A Question For Davka.

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

However, the flip side of this is that The Problem of Evil is now solved.

The question of why an all-powerful, all-knowing God would permit evil to exist at all, is now answered. God created evil. He can only create what He knows and since He knows and does evil, He is evil. Problem solved!

 

Thanks again Davka.

 

BornAA.

 

How could it be any other way? Seriously? Evil is a constant in this world, with or without God. So, God is suppose to be the entity that created man, in perfection, and is all good? I think this was the cornerstone for the Gnostic movement. Is God evil or is He good?

 

I like to think that God didn't necessarily create evil, but that evil was born into this world from His creation rebelling against Him. Thus, creating the word 'evil' to exist. So, before evil existed, all was good. And He made this and that,....and it was good. The NT speaks of Michael speaking to Satan, as well as Job. It seems that Satan was the creator of evil, not God. Just like someone created the Internet, but not the evil administered wherein.

 

Hi Abiyoyo!

 

Being something of a newbie here I'm not quite sure what your take on scripture is - perhaps you can help me out?

When I was a Born Again Christian I held that the Bible was God's perfect word, that it contained no contradictions and that it was the sole guide to God's nature and personality. Hence my questions to Davka. However, this probably isn't your p.o.v, right?

You take a more flexible line on scripture - drawing your own conclusions and not necessarily tying yourself to the Word and it's meanings. Is that too far off-beam?

 

Anyway, from my old Christian position on scripture, if Isaiah says that, "I, the Lord, create evil", then this is an accurate description of God. The catch here is that Davka's explanation of these OT quotes shows that they directly contradict other OT ones and many NT ones - blowing the entire Bible's authority and authenticity out of the water. Once again, I know that this isn't necessarily your p.o.v. You'll lmk where you stand on this?

 

Talking about Gnosticism, wouldn't Genesis, Isaiah and Judges all pre-date any Gnostic concepts about God? Agreed, modern-day Christianity may well have absorbed Gnostic influences, but surely these early Judaic writings would be free from such dualism?

 

Finally, going back to The Problem of Evil, according to scripture, God must have fore-known that Satan would be the first to sin, because Satan did not exist until God created him. If (as the Isaiah quote says) God creates evil, surely this would mean the following?

 

1. God cannot create something that He does not know. This would have to include evil because of Isaiah and Genesis. (See Genesis 3:4 and 3:22)

2. Since God is eternal, so good and evil must be eternal. This is not just the academic knowledge of these things, but the active creating and doing of all evil. (See Davka's comments.)

3. God must be actively creating and doing evil today, as he has always done, because His nature is eternal and unchanging.

4. If we say that God can know, actively create and do evil, yet not be evil, isn't this destroying the meaning of the words we are using to know and understand God? (Agreed, there's the thru a glass darkly quote, but why should we give precedence to one part of scripture over another, unless we give ourselves the licence to pick and choose as we see fit?)

 

As you can see Abiyoyo, I'm stuck in a bind if I go back to my old Christian way of looking at these things. Maybe there's something faulty with my logic on these matters?

Whatever, I look forward to your comments.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[Ouroboros]

True. This is in one of the Gnostic writings as well. The whole A&E story, with a different twist. I think it's in the Apocalypse of John? Anyway, supposedly the serpent was God/Christ helping us, by eating the fruit, and being able to see.

What's interesting is that pre-Christ (in the BCE era), the snake wasn't really a bad symbol at all. It was the symbol for healing and wisdom. You know the medical symbol, Caduceus, with two snakes on the staff, and the Asclepius, with only one snake, were considered symbols for death, healing, and medicine. Then you have the same symbol in the old testament, when Moses makes the copper snake on a tall rod to heal the people from a snake infestation. And this symbol existed before that too. Or just take the story of Moses challenging the Egyptian magicians, they made their staffs turn to snakes, and he did too, only a bigger one, which is a poetic story about how Israel's god was the greatest healer of all gods. The motif is there.

