Paul's Passing Thoughts

One shouldn’t dismiss information out of hand because of the source alone, but there is no doubt that such information deserves more stringent vetting when the source is dubious. We know that the founders of Protestantism, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin had Gnostic leanings, so we also know that Protestantism needs a complete reevaluation by the saints. I think we have been sold a bill of goods for so long that what the Bible has to offer is a wide open frontier. I think most of what we “know” was conveyed to us by dead mystic despots. We are so dumbed down that their hatred for God’s people wasn’t even our first clue. Neither was the fact that they hanged, burned, and drowned those that disagreed with their interpretation of Scripture.

I am hesitant to screen some who comment here at PPT when they are well studied and respectful because I am confident in what I know. Granted, I sometimes cringe as I click on the approve button, but sometimes it pays off in regard to learning something valuable. Well studied people bring valuable things to the table, and if I have made my case here at PPT, readers will not be led astray by contrary information.

However, I do screen those who waste my time with what amounts to assertions that a cat isn’t exactly a cat because it starts walking. It’s already a cat, but not yet. A cat and a walking cat are distinct, but never separate. That’s where I draw the line. I draw the line with those who do Reformed speak.

This brings me to the point. The following is a comment posted on PPT last week:

Calvinism derived its 3 classes ultimately from the 3 classes in Valentinian Gnosticism (see Ireneaus’ five books Against Heresies):

1. Pneumatics (spirituals) – The elect of the elect.

2. Psuchics (soulys) – The average elect.

3. Hylics (carnals) – The non-elect.

Meaning, the Hylics have no chance. As for the Psuchics, they are (as you put it) “entered into the race” but not given “the gift of perseverance.” And the Pneumatics, of course, are elect to the uttermost, meaning nothing they do can damn them.

In Gnosticism, this is natural selection, or election by nature according to Clement of Alexandria in Stromata: 2. 3. More specific definitions follow:

In the gnostic view, hylics, also called Somatics (from Gk σώμα (sōma) “body”), were the lowest order of the three types of human. The other two were the psychics and the pneumatics (from Gk πνεύμα (pneuma) “spirit, breath”). So humanity comprised matter-bound beings, matter-dwelling spirits and the matter-free or immaterial, souls.

Somatics were deemed completely bound to matter. Matter, the material world, was seen as “evil” in the gnostic world view. The material world was created by a demiurge, in some instances a blind, mad God, in others an army of rebellious angels as a trap for the spiritual Ennoia. The duty of (spiritual) man was to escape the material world by the aid of the hidden knowledge (gnosis). *

The pneumatics (“spiritual”, from Greek πνεῦμα, “spirit”) were, in Gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and hylics. A pneumatic saw itself as escaping the doom of the material world via the transcendent knowledge of Sophia’s Divine Spark within the soul.†

They conceive, then, of three kinds of men, spiritual, material, and animal . . . The material goes, as a matter of course, into corruption. The animal, if it make choice of the better part, finds repose in the intermediate place; but if the worse, it too shall pass into destruction. But they assert that the spiritual principles which have been sown by Achamoth, being disciplined and nourished here from that time until now in righteous souls (because when given forth by her they were yet but weak), at last attaining to perfection, shall be given as brides to the angels of the Saviour, while their animal souls of necessity rest for ever with the Demiurge in the intermediate place. And again subdividing the animal souls themselves, they say that some are by nature good, and others by nature evil. The good are those who become capable of receiving the [spiritual] seed [and becoming pneumatic]; the evil by nature are those who are never able to receive that seed [and become hylic].—Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 7, 5

Calvin held to these same three types of categories except the determinism is by God rather than nature. For Calvin, it is the non-elect, the elect, and those of the elect that are gifted with perseverance:

In fine, we are sufficiently taught by experience itself, that calling and faith are of little value without perseverance, which, however, is not the gift of all (CI 3.24.6)

The expression of our Savior, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” (Mt. 22:14), is also very improperly interpreted (see Book 3, chap. 2, sec. 11, 12). There will be no ambiguity in it, if we attend to what our former remarks ought to have made clear—viz. that there are two species of calling: for there is an universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death, and the ground of a severer condemnation. Besides this there is a special call which, for the most part, God bestows on believers only, when by the internal illumination of the Spirit he causes the word preached to take deep root in their hearts. Sometimes, however, he communicates it also to those whom he enlightens only for a time, and whom afterwards, in just punishment for their ingratitude, he abandons and smites with greater blindness (CI 3.24.8).

To what extent is the doctrine of election fruit of Gnosticism’s poisonous tree? Is predestination true at all? These are questions that the saints will have to answer via their own faithful study.

Paul

Notes

*Freke, Timothy (2001). Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-1-4000-4594-5.

†Online source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_(Gnosticism)