Reason 3 of 10
You are not the source of the universe: God is
Scientology teaches that each person is a thetan, an immortal spiritual being who, with other thetans, created matter, energy, space and time. The Bible says one God created all things, and we are his creatures.
What Scientology teaches
Scientology teaches that you do not have a spirit: you are one. Hubbard called this spiritual being a thetan. In The Factors (1953) and later works, he taught that thetans, by postulating and agreeing, brought the physical universe, which Scientology calls MEST (matter, energy, space and time), into being, and then became trapped in it and forgot who they are.
Spiritual progress, in this view, is the thetan recovering its native abilities and its awareness of itself as cause, not effect.
Scientology's own words
“an applied religious philosophy”
The Church of Scientology's description of itself (scientology.org)
What the Bible says
Scripture says God made everything, alone. He stretched out the heavens by himself. Every created thing, visible and invisible, was made through the eternal Son and holds together in him. We are made in God's image, with real dignity, but we are creatures, not co-creators of the universe.
The Bible's oldest temptation was exactly this: you will be like God. It did not lead to freedom.
24Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself;
Isaiah 44:24 (WEB) · context
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:1-3 (WEB) · context
16For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.
Colossians 1:16-17 (WEB) · context
11“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed and were created!”
Revelation 4:11 (WEB) · context
3Know that Yahweh, he is God. It is he who has made us, and we are his. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Psalms 100:3 (WEB) · context
4The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die, 5for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:4-5 (WEB) · context
Why it matters
If I am ultimately the cause of everything, my deepest need is to remember my own power. If God is the Creator, my deepest need is to be reconciled to him. Jesus did not call people to rediscover their godhood. He called them to come to him, and he gives rest.
28“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 (WEB) · context
28‘For in him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
Acts 17:28 (WEB) · context
What Scientologists often say
Scientologists say the thetan is simply what the Bible calls the soul or spirit, and that recognising you are a spiritual being is good news, not pride.
A Christian answer
The Bible agrees you are more than a body. But a creature made by God is very different from a being who made the universe. The difference decides everything else: who owes worship to whom, and where rescue has to come from.
Sources
- Scientology source L. Ron Hubbard, The Factors (1953), in Scientology 8-8008 and later editions.
- Scientology source L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology 8-8008 (1952) and Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought (1956): the thetan, MEST.
- The Bible, World English Bible (public domain).