The Names of My Enemies: A Personal Study in Christian Psychology

Either God is a person, or God is not. If the former, then we have a quaternity rather than a trinity. If the latter, then we seem to commit ourselves to claims that are decidedly anti-theistic: God doesn't know anything since only persons can be knowers ; God doesn't love anybody since only persons can love ; God is amoral since only persons are part of the moral community ; and so on.

Bad news either way, then. Thus, many are motivated to seek other models. Historically, the use of psychological analogies is especially associated with thinkers in the Latin-speaking West, particularly from Augustine onward. Augustine himself suggested several important analogies, as did others in the medieval Latin tradition.

However, since our focus in this article is on more contemporary models, we will pass over these here and focus instead on two more recently developed psychological analogies. Morris has suggested that we can find an analogy for the trinity in the psychological condition known as multiple personality disorder: Others—Trenton Merricks for example—have suggested that we can conceive of the divine persons on analogy with the separate spheres of consciousness that result from commissurotomy Merricks Commissurotomy is a procedure, sometimes used to treat epilepsy, that involves cutting the bundle of nerves the corpus callosum by which the two hemispheres of the brain communicate.

Those who have undergone this procedure typically function normally in daily life; but, under certain kinds of experimental conditions, they display psychological characteristics that suggest that there are two distinct spheres of consciousness associated with the two hemispheres of their brain. Thus, according to this analogy, just as a single human can, in that way, have two distinct spheres of consciousness, so too a single divine being can exist in three persons, each of which is a distinct sphere of consciousness. Moreover, both analogies seem to have this advantage over social trinitarianism: Precisely this feature of the analogies, however, also raises the spectre of modalism.

In the case of multiple personality disorder, there is no real temptatiom to reify the distinct personalities, to treat them as distinct person-like beings subsisting in or as a single substance. They are, rather, quite straightforwardly understandable as distinct aspects of a single, albeit fragmented, psychological subject. Similarly in the case of the commissurotomy analogy. It is highly unnatural to treat the distinct centers of consciousness as distinct persons; rather, it is most plausible to treat them as mere aspects of a single subject.

Note, too, that it is hard to see how the personalities and centers of consciousness that figure into these analogies could be viewed as the same substance as one another, as the doctrine of the trinity requires us to say of the divine persons. Again, it is natural to see them merely as distinct aspects of a single substance. This, then, seems to be the primary objection that proponents of these sorts of analogies need to overcome. If this claim is true, then it is open to us to say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same God but distinct persons. Notice, however, that this is all we need to make sense of the trinity.

If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same God and there are no other Gods , then there will be exactly one God; but if they are also distinct persons and there are only three of them , then there will be three persons. The main challenge for this solution is to show that the Relative Sameness assumption is coherent, and to show that the doctrine of the trinity can be stated in a way that is demonstrably consistent given the assumption of relative identity.

Peter van Inwagen's work on the trinity , has been mostly concerned with addressing this challenge. Their suggestion is that reflection on cases of material constitution e. If this is right, then, by analogy, such reflection can also help us to see how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be the same God but three different persons.

Consider Rodin's famous bronze statue, The Thinker. It is a single material object; but it can be truly described both as a statue which is one kind of thing , and as a lump of bronze which is another kind of thing. A little reflection, moreover, reveals that the statue is distinct from the lump of bronze. For example, if the statue were melted down, we would no longer have both a lump and a statue: This seems to show that the lump is something distinct from the statue, since one thing can exist apart from another only if they're distinct.

If this is right, then this is not a case in which one thing simply appears in two different ways, or is referred to by two different labels. It is, rather, a case in which two distinct things occupy exactly the same region of space at the same time. Most of us readily accept the idea that distinct things , broadly construed, can occupy the same place at the same time. The event of your sitting, for example, occupies exactly the same place that you do when you are seated.

But we are more reluctant to say that distinct material objects occupy the same place at the same time. Philosophers have therefore suggested various ways of making sense of the phenomenon of material constitution. One way of doing so is to say that the statue and the lump are the same material object even though they are distinct relative to some other kind e. The advantage of this idea is that it allows us to say that the statue and the lump count as one material object, thus preserving the principle of one material object to a place.

