Two significant threats to the early church were persecution and Gnosticism as a system of beliefs. A significant portion of the New Testament is devoted separately to both threats. We know that persecution continues to be a threat to Christianity. But what about Gnosticism? Was it just an ancient system of beliefs that died out, or does it continue to affect the church today?
The origins of Gnosticism can be traced back to Plato (4th century BCE). Plato in particular distinguished between reality (knowledge) and the apparent (opinion). The visible world was deemed by Plato to be the apparent, and he declared the invisible essence to be the true reality discerned through the intellect. This is just the opposite of what we would expect, however, notice that he attributed reality to knowledge. In Aristotle’s proposition, knowledge represents the first cause of things. (1)
We should stop here and highlight that Plato did not have a justifiable reason to ascribe knowledge to reality. The visible world represents reality for that is the world in which we live. Denying that reality exists in the tangible and visible is deception. In the Bible, knowledge comes from God (John 1:1). Therefore, knowledge has its origin in the spiritual world rather than in the visible world. Plato and Aristotle both denied the fundamental existence of God. This exposes some of the dangers in philosophy, which is rooted in Plato and Aristotle.
Plato’s ideas are all well and good in philosophy, yet not until the early church after the resurrection of Christ do we find Plato’s philosophies appearing as a system of belief. On the surface, ascribing knowledge to God and attributing God as the first cause of things sounds good theologically. However, certain essentials must be denied to arrive at this belief.
Among the doctrines today, we would understand “God as the first cause of all things” to be the basis for Calvinism, reformed theology, and predestination. This gets right into the age old debate of just how much free will humanity has.
Though not identified as Gnosticism, Philo is the earliest known teacher of what would ultimately become known as Gnosticism. (2) We may remember Philo from his debate with Justin Martyr, who is regarded as an early church father. Justin was an apologist and defender of Christ’s teachings. Because I liked the name and studied Justin Martyr during my seminary education, I proposed that my firstborn be named Justin (also means justice).
The early church fathers (Iraneaus, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, and others) taught heavily on free will and personal responsibility. Though Augustine would later reject them, their teaching on free will was no mistake for they were countering the teachings of Gnosticism. Down through the centuries since the time of Christ, the extent of the freedom of will which we still possess has been a theological debate. This debate originates and finds its continuation in large part from Gnosticism.
Gnosticism attempted to deal with the origin of existence and origin of evil through philosophy and made Christ’s teachings subordinate to philosophy. (3) By origin of evil, Gnosticism primarily refers to what we today would describe as original sin or total depravity. The early church fathers disputed original sin because it necessarily diminished humanity’s personal responsibility and freedom of the will. Put another way, total depravity insinuates that we are already as evil as we possibly can be. However, that is just not true. A child does not start out life in great evil. Corruption increases as the heart continues to turn away from God (freedom of the will). The early church fathers taught that it was far easier to turn to God than we prefer to teach today (freedom of the will). This indicates the various barriers to get to God we have tragically created today in the name of doctrinal differences.
One very clear teaching we cannot escape when reading the early church fathers is personal responsibility. They taught extensively that we are responsible for our response to or rejection of Christ. Quite obviously, we would prefer to evade all personal responsibility for any wrongdoing.
If God and the spiritual, the invisible world, represents the first cause of all things, then everything, including evil and sin, originate from and through God. It is from such teaching that we have the ideology of double predestination, ascribing to God the sole authority to promote individuals to heaven and condemn souls to hell. As the first cause of things, God caused evil and sin to occur in the world, and indeed, such teaching would lead us to believe that all evil in the world has its origin in God, rather than our own personal responsibility.
The errors of Gnosticism simplified our representation of God by depriving Him of the attributes which are the source of “religious feeling” and moral obligation. The philosophy on which Gnosticism is constructed reduces God to cause and effect. Free will is, thus, swallowed up into an “evolution of being.” The necessary result is that “evil is no longer a moral but a natural phenomenon; it becomes identical with the imperfect, the relative, the finite; all nature being governed by the same law and developed from the same principle, no one portion of its phenomena can itself be more evil, more contrary to the law, than another; all alike are evil only so far as they are imperfect…” (4)
There is, thus, no freedom of human will within the framework of Gnosticism. All emanates from God, all physical represents evil which is to be abandoned, and none can do but what the first cause of things has ordained. However, because there is no freedom of human will, sin is no longer a moral transgression, for it has become an involuntary action. And just like that, the false teaching of Gnosticism dispenses with all personal responsibility.
The Gnostic proposition that all flesh and the material world are inherently evil is contrary to Scripture, particularly in Genesis 1 and 2 in which God created and called the creation good. In John chapter 1, we see that Christ Jesus had an active role in creation, and nothing suggests that the creation is inherently evil. The grossest denial, however, is the incarnation of Christ, which is untenable for the Gnostics because the divine could not conceivably inhabit a corrupt body. The Messiah, therefore, was considered to be a phantom of reality. Denying the incarnation also denies the literal death on the cross as well as the resurrection.
During the second century, the followers of Basilides, a prominent Gnostic, were known as “the elect”. An elect person did not make any intellectual or moral decision of faith; rather, election was a gift of God based on an unknowable decision to choose that individual and not others (another common teaching among modern Reformed teachers).
Aside from Gnosticism representing a false teaching as a system of belief, one of the hallmarks is the apostasy of its adherents. Valentine, for example, was an ardent teacher of Gnosticism, and it is recorded that his communion with the church was nominal, at best. Valentine seceded from the church (became apostate) because he was not chosen for leadership.
Early adherents to Gnosticism were particularly engaged in gross and heinous sin and believed they were righteous because of the knowledge they possessed. Freedom of the will, personal responsibility, and consequences for actions obviously had to be disposed of, or they all would have understood their own guilt.
Augustine, who is often credited for the foundation upon which reformed and Calvinist theology are constructed, was particularly immersed in Gnosticism. The traits of Gnosticism which continue to be taught today can be traced back to Augustine. In particular, Augustine was a follower of Valentine. (5)
Augustine claimed to have renounced Gnosticism upon conversion, however, his written works continued to possess in them significant influences of Gnosticism. Augustine at one time wrote that God’s “greatness is the same as his wisdom; for he is not great in name, but in power; and his goodness is the same as wisdom and greatness, and his truth is the same as all these”. Wisdom (knowledge) was elevated above all else, or more simply summarized, God is knowledge, and greatness stems from knowledge. Unfortunately, the worship of knowledge above all else is false worship.
The roots of eternal security and double predestination, which are both commonly taught today, are traceable back to the core teachings of Gnosticism.
Footnotes: The Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries, Henry Longueville Mansel, D.D., edited by J.B. Lightfoot, D.D.
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