the challenge of modern gnosticism

7/25/2019 The Challenge of Modern Gnosticism

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The Challenge of Modern GnosticismAuthor(s): Thomas J. J. AltizerSource: Journal of Bible and Religion, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1962), pp. 18-25Published by: Oxford University Press

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2/9

h e

hal l enge

o

o d e r

Gnosticism

THOMAS

J.

J.

ALTIZER

EW fieldsof

study

today

are

in

such

a

state of

flux

as

is

that

of Gnosticism.

The

discovery

for

the

first

time

of a

genuine

ancient

Gnostic

library,

the

renewed

appreciation

of

the

problem posed

by

the

transition of

Christianity

from a

primitive

eschatological

form

to

a

Hellenistic

mystical

and sacramental

form,

and the

realization

that in numerous

and

startling

ways

ancient

Gnostic motifs parallelmodern man's experi-

ence of

God and

the

world,

have

all con-

tributed to the

ferment

in

contemporary

Gnostic studies.

One is

immediately

faced

with

the

vexing

problem

of

whether

Gnosti-

cism

embodies

a

universal

religious

reality

or

is

no more than

a

particular

and ancient

his-

torical

episode.

This article

assumes

that

there is a

modem

religious

phenomenon

which

may

justly

be

termed

Gnostic

regard-

less of whether

any

genuine

historical con-

tinuity

exists between

ancient

and

modern

Gnosticism.

I

Ancient

Gnosticism

must be

defined

here,

if

only

in

a

cursory

manner.

Gnosticism

was

a

violent

reaction

against

the

world of self-

conscious

and

rational

thinking

evolved

by

classical and Hellenistic culture and an

ecstatic

return

to

the

mythical

world

of

archaic

religious

sensibility.

To

borrow

Nietzsche's

categories,

it

was a

victory

of

the

Dionysian

over

the

Apollonian

conscious-

ness.

This

accounts for

the

artificial

quality

of much

Gnostic

myth-making,

as

well

as

for

the

deeply

rooted

opposition

of

ancient

Gnosticism

to the whole

Greek

way

of

under-

standing

and

celebrating

the world.

Perhaps

the

most

distinctive

feature of

Gnosticism

is

the violence

of its

opposition

to the

world

(whether

defined

as the Greek

kosmos

or

as

the whole

realm

of

history

and

civilization).

The Gnostic

deity

can

be

defined

as

simply

the

polar opposite

of the world.

Union

with

this

deity

takes

place only

through

a

mystical

form of knowledge, gnosis, which is realized

in the believer

to

the extent

that

he

progres-

sively

dissolves

all

awareness

of

the

world.

The soul

(pneuma)

of man

is

ordinarily

a

prisoner

of the

world;

redemption

can

take

place

only

through

a

shattering

or

dissolution

of

everything

that binds

man

to the

world,

so that

the soul

may

then ascend

to

the

absolutely

transcendent

realm.

The

radically

world-denying

spirit

of

ancient Gnosticism has been

astutely

cap-

tured

by

Hans

Jonas:

...

contrary

to the

modern

analogue,

the

with-

drawal

of the divine

from

the cosmos

leaves

the

latter

not as

a

neutral,

value-indifferent,

erely

physical

fact but

as a

separatistic

power

whose

very

self-positing

outside God

betrays

a

direction

of

will

away

from

God;

and its

existence is

the

em-

bodiment

of that

will.

Thus

awareness

of the

world

denotes

not

only

its

being

alien

to

God and

devoid

of his lightbutalso its beinga forcealienatingrom

God.

In

short,

t denotes

ultimately

spiritual,

ot

merely

physical,

fact....

To

Gnostic

piety

the

true

God

is

chiefly

defined

by

this

contraposition.

As

the world

s that

which

alienates rom

God,

so

God is that

whichalienates

nd

liberates rom

the

world.

God as

the

negation

of

the

world

has

a

nihilistic

unction

with

regard

o

all

inner-worldly

attachments

nd

values.'

Although

Jonas

ignores

the

fact

that

much

modern myth-making symbolizes the evil of

the

world--e.g.,

Rimbaud,

Yeats,

and

Kafka

--the

truth

is that all

Gnosticism

is

essen-

tially

and

profoundly

world-opposing.

For

the

Gnostic,

whether

ancient

or

modem,

his

THOMAS J. J. ALTIZER is Associate Pro-

fessor of Bible

and

Religion

in

Emory

University,

Atlanta,

Georgia.

His

Ph.D.

is

in

the

history

of

religions

from

the

University

of

Chicago.