[Abiyoyo]

 

 

As you can see Abiyoyo, I'm stuck in a bind if I go back to my old Christian way of looking at these things. Maybe there's something faulty with my logic on these matters?

Whatever, I look forward to your comments.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

The Gnostic basically believe that Jesus was from the Highest God, and even propose that the OT God is really Satan.The Apocryphon of John goes into great detail in regards to this. It is IMO, a very complicated read, as I have read it 10 times and still see a different piece of the story every time.

 

The summary of it is that there is the One that is ineffable. Okay, stay with me here. The ineffable One 'thought' the powers into being. Then the powers of the first, set everything up spiritually, as far as the order of everything, angelically. Then one of the powers thought without consenting the One ineffable One, and this came to be Yaltabaoth, whom was cast out from the immortal ones, because he was created in ignorance.

 

Yaltabaoth is the God of the OT, and from there He created mankind, in the flesh.

 

This is an excerpt about Yaltabaoth from the Apocryphon of John:

The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.

 

He created mankind because the Mother of him was troubled because of her imperfect creation, Yaltabaoth. She repented to the higher powers, and the ineffable One. This is the intro to creation and leads up to Christ as the One who came from the immeasurable race, the higher powers.

 

Once the mother repented of Yaltabaoth, they began to intervene with him at his place of stay, Earth. The higher powers spoke and scared Yaltabaoth, causing him to make man, which he named Adam. Here is an excerpt:

"And he said to the authorities which attend him, 'Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness, that his image may become a light for us.' And they created by means of their respective powers in correspondence with the characteristics which were given. And each authority supplied a characteristic in the form of the image which he had seen in its natural (form). He created a being according to the likeness of the first, perfect Man. And they said, 'Let us call him Adam, that his name may become a power of light for us.'

 

All this took place and man was created, along with woman. The powers set up with Yaltabaoth's realm put Adam and Eve in the garden, but guarded the Tree of Life because they were jealous, as Adam and Eve where made from the image of the ineffable One, and their thought were more advanced than the rest of the powers created by Yaltabaoth. Christ is the One that showed made them eat of the tree. Here is another excerpt:

 

"But what they call the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the Epinoia of the light, they stayed in front of it in order that he (Adam) might not look up to his fullness and recognize the nakedness of his shamefulness. But it was I who brought about that they ate."

 

Yaltabaoth wanted to find the light, or Epinoia that was within Adam, so he caused a forgetfulness to come over him, and took a power of him, not a rib, to try to find it, thus creating woman in the image that they saw originally from the image of the higher powers.

 

"Then the Epinoia of the light hid herself in him (Adam). And the chief archon wanted to bring her out of his rib. But the Epinoia of the light cannot be grasped. Although darkness pursued her, it did not catch her. And he brought a part of his power out of him. And he made another creature, in the form of a woman, according to the likeness of the Epinoia which had appeared to him. And he brought the part which he had taken from the power of the man into the female creature, and not as Moses said, 'his rib-bone.'

 

So, the high powers within Yaltabaoth became jealous of Adam and Eve, and slept with Eve, producing righteous and unrighteousness, or Cain and Abel. The higher powers saw this and sent the Holy Spirit to them.

Likewise, the mother also sent down her spirit, which is in her likeness and a copy of those who are in the pleroma, for she will prepare a dwelling place for the aeons which will come down.

 

This is an amazing and intriguing part which has made me rethink my whole belief in Heaven and hell. I got out of this excerpt that the ones that will be saved are those that receive the Spirit of the higher power, and act within those confines, dealing only with the fleshly desires. Example. Greed is not good, but trying to make money to provide for yourself, body, family, etc is okay. IMO Heaven and hell are broken into two locations at this point.

