Although Gnosticism gradually faded from view after the 3rd century, many of its subversive heretical ideas were absorbed into mainstream Christianity. Even more remarkable is that numerous scholars acknowledge that Gnostic ideas are alive and growing inside Christian churches and seminaries today. New Testament Professor Peter Jones documents the "striking parallels between the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and the spirituality of New Age thinking and the post-modern worldview" (Spirit Wars, Peter Jones, 1997).

Although it would take a full book to explain all of the aspects and assorted varieties of Gnosticism, I can summarize here that its general bent has been toward the elevation of human thought above God. Its roots were solidly embedded in Greek philosophy, in particular the dualistic idealism of Plato. The rational mind and the world of ideas and intellect was good, beautiful, and true, but the material world was evil, ugly, and without positive value. For example, the ideational principle of a "tree" was far more important and true than an actual living tree.

"Gnosis" is Greek for knowledge. Gnosticism's attraction was the "secret knowledge" that only was available to the initiated elite. As always occurs in religious or philosophical systems that posit secret truths, the many different gnostic sects have never agreed on the details of their belief system. However, in A History of Christianity (1976), British historian Paul Johnson provides a helpful definition. Gnostics had (and still have) two central presuppositions:

1) Gnosis: The essential belief is in the existence of a secret code of truth, transmitted by word of mouth or by arcane writings. Gnosticism as a religion claims to have the ultimate explanations of existence that can only be accessed through its advanced adherents via secret rituals that transfer this information to initiates. It is an elitist view in which an individual can gradually rise in power and divine self-fulfillment through this hidden knowledge.

2) Extreme Dualism: Many Greek philosophies (Plato, stoics, etc.) posited some form of dualism. In general, this belief assumed that the material, lower plane of existence in which we find ourselves is evil or unimportant and that there is a higher, abstract, immaterial world of thought and ideas from which we all came but somehow we became stuck down here. Many complex systems and fantastical myths were invented to explain how this happened. You can google demiurge, Marcion, and Valentinus to discover some very imaginative early Gnostic speculations.

Where all Gnostics agree is in the belief that human beings need special knowledge to get back to our original home. You can see the parallel to the biblical truths of a spiritual, heavenly dimension where angels and God's throne exist in sinless purity and then the lower earthly dimension where even Christians must battle the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil (see Romans 7). In Christian Gnosticism there is a savior (a brother god rather than a sovereign Lord) that comes to rescue us with this knowledge of our divine origins.

Early on, another form of Christian Gnosticism was docetic, that is, it denied the bodily Incarnation if Christ. In this view, in order to be fully divine, Jesus had to be without a material (evil) human body and thus not be subject to its temptations, pleasures, pains, or death. Thus Jesus was not believed to be fully human, he just appeared to be so. This heresy was countered successfully by the early Church using John 1:14 and 1st John 4:1-3.

According to Johnson, Gnosticism was, and indeed still is, a "spiritual parasite," using other religions as a "carrier." Christianity has been an easy target. It has a mysterious founder, Jesus, who had conveniently disappeared, leaving behind a collection of sayings and followers to transmit them; and of course in addition to the public sayings, they could invent secret ones, handed on from generation to generation by members of the sect. Thus Gnostic groups seized on bits of Christianity but tended to cut themselves off from its historic roots. They were intent upon Hellenizing it, making their religion acceptable to the philosophical Greeks and Romans. You can see how this effort constituted a very early form of PC revisionism.

In the middle of the 20th century, thirteen papyrus volumes of Gnostic texts were discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. They have given invaluable insight into this diverse movement. They prove that Gnostic sects were spreading at the same time as orthodox Christianity. Both were part of the general religious zeitgeist and susceptible to syncretism, a blending of the two by educated but nominal early Christians.

The earliest semi-successful attempts toward gnostic syncretism with Christianity include the teachings of the arch-heretics Marcion (85-160 AD, born in Sinop on the Black Sea but early on moved to Rome), and Valentinus (135-160 AD, Alexandria, Egypt). Feel free to research their beliefs online; they contain some really weird stuff.

Still today Gnostics value the assortment of invented "gospels" that appeared well after the New Testament was written. As reported by Craig Blomberg in his research (The Gospel of Thomas: Is It Beyond Belief?), thanks to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, millions of people around the world who had never heard of the Gnostic gospels now know that there was a "gospel" falsely ascribed to Philip just as there was a gospel supposedly from Mary Magdalene. Thanks to the National Geographic Society, almost as many people have heard about the more recently translated Gospel of Judas. But bona fide scholars of all theological persuasions agree that little if anything in these documents adds to our knowledge of the historical Jesus, only to the nature of the second and third century Gnostic groups that produced them.

