaningful, culturally influential, or widely believed.
It is defined by its dependence upon contingency and its inability to stand independently of it.
More specifically, the imaginary depends upon contingent minds, beliefs, and agreements to persist.
Natural contingent reality does not depend upon the imaginary. Mountains remain whether anyone believes in them or not. Gravity continues to operate regardless of human opinion. Natural reality relies only upon necessary reality to remain coherent.
Human-made systems are different. They often incorporate conventions, stories, identities, and shared assumptions. Some remain coherent because those elements remain grounded in necessary reality. Others persist only because enough people continue to believe in them.
This provides a useful litmus test.
Ask whether a human-made system can withstand the abandonment of its unsupported assumptions.
If removing imaginary elements leaves the system intact because it remains grounded in necessary reality, then the system is robust.
If the system collapses the moment those unsupported assumptions are abandoned while natural reality remains unchanged, then the system was never coherently grounded at first principles. It was sustained by contingent reality rather than necessary reality as its objective ground.
The defining characteristic of the imaginary is not merely that it lacks grounding. It borrows coherence while failing to account for its source.
The imaginary therefore depends upon contingent reality to preserve the appearance of coherence. It relies upon contingent belief while borrowing a coherence it cannot itself explain.
Necessary reality depends upon nothing.
Existence depends upon necessary reality to remain coherent.
The imaginary depends upon existence’s belief to persist.
Without necessary reality, existence would become unintelligible.
Without existence’s belief, the imaginary would disappear.
Coherence and Consensus
Once we distinguish reality from the imaginary, the next question becomes:
How do we determine whether something aligns with reality?
The answer, again, is coherence.
Coherence is the ability of something to remain consistent with the objective structure of reality. It is not merely whether an idea is internally organized or whether a group of people accepts it. A fictional story can be internally coherent. A community can collectively agree on a belief. Neither of those facts guarantees that the idea corresponds to reality.
This is where coherence differs from consensus. Consensus is agreement among observers. Coherence is alignment with what stands independently of observers.
Consensus asks:
“Do people agree?”
Coherence asks:
“Does reality support this?”
Without this specific structure, truth would not exist, but truth does exist.
These questions are often confused because human beings naturally rely on social agreement. Agreement is useful. It allows cooperation, communication, and collective action. But agreement itself cannot create truth.
A society can agree upon something false. A person can disagree with society and still discover something true. History repeatedly demonstrates this distinction. Many ideas were once widely accepted because they appeared reasonable within the limited understanding of the time. They changed only when new observations revealed that they were not coherent with reality.
That means reality, not consensus, is the final authority.
Reality stands independently of what exists, continuously providing the necessary constraint that makes coherence possible. Although the ultimate ground of reality is not itself an identifiable object within existence, it is nevertheless objective rather than subjective. It does not derive its authority from the contingent realities it constrains; instead, those realities remain coherent only in relation to it.
This observation reveals that objectivity is more than our ability to eliminate incoherence and refine our understanding. Objectivity is the necessary structure that makes coherent understanding possible in the first place. It is that which is singular, external, independent, universal, non-derivative, and invariant in relation to the set of contingent existence.
Because reality possesses this objective structure, coherence is not confined to science or empirical observation. It is attainable wherever reality is investigated. Whether we are examining physical existence, logical relationships, moral claims, or the foundations of existence itself, the same objective structure remains the reference by which coherence can be recognized and refined.
This is the foundation of scientific progress.
Science is not successful because scientists are free from error. Scientists make mistakes, develop incomplete models, and revise their conclusions. Science succeeds because it has a built-in commitment to allowing reality to correct human understanding.
An experiment does not ask whether a result is popular. A measurement does not ask whether it agrees with tradition. A physical law does not change because a majority votes differently.
Reality remains the reference point.
This reveals something important about our contemporary definition of objectivity.
Objectivity, as defined epistemologically, is not a human achievement that we create through neutrality. It is a relationship between the observer and something independent of the observer. The observer becomes objective by aligning with what is already objective.
This is why objectivity is inseparable from coherence.
If reality is coherent, which truth and knowledge are real, then there is a correct direction in which understanding can move. There is a way to become more aligned and a way to become less aligned. There is a difference between discovery and invention, between correction and projection.