 

Here is an excerpt summarizing this:

 

And I said to the savior, "Lord, will all the souls then be brought safely into the pure light?" He answered and said to me, "Great things have arisen in your mind, for it is difficult to explain them to others except to those who are from the immovable race. Those on whom the Spirit of life will descend and (with whom) he will be with the power, they will be saved and become perfect and be worthy of the greatness and be purified in that place from all wickedness and the involvements in evil. Then they have no other care than the incorruption alone, to which they direct their attention from here on, without anger or envy or jealousy or desire and greed of anything. They are not affected by anything except the state of being in the flesh alone, which they bear while looking expectantly for the time when they will be met by the receivers (of the body). Such then are worthy of the imperishable, eternal life and the calling. For they endure everything and bear up under everything, that they may finish the good fight and inherit eternal life."

 

continued....

[Abiyoyo]

This is an explanation of why mankind in summary is the way they are:

 

And it is harder and stronger than she with whom the gods united, and the angels and the demons and all the generations until this day. For from that fate came forth every sin and injustice and blasphemy, and the chain of forgetfulness and ignorance and every severe command, and serious sins and great fears. And thus the whole creation was made blind, in order that they may not know God, who is above all of them. And because of the chain of forgetfulness, their sins were hidden. For they are bound with measures and times and moments, since it (fate) is lord over everything.

 

This is the explanation of why the flood happened:

 

"And he (the chief archon) repented for everything which had come into being through him. This time he planned to bring a flood upon the work of man. But the greatness of the light of the foreknowledge informed Noah, and he proclaimed (it) to all the offspring which are the sons of men. But those who were strangers to him did not listen to him. It is not as Moses said, 'They hid themselves in an ark' (Gn 7: 7), but they hid themselves in a place, not only Noah, but also many other people from the immovable race. They went into a place and hid themselves in a luminous cloud. And he (Noah) recognized his authority, and she who belongs to the light was with him, having shone on them because he (the chief archon) had brought darkness upon the whole earth.

 

This is the explanation of Israel, and the OT God:

They created a counterfeit spirit, who resembles the Spirit who had descended, so as to pollute the souls through it. And the angels changed themselves in their likeness into the likeness of their mates (the daughters of men), filling them with the spirit of darkness, which they had mixed for them, and with evil. They brought gold and silver and a gift and copper and iron and metal and all kinds of things. And they steered the people who had followed them into great troubles, by leading them astray with many deceptions. They (the people) became old without having enjoyment. They died, not having found truth and without knowing the God of truth. And thus the whole creation became enslaved forever, from the foundation of the world until now. And they took women and begot children out of the darkness according to the likeness of their spirit. And they closed their hearts, and they hardened themselves through the hardness of the counterfeit spirit until now.

 

This is the explanation of Christ:

 

"Still for a third time I went - I am the light which exists in the light, I am the remembrance of the Pronoia - that I might enter into the midst of darkness and the inside of Hades. And I filled my face with the light of the completion of their aeon. And I entered into the midst of their prison, which is the prison of the body. And I said, 'He who hears, let him get up from the deep sleep.' And he wept and shed tears. Bitter tears he wiped from himself and he said, 'Who is it that calls my name, and from where has this hope come to me, while I am in the chains of the prison?' And I said, 'I am the Pronoia of the pure light; I am the thinking of the virginal Spirit, who raised you up to the honored place. Arise and remember that it is you who hearkened, and follow your root, which is I, the merciful one, and guard yourself against the angels of poverty and the demons of chaos and all those who ensnare you, and beware of the deep sleep and the enclosure of the inside of Hades.

 

"And I raised him up, and sealed him in the light of the water with five seals, in order that death might not have power over him from this time on.

 

"And behold, now I shall go up to the perfect aeon. I have completed everything for you in your hearing. And I have said everything to you that you might write them down and give them secretly to your fellow spirits, for this is the mystery of the immovable race."