He

is

the

author

of

Oriental

Mysticism

and

Biblical

Es-

chatology

(Westminster

Press, 1961).

18

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3/9

THE

CHALLENGE

OF

MODERN

GNOSTICISM

19

true

or authentic

self

must

be

wholly

other

than the

being

of this world.

Accordingly,

the

Gnostic

God is

an

alien

god,

if

only

be-

cause

of the

Gnostic's own

alienation

from

the

world.

As

Jonas says,

This God

must

be

acosmic,

because

the

cosmos has

become

the realm of that which

is

alien to

the

self. 2

Here we

find

a

deep

coincidence between

the

world of

ancient

Gnosticism and

many

of

the

most

creative

expressions

of the

modern

spirit,

a

state

of affairs which

enables

scholars

to

play

the

merry game

of

seeking

out the

Gnostic

roots of

many

of our

greatest

modem

artists

and thinkers.

II

Once we conceive

Gnosticism's most

dis-

tinctive

feature as its

opposition

to

the

world,

it

is

extremely

difficult to

limit

the

arena

of

modem

Gnosticism.

As

Nietzsche

many

times

remarked,

ever since

Copernicus

man

has

been

falling

into

a

mysterious

x.

And

certainly

ever since

the

seventeenth

century,

Western

man

has been

shuddering

before

the

vastness of the cosmos

and

its alien

character.

For

modem

man has

become

increasingly

alienated from the

reality

of the

world.

A

glance

at

the basic

ontological categories

of

two seminal

contemporary

thinkers

will illus-

trate this

truth.

One

of

Heidegger's

most

basic

distinctions is

that

between

Dasein,

human

existence

or human

reality,

and

Seiendes,

that

which is or

existing

things. The distinction is ontological in the

sense

that

the

reality

of Dasein

is

in

some

sense

other than

the

reality

of

Seiendes.

In

like

manner,

Sartre's

whole

ontology

is

grounded

in

his distinction

between

the

two

modes of

being

created

by

human

conscious-

ness and

its

object,

the

pour-soi

( being-for-

itself )

and the

en-soi

( being-in-itself ).

This

same

spirit

is found in

much

modem

theology.

In

his

commentary

on

Romans,

the

early

Barth,

having

asked,

What

is the

world?,

answered,

The world is

our

whole

existence,

as

it has

been,

and

is,

conditioned

by

sin. There

has come into

being

a

cosmos

which,

because

we no

longer

know

God,

is

not

Creation. . . .

In so

far as this

world is

our

world,

it is the

world into

which sin

has

entered.

In this

world,

on this

earth,

and

under this

heaven,

there

is no

redemption,

no

direct

life. While

few

contemporary

theologians

would

approve

the notion

in

some

quarters

that the creation

itself

was

a

fall

from

God,

many

would

agree

with

Bultmann's declaration

that

the

Christian

faith

in creation

affirms

that man is not

at

home

in the

world. 4

Significantly enough,

Bultmann

follows

Jonas

in

the

following

statement:

In

Gnosticism

awareness

that

man is not at home in the world is radically

developed,

and

in this man's

self is

revealed

as

something

different

from

all

existence

in

the world

apart

from human

existence. 5

Following

the

demise

of classical

Calvin-

ism,

Protestant

thought

has

increasingly

abandoned

the world

and retreated

to

the

realm

of inwardness

and

subjectivity.

This

has left

Protestantism

without

a

cosmology.

In this connection

we

must

remember

Barth's assertion that the most

profound

difference

between

Protestantism

and

Ca-

tholicism is

the

Catholic

doctrine

of

the

analogia

entis.

As

Jacob

Taubes

has

pointed

out,

The

dialectical

method

and the

stress

on

inwardness

that mark

all

the

varieties

of

modem

theology

only

testify

to

the

fact that

the

Creator

of

heaven

and

earth

is

veiled

and

that

the

realm

of

physical reality

is lost

for

religious experience. 6 But it must not be

thought

that

modem

faith is

simply

alienated

from the realm

of

physical

reality;

Nietzsche's

proclamation

of

the

death

of

God has

taught

us that

faith

has now

become

alienated

from

reality

itself.

One of

Nietzsche's

most

pro-

found

contemporary

interpreters,

Erich

Heller,

has

noted that

the

characteristic

spiritual

quality

of

that

long

period

of

history

of which

we are the

bewildered

heirs

was not

only the dissociation of faith from knowl-

edge;

this

was a

comparatively

harmless

episode,

lasting

from the

seventeenth

cen-

tury

to

the

age

of

Victoria,

a

mere

surface



4/9

20

THOMAS

J.

