It certainly would be easy to argue that the Johannine epistles (in which term I include the "essay" or whatever you want to call it of 1st John) are arguing against a kind of Gnostic Christianity which some Christians--perhaps after coming into contact with the Gnostic trend of thought that emerged in the Hellenistic world around and probably slightly before the development of the various Christian sects--viewed as the proper understanding of the faith confessed in the 4th Gospel. (Even though such features of the Gospel as the (in general) realized escatology, the mixture of high and low Christologies, the sense of alienation from the world, and the belief in the power of knowledge or truth to set one free can be explained by the historical development of the community in relation to Judaism, they are consistent with the "Gnostic" trend of thought that might have been coming into existence around that time.) However, I think the Johannine community (or, to be more P.C., the community of the Beloved Disciple) and its offshoot that is addressed in the epistles had as much to do with the development of Christian Gnosticism as did Jewish apocalypticism, Platonism, the mystery cults or Zoroastrianism. The "orthodox" anti-Gnostic rhetoric about the group's immorality has to be suspect. Furthermore, the myths generated by the Gnostics should be treated as poetic attempts to express non-physical concepts; the "orthodox" far to often attempt to force upon Gnostic texts absurdly literal interpretations. The genuine Gnostic texts that have been discovered indicate that Gnostics were characterized, as someone on the forum already mentioned, by asceticism, not by wild sexuality and canabalism. Unfortunately, due to their secrecy, the Gnostics were viewed by their fellow Christians with the same suspicion as were Christians by Greco-Roman society as a whole. Certainly, their views were not what we would call orthodox, but, at the time that they articulated their views, "orthodoxy" did not exactly exist. There are points of doctrinal comparison between Gnosticism and Jehovah's Witnesses (some of these have been mentioned: the need for "accurate knowledge" for salvation, the three classes of humanity (those who have the divine spark, Christians in general, and the rest of the doomed world), the dualistic perspective on the world (i.e., the world is evil and is ruled by the Evil One, but we are separate and chosen), etc.); however, it's hard to be as offended by these doctrines in Gnosticism since they do not seem to have been linked to the spirit of exclusivity, pride, and organizational devotion that characterizes Jehovah's Witnesses. Gnostics were notoriously hard to distinguish from their fellow Christians. I think the comparison someone made to groups like the Free Masons was apt. I suppose those who are committed to the doctrines that became relatively catholic among Christians particularly from the 4th cent. on would look upon the Gnostics with more disapproval than I do. Gnostic beliefs such as that the creator God is not the true God and had nothing to do with the Son (who, by the way, did not really live and die as a man) would be offensive. I personally find the links to Eastern thought in Gnosticism most provocative and interesting. Michael Williams' _Rethinking "Gnosticism"_, of course, cannot be ignored. He argues that the whole catagory or term "Gnosticsim" is artifical.
What is Gnosticism and why do Christians dislike it ?
by 5go 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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veradico
I forgot to mention Harold Bloom's fun book on American religions (which contains, by the way, a delightfully amusing chapter on Jehovah's Witnesses) in which he argues that the American faith is characterized by a Gnostic spirit.
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glenster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism
Valentinus was a very popular Gnostic in the early church days:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15256a.htmThis view of Jesus by Valentinus is a little different:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/valentinus-e.html -
zagor
"Christians" will dislike everything their church/organization tell them to dislike, and leadership dislikes anything and everything they do not understand, so as such is not a good benchmark.
...or maybe it is a good benchmark, for one I see gnostic religions/societies are more inclined to encourage usage of that gray matter under a skull whereas "Christians" would say forget that and use heart. Why, well IMHO it is much easier to influence someone's heart than brain. If you think I'm wrong prove me wrong.
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LittleToe
Zagor:
If you think I'm wrong prove me wrong.
I'll take a stab at that
Gnosticism isn't just about an intellectualism, but is about an innate and intuitive "knowing". Frankly that smacks more of what might be deemed a "heart-knowing" than a "head-knowing".
Herein is the irony. Man loves to "know" stuff, and hence scientific endeavors have been the mainstay of mankind throughout history, even throughout the highly religious ages. Unfortunately it isn't completely satisfying, as man is more than his cortex. Man inately "knows" this, too, regardless of what a scientifically trained brain will surmise from his instruments.
Only in the last couple of centuries has man attempted to make science his religion, and use it to usurp all others, even though they are not mutually exclusive. I use the term "religion" here intentionally, in the sense of believing religously in the efficacy of something, in contrast to the extreme definition that some have bandied about recently that includes pejorative terms such as superstition. After all, some do kinda regard it as a sacred cow. This is not at the heart of gnosticism, though.
