Enneagram

Pagan Mysticism Promoted as Christian Growth

By Bob DeWaay

 “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)

Introduction

Enneagram is relatively new to evangelicalism but is now becoming popular and can be found in some evangelical colleges and universities. Before describing the Enneagram and its accompanying teaching, I need to document my sources and define some key theological categories. The three books that are part of this review include: Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert, The Enneagram A Christian Perspective, (Crossroad 2019 translated from the 1989 German edition); Christopher L. Heurtz, The Sacred Enneagram, (Zondervann, Grand Rapids, 2017); and Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile, The Road Back to You - An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 2016). In this article, references to these books will be bracketed with page numbers. 

            To understand my critique of Enneagram we need to understand two important religious worldviews. The first is the worldview I endorse and is the view of Christian theism through the ages. Christian theism says that the Triune God of the Bible existed as God from all eternity. God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit existed before anything was created. This means that God is non-contingent. God was perfect in all His divine attributes before anything was created. Once God created, He was and always is transcendent to the creation. The transcendent Creator cannot be dependent on His own creation. This quality is called “aseity” in Christian theology.

            A view that is very popular today denies the transcendence of God in important ways. This view is called panentheism. A simple way of explaining panentheism is that “God is in everything.” Though the Enneagram authors I review here do not claim a certain view, their teachings and desire to incorporate Buddhism and other philosophies of the East indicates panentheism. Today’s popular panentheism rejects the idea that history is linear—having a beginning in creation out of nothing and ending in eternal judgment. I wrote about this in my book on the Emergent Church. Also, God being in everything helps give credence to the idea of social and spiritual evolution which is popular with religious ecumenists such as these authors.

            Christian theism says that history is heading toward judgment. Christian theism affirms the Fall with the whole human race being plunged into sin and darkness. All the descendents of Adam and Eve are born spiritually dead, lost and alienated from God. God’s plan of Messianic salvation is the only way of escape from eternal judgment. I am writing from this viewpoint. Though the Enneagram authors we review state that they are coming from a Christian perspective, we ultimately have to ask whether panentheism can ever rightly be called “Christian” when it denies most of the key teachings of the Bible. With this stage set, let’s explore the claims of Enneagram.

The Enneagram

As I read the three Enneagram books, it did not take long to see the pagan sources of the Enneagram as the authors tout its ancient, pagan sources. The point of the Enneagram is to discover the “true self” and thus find God. Those who enter the Enneagram process will find it horribly confusing. I will sort through the these authors’ claims and explain how unbiblical they are.

            The Enneagram itself, as we will explain, is a circle with nine numbered points equidistant around it. The points are connected with lines that create three triangles internal to the circle. These are considered important in the whole Enneagram spiritual scheme. The nine numbers represent nine vices or sins that are associated with nine personality types. Each of the personality types has its own, unique problems caused by how the inner child developed due to various parental abuses. The processes of spiritual formation taught by Enneagram proponents are geared toward each person’s number and designed to bring them back to the pristine self of the child before they developed into a vice-ridden individual.  At the outset, the Enneagram seems complex and confusing. The authors provide sections on each of the numbers that provide descriptions of personality types. They assume that readers will identify with one of the numbers and then plunge ahead hoping to find the real “self” that is much better than the one they presently experience.

Read more here or download the PDF version here.