h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Although a little brief (and a little too undocumented for the historian in me!). You make some nice points, but what isn't clear is how the dualism you talk about here differs from the Gnosticism in another of your entries.

Sorry, I'm a little rabid about alternative late antiquity/ medieval beliefs, since this is what I do for a living.

Montana Redhead, I found your comment about my entry while trawling your space! I should check my own entries more frequently.

I actually want to expand some of these entries and the early ones need a lot more work. If you would like to help, please give me suggestions and I will fold them in. When I read your page on Augustine, I hoped that your professional gaze would eventually turn in this direction.

The distinction I was trying to make was that gnosticism is about secret knowledge. Dualism is about despising the body and privileging the spirit. Most gnostics were (are) dualists but not all dualists are gnostics.

I got the idea for writing this catalogue of heresies when reading Justin the Preacher's writings. Instead of trying to defend the defendable and explain the indefensible to his wondering listenership, I thought I would write a page of ideas that I could disown as an intelligent well read Christian and then sleep at night. He is a gnostic and a dualist (the former of which infuriates the logical positivists that dominate this site, and the latter of which infuriates the scientific element here). I will lay odds that he is an iconoclast and a determinist as well.

The entries for Arianism and Pelagianism are there because they interested me at the time. I might add one for Nestorianism and Idolatry (because I think that Justin might be an Idolator as well as an Iconoclast!).

I am certainly not an historian but I do have a working knowledge of early church doctrinal history and a good broad knowledge of liturgical practice, past and present. This site has a lot of political church history and I wanted to try and add some theological history to try and show that history can show Christianity in a good light (you do need special glasses sometimes I admit).

One thing I do want to do is make these subjects very approachable. I have kept them self-referential so that the same ideas keep coming up. There is so much great thinking in this field that it is hidden in specialist texts. Some of this stuff cannot be found even by the Christians who want to know about it and are sympathetic. It seems the best stuff is being written by the Lutherans and Anglicans - but not everyone their material pushes to them.

Church history is my area, so any help I can offer, I will, although given my schedule, it's going to be dicey.

So just give me a holler....

Shall do. I will continue to revise them. Hermi the Cat gave the entry on Determinism a thorough preening. As the entries get together, I drop you a note and if you want to give comments, please do.

I have a good feel for the theology but writing history is not (unfortunately) for the amateur (despite any number of dodgey amateurs who believe otherwise). Your eye will always be welcome.

PTW, I left a comment on your "How to do History" page. It was their that I confirmed by belief that history is perhaps one of the trickier subject areas out there...

Although I understand what dualism is, I was confused by your attempts to show how it differs from orthodox beliefs and was especially confused by the idea that it is negative.

You claim that dualists see baptism as a baptism into light not a baptism into light and water - yet surely the water aspect is merely symbolic of the spiritual change that baptism entails.

You also claim that from dualism follows a rejection of sex, and yet you back this up with a reference to St. Augustine of Hippo who, as far as I know, was not a dualist.

In fact dualist ideas are used to a small degree by Paul when he tries to explain the importance of faith over rituals like curcumcision. Although this is not the extreme dualism of the gnostics it seems fair to say that all Christians must believe in SOME kind of dualism.

The dualism of the gnostics was an effective method of helping people to understand the way good and evil work. It is actually very similar to the ideas of George Fox (founder of the Quaker faith) who claimed that we should for "that of God" in everyone. It claims that evil is a creation of Yaldabaoth who was using those powers through his mother Sophia, but because these powers came from God He prevented the place that Yaldabaoth from being pure evil and as a result there are aspects of good trapped in the evil material of the world. As a result material is not entirely evil because it contains within it the spirit which needs to gain gnosis. This means that the spirit must follow its own personal path towards salvation. Whether you take this story as literal or not is irrelevant as many people no longer take the traditional old testament account of the Adam and Eve story literally in modern times.

I would be grateful if you could tell me what is negative or heretical about the dualistic view, because I see it as an optimistic solution to the problem of evil.

Yes, there is an element of dualism in orthodox Christian thought, but that dualism comes from the whole God-as-Man contained in Jesus. The heretical dualism takes that many more steps forward, into a discrete disconnect between body and spirit.

The way it works is (and this is boiling down many dualisms into their most basic form)...
there are two gods, one of light and one of dark. They are raging a huge battle in the heavens, and we are the pawns. Our spirits come from the god of light. Our bodies, however, and the world we live in, are matter, and all matter comes from the god of the dark. We are essentially light trapped in darkness.