The cost, however, is that we commit ourselves to the initially puzzling idea that two distinct things can be the same material object. What, we might wonder, would it even mean for this to be true? It is hard to see why such a claim should be objectionable; and if it is right, then our problem is solved. The lump of bronze in our example is clearly distinct from The Thinker , since it can exist without The Thinker ; but it also clearly shares all the same matter in common with The Thinker , and hence, on this view, counts as the same material object.

Likewise, then, we might say that all it means for one person and another to be the same God is for them to do something analogous to sharing in common all of whatever is analogous to matter in divine beings. On this view, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same God but different persons in just the way a statue and its constitutive lump are the same material object but different form-matter compounds.

Of course, God is not material; so this can only be an analogy. But still, it helps to provide an illuminating account of inter-trinitarian relations, and it does so in a way that seems at least initially to avoid both modalism and polytheism. Brower and Rea maintain that each person of the trinity is a substance ; thus, none is a mere aspect of a substance, and so modalism is avoided. And yet they are the same substance ; and so polytheism is avoided.

This account is not entirely free of difficulties however. It is tempting to see the view as simply playing a verbal trick: Critics also object that this view does not directly answer the question of how many material objects are present for any given region, lump, or chunk. Is there an objective way of deciding how many objects are constituted by the lump of bronze that composes The Thinker? Are there only two things statue and lump or are there many more paperweight, battering ram, etc. And if there are more, what determines how many there are? The doctrine of the Incarnation holds that, at a time roughly two thousand years in the past, the second person of the trinity took on himself a distinct, fully human nature.

As a result, he was a single person in full possession of two distinct natures, one human and one divine. The Council of Chalcedon C. For example, it seems on the one hand that human beings are necessarily created beings, and that they are necessarily limited in power, presence, knowledge, and so on. On the other hand, divine beings are essentially the opposite of all those things.

Thus, it appears that one person could bear both natures, human and divine, only if such a person could be both limited and unlimited in various ways, created and uncreated, and so forth. And this is surely impossible. Two main strategies have been pursued in an attempt to resolve this apparent paradox. The first is the kenotic view. The second is the two-minds view. We shall take each in turn. According to this view, in becoming incarnate, God the Son voluntarily and temporarily laid aside some of his divine attributes in order to take on a human nature and thus his earthly mission.

If the kenotic view is correct, then contrary to what theists are normally inclined to think properties like omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are not essential to divinity: The problem, however, is that if these properties aren't essential to divinity, then it is hard to see what would be essential. If we say that something can be divine while lacking those properties, then we lose all grip on what it means to be divine.

One might respond to this worry by saying that the only property that is essential to divine beings as such is the property being divine. This reply, however, makes divinity out to be a primitive, unanalyzable property. Critics like John Hick Alternatively, one might simply deny that any properties are necessary for divinity. It is widely held in the philosophy of biology, for example, that there are no properties possession of which are jointly necessary andsufficient for membership in, say, the kind humanity.

That is, it seems that for any interesting property you might think of as partly definitive of humanity, there are or could be humans who lack that property. Thus, many philosophers think that membership in the kind is determined simply by family resemblance to paradigm examples of the kind. Something counts as human, in other words, if, and only if, it shares enough of the properties that are typical of humanity. If we were to say the same thing about divinity, there would be no in-principle objection to the idea that Jesus counts as divine despite lacking omniscience or other properties like, perhaps, omnipotence, omnipresence, or even perfect goodness.

One might just say that he is knowledgeable, powerful, and good enough that, given his other attributes, he bears the right sort of family resemblance to the other members of the Godhead to count as divine. Some have offered more refined versions of the kenotic theory, arguing that the basic view mischaracterizes the divine attributes. According to these versions of the kenotic view, rather than attribute to God properties like ommniscience, omipotence, and the like, we should instead say that God has properties like the following: These latter sorts of properties can be retained without contradiction even when certain powers are laid aside.