The pursuit of truth is therefore not the pursuit of whatever explanation feels satisfying. It is the pursuit of the explanation that remains coherent when measured against the structure reality continually reveals.
This principle is not limited to science. Every successful human activity depends upon it.
An engineer does not build according to what a bridge should be in their imagination. They build according to the properties of materials and forces that reality imposes. Once those foundations are established, an architect can then apply their imagination according to their preference so long as it does not interfere with what reality imposes.
A physician does not treat disease according to what they wish the body would do. They treat it according to the mechanisms the body actually follows.
A navigator does not choose a direction based on personal preference. They rely on objective reference points.
Success comes from alignment. Failure comes from incoherence, whether intentional or not.
The more important the consequences, the less tolerance we have for confusing belief with reality.
This raises a deeper question.
If all coherent evaluation depends upon alignment with objective structure, what is the source of that structure?
To understand this, consider something simple that human beings have used for thousands of years.
A plumb line.
Imagine a group of children watching someone repair a stone wall.
They notice that some sections appear straight while others appear slightly tilted. The children begin debating what looks correct. One child believes a section is straight. Another disagrees. Their judgments are based on appearance and perspective.
The man takes a piece of string, attaches a weight to the end, and holds it beside the wall.
Immediately, the disagreement changes. The question is no longer what appears straight. The question is whether the wall aligns with an objective reference.
The plumb line does not convince the wall to become straight. It does not negotiate with the stones. It reveals a relationship that already exists.
A child asks, “Why does the string always point the same way?” The man answers, “Because the world is objectively ordered.”
Today, we would explain the mechanism through gravity. The mechanism is identified, and gravity is not self sustaining. Gravity does not author its own existence. Gravity is contingent like everything else that exists.
The explanation has become more precise, but the principle remains the same. Gravity was not created when humans discovered it. Gravity was already influencing the world.
The plumb line worked because reality possessed a consistent structure before anyone understood why.
This example reveals a profound pattern. Objective references do not create reality.
They reveal reality.
A measurement does not impose order upon the universe. It succeeds because the universe already contains order that can be measured.
Science is built upon this assumption. Every instrument, every equation, and every experiment depends upon the expectation that reality contains stable relationships waiting to be discovered.
The question then becomes unavoidable:
What is the ultimate reference by which existence continually remains coherent?
Necessary Reality
The plumb line reveals a principle that extends far beyond construction.
Every coherent evaluation requires a reference point. A measurement requires a standard. A comparison requires a basis. A judgment requires a criterion.
Without a reference, there is no way to distinguish alignment from misalignment. There is only preference.
The wall is not straight because people agree that it is straight. It is straight because it conforms to an objective relationship that exists independently of their opinions.
This principle applies to reality itself.
If reality is coherent, then coherence cannot ultimately depend upon the changing perspectives of contingent beings. A standard that changes with those it evaluates cannot function as an objective standard. A reference that depends upon something else cannot be the final reference.
This brings us back to the deeper category of reality: necessary reality.
Necessary reality is not another object within existence. It is not a larger physical object hidden somewhere in the universe.
It is not something that can be measured in the same way contingent things are measured. Measurement belongs to existence because measurement identifies properties and relationships among things that exist.
Necessary reality is what ultimately makes measurement itself coherent. It is the objective ground that allows contingent reality to be coherently evaluated.
This distinction explains why necessary reality is not the same as contingent, “existing” reality. Existence refers to identifiable, contingent things. Necessary reality refers to the condition that makes identifiable, contingent things intelligible.
Confusing these categories creates a fundamental mistake.
It is like asking for the location of the ruler used to define distance itself. The question is nonsensical. The ruler exists within the system being measured, but the concept of measurement requires a standard that allows the system to be understood.
Necessary reality is not one more item inside the universe. It is the reason the universe can be coherently understood at all.
Objective Consequence
This distinction also clarifies what it means for something to be real. Reality is not determined only by whether something can be pointed to as an object. Reality is not confined to empiricism, because empiricism cannot justify the coherence it relies upon.
Instead, reality is determined by whether something has objective consequence. Contingent things have contingent consequences. A tree grows. A river flows. A planet moves. A person thinks.
