“All that exists is the One Universal Mind, and there is nowhere that the One Mind is not. It exists in everything. The One Mind is all intelligence, all wisdom, and all perfection, and it is everything and everywhere at the same time.”
Okay, so in Rhonda Byrne's mind, there's essentially no distinction between what she might call "God" and the universe itself. In other words, God is the universe (and everything in the universe) and the universe (and everything in it) is God. (And note that you are in the universe… more on that later)
How far do you have to read in the Bible to see this issue clarified? Well, it turns out that this is actually the very first issue addressed.
Genesis 1:1 says:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
The Bible says God is distinct from the universe. He isn’t the universe, He created the universe. If God is the universe, then He could not have created the universe. This is a serious, fundamental conflict between what is taught in the Bible and what Rhonda Byrne says in "The Secret." She says there's no conflict between "The Secret" and Christianity, and yet here is a serious conflict.
And notice that recognizing the conflict doesn't depend on your acceptance of Genesis 1:1… we're only dealing with Rhonda Byrne's claim that there is no conflict between the Bible and "The Secret". And we see clearly that, even if you are inclined to reject Genesis 1:1, you would still have to conclude that the Bible is incompatible with "The Secret" right out of the gate.
But the other question is this: Does Rhonda Byrne know this about Christianity? Does she understand that according to Christianity God is distinct from His creation? Well, I suspect it would be premature to judge that with just this one conflict. Seems to me that as we pile up the conflicts (and we will) we might be able to come to a more reasonable and confident conclusion about whether or not Rhonda Byrne intends to deceive people or whether she's merely ignorant.
Stay tuned…
No comments:
Post a Comment