Okay, so how do we release the light? By several means...not eating anything born of conception (meat, primarily), vegetables grown in the earth (potatoes, etc), and eating things of light (cucumbers were thought to have lots of light in them, as was leavened bread). Sex is right out, since it creates even more souls trapped in the darkness. Celibacy is required of most dualists, at least at the top levels (most dualists have something akin to the priesthood... Cathars called them the perfects, as did Manichees). And yes, Augustine of Hippo was, at one time, a follower of Mani, although he became dissillusioned with them when one of the more famous manichees could not answer his questions to his satisfaction). Augustine did not, however, become one of the elect, whether because he could not give up his beloved concubine or not is open to question.

The body is despised, ill treated, starved, etc. In fact, all things of this world are despised and ill treated.

Another major point to remember about dualists of this stripe is that unlike Christians, who believe that God has won, and Satan has been cast out, is that the battle between the gods of light and dark has yet to be decided.

Hope that helps clear up some of the confusion.

Oh, and not to toot my own horn, but here's an article I wrote on Augustine....

A591392

which gives the pertinent facts. If you are really interested in Augustine, might I suggest Peter Brown's excellent biography? Or, if the footnotes and length put you off, Gary Wills' slim volume is also quite good.

Oh, and about Paul. Paul was preaching from an eschatological viewpoint, and thus, his dualism is more than understandable. Although I am not sure how you got there.

I have updated the entry to reflect Montana's comments regarding the differing views on when the battle over evil will be won. Some of my heresy entries are getting edited into unreadability. They need proper editorial attention.

Gnostism has had a few changes and determinism is becoming a total mess. Still it is all good fun..

I think that when Paul makes a distinction between the flesh and the spirit i think it is very easy to see a connection with gnosticism. William Blake is considered a gnostic and I don't remember HIM engaging in any funny eating habits (though i cannot be sure).

I see gnosticism as simply another way of looking at the internal battle which Christianity involves. Even after accepting Jesus we still have a battle inside us which may cause either self-improvement or a drop in faith. We must choose whether to let ourselves be guided by the spirit or to fall prey to the things of this world, thus distancing ourselves from God. This seems like a remarkably similar concept of ethics to Buddhist ethics when seen in this way - but prayer, not meditation is seen as the route to salvation.

I think that one of the key points of contention in the early church was that Christianity was established as a doing religion not a intellectual religion. The gospels are all about "do this". As the NT progresses, the need for faith (as opposed to doing things) becomes more prominent.

The very nature of the Word being flesh is a doing action of God. It is not about revelation through angels, it is God's ultimate statement that radicalism requires action and Christianity is about moral radicalism. Hence the notion of the law of Moses being fulfilled in Christ. One must know but, principally, one must do.

Much as I agree with what you have said, I do not understand why dualism is not a doing religion too. After all where the heart and soul goes surely you must follow. If you have faith in your heart naturally it will be followed by action. This appears to be what Paul teaches so is Paul a dualist or not?

if not, then why not?

I think you're confusing gnosticism, which is about secret knowledge and initiation, with dualism, which is about...well, I already wrote that one.

Paul may very well have been a gnostic, but then again, when Christianity was nothing more than one of many mystery religions, it had to compete, and making it mysterious, in the sense that there were "doings" may have given it a leg up.

That said, Pauline Christianity is not gnostic, because everyone can become a member. The whole point of gnosticism is that it's selective.

I think you're confusing gnosticism, which is about secret knowledge and initiation, with dualism, which is about...well, I already wrote that one.

Paul may very well have been a gnostic, but then again, when Christianity was nothing more than one of many mystery religions, it had to compete, and making it mysterious, in the sense that there were "doings" may have given it a leg up.

That said, Pauline Christianity is not gnostic, because everyone can become a member. The whole point of gnosticism is that it's selective.

I think that it is equally wrong to say that one's heart becomes clear from our actions as to say that our actions will follow our heart. The hypocasy some Jewish law keepers establishes (in the Gospels at least) that the first can be true. I can say from my own experience that I know things which do not drive to me to action, which is bad (if you can, read/watch the Yes Minister episode, The Whisky Priest).

My point is that Hiding in the Upper Room for Fear of the Jews is easy and common: we know it's wrong but we do it anyway - at work, at home and at church. I think that Christianity addresses the whole person: it explicitly demands that thinking and doing are the same thing in a whole person, which Christ was and we ain't.

Dualism explicity favours the spiritual and intellectual over the body and action.

True enough, PT. Yes, I think that might be it. And thus, Paul cannot be a dualist, because he states that we have one foot in this world and one in the other, a specific reference to our dual nature (dualists don't deny the dual nature, but they shun one half of it.)

Excellently put.