J.

ALTIZER

repercussion

of that

mightier

earthquake

which severed faith from

sensibility.

It

is

this

rift which

has

made it

impossible

for

most Christians

not

to

feel,

or

at least not

to

feel also, as true many 'truths' which are

incompatible

with the truth of their

faith. '7

Spengler

was not

misguided

in

identifying

modern

Western culture as

Faustian;

for

everything

that

modern man knows to

be

true or

real

has

been

created either

by

means

of

an

abandonment

or a dissolution of

faith.

Only

a

Gnostic

spirit

could lead

to a

joyous

acceptance

of

the chasm that lies

between

modem science and

modern

faith.

Here

lies

the

deepest

problem

posed by

modern

Gnosticism. We

may

at this

point

elaborate

upon

our earlier definition

and

identify

Gnosticism

as a

world-opposing,

world-loathing,

and

world-escaping

way

which

seeks release or

redemption

from

the

world in

an

acosmic

state of individual

and

interior isolation.

Ancient Gnosticism-

which here

followed the archaic

or

tradi-

tional religious wayS-negated the world as

profane

reality

in its

quest

for

an

other-

worldly

sacred

reality.

But modern

Gnosti-

cism-inheriting

the Faustian

transforma-

tion

of

absolute

transcendence into

absolute

immanence,

a

transformation

symbolically

portrayed

in

Nietzsche's

proclamation

of

the

death of

God-attempts

to

escape

a cosmos

and

a

history

in

which

man

has lost his hu-

man

reality by

searching

for a non-tran-

scendent and non-sacred state of subjective

purity

and

existential

authenticity.

When

Martin

Buber

says

that the

modern

mani-

festation of

gnosis

is

the

psychological

doc-

trine

which

deals with

mysteries

without

knowing

the

attitude

of faith

towards

mys-

tery, '

he is

referring

to

a form

of

Gnosti-

cism

which

has

abandoned the

sacred

reality

of the

traditional

forms

of faith.

Precisely

at

this

point lies the revolution effected by mod-

ern

Gnosticism-a

revolution

which

is

mani-

fest

in

literature,

philosophy,

theology,

and,

indeed,

throughout

the whole

gamut

of

mod-

ern

life.

A clear

illustration of

this

revolution is

found

in the work

of

the

greatest

modem

Gnostic

psychologist,

C.

G.

Jung.xo

As

is

well

known,

Jung

believed

that a

process

of

individuation occurs in the deepest levels of

the

collective

unconscious

which

will

eventually

lead

to

an ultimate

integration

and

redemption

of

humanity.

This

process

is

reflected

in a series of

archetypal

symbols

(produced

in

dreams, art,

and

religion)

which

gradually

form

together

into a

man-

dala

symbolism.

(The

term mandala

de-

notes

the ritual

or

magic

circle

used

in

vari-

ous forms

of Hindu

and Buddhist

Tantrism

as

a

yantra

or

aid to

contemplation.)

Jung

maintains

that

the

mandalas

are

symbolic

representations

of that telos toward

which

all inner

growth

and

individuation

tends,

and

to which

he

gives

the name

of Self. In

the

historical

models

of the

mandala,

the

god

is

symbolized

by

a

series of

circles,

and the

goddess

by

a

square

or

series of

squares.

However,

Jung

emphasizes

that

the

symbols

which occupy the center of his patients' vi-

sions

of mandalas

have

no

reference

to a

deity.

They

may

refer

to

a

star,

a

sun,

a

flower,

a

serpent,

or

a

human

being,

but

never

to a

god:

A

modern

mandala

is an

involuntary

confession

of

a

peculiar

mental

condition.

There

is no

deity

in

the

mandala,

and

there

is

also

no

submission

or

reconcilia-

tion to

a

deity.

The

place

of the

deity

seems

to be

taken

by

the

wholeness of

man. 1

Us-

ing the symbol of Self to

represent

the

indefinable,

ineffable

wholeness

of

man,

Jung

insists

that

as a

symbol

it lies

deeper

than

the

God-symbol.

It

is

the

final

consum-

mation

of

the

individuation

process,

and

thus

is

the

deepest

and

highest

symbol

of

ultimate

reality.

On

the

other

hand,

in

Eric

Voegelin's

at-

tack

upon

modern

Gnosticism,12

the

phe-

nomenon is portrayed in such all-encompass-

ing

fashion

that

its

specific

identity

is

lost.