The Gnostic or Coptic Gospel of Thomas is probably the most well-known and researched of these writings. This work is a collection of the so-called sayings of Jesus attributed to assemblage by Thomas the Apostle. No evidence of the truth of this claim exists. Coptic was the language of ancient Egypt and northern Ethiopia. The manuscripts in Coptic that were discovered in the Nag Hammadi Library near Chenoboskion, Egypt just after World War II stem from the later fourth or early fifth centuries. However, fragmentary scraps of some of the identical sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas were found in the late 1800s in Greek at another Egyptian site known as Oxyrhynchus. These dated to no earlier than mid-second century.

It is also interesting to note that there are those who have accused the Apostle John of being under the influence Gnosticism (at least philosophical dualism) in His prologue to his gospel and in a few other passages (e.g., John 8:32). The Greek word logos had significant value in such platonic philosophies (mostly denoting the meaning of words, the truth that underlies any symbolism) and obviously John borrowed the term under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Some good things have come out of Greek philosophy and it is no accident that God blessed this culture and its language for a period of time - to be used for both the Septuagint and New Testament - in order to take the gospel to the gentile nations.

What is so wrong with Gnosticism?

The moral ethic of the early Gnostics often went to extremes. Some Gnostic groups were hedonistic and intemperate and other groups were ascetic and abstinent from all forms of physical pleasure. Their point of agreement was that the material body was evil and not really a part of who they were; they regarded their real soul life as being in the realm of ideas and intellect. Therefore ascetics chose to fiercely suppress bodily desires and libertines believed that it did not matter what you did with your body, so they chose to act out shamelessly in gluttony, intoxication, and orgies. Thus some early antinomian Christian groups seized upon Paul's warnings about the Law and misinterpreted these passages to preach unrestrained license (anything goes). Others adopted the stoics' tendencies toward self-abasement and self-denial, including not marrying. For the most part, post-modern forms of Christian Gnosticism are consistent with our permissive, sex-idolizing western culture, and thus tend toward the libertine type.

What makes Gnosticism so theologically heretical is its insistence that human beings are pre-existent and divine-and thus born without a sin nature (similar to the Pelagian heresy) and do not need Christ's atoning death to pay any sin price. In this view, we are not sinners, we are merely ignorant about our true identity. Christ is divine, but so are we, equally, and Jesus Christ's value is primarily in his teachings, not in his sacrifice. The idea of sacrificial atonement is meaningless or foolish to Gnostics. In their view, we are not saved by our faith in Christ and by what happened at the cross but by the abstract knowledge that reveals our innate divinity. Although Gnostics deny the essentials of the Christian faith as we have received it in the New Testament and historic creeds, they are fond of using some of the sayings of Jesus out of context, especially John 8:32: "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." For Gnostics, the most important truths are not clearly set forth in the gospels but are hidden and esoteric; only advanced "masters" have access to these truths, which they pass on to the chosen few disciples through secret rituals. Here is their little "wonderful secret": we are all little gods who don't yet realize it. The gnostic task in life is to discover and accept this vital knowledge about ourselves, get in touch with the god-power within us, and thereby become self-actualized. Of course, this way of thinking is diametrically opposed to the "mind of Christ" that we find in the New Testament.

Christianity is based on revealed knowledge that any literate person can access in the scriptures. Even illiterate persons can hear the gospel in church or even on TV. It has been vitally important for our obedience to the Great Commission (Matthew 28) to translate the scriptures and print Bibles in all languages, thus spreading the Gospel as widely as possible. Much was hidden from humanity before the Father sent Jesus Christ, but now nothing of importance associated with our salvation has been kept hidden (Rom 16:25-26, Eph. 8:8-10). Any form of Christianity that attempts to develop an elite clergy with the power and false authority to withhold (keep secret) or revise the Good News of the Gospel is necessarily heretical - with built-in elements of Gnosticism.

Gnosticism and the Denial of Sin

The Bible teaches that the human prototypes (Adam and Eve) were created "in the image of God", innocent and thereby good, having the capacity for limited choice and the potential for a divine destiny. There is immense value and dignity in being human. Gnostic Christians believe this much. However, Gnostics fail to fully believe in the other side of the spiritual reality: because of the fall of these first humans, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We are all living extensions of a fallen Adam and Eve. The scriptures do not reveal that we are merely immature children without knowledge but instead teaches that because of our inherited sin nature, we are in rebellion with the Creator (whether we realize it or not).

As John R. W. Stott put it: "The biblical doctrine of 'total depravity' means neither that all humans are equally depraved, nor that nobody is capable of any good, but rather that no part of any human person (mind, emotions, conscience, will, etc.) has remained untainted by the Fall." He continues elsewhere: "It is difficult to understand those who cling to the [false] doctrine of the fundamental goodness of human nature, and do so in a generation which has witnessed two devastating world wars and especially the horrors which occasioned and accompanied the second. It is even harder to understand those who attribute this belief [in the goodness of mankind] to Jesus Christ. For he taught nothing of the kind. Jesus taught that within the soil of every man's heart there lie buried the ugly seeds of every conceivable sin: 'evil thoughts, acts of fornication, of theft, murder, adultery, ruthless greed, and malice; fraud, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.' All thirteen are 'evil things', and they come out of the heart of 'the man' or 'the men', every man. [Matthew 15:18-20a] This is Jesus Christ's estimate of fallen human nature."