 

And the savior presented these things to him that he might write them down and keep them secure. And he said to him, "Cursed be everyone who will exchange these things for a gift or for food or for drink or for clothing or for any other such thing." And these things were presented to him in a mystery, and immediately he disappeared from him. And he went to his fellow disciples and related to them what the savior had told him.

 

Jesus Christ, Amen.

[Abiyoyo]

Also, keep in mind that they almost didn't canonize Revelations because of this book, written also by John.

[Ouroboros]

The yogic kundalini awakening--which seems to share similarities with the spine-shocks experienced by some Christians mystics--refers to latent spiritual energy that is thought to coil, like a spring, at the base of the spine. It is also called "serpent energy".

I didn't think of that. There could be some connection there too.

 

Someone told me that the snake in Chinese zodiac is a symbol for wisdom, but I haven't confirmed it.

[NotBlinded]

Good can exist without evil, it just would be the only comparison.

That's an oxymoron Abi. Without evil, there would be no comparison.

 

Edit...nevermind. Hans answered that.

[NotBlinded]

6 ¶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

Which means that she also knew what food which was not good would be like. What else did she compare to? Good food or good food? Which food is good for you as good food, if all food is good food?

That indeed is the dilema about the story. Her eyes must have already been opened.

 

Literally, it makes no sense. Metaphorically, it describes the plight of humankind pretty good.

[bornagainathiest]

Also, keep in mind that they almost didn't canonize Revelations because of this book, written also by John.

 

Hi Abiyoyo!

 

Thanks for that info on John and his Apocryphon. That was all new to me. I've confined myself to the orthodox content of the Bible so far.

 

Is there any chance you could respond to my other questions, please? That is...

 

Wouldn't Genesis, Isaiah and Judges pre-date any Gnostic influences?

 

Also, the logic of my four conclusions, which I repeat here...

 

1. God cannot create something that he does not know. This would have to include evil because of Isaiah and Genesis (See Genesis 3:4 and 3:22).

2. Since God is eternal, so good and evil must be eternal. This is not just the academic knowledge of these things, but the active creating and doing of all evil. (See Davka's comments.)

3. God must be actively creating and doing evil today, as He always has done, because His nature is eternal and unchanging.

4. If we say that God can know, actively create and do evil, yet not be evil, isn't this destroying the meaning of the words we are using to know and understand God? (Agreed, there's the thru a glass darkly quote, but why should we give precedence to one part of scripture over another, unless we give ourselves the licence to pick and choose as we see fit?)

 

What I'm looking for Abiyoyo (if it's ok with you), is for you to critically examine these four points from a standard, non-Gnostic, Christian viewpoint to see if their logic is sound. I'd appreciate the views of a person of faith.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[Ouroboros]

6 ¶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

Which means that she also knew what food which was not good would be like. What else did she compare to? Good food or good food? Which food is good for you as good food, if all food is good food?

That indeed is the dilema about the story. Her eyes must have already been opened.

Good point. Her spiritual eyes must have been open and she must have been able to see the evil in eating the fruit. After all, isn't the purpose of Jesus's death to bring the Christian back to the spiritual perfect pre-fall state? Or should we conclude that the spiritual Christian is just as blind and ignorant as Adam and Eve when they fell? I guess that's the message. Pre-fruit: ignorant and spiritual blind. Post-fruit: knowledgeable and competent to discern good and evil. Morality was born when Adam and Eve fell. That's how it sounds at least.

[dagnarus]

 

That depends on what kind of faith about God one has. Why am I not allowed to perceive God as 'good'; good as in the representation of Jesus in the Gospels? Is that against a rule? There are just as many 'good' attributes to God in the OT as there are 'evil' attributes. Did you know that? How can one person say God is evil, when the book they make the claim from gives an equal amount of good attributes?

 

And also, the book specifically says that God created good too.

 

 

The Gnostic basically believe that Jesus was from the Highest God, and even propose that the OT God is really Satan.The Apocryphon of John goes into great detail in regards to this. It is IMO, a very complicated read, as I have read it 10 times and still see a different piece of the story every time.