Voegelin

sees

secularism,

scientism,

posi-

tivism,

political

totalitarianism,

and

the

mass

social

movements

of

modern

times,

as

so



5/9

THE

CHALLENGE

OF

MODERN GNOSTICISM

21

many

varying

forms of

Gnosticism.

Indeed,

he

goes

so

far as to

say

that

the essence

of

modernity

is the

growth

of

Gnosticism.a'

Voegelin

defines

modern

Gnosticism

as fol-

lows:

The

attempt

at

immanentizing

he

meaning

of

ex-

istence

s

fundamentally

n

attempt

t

bringing

ur

knowledge

f transcendence

nto

a firmer

grip

than

the

cognitio idei,

he

cognition

f

faith,

will

afford;

and Gnostic

xperiences

ffer the

firmer

grip

inso-

far as

they

are an

expanding

f the soul to

the

point

where

God

is

drawn

nto the

existence of

man.

...

These

Gnostic

experiences,

in the

ampli-

tude of

their

variety,

are

the core

of

the

redivina-

tion

of

society,

for

the

men who fall into

these

experiences

divinize themselves

by

substituting

moremassive

modes

of

participation

n

divinity

or

faith n

the

Christian

ense.

Proceeding

y

this

means,

Voegelin

anfind

Gnosticism

n the modern

Westas a

process

beginning

ith he democratic

ovements

f

the

seventeenth

century

and

culminating

in

twentieth-century

Marxism.

In

fact,

he

sees Gnosticism

pervading

modern

thought:

Gnostic peculation vercame he uncer-

tainty

of faith

by

receding

rom

transcend-

ence

and

endowing

man

and his

intramun-

dane

range

of actionwith

the

meaning

f

eschatological

ulfilment. '5

n this

way,

all

of

modem

hought

s

comprehended--from

physics

ndmathematics

o

politics

nd

the-

ology.

However,

Voegelin

fails

to

grasp

the

deep

hostility

to

the world

which is invari-

ablypresent

n

true

Gnosticism.

espite

he

violence of his attack

upon

Gnosticism

(an

attack

which is itself Gnostic

n its

loathing

of

history),

Voegelin ironicallyperceives

that

the

death

of

the

spirit

is

the

price

of

progress;

thus he

speaks

of the Gnostic

murder of

God.'e

At

this

point

his

analysis

joins

forces with

Nietzsche-with whom

it

should

have

begun.

For

it was Nietzsche

who

grasped

most

profoundly

the

religious

meaning f thehistorical ndexistential it-

uation of modern

man.

Jacob

Taubes is more

discriminating

and

of

greater help

than

Voegelin's

attack.

Adopting

the

category Dionysian (a

cen-

tral

category

f Nietzsche's

mature

hought

but

not

to

be

confused

with

he

latter's

sage

of

Dionysian

n

The

Birth

of

Tragedy),

Taubes

offers

a

significant

key

to

modem

theology and to modern Gnosticism alike.'7

Nietzsche's

category

refers to an absolute

form

of life-affirmation

and

world-affirma-

tion

(portrayed

onceptually

hrough

his

category

of

Eternal

Recurrence),

as

opposed

to the radical world-denial

which he associ-

ates

with all forms of

religious

faith.

How-

ever,

a

Dionysian

orm of

existence becomes

possible

only

through

the

death of

God,

through

the

collapse

of

every vestige

of the

transcendent.

It

is

now that an affirmation

of

absolute mmanence an be

made,

liberating

man

from all

dependence

upon

a transcend-

ent

reality

and

thereby bringing

him

to an

absolutely

autonomous

state

of

existence.

(This

state

in

its

truest

form Nietzsche

hopefully

awaited in the

coming Superman,

but

it

is

already

capable

of

defining

the

deepest meaning

of

human existence-as

witness Nietzsche's category of the Will to

Power.)

Taubes

employs

the

term

Dionys-

iac

to

describe

the whole

movement of

Protestant dialectical

theology

from

Hegel

to

Tillich which

has

revolved

about

the

trans-

formation

of transcendent

reality

into an

ecstatic

state of human

existence:

Dionysiac

theology

is

an

'ecstatic

naturalism'

that

in-

terprets

all

supernaturalistic

symbols

in

im-

manent

terms.

The

ecstasy

does not

lead to

a

'beyond,'

in a

supernaturalistic

sense,

but

signifies

an

intensity

of the

immanent. 's

While

Taubes

exaggerates

the

degree

to

which

dialectical

theology

is

Dionysian,

there

seems

little

doubt

that a

Dionysian

transfor-

mation of transcendence

into immanence lies

deeply

imbedded

in

the

theological

method

of

all

the

dialectical

theologians

(not

excepting

Bultmann

and the

early

Barth,

both of whom

consistently translate the eschatological into

the

existential)

.'

