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Background
Background
Jesus and Paul had preached a message that was available to the poor and unlearned not just scholarly rabbis or erudite philosophers, but around 1st century AD some groups, known as Gnostics, claimed to have special mysterious knowledge (‘Gnosis’) which had been handed down in secret by the first apostles and which set its possessors in a privileged position apart from the simple faithful.
The ideas initially flourished but in the second century, the Gnostics had lots of arguments with other christians. A famous Bishop and thinker called Ireneaus (130 - 202 AD) wrote a book called Against Heresies. Ireneaus thought that the Gnostics were distorting the ideas that had been passed down from Jesus through the Apostles. He said that Gnosticism was heresy. An idea was considered heresy if it made the Christians argue amongst themselves and was divisive, and corrupted the message of Christianity.
The Gnostic’s argument
The Gnostic’s argument
The Gnostics argued that the world was not made by God - but instead must have been made by a malevolent being. We can formalise their argument as follows:
If God is perfect, then he would not create anything that was imperfect
God is perfect
∴ God did not create anything that was imperfect
The material world is imperfect - Full of sin and evil and bad things
∴ God did not create the material world
∴ the world must have been created by some imperfect or evil force!
Therefore, our aim should be to escape this earthly life, and they thought that we can do this by living in our minds and receiving Gnosis.
Ireneaus’ response
Ireneaus’ response
Ireneaus disagreed, arguing that, yes, the world was imperfect, but that imperfection is in fact a gift.
If the world were perfect, then we would have no sense of the love of God.
The love of God is the greatest gift of all
∴ it would be terrible if the world were perfect.
I think that we can explain Irenaeus point with the following analogies:
Imagine a small child who is rich and spoilt. Whatever he asks for his mother immediately brings him. Because he has his every whim fulfilled, he thinks that everything is under his control - he only has to ask, and whatever he asks for arrives. His mother appears to be merely an instrument of his will and so he feels no gratitude towards her. It is only when, one day, his mother is unable to bring him what he wants that he realises her role in the process and recognises that she was responsible for bringing him everything he wanted. In this way, he became aware of the love of his mother.
Or imagine a spider floating around on a plastic bag, now going this way, now going that. For the first day that she travels around on the bag, it just so happens that whichever way the spider wants to go, there the wind takes her - so the spider thinks that travelling by plastic bag is just a matter of will. It is only on the second day, when the wind takes the spider where she doesn’t want to go, that she realises how lucky she had been on the first.
Or as Ireneaus himself put it:
God showed himself, by the fall of man, as patient, benign, merciful, mighty to save. Man is therefore most ungrateful, if, unmindful of his own lot, and of the benefits held out to him, he do not acknowledge divine grace.
1. Long-suffering therefore was God, when man became a defaulter, as foreseeing that victory which should be granted to him through the Word. For, when strength was made perfect in weakness,[1] it showed the kindness and transcendent power of God…. For he (Satan) thus rendered him (man) more ungrateful towards his Creator, obscured the love which God had towards man, and blinded his mind not to perceive what is worthy of God, comparing himself with, and judging himself equal to, God.
2. This, therefore, was the [object of the] long-suffering of God, that man, passing through all things, and acquiring the knowledge of moral discipline, then attaining to the resurrection from the dead, and learning by experience what is the source of his deliverance, may always live in a state of gratitude to the Lord, having obtained from Him the gift of incorruptibility, that he might love Him the more; for “he to whom more is forgiven, loveth more:”
—Ireneaus, Against Heresies, Chapter XXTasks
Tasks
Explain why the Gnostics thought that the world must have been made by an evil power.
Explain Ireneaus’ response.
Which side do you agree with more? Explain your answer.
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