Gnosticism and Physical Things
A Summary View
by Michael Gobart, October 4, 2006
Editor’s Note: It is our contention that the SharperIron.org authors who have been hostile to the efforts of Vision Forum (and others seeking to encourage unity between church and home)have rested their public denunciations on a foundation of poor scholarship, hyperbole, actual misrepresentation of our statements and positions, and an appeal to unsubstantiated and untestable personal experience — the last resort when logic, footnotes and research are in short supply.
The following article is presented as one example among many (see Family Squabble) of a SharperIron.org author attempting to discredit his brothers in Christ based on a point of scholarship over which he does not appear to have even a rudimentary understanding.
In a recent article entitled, “Vision Forum, Patriarchy and Federal Husband, Part 2” posted on the web forum, SharperIron, Joe Fleener accuses Vision Forum of poor historical research and a simplistic understanding of Gnosticism. Fleener, criticizing Vision Forum’s president, Doug Phillips’ brief reference to an ancient Greek heresy as simplistic, insinuates it will not hold up under scholarly scrutiny. Fleener writes:
In an email received from [Vision Forum] they defined Gnosticism as “the belief that God is not concerned with physical things.” (Doug Philips, “The Public Undressing of America,” 26 July 2005). I have yet to find a philosophical dictionary or encyclopedia defining Gnosticism in this way. At the very least it is extremely simplistic. After one reads and understands the historical complexity of Gnosticism it is hard to understand how it relates to their email which was addressing modesty!
The following references substantiate Doug Phillips’ suggestion that Gnosticism may be summarized by “the belief that God is not concerned with physical things”:
“The resurrection of the body, always a difficulty in ancient modes of thought, was especially so to those who, with the Essenes amongst the Jews, the Neo-Platonicians, and most of the early sects which afterwards expanded into Gnosticism, had adopted the dualism of the East, and held matter to be evil...”
“[B]eing tainted with the heresy that evil resides in matter [Gnosticism], and, therefore, that the body is essentially and inherently vile, it was, perhaps, led to hint at some distinction between the human Jesus and the Divine Christ; and it certainly thrust all kinds of intermediate agencies, especially angels, between the soul and God.”
“It is clear, therefore, that the root idea which underlay their speculations and practical rules was the same belief in the essential evil of matter which for some years had been operating injuriously (as we see from the letter to Colosse) upon the churches of Asia Minor, and which, after St. Paul’s decease, was destined to blossom into the vast and many-headed heresy of Gnosticism.”“
[Gnosticism] “Oriental in its origin, it was founded in a belief of the doctrine of the antagonism between mind and matter, the one of which it held to be good, the other intrinsically evil. Such a system as this was essentially hostile to God’s truth, and accordingly we find that St. John, in his Gospel and Epistles, St. Peter and St. Jude in the works attributed to them, devote themselves to the condemnation of the system.”“
“The Gnostics (2 Peter 3:16”) “wrested Paul’s words” (Rom 6:4”; Eph 2:6” ; Col 2:12”) as though the resurrection was merely the spiritual raising of souls from the death of sin (John 5:24-25”). The difficulties of the resurrection (Acts 17:32” ; 26:8”), the supposed evil inherent in matter, and the disparagement of the body, tended to this error (Col 2:23”). Paul confutes this by showing that, besides the raising of the soul now from the death of sin, there shall be also hereafter a raising of the saint’s body from the grave (John 5:28-29)”, as the fruit of JESUS’ bodily resurrection (1 Cor 15).”
“Coupled with HYMENAEUS (which see) as “erring” (missing the aim: estocheesan), and holding that “the resurrection is past already” (2 Tim 2:17”), as if it were merely the spiritual raising of souls from the death of sin: perverting Rom 6:4”; Eph 2:6” ; Col 2:12”; compare 1 Cor 15:12”, etc. So the Seleucians or Hermians taught (Augustine, Ep.119:55 ad Januar. 4); the germs of Gnosticism, which fully developed itself in the second century.”“
“The doctrine of these three heretical teachers, Hymenaeus, Alexander and Philetus, was accordingly one of the early forms of Gnosticism. It held that matter was originally and essentially evil; that for this reason the body was not an essential part of human nature; that the only resurrection was that of each man as he awoke from the death of sin to a righteous life; that thus in the case of everyone who has repented of sin, “the resurrection was past already,” and that the body did not participate in the blessedness of the future life, but that salvation consisted in the soul’s complete deliverance from all contact with a material world and a material body.”
“The very heart of Gnosticism, i.e. theory of emanation and the dualistic conception which regards matter as evil, finds no place in Colossians.”“
“I. General Definition. - On the general definition of Gnosticism a few authorities may be cited. “Gnosticism ,” says Dr. Gwatkin, “may be provisionally described as a number of schools of philosophy, oriental in general character, but taking in the idea of a redemption through Christ, and further modified in different sects by a third element, which may be Judaism, Hellenism, or Christianity ....the Gnostics took over only the idea of a redemption through Christ, not the full Christian doctrine, for they made it rather a redemption of the philosophers from matter, than a redemption of mankind from sin” (Early Church History to A.D. 313 AD, II, 20)...