The

analysis

thus far should indicate

the

enormous

complexity

of the

problem

posed

by

modern

Gnosticism;

for there is a

sense



6/9

22 THOMAS

J. J.

ALTIZER

in

which

Eric

Voegelin

s

right:

Modem

Gnosticism

s

simply

modem

existence,

nd

a

catalogue

f the roleof Gnosticism

as

here

defined)

in

our

world

would involve mod-

em life and thought n its entirety.Unques-

tionably

he death

of

God --or

the

eclipse

of

God -has

profoundly

affected

the

deep-

est

forms

of

contemporary

man's

religious

life.

In

an

article

on the

mysticism

of Simone

Weil,

Susan

Anima Taubes

speaks

of

an

atheistic

mysticism

which

has been

created

amidst

the

twentieth-century experience

of

the

absence of

God:

Atheism,

which

used

to

be a

charge

leveled

against skeptics, un-

believers,

or

simply

the

indifferent,

has come

to

mean

a

religious

experience

of the death

of God.

The

godlessness

of

the

world

in all

its

strata

and

categories

becomes,

paradox-

ically

and

by

a dialectic

of

negation,

the

sig-

nature

of God

and

yields

a

mystical

atheism,

a

theology

of divine

absence

and

nonbeing,

of divine

impotence,

divine

nonintervention,

and divine indifference.

Simply

to

enter-

tain the possibility of an atheistic mysticism

is

to

arrive

at

yet

another

key

to the

dilemma

of

modern

man's

religious

existence.

(One

only

has to think

of writers

as

diverse as

Baudelaire and

Kafka to realize

how

perva-

sive

this theme

is

in modern

literature.)

May

we

then

define

twentieth-century

Gnos-

ticism as

a search

for an

authentic

redemp-

tion

from

an alien cosmos

in the

context

of

the

death of God

?

III

At

this

point

it is difficult to avoid the

question

of the relation

between

Christianity

and

Gnosticism,

or,

more

particularly,

the

relation

between

twentieth-century

Protes-

tantism

and

modern

Gnosticism. We

must

note the extreme

difficulty

in

distinguishing

Christianity

and

Gnosticism when

it comes

to the conception of faith held by such the-

ologians

as the

early

Barth, Tillich,

and

Bultmann.

(Harnack

is

reported

to

have

written

his book

on

Marcion

in

response

to

Barth's

commentary

on

Romans).

More-

over,

this

difficulty

must

inevitably

obtain,

if

only

because

of

modem

man's

deep

aliena-

tion from

nature and

history.

Any

contem-

porary

form of Protestantism

will

inevitably

reflect the dominant modes of sensibility of

its own time.

Nevertheless,

there

remains a

real

difference between

Christianity

and

Gnosticism in

the

modern

experience

and it

is

essential

that we

uncover

it.

We

are

not

forced

to

identify

any

and

every deep-rooted

opposition

to the world

as

necessarily

Gnostic.

In our historical

so-

phistication

we have learned that

there

is

no

such

thing

as

a naked

experience

of the

world;

we

encounter

the

world

through

the

forms,

traditions, ideas,

styles,

etc. that sur-

round us.

The

point

is

that

to live

in

our

world-as

opposed

to the world-is to

ex-

perience

a world from which God is

absent.

Therefore,

authentic faith

today

must

in

some

sense stand

apart

from or

oppose

our

world.

A

deeper

problem

is

posed

by

Taubes'

criticism of dialectical theology. Must we

identify

as Gnostic

any religious

or

theologi-

cal

transformation of

a

sacred

and

transcend-

ent

reality

into

a human and

immanent re-

ality

? If

the answer

is

yes,

must we also

identify

as Gnostic

any

transformation

of

traditional

forms of

faith

as

a

method

of re-

sponse

to

the death

of God

in

our

time?

If

so,

does this

not

mean

that

Christianity

is

obliged

to

turn

its

back

upon

the

historical

destiny

that confronts

contemporary

man?

Is there

no form

through

which

Christianity

can

be

meaningful

in

the modern

crisis ?

Is

its

message

doomed to be

hopelessly

irrele-

vant

to

the world

of

twentieth-century

man?

Roman

Catholicism

does

not

accept

this

con-

sequence;

surely

Protestantism

cannot re-

tain

its

integrity

if it

refuses to

accept

the

destiny

which

confronts it.

