Modern Gnostic - Determinism

In the writings of Irenaeus we read about the Gnostic teachings of the Valentinians, the Marconians, and others of his day

Here are sections taken from the modern thinking within the Gnostic Religion that will reveal that Valentinian Gnosticism is still thriving as a predominant group within this sect.

In this first Section you find the Gnostics have two separate fractions “The Determinist” and the other ”The Freewillist”. You can see clearly that the Determinist’s are the ones that feel they have as they term it the “the correct and coherent mental worldmodel”.

 

Determinism in Gnosticism
http://www.egodeath.com/DeterminismGnosticism.htm#_Toc64388077

“How should we feel and think about those people who are deterministically predestined to never convert from freewillist assumptions to philosophical determinism, which holds that we have full practical freewill but no metaphysical freewill?

Putting aside the detail that people don't always fall cleanly into freewillist thinkers or determinist thinkers, we generally can hypothetically divide people into two groups: those who are deterministically predestined to conclude that philosophical determinism holds, and those who are deterministically predestined to conclude that metaphysical (in addition to practical) freewill is the case.

We cannot know, at a given point in time, whether a particular presently freewillist thinker is deterministically predestined to embrace determinism in the near future, later in life, or never. Only the future knows specifically who is destined to embrace determinism before they die. However, determinists know in general that there exists some set of people who are in fact predestined to never embrace determinism -- we simply are unable to identify specifically who these individuals are.

How should we think about that somewhat abstract, yet concretely present, group of people, the perpetual freewillists? Can they be forgiven for being destined for lasting delusion? Ought we determinists feel pity for them? Ought we feel grateful for being among those who are destined for embracing the correct and coherent mental worldmodel, determinism?”

 

As we found in Irenaeus’ writings and his refutation of the Valentinian Gnostics, you find that the Gnostics have differing views and as in the first section they had the two separate views, and now we see the Valentinians and Augustinian gnostic teachings are discussed.

It is very revealing that the Gnostics of today would hold Augustine’s teachings at such high esteem, for he is the first of all the Church Fathers to teach Unconditional Predestination or what the Gnostics taught as Fate and now teach as Determinism.

 

“How can two incompatible mental worldmodels be conjoined into a single congregation? Here, Valentinians masterfully played with bending logic, like the Augustinian key, masterful, consistently inconsistent, oil-and-water idea that "When you do evil, you are fully to blame (implies freewillist thinking); but when you do good, God gets all the credit (implies determinist thinking)."

The Valentinian Pneumatics, from their lofty vantage point above the thinking of the Psychics, grant that the Psychics get to have a certain, restricted sort of "salvation": that entire scheme of salvation which is premised on the freewill-thinking delusion.

The Psychic, freewill-premised version of salvation is granted a certain, constrained sort of legitimacy, or quasi-legitimacy by the Pneumatic, perfected no-free-willists (or "no-free-will-in-the-cosmos-ists"). The clever, masterful bending of logic occurs by the Pneumatics saying "To protect the unity of the congregation, we suppose and grant that the person (noninitiate) who is saved according to the freewill-premised scheme of salvation will in the end gain full gnosis, as something tacked on later *despite* their now-erroneous conception of salvation."

According to such a Valentinian logical scheme, "half" the psychics are secretly destined to fit the qualifications for the lower conception of salvation, and half, perdition. And the hylics is more of an empty logically implied group, "those who are concerned neither with the lower, freewill-premised scheme of salvation, nor with the higher, no-free-will-premised scheme of salvation.

To be more accurate, by comparing the earlier Gnostic idea of hylics (the lower half of a "2 natures" scheme) vs. the later Valentinian definition of hylics (the lower third of a "3 natures" scheme: The above describes the eventual outcome of the Valentinian compromised theory.”

 

In this next section we see how the Gnostics teach the enlightenment process and that Calvinism can be seen as “an idealistic 2-level system” and “a multi-level initiation process”, “in which one is suddenly lifted into his election all at once”.

 

“The advantage of picturing enlightenment as a 2-level system that jumps all at once from complete darkness to complete light is its simplicity of contrast. Perhaps even Calvinism can be seen as both an idealistic 2-level system (in which one is suddenly lifted into his election all at once) and a multi-level initiation process in which one's election is gradually realized.

There are pros and cons in 2-level, 3-level, and 7-level (or more) theories of psychospiritual development. The 3-level system has most advantages of the 2-level approach, and most of the advantages of the 7-level approach.

Gnosticism could be considered:

• A 2-level system: there are the children of darkness or light; the sarkik/psychic or the pneumatic, the lost/called or the chosen.
• A 3-level system: sarkik, psychic, pneumatic. Lost, called, and chosen.
• An 8-level system: voyaging through the gateways of the 7 heavenly spheres, the perfected mind finally steps beyond spacetime.

 

Considering today's Christian church -- an actually diverse situation -- and considering that all religions are mostly lower religion, including Gnosticism -- consider a 3-level system:

1. Exoteric Christianity
2. Egoic Gnosticism (or, beginning Esoteric Christianity or beginning Mystical Christianity)
3. Transcendent Gnosticism (or, mature Esoteric Christianity)

In religion, freedom is sometimes promised in an ironic way; one becomes free from the penalty of death, or becomes a slave of God or a slave of Christ rather than of Caesar or the Archons or Heimarmene/Necessity. In the Roman empire being a slave of a high man was sometimes more desirable than being a lowly freedman.”

 

It is clear that in Gnosticism today, just as it was the case in the second century Fate or Determinism is the key to being a true Gnostic. In this last section you can see that “Any school of Gnosticism that is based on 'freewill' in any ordinary sense of the notion is a sham”.

 

There are only two religions: the religion of freewill, and the religion of no-free-will. The latter means that there can be no freewill of the ordinarily assumed type, but only of a transcendent type. We can't say exactly what the "freedom of God" or "divine free will" could mean, positively, but we can negatively assert that such freedom is certainly not the familiar, carelessly assumed freewill notion held by the beasts and children.

Any school of Gnosticism that is based on 'freewill' in any ordinary sense of the notion is a sham: lower, exoteric Gnosticism that has not experienced how entirely problematic the conventional concept of freewill is. The conventional freewill idea is doomed to self-seizure of its power.