In this way, then, Jesus can divest himself of some of his powers to become fully human while still remaining fully divine. However, Christians have typically argued that the exalted Christ is omniscient while retaining his humanity. It is hard to see how this view can respond to such an objection. But for one response see Feenstra Moving away from the standard version of the kenotic theory, some philosophers and theologians endorse views according to which it only seems as if Christ lacked divine attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, and so on.

They are views according to which the apparent loss of divine attributes is only pretense or illusion.

Among other things, this raises the concern that the incarnation is somehow a grand deception, thus casting doubt on Christ's moral perfection. More acceptable, then, are views according to which it somehow seems even to Christ himself as if certain divine attributes which he actually possesses have been laid aside. On this view, the loss of omniscience, omnipotence, and so on is only simulated. Christ retains all of the traditional divine attributes.

But from his point of view it is, nevertheless, as if those attributes are gone. One concern that might be raised with respect to the doctrine of functional kenosis is that it is hard to see how a divine being could possibly simulate to himself, without outright pretense the loss of attributes like omniscience or omnipotence. But perhaps the resources for addressing this worry are to be found in what is now widely seen as the main rival to the traditional kenotic theory: Morris develops the two minds view in two steps, one defensive, the other constructive.

First, Morris claims that the incoherence charge against the incarnation rests on a mistake. The critic assumes that, for example, humans are essentially non-omniscient. But what are the grounds for this assertion? Unless we think that we have some special direct insight into the essential properties of human nature, our grounds are that all of the human beings we have encountered have that property. But this merely suffices to show that the property is common to humans, not that it is essential.

As Morris points out, it may be universally true that all human beings, for example, were born within ten miles of the surface of the earth, but this does not mean that this is an essential property of human beings. An offspring of human parents born on the international space station would still be human. If this is right, the defender of the incarnation can reject the critic's characterization of human nature, and thereby eliminate the conflict between divine attributes and human nature so characterized.

This merely provides a way to fend off the critic, however, without supplying any positive model for how the incarnation should be understood. In the second step, then, Morris proposes that we think about the incarnation as the realization of one person with two minds: During his earthly life, Morris proposes, Jesus Christ had two minds, with consciousness centered in the human mind.

This human mind had partial access to the contents of the divine mind, while God the Son's divine mind had full access to the corresponding human mind. The chief difficulty this view faces concerns the threat of Nestorianism the view, formally condemned by the Church, that there are two persons in the incarnate Christ. It is natural simply to identify persons with minds—or, at the very least, to assume that the number of minds equals the number of persons.

If we go with such very natural assumptions, however, the two minds view leads directly to the view that the incarnation gives us two persons, contrary to orthodoxy. Moreover, one might wonder whether taking the two minds model seriously leads us to the view that Christ suffers from something like multiple personality disorder. In response to both objections, however, one might note that contemporary psychology seems to provide resources which support the viability of the two minds model. As Morris points out elsewhere, the human mind is sometimes characterized as a system of somewhat autonomous subsystems.

The normal human mind, for example, includes on these characterizations both a conscious mind the seat of awareness and an unconscious mind. It does not really matter for present purposes whether this psychological story is correct ; the point is just that it seems coherent, and seems neither to involve multiple personality nor to imply that what seems to be a single subject is, in reality, two distinct persons. Morris proposes, then, that similar sorts of relations can be supposed to obtain between the divine and human mind of Christ.

First, a brief note about terminology. But it is not a neutral term. Rather, it already embodies a partial theory about what human salvation involves and about what the work of Christ accomplishes. In particular, it presupposes that saving human beings from death and separation from God primarily involves atoning for sin rather than say delivering human beings from some kind of bondage, repairing human nature, or something else.

Obviously these terms are not all synonymous; so part of the task of an overall theology of salvation—a soteriology—is to sort out the relations among these various terms and phrases is salvation simply to be identified with eternal life, for example? That said, however, we do not ourselves intend to advocate on behalf of any particular terminology.