Probably Martin Buber is the only the-

ologian

who has

openly

called for a trans-

formation of faith in

response

to

God's

eclipse,

to

God's withdrawal of

himself from

the

creation. In

urging

a

steadfastness of faith



7/9

THE

CHALLENGE

OF MODERN

GNOSTICISM

23

which

refuses

to

disown

reality,

Buber

in-

sists:

That He

hides

Himself does not di-

minish the

immediacy,

in the

immediacy

he

remains the

Saviour

and the contradiction

of

existence becomes for us a

theophany. 2'

Significantly,

by

faith

Buber

means

'emuna,

a

peculiarly

Jewish

form

of

faith,

grounded

in

the Covenant and the

sacred

history

of the

people

of

God,

which

in

es-

sence

can never

be

open

to

a

radical dissocia-

tion

of

the

creature and the Creator.

Thus

Buber

is able to

say

that it

was

precisely

be-

cause

of

the

nature

of its

faith that

Judaism

could never be open to genuine eschatology;

and we

might

add that for the

same reason

Judaism

must remain closed

to

the

Christian

idea of the radical transcendence of

God.

The Christian

faith

rests

upon

a

radical dis-

sociation

of

old

aeon from new

aeon,

of this

world from

the

Kingdom

of

God.

The

con-

sequence of

this is

that

Christianity

must

al-

ways

be

open

to a situation

in

which God is

absent

from

the

world.

IV

How, then,

is the Christian

to

respond

to

the Gnostic

challenge?

Superficially,

there

seems

little reason

for

him

to

rejoice

upon

meeting

a world divorced of

every

vestige

of

the

Spirit.

And,

indeed,

the Christian

must

share-more

deeply

than he

has-the

anguish

of

contemporary

human

existence,

the torment and emptiness of a humanly and

religiously

meaningless

world.

His

present

life must

be

of sufficient

depth

to deliver him

from

every

temptation

to

project

his

life

in

the

world into his

vision

of

the

Kingdom

of

God.

Having

been thrown

into an

abso-

lutely

immanent mode

of

being

(Rilke's

and

Heidegger's

Dasein),

he

finds

nothing

in

the

world

that is

open

to transcendence.

By

en-

countering

a world

wholly

devoid of

the

presence of grace, he moves in a sacred void

emptied

of

every

fragment

of

religious

mean-

ing.

The drama of

Western man's

loss of

faith has

exhibited the

progressive

surrender

of the world to

unbelief,

until

in

our

time

the world s

bathedn thedarkness

f God's

absence.

Thus t

is that the

only

reality

he

Christian

an know s one

closed

o the

presence

f God.Faith

knows

hat

merely

o

exist in ourworld s to dwell n a stateof

alienationrom

the

reality

of the

sacred,

from the

realm

of the

spirit.

For

our

world

is

most

deeply

antithetical

o

God;

it

is

wholly

other than

God.

In

contrast

to

God's absolute

ranscendence,

he world

dis-

closes its own absolute

immanence.

But

while it

is

true

that

the

Christian will

identify

he world

as a

fallen

reality,

and

life

in

the old aeon as a matter of darkness and

sin,

he

must

nevertheless believe

that

the

very

existence of

the

world--and

his own

existence in

the world-is

grounded

in

the

will

and

power

of

God.

The

greatestparadox

which

Christian faith in

our time

has

to

ac-

cept-one

that

is

denied

by

all

genuine

ver-

sions of

Gnosticism-is

that

despite

all its

corruptions,

the

world-this

world,

our

world,

the

scientist's

nature,

the

poet's

Dasein--stands finally under the absolute

sovereignty

of

God. From

the Christian's

as-

surance of this

latter

truth it

follows

that he

is

forbidden

to

say

an

absolute

no

to

the

reality

of

the

world,

or

to evade

his

destiny

or

calling

hrough

rying

o

pretend

hat

the

world in

which

he lives

does not

really

exist.

In

no

way

at all

is

Christianity

re-

quired

to

identify

itself

with the

world;

to

do

so

would be

to

betray

ts

very

nature.

But it

is bound to relate itself

to the

moment

(the

destiny

or

the

history)

which

it

confronts.

It

is

so bound

precisely

because

of its

root

conviction

of

the

absolute

sovereignty

of

God. Here

is to be found

the

basic

meaning

of

the

Christian

doctrine

of

creation-or,

at

least,

this

is

as

much

of

the

doctrine

of

crea-

tion

as

is

visible

to the

Christian

as

he con-

fronts

a

wholly

profane world,

a

world

grounded in absolute immanence. To en-

gage

in

a total

negation

of the

world

is

Gnos-

ticism,

which

here reveals

itself

as

the

polar

opposite

of

Christianity.