But in Gnosticism sin is something quite different; it is not the act and the disposition of the human will in rebellion against God; it is only a physical fact or quality inherent in the body and in matter everywhere. Redemption therefore does not consist in the work of Christ for us on the cross, and the applying of the benefits of that work by the Holy Spirit of God in the renewal of the moral nature of man. Redemption is simply each man’s efforts to secure emancipation from the flesh-from physical evil.”“
“Teachings of the Gnostics. The Gnostics accepted the Greek idea of a radical dualism between God (spirit) and the world (matter). According to their worldview, the created order was evil, inferior, and opposed to the good. God may have created the first order, but each successive order was the work of anti-gods, archons, or a demiurge (a subordinate deity).
The Gnostics also taught that man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. Since the body and the soul are part of man’s earthly existence, they are evil. Enclosed in the soul, however, is the spirit, the only divine substance of man. This “spirit” is asleep and ignorant; it needs to be awakened and liberated by knowledge.
According to the Gnostics, the aim of salvation is for the spirit to be awakened by knowledge so the inner man can be released from his earthly dungeon and return to the realm of light where the soul becomes reunited with God. As the soul ascends, however, it needs to penetrate the cosmic spheres which separate it from its heavenly destiny. This, too, is accomplished by knowledge. One must understand certain formulas which are revealed only to the initiated.”“
“2. In contrast with the preceding is the theory that obliterates the intermediate state by representing human beings as entering at the moment of their death upon their final condition. Redemption, according to this condition (that of Gnosticism), accomplishes its final triumph in the deliverance of the spirit from the body, whereas Paul represents the final triumph as the resurrection, the “redemption of our body” (Rom 8:19-23” ; 1 Cor 15:1” ). This theory also ignores the final judgment as represented in the Scriptures.”“
Gnosticism was dualist, distinguishing the spiritual and good world from the evil and material world. Matter was the creation of a wicked demiurge. But a spiritual savior had come to offer redeeming gnosis, or knowledge, or our true selves.”
If, on the one hand, God is not the Creator of the material world, and on the other hand, the material world was created by an evil demiurge, then it is reasonable to conclude that “God is not concerned with physical things.”
In terms of ethics, the Gnostic religion went in opposite extremes. Some sought to separate from the evil material world through asceticism. Others, perhaps the predominant number, went the route of the libertine.
Gnostic ethics are rooted in gnostic theology, cosmology, and anthropology. The absolute cosmic dualism in which the purportedly true God is totally separate from the universe, which he neither created nor governs, is reflected in the nature of man. The gnostic pneumatic, in whom the true divine spirit has been “awakened” with knowledge (gnosis), thus relates to the world as either an ascetic or libertine. The ascetic gnostic expresses his possession of the true gnosis and freedom from the evil cosmos by abstention from the world; the libertine gnostic by indiscriminate abandonment to the world and the body. Both ethical attitudes are, although opposite in practice, expressive of the same gnostic anti-cosmic pattern of thought.
Gnosticism rejects the Judeo-Christian belief that this world and humanity is the result of a creative act of God. Rather the gnostic views the world as the result of chaos, and the true God (or divine principle, depending on the gnostic system being examined) is far removed from humanity ... [T]he heresies of the gnostics were characterized in two ways. On the one hand, there were ascetic tendencies that attempted to control natural bodily instincts, believed to be evil and in opposition to the divine inner self. The aim of the moral life was to be detached from this contaminated world. On the other hand, some gnostics had libertine attitudes that let human nature go its own direction without control. The inner self was detached through “knowledge” from the material body.”
At the heart of this Gnostic heresy is the rejection of anything good associated with matter. Gnosticism denies the coming together of the humanity of Jesus the Messiah with His deity, known historically as the hypostatic union.
The enlightened Gnostics touted their liberation from fleshly laws of sanctity — all flesh is evil. Consequently, all laws governing the physical body were abrogated by their enlightened understanding of dualism in the forms of spiritual things as good and all material things as wicked, and the Christian promise of the physical resurrection of the dead was dismissed.
This liberation from regulation over all things fleshly leads to the modern social atrocity of hedonism. Even among contemporary Christians, denial of Christ’s Lordship over our bodies is prevalent. Antinomianism reigns.
In light of the references offered, we conclude by supporting and substantiating The Public Undressing of America’s initial proposition concerning Gnosticism:
Until the twentieth century, most Christians understood that dress standards were inescapable. But with the rise of antinomianism (the rejection of God as lawgiver), the resurgence of Gnosticism (the belief that God is not concerned with physical things), and the widespread acceptance of the neutrality postulate (the notion that the Lordship of Christ over human action only extends to “spiritual” matters), many twentieth century Christians have simply allowed themselves to be swept away by cultural trends, rather than following the biblical admonition to take every thought and action captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.