In what follows, we shall discuss only three of the most well-known and widely discussed theories or families of theories about what the work of Jesus accomplishes on behalf of human beings. All take the suffering and death of Jesus to be an integral part of his work on our behalf; but the first theory holds Jesus' resurrection and ascension also to be absolutely central to that work, and the second theory holds his sinless life to be of near-equal importance. Discussing these theories under three separate headings as we do below may foster the illusion that what we have are three mutually exclusive views, each marking off a wholly distinct camp in the history of soteriological theorizing, and each aiming to provide a full accounting of what Jesus' work contributes to human salvation from death and separation from God.

As we have already indicated, however, a variety of terms and images are used in the Bible to characterize what Jesus accomplished and, in contrast with the doctrines of the trinity and incarnation, we do not have for the doctrine of salvation an ecumenical conciliar prononouncement i. Consequently, it is no surprise that many thinkers appropriate imagery from more than one of the theories described below or others besides to explain their understanding of the nature and efficacy of Jesus' work.

The ransom theory, also known as the Christus Victor theory is generally regarded as the dominant theory of the Patristic period, and has been attributed to such early Church Fathers as Origen, Athanasius, and especially Gregory of Nyssa. One might question, however, whether any of these theologians ever intended to offer the ransom story about to be described as a theory of the atonement, rather than simply an extended metaphor. These schools tend to view evil in terms of matter that is markedly inferior to goodness and lacking spiritual insight and goodness rather than as an equal force.

Many of these movements used texts related to Christianity, with some identifying themselves as specifically Christian, though quite different from the Orthodox or Roman Catholic forms. Jesus and several of his apostles, such as Thomas the Apostle , claimed as the founder of the Thomasine form of Gnosticism , figure in many Gnostic texts. Mary Magdalene is respected as a Gnostic leader, and is considered superior to the twelve apostles by some gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Mary.

John the Evangelist is claimed as a Gnostic by some Gnostic interpreters, [89] as is even St. Sethianism was one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd to 3rd centuries, and the prototype of Gnosticism as condemned by Irenaeus. Their main text is the Apocryphon of John , which does not contain Christian elements, [90] and is an amalgam of two earlier myths.

Sethian texts such as Zostrianos and Allogenes draw on the imagery of older Sethian texts, but utilize "a large fund of philosophical conceptuality derived from contemporary Platonism, that is, late middle Platonism with no traces of Christian content. According to John D. Turner , German and American scholarship views Sethianism as "a distinctly inner-Jewish, albeit syncretistic and heterodox, phenomenon", while British and French scholarship tends to see Sethianism as "a form of heterodox Christian speculation".

According to Smith, Sethianism may have begun as a pre-Christian tradition, possibly a syncretic cult that incorporated elements of Christianity and Platonism as it grew. According to Turner, Sethianism was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism , and originated in the second century as a fusion of a Jewish baptizing group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-called Barbeloites , [96] named after Barbelo , the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Bibilical exegetes, the Sethites , the "seed of Seth ".

In the early- to mid-fourth century, Sethianism fragmented into various sectarian Gnostic groups such as the Archontics , Audians, Borborites , and Phibionites, and perhaps Stratiotici , and Secundians. It was in this milieu that the idea emerged that the world was created by ignorant angels. Their baptismal ritual removed the consequences of sin, and led to a regeneration by which natural death, which was caused by these angels, was overcome.

The Simonians were centered on Simon Magus, the magician baptised by Philip and rebuked by Peter in Acts 8, who became in early Christianity the archetypal false teacher. The ascription by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and others of a connection between schools in their time and the individual in Acts 8 may be as legendary as the stories attached to him in various apocryphal books. According to Hippolytus, Simonianism is an earlier form of the Valentinian doctrine. The Basilidians or Basilideans were founded by Basilides of Alexandria in the second century.

Basilides claimed to have been taught his doctrines by Glaucus, a disciple of St. Peter , but could also have been a pupil of Menander. It was, however, almost exclusively limited to Egypt , though according to Sulpicius Severus it seems to have found an entrance into Spain through a certain Mark from Memphis. Jerome states that the Priscillianists were infected with it. Valentinianism was named after its founder Valentinus c. The school was popular, spreading to Northwest Africa and Egypt, and through to Asia Minor and Syria in the east, [] and Valentinus is specifically named as gnostikos by Irenaeus.

