If you have studied the early church, and if you are a student of history this term is used quite often. At the same time, while it is used, and while it rings a heretical tone, yet, I am not so sure the Church realizes how much Gnosticism is infecting her.
The reality is we all battle and struggle with Gnosticism in our lives, whether we know it or not. Gnosticism is very pervasive in our thinking.
But let me begin by defining Gnosticism. The word comes from the Greek gnosis, which means “learned or knowledge.” We all like knowledge and we all desire to be learned. But the real question is “what kind of knowledge were the Gnostics after?” The Gnostics were after a knowledge that was esoteric; that is, knowledge understood only by a few. It was a special type of knowledge. And this knowledge would bring them salvation. What kind of salvation? Salvation of the soul from a material world.[1] For the Gnostics, the world was created a demiurge.[2] The Demiurge was a producer; a creator-type figure. The Gnostics did not believe that the Triune God created the world. Rather they believed that the world was created by this monstrous demiurge. And because they believed this demiurge was evil, therefore creation was evil. Now we can spend quite some time talking about the myths[3] regarding the origin of demiurge, but I want to focus on the philosophy of it. There are actually many gnostic groups, and they all have different views of who Jesus was. Some claim he was merely a human who attained this gnosis; this secret knowledge. We are to follow Jesus because he learned the way to abandon the body. He was the one who freed his soul from the material world. Continue reading “On Gnosticism, An Introduction”