Gnosticism. Some of Its Beliefs, Practices and Continued Influences in the World. Part VII.

Last updated on: January 21, 2008 at 8:44 am by Henry Karlson

Gnosticism. Some of Its Beliefs, Practices and Continued Influences in the World. Part VII. 2008-01-21T08:44:10-05:00 Henry Karlson

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While Christian authorities have consistently repudiated any Gnostic system they encountered, Gnosticism has held a continuous influence upon the development of Western civilization. Sometimes the influence has led people to become outright Gnostics, as can be seen with the Cathars. Usually its influence has been partial and often indirect. Thus aspects of Gnostic thought, especially its dualisms, will be used by theologians (such as the good/evil dualism found in Luther) and philosophers (such as the spirit/matter dualism found in Descartes) throughout history. But there were other people, those who either repudiated Christianity or thought that Christianity had been led astray, who took an interest in the connection between Gnosticism and esoteric thought, and used it to justify interest in the occult (such as Madame Blavatsky). These are not the only ways one could have been influenced by Gnostic thought. Sometimes people were influenced by it in how they tried to repudiate its teachings. While not Gnostic, they would still be influenced by the categories of thought which Gnosticism introduced and by actively engaging Gnostic thought, they would take on qualities of Gnosticism whether they wanted to or not. We can see this explicitly in Marx. His teachings were obviously anti-Gnostic, but yet, if one looks closely at them, one can find inversions of Gnostic beliefs; what was good and what was evil were reversed, causing what was seen as important and what was seen as unimportant as reversing themselves in Marx’s hierarchy of values. This is because Gnostic influences could be seen in German Idealism; it’s failures to deal with the problems which the ordinary individual had to face caused Marx to repudiate Idealism and to act opposite to its dictates.

Gnosticism has often held a profound amount of influence upon the ordinary Christian. “Gnosticism never completely abandoned the realm of Christianity,” Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Trans. Jenny McPhee and Martha McPhee (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1994), 90. Without knowing it, many ordinary Christians, in their theological anthropology and in their eschatology, are Gnostic. They believe sin is a substantial evil, and that evil itself is a real ontological existent which must be fought and overcome. The simple dualism of “good” vs. “evil,” one of the central doctrines of Gnosticism, is believed to be true. Indeed, it’s generally believed that it is so true, it is just something one knows by common sense. Yet, we must remember that when people believe this, they usually think of themselves as the one who is “good”; few, if anyone, would consider themselves as being among those who are “evil”; anyone who opposes them must therefore be the one who is evil. And if they are evil, then there is no reason why one cannot remove them if they become a problem; indeed, one can use any means necessary to take them out once it is proven they are evil. Eschatological ramifications of Gnosticism can be seen in how people treat the world. They think that the earth is only a temporal good without any lasting value. One can do with it as one wills without considering the long-term consequences of such use. If the world is getting polluted, and humanity will not be able to live on it a couple centuries from now, does it really matter? The world’s resources are meant to be used by us. Yes, they will be used up one day. But the world is going to end anyway, and who is to say that its end is not predetermined by God to happen when the world’s resources have been used up by humanity? Do we not pray for the kingdom to come, for Christ to come and take us away? We should not worry about the consequences of our actions and how it affects nature, for nature is here to serve us; since we have a spiritual existence, we transcend nature, and we, not the rest of nature, will find a new home in eternity. When one encounters this kind of reaction, it’s not difficult to see how the Gnostic dualism between the spirit and matter is behind such a response. But the ordinary Christian, without any theological training, will not see what is problematic with this approach. For they consider the common stereotype of heaven, that it is a spiritual realm where we become angels, to be what eternity is like.

Nonetheless, it is interesting and important to note that the various strains of Gnostic thought – be it theological or philosophical – which have continued to exist in history have found more welcome in one place more than anywhere else: the United States. “Authentic spirituality in the United States, for nearly two centuries now, is essentially Gnostic. […] The United States hardly requires a Gnostic revival: its perpetual revivals are nothing else, sometimes, alas, not altogether for the better,” Harold Bloom,Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams and Resurrection(New York: Riverhead Books, 1996), 229-230. This really should not come as a surprise. The history and the development of the American political system came at a time when various Christian sects, influenced by the teachings of the Reformation, wanted to create an ideal land to live out their perfected Christianity. Others, following the Enlightenment, wanted to create a new state which reflected their new political vision. The ideals of the Enlightenment were founded upon a humanistic trend which was started in the renaissance, but became perfected after Cartesian spirit-matter dualism was taken seriously. The combination of these two traditions allowed for the Gnostic elements contained in each to merge and make a Gnostic ideology which the United States would take for its own. It has become the normative worldview which Americans are raised into. Very few can see it for what it is. People are led around in circles trying to find solutions to the problems underlying the American political system. They don’t understand that as long as they accept the system as it is, as long as they agree to the premises which lay behind the political superstructure, the system will always churn out the same kinds of problems, although they will be manifested in different ways. People will focus on the symptoms and try to overcome the problem of the year; but if they do understand why the problem developed in the first place, all they will be able to do is place a band-aid upon an open wound. Thus, many Americans who know a bit of authentic moral philosophy will abuse it by using the underlying cultural hermeneutic to understand it. They will use the term “intrinsic evil” substantially, and believe that one who engages in an intrinsic evil (an act) themselves are evil (in substance). Thinking like this will never allow for any proper solution to be found, for substantializing evil will only create situations by which more evil can be produced (if one tries to “take out the evil,” they might do just that, but they will also take out much which is good, depriving the world of that good; since evil is the privation of the good, the end result should not be difficult to see).

