Virtual or as-if reality took on a life of its own with Luther's doctrine of justification:  simul justus et peccator "at the same time righteous and a sinner." Luther did not mean that a believer is partly righteous and partly sinful—which would be no conundrum. Along with his other juridical concepts (Jesus was a Substitute for--a virtual "us" on the Cross), Luther meant that by divine will we remain sinners while receiving (Christ's) righteousness transferred to us by imputation, so that in the eyes of God, and for all practical effects in the other world, we are wholly righteous. That is equivalent to today's virtual reality: for all practical purposes, it is as if we were actually righteous. Perfectly dependable followers of Luther have called his doctrine of Justification (which in Protestantism is separated from Sanctification; CLICK HERE) a legal fiction and a juridical reality; I think "virtual reality" describes it best.  If virtual reality is an as-if sort of thing, that is what Luther's justification is.  It is of course instantaneous and complete.  Calvin added the twist that, if it God had predestinated that someone was to benefit from the imputation Christ's merits imputed, that imputed righteousness could never be lost in any way--it is inamissible.  Given his premises, his was air-tight in his logical consistency.
     Followers of the Reformers will never understand transindividual realities like nature; examples could be readily cited.  They do not understand the Incarnation or Resurrection  in traditional ontological terms.   Cf. Heb. 2:14-15:  "Since the children [human beings] have partaken [and thus are partakers] of blood and flesh, [Jesus Christ] Himself in parallel fashion shared in their [nature] so that by dying He might counteract the one having the force of death (the devil) and release them--as many as during their whole lifetime were in its thrall."  (Cf. St. Athanasios the Great's dictum [§54] that the Logos became human so that we might might be divinized).  Fr. Florovsky has been quoted as having written that "The Cross was a necessity for human nature, not for divine justice."   The Reformers look at religion non-ontologically in the Nominalist fashion:  God is the Judge of a great courtroom:   If something cannot be interpreted juridically but rather retains only an ontological significance, it has marginal interest for the followers of the Reformation.   It is particularly clear that Salvation is not from death so much as solely from sin in their thinking, indeed from inherited sin--indeed (since inherited genes are an ontological concept) sin juridically imputed to each person by God for Adam's misdeed.  The courthouse predominates, and justification is, as some of them admit, a legal fiction--and ontology is out the window.  Of course, Protestant Salvation is willed and instantaneous, rather than energetic and on-going--and being set back by sinning; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18 (properly translated as "being saved").

     Calvin's virtualist or receptionist view of the Lord's Supper holds that for all practical purposes, the bread and wine are Christ's Body and Blood, since we receive the power or virtue of them in partaking of them as if they were such.  This differs from the mental constructs of symbolists and receptionists who view the bread and wine in terms of mental constructs--treating them as symbols or allegorically or metaphorically.  In contrast with Calvin, they do not object to relegating the bread and fruit of the grape left over after they have been blessed to secular uses.  Note that virtual reality differs from allegory and metaphor the way will differs from cognition; obviously, as-if-ness is more "real" in the mind of the willer than receptionism is in the mind of the allegorist.   Calvin's view could hardly be described as a "legal fiction," but it would be difficult to specify why.  It strikes the Orthodox Christian as being more like phlogiston, caloric, or æther.

      The Internet contains many confused discussions about "spiritual" bodies that writers apparently think are relevant to the impossible idea of a "body"'s being "spiritually" present.  A "spiritual" body can be spiritual by coming from a spiritual Being, destined for a spiritual Being, having effects on a spirit, being used with a spiritual intent or purpose; but "spiritual" cannot refer to the content of a "body" any more than a body can be "spiritually" present.  Similarly, "carnal minds" (e.g. Rom. 8:7) or being carnally-minded refers to something other than the make-up of a mind.   No more than a spiritual body can be composed of spirit can a carnal mind be composed of flesh.  The term means that the mind is too much taken up or concerned with fleshly desires that do harm to spiritual desires.  No more than a spiritual body can be composed of spirit can carnal ordinances (Heb. 9:10) be composed of flesh.

SEE ALSO HERE & HERE & HERE & HERE