Scripture emphasizes this truth of our sinful nature in both Old and New Testament. If it were not so, we would not have needed God to send His Son and we would not have needed the Cross. The truth is, we desperately needed Christ to pay the sin price for us, making it possible for us to be reconciled to God and to be born again into God's family. We cannot do it on our own.

Gnostics hate and deny this truth. Gnosticism works to prevent our receiving salvation because it says that we don't really need it, that we are really OK. It also minimizes the need for repentance and confession of sin because it seeks to eliminate the entire idea of sin. Gnosticism also tends to deny the reality of an absolute authority, to deny a personal Lord to whom we are responsible, and to prefer abstract ideals and/or an impersonal god of nature.

The logical outgrowth of the Gnostic perspective is post-modern moral relativism and liberal humanism. These secular worldviews idolize the self and intellectualism. In the church, Gnosticism's strongest adherents (for example, the arch-heretic Bishop John Shelby Spong) deny all supernaturalism and thus deny the miracles, the Resurrection, and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in church history. They deny that our Bible canon is divinely inspired and authorized. The Gnostic perspective allows people to pursue "new" revelations contrary to Scripture and to indulge in the ego-gratification of their own "progressive" speculations. They value permissive tolerance of sin over repentance and they value personal freedom (rebellion) over obedience to God.

Since all real, positive spiritual transformation requires repentance of sin and faith in Christ (conversion), can you see how the Gnostic view acts to disrupt and replace this divine process? Thank God it cannot ultimately succeed.

Examples of Gnosticism Existing Today

In various modern forms, Gnosticism remains prevalent today. The Christian Scientist sect founded by American Mary Baker Eddy in the 19th Century is an obvious example of Gnostic syncretism with Christian beliefs. In the mainline churches we also find subtle elements of Gnosticism. As Harold Bloom [author of the book The American Religion, 1992] puts it, "Gnostic Christians have a special knowledge of Scripture, seeing things in it the Church has never seen. They also have a special knowledge of a deep holy Self that validates behaviors the Church has never affirmed." This self-deceptive way of thinking internally supports their relativistic view of progressive revelation. As one hyperliberal bishop put it, "We [the church] wrote the Bible and we can re-write it." Orthodox Christians of any denomination would never think this way.

It also is a common practice for Gnostic 'Christians' to worship abstract principles such as love or grace or freedom instead of worshipping the God who has these characteristics. But Scripture and Christian experience affirm that God is not an impersonal collection of principles. As it has been said, God is love-but love is not god because we worship a living, personal God.

Some secular examples which are not remotely Christian would include Scientology and also the popular teachings of psychoanalyst Carl Jung. I was reminded of Jung's Gnosticism by an old VOL article by Robert J. Sanders (which I lean on heavily in this section).

In particular, Carl Jung's book Aion reveals his adoption of Gnostic ideas wedded to the belief that to become healthy and actualized, the entire Self must unify all polarities into a psychic whole. All the yins and yangs of existence must be integrated, the masculine balanced with the feminine, darkness with light, and even the selfish with the charitable.

The closest idea to "sin" for Jung was ignorance, the failure to perceive rejected "shadow" parts of oneself and thereby the failure to integrate them into psychological wholeness. For Jung, this integration must include the evil that exists within us since both good and evil must contribute equally to a balanced personality. For that reason Jung rejected the image of Christ as pure goodness, believing that the attempt to live as Christ lived leads to self-repression and creates psychic disequilibrium and mental illness. Jung's theory fits well with the post-modern radically liberal (heretical) theology: "Come as you are, stay as you are, and remember that sin is not sin after all."

For orthodox Christians, we must remember that Paul speaks in Romans 7 about the battle between flesh and Spirit. We are not supposed to embrace our sinful nature, we must resist it. However, we must also admit that the essential reality of being Christian does involve a spiritual integration - unity with Christ, which then, over time, resolves all disequilibrium. It is "Christ in us the hope of glory" (Col 1:27) who supplies the power for us to reject evil and to receive that inner peace and contentment which is beyond comprehension (Phil 4:4-13). Jesus told his disciples: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives." (John 14:27a)

Dr. Atkinson is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary with a doctorate in clinical psychology and an M.A. in theology. He is a licensed psychologist in clinical practice in Atlanta and also works as a clinical supervisor training Christian counselors for Richmont Graduate University. He is a founding member of Trinity Anglican Church (ACNA) in Douglasville, Georgia