These are real because they participate in the structure of reality and produce consequences within it.
Necessary reality has a different kind of consequence. It has objective consequence. It does not merely participate in coherence. It produces the conditions by which coherence is possible.
This is why necessary reality is real even though it does not exist in the same way contingent things exist.
It is not less real because it is not an object. It is more fundamental because it is the condition that allows objects to be coherently understood.
The error comes from assuming that existence is the highest category of reality. Existence is not the foundation of reality. Existence is an expression of reality.
The Conditions of Objectivity
If necessary reality is the objective foundation of coherence, then it must possess the qualities required for objectivity itself.
These conditions are not arbitrary characteristics assigned afterward. They follow logically from what objectivity means.
For a reference point to be truly objective, it must be singular.
If there were multiple ultimate references, those references would require a higher standard to determine how they relate to one another. Whatever resolves that relationship would become the true reference point.
Objectivity therefore requires unity.
Necessary reality must also be external.
A reference point cannot simply be another part of the system it evaluates. A measuring standard cannot derive its authority from the very thing it is measuring.
It must stand apart from the contingent reality it grounds.
Necessary reality must be universal.
A standard that applies only in some circumstances cannot provide complete coherence. Objective structure must be capable of applying equally across all contingent reality.
Necessary reality must be non-derivative.
If it depends upon something more fundamental, then that thing becomes the true foundation. A dependent foundation is not a foundation.
Necessary reality must be invariant.
A changing reference cannot provide a stable measure. If the standard itself changes, it can no longer explain the consistency of what it measures.
Necessary reality must be independent.
The things being evaluated cannot determine or alter the reference by which they are evaluated. Otherwise objectivity collapses into perspective.
These six conditions are therefore not a theological preference or philosophical invention. They are the requirements that follow from the concept of objectivity itself.
Remove any one of them, and the foundation ceases to be objective.
It becomes contingent. It becomes dependent. It becomes another thing requiring explanation. And the search for coherence begins again.
The Convergence of Reality
One of the most remarkable features of human knowledge is that deeper investigation does not reveal a universe of disconnected facts.
It reveals relationships.
At the surface level, reality appears fragmented. The world contains countless objects, events, and processes that seem separate from one another. A person walking through nature sees oceans, skies, rocks, living things, and celestial bodies as distinct categories.
But as understanding increases, those distinctions begin to reveal deeper connections.
The ancient observer saw lightning and electricity as separate phenomena. Scientific investigation revealed that they were expressions of the same underlying force.
Heat and motion once appeared unrelated. Thermodynamics revealed their relationship.
Matter and energy appeared to be fundamentally different. Physics revealed their deeper connection.
Space and time appeared to be separate aspects of reality. Relativity revealed that they are part of a unified structure.
The pattern is not that reality becomes simpler as knowledge increases. Reality becomes more unified. Complexity remains, but beneath complexity there is coherence.
This is a significant observation.
If reality were ultimately arbitrary, if ultimate reality is subjective, then deeper investigation should produce increasing fragmentation. Each discovery should reveal that different parts of reality operate according to unrelated principles with no deeper relationship between them.
Instead, the opposite occurs.
The search for truth repeatedly reveals order beneath apparent separation.
This does not mean that science has discovered the final explanation of everything. Science continues to expand and refine its understanding. But the direction of discovery itself reveals something fundamental: reality behaves as though it possesses an underlying unity.
This is exactly what objectivity requires.
An objective reality cannot be a collection of unrelated perspectives that never converge. If there is a truth independent of observers, then increasing knowledge should increasingly align with that truth.
Coherence should accumulate.
This is why science is such a powerful demonstration of reality’s objective nature. Science does not work because human beings impose order upon chaos. Science works because reality contains order that human beings can discover.
The universe is not forced into coherence by our descriptions. Our descriptions succeed only when they conform to the coherence already present.
Why Objectivity Cannot Be Limited to Empiricism
This raises an important distinction. Science demonstrates that reality is objective. But the success of science does not mean that objectivity belongs exclusively to empirical measurement.
Empirical methods are one way of discovering objective structure. They are not the source of objectivity itself. The scientific method works because reality is already coherent before observation begins.