The few who see the system for what it really is tend to be its adherents, and instead of seeking to overcome Gnosticism, they glorify it. At least they feel the need to let others know this fact, that they are Gnostics. They are honest when they come to this realization; they see no purpose is served in keeping it hidden. Harold Bloom, the self-proclaimed Jewish Gnostic, believes that the American political system, now more than ever, has become a place where people of different brands of Gnosticism debate one with another, and they do it to try to determine which form of Gnosticism is best for the nation. “We live now, more than ever, in an America where a great many people are Gnostics without knowing it, which is a peculiar irony. When Newt Gingrich tells us that our national economic future depends completely upon information, then I recall that the ancient Gnostics denied both matter and energy, and opted instead for information above all else. […] If Gingrich is an unknowing American right-wing Gnostic, we abound also in a multitude of unaware left-wing Gnostics, who like Gingrich seek salvation through rather different information,” Harold Bloom, Omens of the Millennium, 27-8. Of course Bloom could have used other examples than Newt Gingrich; his point was not to focus on one person over another, but to show how Gnosticism is practiced by the so-called right, and not, as some assume, only by the so-called left.

With all of this talk about Gnosticism, we must be careful and not propose more about it than can be demonstrated by the facts. Not everything which is uniquely American is Gnostic. Nor must we believe that everything which we find to be wrong in the world is Gnostic. Nor is everything which is Gnostic false in all its particulars. Strange as it might seem to some, there are many elements of Gnostic thought which orthodox Christianity readily affirms with its Gnostic rivals and this does not mean it is Gnostic or influenced by Gnosticism. For example, which Christian could say Gnostics are wrong when they say that some sort of God exists? Even if they are wrong in how they understand God, clearly Christians must agree with them here. These points need to be made so we do not follow Eric Voegelin who, at one time at least, saw Gnosticism as the root error behind all that is wrong in the modern world. “For Voegelin, Gnosticism becomes a catchall term that embraces everything in Western civilization that he hates and fears,” Richard Smoley, Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 177. For it could lead us, like it did him, to call things as Gnostic which actually are not. In The New Science of Politics, a rather influential work of political philosophy, Voegelin, properly understood that Gnosticism had not died out and that it has had a tremendous amount of influence in the development of Western thought. Nonetheless, he confused Gnosticism with any system of thought where he could find traces of Gnostic influences (a distinction which must always be kept in mind, otherwise one could incorrectly suggest that St Augustine, even at the end of his life, was a Gnostic). Despite Voegelin’s desire to classify utopian thought as Gnostic, this must not be done: utopianism is vehemently anti-Gnostic. Utopian visionaries look for perfection here on the earth. They want to bring paradise to us in the here and now. Gnosticism denies such perfection is possible in the world, because as we have seen, the world to them is fundamentally evil and ruled by an evil principle and that evil cannot be turned into something good. Voegelin is correct in assuming that alienation is a problem, and like the Gnostics, utopian thought addresses that problem and tries to find a solution to it. But so does Christians theology. The theology of the fall is a theory of alienation; but instead of Gnosticism, Christian theology believes in the original purity of creation and the final salvation of creation by the work of God’s grace. Thus, we all know that something is wrong in the world; just believing this does not make us a Gnostic. Christians do not put the blame on the creator God; Gnostics do. Marxists, if they are orthodox, clearly cannot claim the problem lies with God, because they do not believe in the existence of God. Since the problem is percieved to be different, the solution is different for each as well. Christians look for salvation which manifests itself not only in the spirit, but in a materialistic, bodily fashion; Marxists, like Christians, hope for salvation here on earth, but do not see any spiritual dimension to it; the Gnostic, on the other hand, desires liberation from the material world and entrance into the realm of pure spirit. And this is where Voegelin really went astray. Christianity, not Gnosticism, is about the immantization of the eschaton, where the two join together as one in the person of Jesus Christ. Marxism is interested in the immanent world; Gnosticism in the transcendent world; Christianity is interested in joining the two together into one non-dualistic integration. The two are one (but not confused). In his extreme denial of Marxism, Voegelin is the one who became the Gnostic. Despite this flaw, Voegelin presented a telling and important critique of secular utopianism, one which demolishes not only the utopian vision of Marxism, but of American neo-conservativsm as well.

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