It was an intellectually vibrant tradition, [] with an elaborate and philosophically "dense" form of Gnosticism. Valentinus' students elaborated on his teachings and materials, and several varieties of their central myth are known.

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Valentinian Gnosticism may have been monistic rather than dualistic. The followers of Valentinius attempted to systematically decode the Epistles, claiming that most Christians made the mistake of reading the Epistles literally rather than allegorically. Valentinians understood the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Romans to be a coded reference to the differences between Psychics people who are partly spiritual but have not yet achieved separation from carnality and Pneumatics totally spiritual people.

The Valentinians argued that such codes were intrinsic in gnosticism, secrecy being important to ensuring proper progression to true inner understanding. According to Bentley Layton "Classical Gnosticism" and "The School of Thomas" antedated and influenced the development of Valentinus, whom Layton called "the great [Gnostic] reformer" and "the focal point" of Gnostic development.

While in Alexandria, where he was born, Valentinus probably would have had contact with the Gnostic teacher Basilides , and may have been influenced by him. According to Petrement, Valentinus represented a moderation of the anti-Judaism of the earlier Hellenized teachers; the demiurge, widely regarded as a mythological depiction of the Old Testament God of the Hebrews, is depicted as more ignorant than evil.

The Thomasine Traditions refers to a group of texts which are attributed to the apostle Thomas. King notes that "Thomasine Gnosticism" as a separate category is being criticised, and may "not stand the test of scholarly scrutiny". He rejected the Old Testament, and followed a limited Christian canon, which included only a redacted version of Luke, and ten edited letters of Paul. Hermeticism is closely related to Gnosticism, but its orientation is more positive. The Persian Schools, which appeared in the western Persian province of Babylonia in particular, within the Sassanid province of Asuristan , and whose writings were originally produced in the Aramaic dialects spoken in Babylonia at the time, are representative of what is believed to be among the oldest of the Gnostic thought forms.

These movements are considered by most to be religions in their own right, and are not emanations from Christianity or Judaism. Manichaeism was founded by the Prophet Mani — Mani's father was a member of the Jewish-Christian sect of the Elcesaites , a subgroup of the Gnostic Ebionites. At ages 12 and 24, Mani had visionary experiences of a "heavenly twin" of his, calling him to leave his father's sect and preach the true message of Christ. In —41, Mani travelled to the Indo-Greek Kingdom of the Sakhas in modern-day Afghanistan , where he studied Hinduism and its various extant philosophies.

Returning in , he joined the court of Shapur I , to whom he dedicated his only work written in Persian, known as the Shabuhragan. The original writings were written in Syriac Aramaic , in a unique Manichaean script. Manichaeism conceives of two coexistent realms of light and darkness that become embroiled in conflict. Certain elements of the light became entrapped within darkness, and the purpose of material creation is to engage in the slow process of extraction of these individual elements. In the end the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness.

Manicheanism inherits this dualistic mythology from Zurvanist Zoroastrianism , [] in which the eternal spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu. This dualistic teaching embodied an elaborate cosmological myth that included the defeat of a primal man by the powers of darkness that devoured and imprisoned the particles of light.

According to Kurt Rudolph, the decline of Manichaeism that occurred in Persia in the 5th century was too late to prevent the spread of the movement into the east and the west. The influence of Manicheanism was attacked by imperial elects and polemical writings, but the religion remained prevalent until the 6th century, and still exerted influence in the emergence of the Paulicians , Bogomils and Cathari in the Middle Ages, until it was ultimately stamped out by the Catholic Church.

In the east, Rudolph relates, Manicheanism was able to bloom, because the religious monopoly position previously held by Christianity and Zoroastrianism had been broken by nascent Islam. In the early years of the Arab conquest, Manicheanism again found followers in Persia mostly amongst educated circles , but flourished most in Central Asia, to which it had spread through Iran. Here, in , Manicheanism became the state religion of the Uyghur Empire.

