I hope you guys don't mind if I post this quote on Gnosticism - it seems relevant to our Thomas discussions. This is from an Interview with John Dominic Crossan in the Journal of Philosophy and Scripture ...
"JDC: My criticism of Gnosticism would be this: one of the most fundamental decisions we have to make, going back to dear old Plato, is whether the human being is a dialectic, in the same sense as before, of body and spirit, or if somehow that spirit or soul is only temporarily, possibly even unfortunately, joined to what is either a flea bag hotel or a magnificent palace called the body. But in either case the soul is only temporarily embodied until it goes home to its true spiritual abode. I think that this is the most radical question in Western philosophy. Whichever way you come down on this question, everything else will follow. If you think that human beings are actually incarcerated, entombed spirits, that we're simply renting bodies out, then everything else will follow. But if you think along with the Bible that somehow or other the body/soul amalgam is a dialectic, that you can distinguish but not separate them, then everything else will follow differently. So Gnosticism seems to be a perfectly good, linear descendent of Platonism (I'm not certain though what Plato himself would have said), but at the heart of it is the presumption that the material world is at best irrelevant and at worst evil. Those seem to be the fundamental options. You have to pick your position from there."
Here's a link to the whole interview - link
8 comments:
thanks Crystal.
Of course -- what I've been contending form pretty close to the beginning - not of Thomas but our scripture study -- is that body and spirit are so co-mingled that separation is impossible.
That is the Mystery of Incarnation.
Crystal,
What do you think? Is the human being dialectic, of both body and spirit, or is the human being simply a temporary embodiment of spirit?
JDC states that this is the most fundamental decision we have to make - but I am not certain why this is so... What are the implicatons of these two ways of recognizing spirit?
Principle prcatical implication: if mater is evil, repugnant or irrelevant and spiritual enlightenment is the ideal -- then those with the leisure time to devote to philosophy and meditation are morally and spirtitually superior to ditchdiggers and poop-scoopers.
Hi Meredith. I think that if you believe that matter is bad and we are really just spirits, there might be a tendancy to not try very hard to make things "right" here in this life ... I mean, not caring for the environment, not working for social justice, etc.
I don't know which way is true, but if I had to choose one, I wouldn't pick gnosticism because I feel it is, at its roots, a symptom of self-loathing and escapism :-) ... the body is bad, life here isn't worthwhile, the pain of others doesn't matter.
Crystal, what you say of gnosis may be true to the general impression people have of it, as portrayed by its enemies, but I don't see evidence of that in Thomas. Do you?
In Thomas ... (this stuff from http://www.gospelthomas.com) ... here are three examples -
About charity ...
In saying # 15 ... Jesus says to them: ... when you give alms, you will do evil to your souls! ...
F. F. Bruce writes: "Fasting, prayer and almsgiving are three forms of piety mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6.1-18), but the instructions given here are quite different from those given there. Such pious activities, it appears, are superfluous and indeed harmful for the true Gnostic.
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About escaping the bad created world by going backward instead of forward ...
In saying # 18 - The disciples say to Jesus: "Tell us what our end will be." Jesus says: "Have you then deciphered the beginning, that you ask about the end? For where the beginning is, there shall be the end. Blessed is the man who reaches the beginning; he will know the end, and will not taste death!" ...
Funk and Hoover write: "Thomas consistently opposes speculation about the end (compare Thomas 3; 51; and 113). The idea that one returns in the end to one's beginning has parallels in gnostic texts: the goal of the gnostic's existence is to escape the created world of evil and return to the state of primordial perfection that existed at the beginning.
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About the badness of the body ...
In saying #29 - Jesus says: "If the flesh was produced for the sake of the spirit, it is a miracle. But if the spirit (was produced) for the sake of the body, it is a miracle of a miracle." But for myself (?), I marvel at that because the [ . . . of] this (?) great wealth has dwelt in this poverty."
F. F. Bruce writes: "Flesh and spirit are antithetical: spirit does not need flesh as its vehicle, and it is unthinkable that spirit exists to aid flesh. In the conditions of earthly life, spirit is the 'great wealth' that resides in the 'poverty' of a mortal body
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I take your point, Crystal, but Bruce, Funk, and Hoover give their own negative interpretations of Thomas, and there are much more hopeful ones. Thomas used hyperbolic language (like Jesus) that it's very easy to ridicule; a better way may be to seek the creative thoughts beneath the irony. If you believe that Jesus meant for the rich man to go through the eye of the needle literally, then you will certainly miss the point of his words.
Larry, good point :-)
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