IMHO to deride others (including "Christians") for taking account of their "heart" is disingenuous, and usually bespeaks of an individual who is not "whole", instead eschewing a major faculty of their being. I guess it boils back down to the the old left-brain vs right-brain debate, again...
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zagor
::Gnosticism isn't just about an intellectualism, but is about an innate and intuitive "knowing". Frankly that smacks more of what might be deemed a "heart-knowing" than a "head-knowing".
I know that LT, that's what I said in my first comment in this thread, please check it :p What I'm saying though is that gnosticism for all its mistakes and faults still tried to encourage some sort of knowledge seeking. We must not forget that gnosticism in Christian world came to be popular when any knowledge seeking was highly controlled hence to those people that was like a breath of fresh air. Of course, we are looking at gnosticism now with a benefits of hindsight and several hundred years of free thinking and scientific discoveries. But gnosticism predated all of that and was probably the only or one of very few things free thinking people had had.
Of course as in everything else some people just don't like change and hence even today we have people who prefer gnosticism or religious thinking to science(by that I mean highly dogmatic line of thinking, not talking about you here lol)
I agree there are things we cannot understand. After all even in science we have many new streams of thinking that to average Joe or Jill would sound like religious dogma, think of multiverse (multiple universes) higher dimension etc. Still to have any grasp of those and other concepts we still need scientific method because for now that is the only rational and dispassionate method we've got. Moment we start introducing religious interpretations we open the door to "my god is better than your god" line of thinking, which leads nowhere and is mainly reflection of someone's heart not head. Am I wrong there? ;) -
zensim
Zagor:
Still to have any grasp of those and other concepts we still need scientific method because for now that is the only rational and dispassionate method we've got. Moment we start introducing religious interpretations we open the door to "my god is better than your god" line of thinking, which leads nowhere and is mainly reflection of someone's heart not head. Am I wrong there? ;)
This is just again another version of the science vs religion debate and another "my god is better than your god" except that in this case there is science as 'god' and on the other there is 'religious ideology' as 'god'.
In an effort to avoid the whole religious paradigm of "my god is better than your god" man hasn't necessarily settled it by science - all they have done is introduced another, different 'god' into the equation.
Imo, 'religious interpretation' has just as much value and should always be introduced as a player in any enquiring methodology. I believe it is insulting to many spiritually minded people (who always get lumped into religion because all people want to know are the labels) to say their thinking is only of the heart and not head. Which also completely belies why we are all here on JWD. To me the JW's and most other religions are not really appealing to the heart's wisdom, but rather to the limited mind, with all their rules and regulations.
I agree with LT that the heart has a knowing that goes beyond the intellectual. And it is true that we will only see wholeness and harmony externally when we each are whole in ourselves. I like to bring all aspects of my being to everything before me - my intellect, my heart, my reason, my intution, my physicality etc. No one methodology is superior. However, we will be a superior species when we can recognise the assets and truth in ALL reflections of our natures - whether they be science, christianity, gnosticism, religion, spirituality, sexuality, etc etc.
We need to see the whole and be inclusive - rather than exlusive and separate. This comes from a knowing born from the heart and mind.
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LittleToe
Zagor:
Hiya pal. Thanks for pulling me up. I slightly misread you. I agree with you comments aside from being interested in your elaboration on, or evidence for, the following:We must not forget that gnosticism in Christian world came to be popular when any knowledge seeking was highly controlled hence to those people that was like a breath of fresh air.
Zensim:
Good points. -
Midget-Sasquatch
What I'm saying though is that gnosticism for all its mistakes and faults still tried to encourage some sort of knowledge seeking. We must not forget that gnosticism in Christian world came to be popular when any knowledge seeking was highly controlled hence to those people that was like a breath of fresh air.
Yeah it did encourage one to break out of the illusion of the present material world. But there wasn't all that much knowledge to seek. I'll use any excuse to bring in movie plotlines. Take the lead character Neo from the Matrix. It wasn't any deductive reasoning, with volumes of data, that lead him to what the Matrix actually was. He had intuitive feelings that something was amiss, and that was enough to make him open to what Morpheus would show him.
Gnosticism similarly is about intuitively realizing that the material world is just a prison for the true divine self. Awareness does involve the mind of course. But, as I see it, gnosticism, is dropping one world paradigm for another based on experiential knowledge.....to me that involves gray matter to make some sense of it, but the revealing experience itself, that one bit of knowledge, is more "heart" say than "mind".
There were some groups though that stressed secret knowledge to gain salvation, like saying the right phrases to pass the archons as one returned to the pleroma. So those believers would be seeking extensive info, sharing it with one another, which makes me wonder if they weren't now also becoming dependent on particular people or sources as channels to the truth. Kinda like modern day charlatan gurus who bilk people and entrap them in their TM cults.