Their religion has been practised primarily around the lower Karun , Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. Mandaeanism is still practiced in small numbers, in parts of southern Iraq and the Iranian province of Khuzestan , and there are thought to be between 60, and 70, Mandaeans worldwide.

Although the exact chronological origins of this movement are not known, John the Baptist eventually came to be a key figure in the religion, as an emphasis on baptism is part of their core beliefs. As with Manichaeism, despite certain ties with Christianity, [] Mandaeans do not believe in Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed.

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Their beliefs and practices likewise have little overlap with the religions that manifested from those religious figures and the two should not be confused. Significant amounts of original Mandaean Scripture, written in Mandaean Aramaic , survive in the modern era. After its demise in the Mediterranean world, Gnosticism lived on in the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, and resurfaced in the western world. The Paulicians , an Adoptionist group which flourished between and in Armenia and the Eastern Themes of the Byzantine Empire , were accused by orthodox medieval sources of being Gnostic and quasi Manichaean Christian.

The Bogomils , emerged in Bulgaria between and and spread throughout Europe. The Cathars Cathari, Albigenses or Albigensians were also accused by their enemies of the traits of Gnosticism; though whether or not the Cathari possessed direct historical influence from ancient Gnosticism is disputed. If their critics are reliable the basic conceptions of Gnostic cosmology are to be found in Cathar beliefs most distinctly in their notion of a lesser, Satanic, creator god , though they did not apparently place any special relevance upon knowledge gnosis as an effective salvific force.

The message of the Islamic prophet Muhammad shows, according to the time of its promulgation, close relations to Gnostic ideas. The Quran, like Gnostic cosmology, makes a sharp distinction between this world and the afterlife. The notion of four rivers in heaven separating this world from the other, also appears frequently in Mandaean literature.

God is commonly thought of as being beyond human comprehension. In some Islamic schools of thought, somehow identifiable with the Gnostic Monad. And according to the Islamic belief in strict Oneness of God , there was no room for a lower deity; such as the demiurge. Ibn al-Muqaffa depicted the Islamic deity as an demonic entity who "fights with humans and boasts about His victories" and sitting on a throne, from which He can descend. It would be impossible that both light and darkness were created from one source, since they were regarded as two different eternal principles.

Islam also integrated traces of an entity given authority over the lower world in some early writings: Iblis is regarded by some Sufis as the owner of this world, and humans must avoid the treasures of this world, since they would belong to him. However, the Ismailism were often criticised as non-Islamic.

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Ghazali characterized them, as a group who are just outwardly Shias but were actually adherence of a dualistic and philosophical religion. Further traces of Gnostic ideas can be found in Sufi anthropogenic. A human being captured by his animal desires, mistakenly claims autonomy and independence from the "higher God", thus resembling the lower deity in classical gnostic traditions. However, since the goal is not to abandon the created world, but just to free oneself from ones own lower desires, it can be disputed wether this can still be Gnostic, but rather a completion of the message of Muhammad.

However the Gnostic light metaphorics and the idea of unity of existence still prevailed in later Islamic thought. Gnostic ideas found a Jewish variation in the mystical study of Kabbalah. Many core Gnostic ideas reappear in Kabbalah, where they are used for dramatically reinterpreting earlier Jewish sources according to this new system. While some scholars in the middle of the 20th century tried to assume an influence between the Cathar "gnostics" and the origins of the Kabbalah, this assumption has proved to be an incorrect generalization not substantiated by any original texts.

Kabbalah does not employ the terminology or labels of non-Jewish Gnosticism, but grounds the same or similar concepts in the language of the Torah the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The Mandaeans are an ancient Gnostic sect that have survived to this day and are found today in Iraq. A number of 19th-century thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer , [] Albert Pike and Madame Blavatsky studied Gnostic thought extensively and were influenced by it, and even figures like Herman Melville and W. Yeats were more tangentially influenced.

Early 20th-century thinkers who heavily studied and were influenced by Gnosticism include Carl Jung who supported Gnosticism , Eric Voegelin who opposed it , Jorge Luis Borges who included it in many of his short stories , and Aleister Crowley , with figures such as Hermann Hesse being more moderately influenced. Alfred North Whitehead was aware of the existence of the newly discovered Gnostic scrolls. Accordingly, Michel Weber has proposed a Gnostic interpretation of his late metaphysics.

Prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in Gnosticism was known primarily through the works of heresiologists , Church Fathers who opposed those movements. These writings had an antagonistic bias towards gnostic teachings, and were incomplete. Several heresiological writers, such as Hippolytus, made little effort to exactly record the nature of the sects they reported on, or transcribe their sacred texts. Reconstructions of incomplete Gnostic texts were attempted in modern times, but research on Gnosticism was coloured by the orthodox views of those heresiologists.

Since this time, both Simon and Menander have been considered as 'proto-Gnostic'. From Samaria he charted an apparent spread of the teachings of Simon through the ancient "knowers" into the teachings of Valentinus and other, contemporary Gnostic sects. It also focuses on the connection between pre-Socratic and therefore Pre-Incantation of Christ ideas and the false beliefs of early gnostic heretical leaders.

Thirty-three of the groups he reported on are considered Gnostic by modern scholars, including 'the foreigners' and 'the Seth people'. Prior to the discovery at Nag Hammadi, a limited number of texts were available to students of Gnosticism. Reconstructions were attempted from the records of the heresiologists, but these were necessarily coloured by the motivation behind the source accounts.

Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman. These codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery, and buried after Bishop Athanasius condemned the use of non-canonical books in his Festal Letter of A 1st- or 2nd-century date of composition for the lost Greek originals has been proposed, though this is disputed; the manuscripts themselves date from the 3rd and 4th centuries.

The Nag Hammadi texts demonstrated the fluidity of early Christian scripture and early Christianity itself. Prior to the discovery of Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic movements were largely perceived through the lens of the early church heresiologists. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim — proposed that Gnosticism developed on its own in Greece and Mesopotamia, spreading to the west and incorporating Jewish elements. According to Mosheim, Jewish thought took Gnostic elements and used them against Greek philosophy.

Horn and Ernest Anton Lewald proposed Persian and Zoroastrian origins, while Jacques Matter described Gnosticism as an intrusion of eastern cosmological and theosophical speculation into Christianity. In the s Gnosticism was placed within Greek philosophy, especially neo-Platonism.

The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule "history of religions school", 19th century had a profound influence on the study of Gnosticism.

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Hans Jonas — took an intermediate approach, using both the comparative approach of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule and the existentialist hermeneutics of Bultmann. Jonas emphasized the duality between God and the world, and concluded that Gnosticism cannot be derived from Platonism. Contemporary scholarship largely agrees that Gnosticism has Jewish or Judeo-Christian origins; [20] this theses is most notably put forward by Gershom G. Scholem — and Gilles Quispel — The study of Gnosticism and of early Alexandrian Christianity received a strong impetus from the discovery of the Coptic Nag Hammadi Library in According to Matthew J.

Dillon, six trends can be discerned in the definitions of Gnosticism: The Messina conference on the origins of gnosis and Gnosticism proposed to designate. This definition has now been abandoned. According to Dillon, the texts from Nag Hammadi made clear that this definition was limited, and that they are "better classified by movements such as Valentinian , mythological similarity Sethian , or similar tropes presence of a Demiurge. Hans Jonas discerned two main currents of Gnosticism, namely Syrian-Egyptian, and Persian, which includes Manicheanism and Mandaeanism.

Silly church rituals can't help anyone. Religions evolved through natural selection. Those that were better at outgrowing and overrunning their counterparts were the ones which have survived to the present. Islam is only a little better at this than xianity because it was able to incorporate lessons learned and trim off unnecessary baggage.

It doesnt matter what they say; it matters what they DO that makes them so dangerous. Further, for Christians to hear as well as unbelievers, Jesus actually told the ritualistic Priests and the lawyers and scribes that, "The Harlots and publicans go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you.