The

Christian

doc-

trine of creation

is the

absolute

dividing

line



8/9

24

THOMAS

J. J.

ALTIZER

between that

faith

and Gnosticism.

On the

basis of this

doctrine,

the

Christian,

pre-

cisely

through

his

life in

a sacred

void,

can

be

prepared

o

meet

a God who

is

truly

God,

a God who is wholly other than the world.

The

time

has come

for

the

Christian

o be

open

to

genuine

ranscendence.

The Christian s enabled

o

stand fast be-

fore

a

destiny

which

he traces

ultimately

o

God

himself. No

longer

can

faith

pretend

that

the

vacuous existence

of modern

man

is

a

product

of

sin

alone. The believer is

tempted

o

say

that

the

darkness

he

encoun-

ters is

the

product

of

unbelief,

of

rebellion

against

God.

But

again,

it

is

the Gnostic

temptation

hat

is

involved.

Had sin

actually

produced

our

world,

it

would

have to be

grounded

n

the

deepest

levels of

creativity.

How

can

the Christian

so

condemn

by

im-

plication

our

science,

our

institutions,

our

art,

our

very

existence? Gnosticism s

ulti-

mately

grounded

n a

principle,

found also

in

Indian

mysticism,

that

the will to

be

is

the root source of alienation, illusion, and

suffering.

Note

should be

taken

of a

most

subtle,

and

yet

most

important,

difference

here

between

Christianity

and Hinduism.

The

Hindu

looks

upon

existence

in

this

world

as

either

wholly

illusory,

or

as

a

fallen

and

spiritless

orm of

being,

or,

at

best,

as

the divine

yet essentially

meaningless

play

(lila)

of

an

ultimately

impersonal

deity.

The believer who

chooses to live in

our

world,

yet

cannot

accept

its

reality,

is

easily

led

into this

essentially

Gnostic

way

of

world

negation.

Granted

hat the

present

world offers

an

overwhelming

challenge

to

faith,

authentic

faith cannot evade

the

chal-

lenge by way

of either

retreator

negation.

Gnosticism

as

a

way

of salvation

can

only

proceed

by

evading

or

negating

the world-

a

world

construed

of

necessity

as

the

arena

of a fallen,alienatedmodeof existencewhich

must be obliterated

by

the individual who

seeks true salvation. Since the

way

of

gnosis

must

be

a

radically

negative

way

of world-

denial,

it is in

actuality

he

religiousway

of

Gnosticism

which is the

real

subject

of

Nietzsche's

category

of resentment.

Con-

trariwise,

Christianity

must

be in some

ulti-

mate

sense

world-affirming.

his

in

no

way

implies that the Christian can affirm this

world,

the

old

aeon,

or

existence

in

the

flesh. Authentic

faith,

as known to

the

Christian,

an never

apprehend

nature,

r

matter,

or

Dasein,

or

actuality,

s au-

tonomous

being,

as

pure

isness.

To be

sure,

Christian

aith

faces

up

to

reality-indeed,

that

reality

which

is

most

spiritless

and

which

dissolves

every sign

of the

divine

pres-

ence. But faith knows

too that

this

very

re-

ality

lives under

the

sovereignty

of

God.

V

Is the

Christian

to

hope,

then,

that our

darkness

may yet

becomea

theophany

More

immediately,

s

he to

will

the

evident

destiny

of our

world in

the

hope

that he

is

thereby

doing

God's will?

Can

he

live

in

this

world,

andthus in

a

sense

will

it,

without

abandon-

ing

his faith, without

saying

a final no to

God?

However

timidly

and

with

whatever

reservations,

urely

he

Christianwill in

some

genuine

sense

answer

these

questions

n

the

affirmative.

Hoelderlin

has

sung

that the

mo-

ment

of

greatest

danger

is

the

moment

of

salvation;

may

not

the

Christian

hope

that

the

eclipse

which

is

God's

udgment

may

yet

be

the

moment

of his

deepestepiphany?

Yet,

insofaras he sees thatthe willingof his own

reality,

his

truth,

his

world,

s

simultaneously

a

willing

of

the

death

of

God,

how can

he

believe

that our

God-dissolving

reality

can

in

any

sense

be

associated

with

God's will?

Can

he believe

that

God

wills

his

death

in

us

?

Perhaps

the

wheel

has now

come

full

cir-

cle.

