A Review of “A New Earth” (Part 2 of 4)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. –Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV

Eckhart Tolle, in his book A New Earth, uses Scripture to mischaracterize God, Heaven and sin. In part 2 of my review of his book I am going to attempt to show that Tolle’s definition of God does not square with what Scripture says. If you wish to see part 1 of this review, please click here. Tolle contends that God is not a being and that God is nothing more than an “essence”. Tolle says God is our own consciousness which transcends us and this “essence” is shared with every animal, mineral and plant in the cosmos. For Tolle, God is the light of consciousness. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Tolle said, “The entire universe is permeated by that consciousness, by life – which is another name for god. I don’t see god as an entity and that he is in a particular place somewhere, but [I see him] as the essence…the intelligence…the animating life essence behind all life forms.” You can see and hear Tolle make this claim and Oprah agreeing with him in a video in a recent post to Journeying On titled “Oprah’s Church”.

He claims that through religion, specifically the Christian religion, that “man created God in his own image. The eternal, the infinite, and unnamable was reduced to a mental idol that you have to believe in and worship as ‘my god’…” (page 15). He goes on to say on page 16, “It is unlikely; however, that you will be able to perceive [Truth, Tolle’s synonym for God] unless you have at least already had glimpses of that Truth within yourself.” Basically he’s arguing there is “truth” in all religions. He’s saying that our own ‘godness’ or essence of truth is the foundation of all worldwide and “ancient” religions. Over the centuries, we’ve misinterpreted the god of our own consciousness to be a person-like deity to be worshipped. But we are really only ‘saved’ when we are awakened to the Truth of our own being. This process is called enlightenment.

Are you as confused as I am? I’ll be the first to admit that God is mysterious. But God did give us, through the Holy Scriptures, a means to at least somewhat comprehend God. Tolle has reduced God to experience and feeling, completely without established reference and subject to relative ideas and notions of good and evil. Without such a framework of reference, pride (egotism) is perpetuated, not extinguished as Tolle contends. Without a written moral law (Scripture), then the slippery slope of moral relevancy takes place. We say things like, “I’m ok…you’re ok…we’re all ok” or “who am I to say I’m right and he’s wrong?”

Tomes have been written about the person, character and nature of God. It feels almost wrong of me to try to summarize Him in a few sentences. The Bible describes God as a being that exists in three Persons. The Person of the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity can be confusing in and of itself and rather than attempting to explain Trinitarian Doctrine myself, I defer to several excellent essays posted on Monergism.com for your reference.

When we read the Bible we know that God is NOT merely an essence, experience or feeling. We know this because He is active. He does things. Feelings and experiences aren’t tangible in and of themselves. They are created as a result of something or someone else. When we read the Bible we know that God creates, chooses, manages, and pursues (amongst other things).  In the person of Christ, He took on flesh and blood, and walked, talked, loved, and healed people (amongst other things).  In the person of the Holy Spirit, He comforts, corrects, guides, and speaks (amongst other things).  At the beginning of the post there was a passage from Ephesians. How can an essence be rich in mercy and make us alive when we were dead (v. 4,5)? How can an experience show kindness (v. 7)? How can an intelligence give us the gift of grace (v. 8 ) and prepare good works in which we walk (v. 10)?

By Scripture we know that God controls and knows all things (Psalm 113:19). Such notions of God cannot be fulfilled in merely an idea or experience. Certainly, Scripture does apply some anthropomorphic attributes to God, but that is for our benefit as we try to understand an infinite God with our finite minds. But it is clear when reading Scripture that God is much more than an essence or idea. Tolle also says that when we are enlightened, we become god and a part of that essence is god. Well that simply cannot be. When we read the Bible, we also know that God is perfect, holy and without sin – distinct from all creation.  We also get a picture of ourselves when we read Scripture. We learn that we all sin (I’ll discuss Tolle’s mistreatment of sin in part 4). We all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Sinful people cannot become God. Sinful people cannot save themselves by awakening themselves into consciousness. If we could, why would we even need God?

Only a personal, loving God can cause us to realize our depraved nature, making us aware of our hopelessness.  God is a rescuing God and came to rescue us from death and Hell. Tolle suggests we are our own saviors and only have to awaken ourselves to our own salvation. How is that possible? How can a dead person (Ephesians 2:1) perform CPR on himself? It takes a holy righteous, merciful God acting on our behalf to save us when we can’t save ourselves.  Theologians call this the substiutionary atonement that can only be provided by the blood of Christ.

Thank you, Lord that you are an active, loving God and not merely some mystical essence.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about Heaven an how it is a real place, even though Mr. Tolle says it isn’t.

Soli Deo Gloria!