The problem here was the same as the problem in every major world religion today, especially the big 3 so-called Abrahamic religions: IN spite of Constantine trying to ruin everything, some gems have survived. Islam is a deception which is easily tipped further one way or another to encourage murder in the name of a false prophet, muhammad. Islam does not do anything better than other religions, in fact it does worse. It views God as being transcient and unknowable, and therefore salvation is unknowable. To them, mass murder in the name of their false god "allah" is encouraged and rewarded with carnal benefits such as extra wives in heaven and so forth.

The heaven Jesus spoke of is one where humanity transcends the carnal and the mortal pleasures to a greater spirituality with God. Xians have nothing to say against the cultures who are still doing these things because their books all require them. They are edicts from your GOD. Where does the audacity to ignore certain parts of the bible while insisting that others be adhered to, come from? Ill tell you - it comes from the rise of secular western culture and the fact that religions are not ALLOWED to do what god tells them to do in their books.

Many religionists are understandably unhappy about this. This includes expressing their inherent bigotry in public. Although you WILL hear it in church, temple and mosque, and from evangelists on tv and radio. And I thought that inciting bigotry was illegal. Islam is a deception which is easily tipped further one way or another to encourage murder in the name of a false prophet But lrrkrrr your book says exactly the same things, and REQUIRES that they be carried out, in the name of gods little boy.

How do you rationalize this, if I can even use the word in the context of religion? Do you want specific verses? Mohammud is a false prophet, and he is one of the few false prophets who is specifically predicted by a Bible author, namely Paul in the book of Galatians, where Paul indicates that someone was going to claim an "Angel from heaven" gave them something contradictory to spread.

If you are referring to the Old Testament, it was intended to that the Jews would admit they couldn't keep it, but in their pride they said "This we will do," which they never actually could keep it. For the most part they actually didn't go around stoning people, because they mostly got that. If you stoned everyone who was an adulterer, witch, or an idolater, you'd quickly kill the majority of the population for one reason or another.

When Jesus came on the scene, and asked what to do with an adulteress, he said, "Let him who is without sin first cast a stone at her. Answer the question Lrrkrrr. Are you less pious than the muslims who do these things perhaps not to mention the xian faithful in northern ireland and serbian and lebanese militias, and the lords resistance army? Do they love god more than you?

And there hasn't been a legitimate stoning since then, because the law was never intended to kill people, it was intended to convict people and turn them to God. In the New Testament church leaders simply excommunicated people until they changed their behavior. They know nothing of Love nor mercy nor God. I have also told people that I believe some of the books in the old testament are corrupted, in fact there is even internal evidence in parts of the Old Testament which suggests that other parts have been heavily doctored or replaced.

I don't believe the texts we have regarding the prophet Samuel, nor even much of what we have of Moses and Joshua, are in agreement with the teachings of Jesus in certain regards, because Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world, else his people would fight. Do you know that secular law actually agrees with most of what Paul wrote to Timothy?

Right now we don't kill them, we just put them in prison forever As one prisoner from a maximum security facility even said, "once someone has been in here a long time, ten years, they should NEVER let them out. The Purpose of the Law …24Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. It was supposed to make you realize that you could not live up to God's standard of goodness through your own efforts, and therefore make you ask for forgiveness and salvation through a savior.

There is not a single command by Jesus or an Apostle to kill anyone in the new testament Oh no its only implied there. Jesus says to sell your cloak and buy a sword. And that he came not to bring peace but a sword "For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. Not to mention the foulest form of all; self-murder, or martyrdom. But its funny how you godders want to separate yourselves from the OT.

They referred to it a lot. You reject the Law but you still want the 10 commandments in courthouses. What makes you think you can pick and choose? So if the Law no longer applies why is it still attached to the NT? If youre required to refrain from killing n the commandments, why elsewhere in the OT is killing mandated? And WHY have countless generations of xians fully understood that the OT is the word of god and have obeyed it? What makes you think that your lovely genteel civilized contemporary interpretation is better than the ones the conquistadors or the southern plantation owners or the rwandan priests believed?

I see a whole lot of speculation here. I think physics can be spiritual. I also think churches can fulfill psychosocial needs. People need community and rituals. Church rituals might not be as silly as you think. More of you should go to church.