Christianity

began

with

God's

death

on

the

cross-for

if

Christ is

Lord,

his

death

must in some sense have been the death of

God;

has it

now

endedwith

God's

deathin

the

world,

with

his

banishment from

his own

creation?

Myths

and

religions

the

world

over

have

long

associated

redemption

with



9/9

THE

CHALLENGE OF

MODERN

GNOSTICISM

25

the

death

of

deity.

In

the Near Eastern

world

(which yet

remains

our

world),

im-

mortality

was

always

achieved

through

union

with

a

dying

god.

Life

through

death

is a

universal

religious

theme; thus too, in the

New

Testament,

repentance

or

regeneration

is

effected

by

means

of a

dying

to

self,

to

the

old

world,

the

old

aeon.

No

world

religion

has so

emphasized

death as

has

Christianity.

Hindu

deities

never

die,

and

in

Buddhism

death

is

ultimately

unreal.

Christianity ought

to be

most

open

to the

deepest

meaning

of

death. The

contemporary

Christian must

be

prepared

to

accept

a

destiny

which lives

out

the

death of

God,

to

live immersed

in an

actuality

whose

very

being

blots

out the

presence

of God.

Yet

it

cannot

be

accidental

that

the

proclamation

of

the death

of

God

arose

originally

as

an anti-Christian

gospel.

For it is

only

Christianity's

assertion

of

the

absolute

sovereignty

of

God

that enables

it

to be

open

to

his

death.

Only

in

this

way

is

the

believer

enabled to

say

yes

to

whatever

destiny confronts him. He is then prepared

to

accept

the death

of God amidst the

reality

that

surrounds

God-to

accept

it

as

God's

will,

as

falling

under

God's

sovereignty.

In

this

way

any

ultimate

no-saying

to the

world is

finally consigned

to

its

Gnostic

origin.

REFERENCES

1Hans Jonas, The GnosticReligion, Boston: The

Beacon

Press,

1958,

p.

252.

'

Ibid.,

p.

263.

'

Karl

Barth,

The

Epistle

to the

Romans,

trans-

lated

by

Edwyn

C.

Hoskyns,

London: Oxford

Uni-

versity

Press,

1933,

pp.

168-169.

'Rudolph

Bultmann,

Existence

and

Faith,

trans-

lated

by

Schubert M.

Ogden,

New York:

Me-

ridian

Books,

1960,

p.

213.

'Rudolph

Bultmann, Essays:

Philosophical

and

Theological,

translated

by James

C.

G.

Greig,

Lon-

don:

S.

C. M.

Press,

1955,

pp.

146-147.

'Jacob

Taubes,

Dialectic

and

Analogy,

The

Journal

of

Religion, XXXIV,

2

(April, 1954),

118.

'Erich

Heller,

The Disinherited

Mind,

New

York:

Meridian

Books,

1959,

p.

157.

'Cf.

Mircea

Eliade,

The

Myth

of

the

Eternal

Return,

translated

by

Willard

R.

Trask,

New

York:

Pantheon

Books,

1954.

'Martin

Buber,

Eclipse

of

God,

New York:

Harper Torchbooks,1957,p. 136.

Cf.

Thomas

J. J.

Altizer,

Science

nd

Gnosis

in

Jung's

Psychology,

The

Centennial

Review,

III,

3

(Summer,

1959),

304-320.

C.

G.

Jung,

Psychology

and

Religion,

New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1938,

p.

99.

Eric

Voegelin,

The New

Science

of

Politics,

Chicago:

The

University

of

Chicago

Press, 1952,

pp.

107-132.

'

Ibid.,

p.

126.

14

bid.,

p.

124.

Ibid.,

p.

129.

Ibid., p. 131.

'Cf.

Jacob

Taubes,

On

the

Nature

of

the

Theological

Method: Some

Reflections on

the

Methodological

Principles

of

Tillich's

Theology,

The

Journal

of

Religion,

XXXIV,

1

(January,

1954),

12-25.

Ibid.,

p.

21.

Cf.

Thomas

J. J.

Altizer,

Nietzsche's

Influence

upon

Contemporary

Theology,

The

Emory

Uni-

versity

Quarterly,XVI,

3

(Fall, 1960),

152-163.

Susan

Anima

Taubes,

The

Absent

God,

The

Journal of Religion, XXV, 1 (January, 1955), 6.

Martin

Buber,

Two

Types

of

Faith,

translated

by

Norman

P.

Goldhawk,

London:

Routledge

&

Kegan Paul, 1951,

p.

169.

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the challenge of modern gnosticism

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