I remember learning about the Gnosics when studying early Christian heresies, and reflecting back on it, it strikes me that we live in an age awash with Gnosticism. Its not surprising since our age is so similar to the first centuries of the church.

The vast Roman Empire dominated the known world enabling trade, travel and the exchange of cultures. Consequently Rome was awash not only with the Roman religion with its traditional gods, goddesses, temples, priests and pagan rites, but as Rome became a cosmopolitan, international city the incoming people from around the Empire brought their philosophies, their mythologies, ideologies, spiritualities, religions, rites and rituals. As you can imagine, religious pluralism was in vogue. Every religion was considered pretty much equal. New philosophies, ideologies and religions were all out there in a cultural, intellectual and spiritual smorgarborg.

Such variety demanded subjectivism, universalism and indifferentism. In other words, religion was a matter of personal taste. Everybody would be saved in the end so it doesn’t matter what you believe.

Notice any similarities? It’s a good description of where we are. Dogmatic religion is rejected. Relativism is in.

This is one of the traits of early Gnosticism. The word “Gnosticism” is from the Greek  gnosis or Knowledge. The gnostics taught that salvation was achieved by accumulating ever more arcane and specialist knowledge–knowledge about esoteric subject like angelology, secret wisdom, levels of enlightenment, code words, meditation, secret rituals and rites. If you attained this knowledge (gnosis) you would achieve spiritual mastery and enter into the spiritual realm leaving behind the material realm with its suffering, pain and death.

While this sounds attractive in many ways, at the heart of gnosticism is dualism–the belief that reality is divided into two: the physical material realm and the spiritual, invisible realm and that the spiritual realm is superior and the physical, material realm is inferior and passing away. When it came to beliefs about Jesus Christ and the incarnation the gnostics typically proposed that God’s son did not really assume physical, mortal nature. He only seemed to. It was a divine magic trick–an illusion.

What was the practical outworking of this dualistic gnosticism? It doesn’t take much thought to figure I out. If the physical world was inferior and sinful and he spiritual world is all that matters, then some  gnostics fell into the trap of extreme asceticism. The early monastic movement , for example, was heavily influenced by the dualistic sect called Manicheanism. (founded by the gnostic Persian teacher Mani in the third century).

However, if the material world is inferior and the spiritual world is all important, then it also follows that it doesn’t really matter what you do with your body. Consequently some gnostics went to the other extreme and permitted extreme sexual immorality since what you do with your body doesn’t matter.

Again, can you make the connections? One of the forms of gnosticism in our society today is a sentimental indifferentism. The multiculturalism and religious pluralism in our society leads folks –and some Catholics too–to pretend all religions are equal and it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere in “your truth”. With so many religions from around the world on offer–and more being dreamed up all the time–no wonder there is confusion. How can one religion claim to be true? No wonder folks reject dogmatic religion. So they take the easy path–“All religions are true. They are just different paths up the same mountain!”

This sentimental subjectivism makes one’s emotions the rule. And it’s not just concerning religious choices. Why do we tolerate sexual immorality in our society and our church? Because people don’t believe what you do with your body matters. So we hear people protest, “Keep out of our bedroom! Religion is about spirituality not sex.”  The slogan “Love is Love” is a statement upholding personal subjective moral choices over any kind of restriction or moral prohibition. In the discussion of gay marriage for example folks will say, “It’s not about sex. it’s about love and faithfulness and being kind to one another in a shared commitment.” OK, that’s what married people do, but that is not what marriage is. Marriage, by definition, does include sex. Its not just about your feelings.

Why is this post titled Neo Gnosticism and Nihilism? Because Gnosticism eventually opens up (or spirals down) into Nihilism. Nihilism doesn’t believe there is any ultimate meaning or purpose. We are physical-spiritual beings, and as such are designed to have both aspects of our being living in harmony and mutual enrichment. If the physical and spiritual are divorced what’s the point? We end up in confusion, fear and madness.

Have you made another connection? The transgender madness is the separation of body mind and spirit. A young man is alienated from his physical reality and tries to be a woman. A girl is cut off (literally) from her real body and attempts to be a man. Then sometimes they spiral down into nihilism, madness and murder.

The Catholic Church condemns all forms of Gnostic Nihilism because it is untrue and what is untrue hurts people. Instead, we preach the saving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we say the Son of God–the second person of the Holy and Undivided Trinity took human flesh of his Blessed Mother we are making not just a theological statement, but a phlosophical statement about a new condition of reality that took place 2000 years ago.

At that point the spiritual and physical worlds were merged. There was from that point on no dichotomy and no need for a dualist philosophy. The Catholic religion is the way we live out that unity of physical and spiritual in our daily lives. Through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life , by being baptized and entering into the sacramental life of the church he divisions and distortions in our own lives are reconciled and healed so that the physical and spiritual can be one.

This does not require esoteric knowledge, arcane rituals or specialist information. It requires simple faith, ordinary goodness, common sense and a love of beauty–all of which ought to be evident and accessible in the simple acceptance and practice of our Catholic faith.