The Law of Attraction has been smuggled into the church in America as Biblical by big-name Pastors. However, in the Orthodox Christian worldview, the Law of Attraction is inconsistent with the doctrine of Divine Providence. If God’s Providence is at work, then there is no room for the LOA to be a real, driving factor in the universe. Christians need to step back from the ledge of Syncretism and trade in their affirmations list for prayer.
St. John of Damascus describes Providence as “Divine will which maintains everything and wisely rules over everything.”1 Classically, the LOA is a blind law that acts as any other laws of physics would act. If an apple separates from a tree branch, the law of gravity acts upon it, and the apple falls to the ground. If a person thinks positively about something or visualizes this something, the LOA acts, and those good things are attracted to the thinker. Likewise, when we think negative thoughts, then we also attract those bad things into our lives. The belief in this law gives people an answer to why their lives have happened in the manner it has, and how they can attract success in their future.
This blind, exacting principle comes from Far-Eastern worldviews and religions that are in opposition to the Christian worldview. It goes against the Christian doctrine of Divine Providence, and therefore the two world views are mutually exclusive. Both views can be wrong, but they cannot both be right.
The Doctrine of Divine Providence states that God is in control and consistently He is the one who judges, gives, and takes away according to His wisdom. According to the LOA, it follows that if we think about something hard enough and with the right feeling, it must come. The LOA puts all the power on us and our minds. As the Psalmist wrote by inspiration, “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19). Sometimes we try to attract, materialize, or pray for something, but God will not grant that thing to us in His infinite wisdom because He has a better plan for our lives.
The story of Job is an excellent example of bad things happening to someone whose mindset was positive, yet bad things happened to Him. It is revealed to us that God allowed Satan to torment Job as a test. In the end, God blessed Job more than he was blessed at the beginning of the book, yet there are no hints of the Law of Attraction working in the story.
Bad things happen even we think of all good things. Good things happen to people who do bad things. We all think like sinners because we are sinners, but by His Grace, God protects us in many situations where we deserve the negative consequences of our sins, let alone what we would attract according to our thoughts if the LOA were valid law. We aren’t always going to get what we want in life, and no amount of positive or negative thinking is going to change something that isn’t in accord with His plan. Our God is omniscient, we are not.
There are a lot of Preachers twisting scripture to mesh this “name it, claim it” mentality with Christianity. They preach health, wealth, and happiness, if only you pray with a thankful heart. They twist verses such as, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you,” (Matthew 7:7) and, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20) and apply them to materialism.
It’s not wrong to have a large house or to be wealthy, but we as Christians ought not to prioritize the material things of this world over our relationship with God (See Mark 8:36). God does want us happy and healthy, but many times, what makes us happy isn’t in accord with the will of God, and sickness is a terrible reality for all of humanity in this fallen world. We live in the world, but we’re called away from having the same priorities that the world has. Christianity will cause the world to hate us as they hated the Son of God.
Jesus says in John 15:19 (KJV), “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” That’s a verse not many of the Preachers mentioned above try to twist. Jesus continues in verse 20, saying, “Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.” If Jesus said it, then there’s no doubting it will come to pass.
The twelve apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, had their minds set solely on Jesus Christ the Logos, the ultimate good, the second person of the Godhead, and sharing His gospel. Following the logic of the LOA, they should have only attracted goodness, happiness, and success. However, every one of the twelve apostles was brutally martyred except John, but John was still heavily persecuted throughout his life.
Christians need to understand the Law of Attraction for what it is: a doctrine of devils (1 Timothy 4:1) that cannot be applied to the Christian worldview. There is no universal law that we can manipulate to get us what we want, and though God may work in mysterious ways, we can see in the context of scripture that the LOA isn’t one of them.
*** This article was written when I was inquiring Orthodoxy. I’m now writing a book on the Law of Attraction from the Orthodox Christian perspective, and you can read the introductory chapter to that work here. ***
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