Without coherence, neither truth nor knowledge is attainable. If reality were not coherent, every conclusion would ultimately collapse into opinion, and every claim would be reduced to consensus.
Human beings do not create coherence. At best, we create consensus. Consensus can organize communities, preserve traditions, and coordinate action, but it cannot determine whether reality itself is coherent. For coherence to remain stable, there must be something beyond us; something singular, independent, and unaffected by the contingent realities it constrains. Necessary Reality is that objective ground. It is not one more thing within existence, it is the universal reference that makes coherent evaluation possible in the first place.
The success of science is not the source of this coherence but the evidence of it. Science succeeds because reality is already coherent. Its methods progressively discover, refine, and align with the objective coherence that Necessary Reality continually produces. Science does not create the order it observes any more than a plumb line creates gravity. It succeeds because it submits itself to a reality that exists independently of the observer.
This is why existence can be evaluated coherently. Across disciplines, from engineering to medicine to computer science, we continually measure systems against objective constraints rather than collective opinion. Modern ontology has become indispensable precisely because coherent representation matters. Its task is not to invent coherence but to faithfully represent the coherent structure that reality already possesses.
Necessary Reality universally produces coherence.
Contingent reality participates in coherence.
Human knowledge advances only by progressively aligning itself with that coherence.
A scientist can measure gravity because gravity does not depend on measurement to exist. A mathematician can discover relationships because logical consistency does not depend on human agreement. A philosopher can reason because reality must possess enough structure for reasoning itself to be meaningful.
The mistake is to confuse a successful method of discovering reality with the complete definition of reality.
A telescope expands vision, but vision itself is not limited to what a telescope can see. A microscope reveals hidden structures, but reality does not begin where the microscope begins. Likewise, empirical science reveals a portion of objective reality, but objective reality is not limited to the empirical domain.
If reality is objective, then the expectation of coherence must extend wherever we investigate.
Objectivity cannot be accepted in one domain and denied in another without contradiction.
The Problem with Material Reductionism
This is where material reductionism reaches its limit. Material reductionism begins with something true:
Physical existence is real.
The physical world matters. Matter, energy, and their relationships have genuine consequences. The mistake is not studying physical reality. The mistake is assuming that physical existence exhausts reality itself.
It treats the identifiable contents of reality as though they are the foundation of reality. But existence already depends upon coherence.
A physical object can only be identified because reality possesses a stable structure that allows identification. A scientific measurement can only be meaningful because reality maintains consistent relationships. A logical argument can only be evaluated because coherence exists as a standard beyond personal preference.
The foundation cannot be identical to what depends upon the foundation. A bridge cannot explain the laws that allow bridges to stand. A measurement cannot explain the existence of standards that make measurement possible. Contingent reality cannot fully explain the objective structure upon which contingent reality depends.
This is the limit of reductionism. It does not fail because matter is unreal. It fails because it attempts to make one category of reality—the existing—the entirety of reality.
It mistakes what is revealed for what makes revelation possible.
The Category Error of Necessary Reality
This same confusion appears in discussions about God. The question is often framed:
“Does God exist?”
But this question assumes that God belongs to the same category as contingent things. It assumes that necessary reality should be evaluated as though it were another object within existence.
But that is precisely the category error.
Necessary reality cannot be one more existing thing among other existing things. If it were, it would be contingent and would require an explanation beyond itself.
The question is therefore not whether necessary reality exists in the same way that contingent things exist. The question is whether contingent existence can be coherently understood without a necessary objective foundation. To insist that it can is to insist that coherence is a figment of our imagination. Such a claim is the ultimate form of gaslighting. Coherence is real and operates independently of us.
The issue is not whether reality contains one more object. The issue is what makes objects, relationships, truth, and coherence possible in the first place.
Once this distinction is understood, many debates become clearer. The disagreement is not simply between belief and unbelief as modern theology claims.
It is between two different conceptions of reality.
One conception says that what exists exhausts what is real. The other recognizes that existence itself depends upon a deeper structure.
The former continuously glosses over the coherence it cannot account for.
The latter recognizes that there is a personal responsibility to ensure that coherence remains accounted for in order to protect existence from manipulation.