Thank you for your lecture or RU-vid uploading. My name is Young Hoon Song, a Canadian citizen with the cancellation of the citizenship of South Korea in 2018. I am an Ontario Disability Support Program recipient with the diagnosis of OCD. ... I had read a book about gnostism with the translation of Korean. And I learn about Areneous?(I am not sure the spelling, as I remember he is related to the canonization of 4 Gospel of synoptic bible. ) Your lecture reminds me of Jurgen Habermas' book with the historic explanation of the meaning of "public". And some phrase of a Chinese philosopher of the time of Ming-Qing transition. His comment on the term of Xing-Er-Shang and Xing-Er-Xia in ShiJing with which related to the translational term of Metaphysics in East Asian languages. I will keep watch your channel. Thank you again.
I would love to. I've written on Heidegger, and have a lot to say, both about Being and Time and several of his later works. I have a dozen books by and on Heidegger here on my shelf-if I've brave I may even say something about The Event (or Contributions to Philosophy from Enowning).
I generally love your videos, but (and this may be because of my own biases) it seems a bit biased. Gnosticism sprung from the 1st century in parallel to mainstream Christianity, and Early Christianity comprised of diverse groups based on oral tradition that contained many view later perceived as heretical. While it is true that the writings we have are of the 2nd Century, but as far as I know, they are a written form of an earlier oral tradition which due to its development were not written until later. The communities, the ideas and their traditions came from the late 1st Century, and some even state a direct teaching line from the Apostles. I don't think it's fair then to present it as a later development, rather it is a parallel one. The notion of something as heretical would be the later development(judging early parallel traditions by this view). I also think that it's not fair to perceive Gnosticism only through the lens of its enemies. Iranaeus misrepresents the Gnostics(one is free to interpret such act as deliberate or not) and is not an objective source. It would seem he wrote in order to denounce and combat rather than to objectively describe. For example, he presents certain Gnostics as libertines and sex addicts, while they were explicitly celibate and non-sexual, parting from their view that this material realm is "bad" and sexuality as a great material force was also something "bad" and to be overcome. It would be like understanding Christianity from the lens of an anti-theist like Hitchens. Finally, I think that there are similarities that are not to be taken literally. Some may sound fantastical, but they could be allegorical, just as John's Revelation, full of imagery and fantastical elements. One could dismiss the Book of Revelation's because it sounds too "out-there", if one tries to take it as literal. I say this with the greatest of respects and a profound admiration, Professor.
You’re right. I wasn’t as clear as I should have been. Gnosticism had been around for centuries; it was the Christian version I meant to say was later, thriving in the second century.
I also agree that Irenaeus is often unfair in his criticisms. Here I focused just on the ones I think are serious objections. I plan to talk in fitter videos about middle Platonism and Neo-Platonism, making it clearer what motivated those movements, together with Gnosticism as such. Plato leaves us with the problem of how we could know about or interact with the forms. I see all three as attempts to explain that.
In the second century, yes. Early critics of Christianity such as Celsus tended to attack the miracle stories, claiming that Jesus was a magician, that Mary was an adulteress, etc. They attacked the Christian God as too weak to fight evil successfully; they attacked Christian morality; and they claimed that Christianity was a threat to Rome. But they for the most part didn't argue that Jesus himself was mythical. That only arose in the 18th century and became a prominent line of attack in the 19th century.
Excellent video thank you, could you please tell me what is the significance of the symbol carved in the center of the stone circle at the very beginning of the video?
Great lecture! Didn’t Philo link them to the Essenes - a sect of which Jesus is alleged to have been a member? Also, I think Thomas Sewell refers to the „anointed“ intellectuals as the „gnostic“ - the ones in the know… ? Just wondering.
This is so interesting. Although it feels more like a "tale" without reasonable justification. Unless perhaps we could conceptualize these beings as a representations of the Platonic Forms. Maybe Valentinus tried to describe in a more fantastic way what Plato meant by forms.
This reminds me of Husserl's phenomenology as a gnoseology. His teacher Bolzano was excommunicated from the Catholic Church and Husserl built upon his philosophy.
I'm just going to throw my thoughts out there, it appears that Christianity was more of a "thought" or "philosophical" movement in some parts of the Roman empire. Similar to thought movements in our modern world where you have a movement such as Luciferism which attains a widespread popularity, Luciferism is itself a derivative of Madaam Blavatsky's Golden Dawn, Madaam Blavatsky's Golden Dawn being derivative of Anton Kardesh's work on Spiritism, who in turn is derivative of various Masonic groups, the early Christians had derivative thought movements which seem to incorporate whatever the prevailing local belief system happened to be in a similar manner to how modern Hinduism is able to operate today. However, I think if we consider Christianity to be a thought movement in a philosophical sense, we have to consider what problems Gnosticism solves. While yes, Gnosticism seems to certainly create some strange and/or logical redundancies, I have absolutely no problem with the Gnostic idea that one's soul is an eternal fire that constantly seeks enlightenment through a reunification with Christ. Firstly, Gnosticism is more explicitly in line with Platonism and answers the question about how an eternal/immortal entity (your soul, Christ's soul) becomes incarnate in the material world. The mainstream Christian faith's simply sidestep this question entirely for the most part. Secondly, Gnosticism answers how precisely the "material world" can be evil (prince of darkness reference in John 15). I would certainly agree that arguing over the precise number of the aeons seems ridiculous, if we instead interpret the aeons as metaphorically representing a higher spiritual reality, then we may interpret Valentinians scheme of Bythus --> Nous --> Logos --> Anthropos as a broader discussion of metaphysical and spiritual causality. In the depths (transcendent reality beyond everything such as time and space), the nous (divine thought) emerges which united with truth creates "the word" (unfolding rymeality of the world from moment to moment and second to second) which then begets life and man (anthropos). I hope you will agree that my statement translated into English is not somehow controversial or anachronistic with the ordinary notion that Christians possess regarding how God works through reality to accomplish his goals. Additionally, consider, why does the world need to be "redeemed" if God is in control of the ship? How are humans "free" if everything in the Universe is controlled by God? Who is "saved" through the death of Jesus, what does this even mean? What is the spiritual significance of the eucharistic sacrament on a metaphysical level? Either one embraces a somber acceptance for the Southern Evangelical Baptist/Sunni Muslim version of fatalism, or one resigns himself to a war between the forces of darkness and light for the cosmos. At least, those are my thoughts on the matter. I appreciate your channel/video. Kind regards,