 

 

You confuse me Abiyoyo. In one breath you try to defend the OT god and then in the next you suggest that the OT god is really Satan. What if anything do you believe?

[Abiyoyo]

 

That depends on what kind of faith about God one has. Why am I not allowed to perceive God as 'good'; good as in the representation of Jesus in the Gospels? Is that against a rule? There are just as many 'good' attributes to God in the OT as there are 'evil' attributes. Did you know that? How can one person say God is evil, when the book they make the claim from gives an equal amount of good attributes?

 

And also, the book specifically says that God created good too.

 

 

The Gnostic basically believe that Jesus was from the Highest God, and even propose that the OT God is really Satan.The Apocryphon of John goes into great detail in regards to this. It is IMO, a very complicated read, as I have read it 10 times and still see a different piece of the story every time.

 

 

You confuse me Abiyoyo. In one breath you try to defend the OT god and then in the next you suggest that the OT god is really Satan. What if anything do you believe?

 

 

I believe it is all open for discussion. I personally believe that Jesus was the Son of God in a blessed, anointed sense, ordained so to speak by God, hence making Him the Son of God. I also believe that Christ has a dominion established for the ones that believe in Him, which is ordained by the Father.

 

About the Father Cards are still on the table for me on that one. Is the Father this ineffable character represented in John's writings? Or, Is the OT character the father?

 

Time will tell I guess

[Guest Davka]

I believe it is all open for discussion. I personally believe that Jesus was the Son of God in a blessed, anointed sense, ordained so to speak by God, hence making Him the Son of God. I also believe that Christ has a dominion established for the ones that believe in Him, which is ordained by the Father.

 

OK, now you've got me curious. Do you believe Jesus is YHWH incarnate? Or does the phrase "son of god" mean something else to you?

 

And have you ever ingested psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes?

[Abiyoyo]

I believe it is all open for discussion. I personally believe that Jesus was the Son of God in a blessed, anointed sense, ordained so to speak by God, hence making Him the Son of God. I also believe that Christ has a dominion established for the ones that believe in Him, which is ordained by the Father.

 

OK, now you've got me curious. Do you believe Jesus is YHWH incarnate? Or does the phrase "son of god" mean something else to you?

 

And have you ever ingested psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes?

 

I agree with the Nicene Creed which is that, in essence, Jesus was God on Earth. I believe in the Trinity in the same way that I believe God is in all things. I don't believe that Jesus was God on Earth, but on another note He was God on Earth.

 

I think the idea has been exploited in ways in the evolution of Christianity. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is a good example. For 2000 years, they have been separate from the Catholic Church, since the Councils of Nicaea. Up until the past few years they have kept this separation until they realized that it was just the 'wording' of their Trinity beliefs that keep them separate.

[dagnarus]

 

I believe it is all open for discussion. I personally believe that Jesus was the Son of God in a blessed, anointed sense, ordained so to speak by God, hence making Him the Son of God. I also believe that Christ has a dominion established for the ones that believe in Him, which is ordained by the Father.

 

About the Father Cards are still on the table for me on that one. Is the Father this ineffable character represented in John's writings? Or, Is the OT character the father?

 

Time will tell I guess

 

What does it mean to believe in Christ?

 

I ask this because in your current believe system there seems to be two different Christs. One of them was sent by the ineffable God, he is the enemy of the OT god who is in fact Satan, he is also the serpent who enticed Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge. The other is the only begotten son of the OT god, he can do nothing except what the OT god wills, he is the one will bruise the serpent's head thus making him and the serpent enemies, furthermore he is at enmity with all gods other than the OT god who are false gods, the ineffable god would count as such.

 

Obviously these two Christ's are opposed to one another, which suggests you can't believe in both, which further suggests that you don't believe in either.