Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

God Is Not Who You Think He Is

25 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this excerpt, Eckhart Tolle challenges the common theological argument that an all‑powerful, all‑knowing God cannot exist because suffering is present. He argues that this line of reasoning stems from a childish, patriarchal view of God as a controlling figure who decides individual fates. Tolle reframes suffering not as evidence against God but as the "birth pangs" of a collective awakening of consciousness. He further asserts a nondual perspective: individual lives are not separate; they are expressions of a single, unified life. Consequently, personal identity is an illusion, and the purpose of suffering is to catalyze the emergence of a higher, shared awareness.

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'How could God allow all this suffering?' And then they say, 'There can't be any God because if there were a God, he would have to be all-powerful, omnipotent, and omniscient. Therefore, if he were all-powerful, he would not allow the suffering, but there is suffering, so either he's not all-powerful, then it means he's not God, or he's evil if he allows the suffering because even I wouldn't allow it if I were God.' And so you get into all kinds of— not realizing that you We started from a childish premise imagining God as a controlling patriarchal figure who does things. Am I going to allow this accident or not? Let's see. The suffering is the birth pangs of the consciousness, the suffering of humanity. Is the, like, almost like giving birth to it, to this, is the awakening consciousness. There is no individual, nobody has a, the life of every individual is the one life. Your life is not your life. It doesn't belong to you. You are not separate from life. There's only the one life.