Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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maryhelena
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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

Post by maryhelena »

dbz wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:42 am [quote="Leucius Charinus" post_id=150345 time=1676947392 user_
Christian scripture teaches that god alone is good (Luke 18:19). Marcion, following Plato, went further by his assumption that god, to be god, must be good—in fact the Good and source of all good for all beings. This [MIDDLE] Platonized Christian divinity was immensely powerful but had one limitation: he could not do evil. Indeed, it was sacrilegious to say that god did anything morally base.

By Marcion’s time, belief in god's exclusive goodness had become cultural common coin. The idea appears in Philo, Plutarch, Alcinous, Numenius, and Apuleius—all leading Middle Platonists of the period. The Chaldean Oracles scold the ignorant: “you do not know that every god is good, you drudges. Sober up!” Bellerophon, a character in one of Euripides’s famous plays, declared “If the gods do something bad, they are not gods.” The idea that god(s) must be good was widespread. In essence, then, all Marcion had to show was that the actions and character of the Judean creator were not—or not exclusively—good. Marcion could thereby show that the Judean god was no god at, but rather an imposter. (p. 61)


—Litwa, M. David (2021). The Evil Creator: Origins of an Early Christian Idea. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-756643-5. "[Source: Publisher] This book examines the origins of the evil creator idea chiefly in light of early Christian biblical interpretations. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, the focus is on the interpretations of Exodus and John. Firstly, ancient Egyptian assimilation of the Jewish god to the evil deity Seth-Typhon is studied to understand its reapplication by Phibionite and Sethian Christians to the Judeo-catholic creator. Secondly, the Christian reception of John 8:44 (understood to refer to the devil's father) is shown to implicate the Judeo-catholic creator in murdering Christ. Part II focuses on Marcionite Christian biblical interpretations. It begins with Marcionite interpretations of the creator's character in the Christian "Old Testament," analyzes 2 Corinthians 4:4 (in which "the god of this world" blinds people from Christ's glory), examines Christ's so-called destruction of the Law (Eph 2:15) and the Lawgiver, and shows how Christ finally succumbs to the "curse of the Law" inflicted by the creator (Gal 3:13). A concluding chapter shows how still today readers of the Christian Bible have concluded that the creator manifests an evil character."

Image

Interesting book, well worth reading.

As to the creator god being evil - methinks an 'evil' principle is a necessary part, not of human physical existence but of our intellectual capacity. We think up ideas - and whether or not they are good or bad ideas, sooner or later the ideas will be 'taken out' by better, more useful ideas. Which is basically to say that destruction is a creator's prerogative. Thus, an 'evil god' is a big part of our human condition. (evil in the physical sense is obviously inhumane). The OT - with all it's stories of destruction of Israelite enemies - is simply giving voice to the 'evil' principle that has enabled humans to be intellectually where we are today.

What the New Testament story has done is demonstrate that the OT principle of a negative dualism, an evil god, is replaced, on terra firma, by a positive dualism between man and man - neither Jew nor Greek. Which basically points to a god of love, of love of neighbour. A reversal of sorts, a new Jerusalem on earth.

It is of course not a choice between these two gods, the evil god and the god of love. Both have their place, both have their context in which they can be of value. The OT god and the NT god are not antagonists when confined to their own context, a context in which each can have value.

Perhaps it's time for the 'evil god' to demonstrate that he still has the power to destroy - to destroy any ideas that are contributing to the disastrous political situation the world now faces. Or is it always going to be a case that we never learn.....yep, we need food in our bellies - but without ideas of value in our heads - we will not only stagnate but become immune to any intellectual spark that strives for growth. More love in the world is not the answer - ideas are needed - that old 'evil god' is needed to do some intellectual housekeeping....
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

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MrMacSon wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 12:02 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 6:43 pm If Plato's Demiurge was the perfect and good god, immaterial and beyond space and time
But Plato's Demiurge, iiuc, wasn't Plato's perfect and good god. Plato's Τὸ Ἕν / 'To Hen’ ( aka The Monad / The One ) was.

Plato's Demiurge was "a lesser divinity, one removed from the Most High".
The Craftsman/Demiurge was the highest god, the creator of the cosmos and other gods, in Plato's Timaeus. (Though in other works Forms -- implicitly also divinities -- exist before him.)

I use the Most High to compare him with the highest god in Syria-Canaan --- El was the Most High and Creator god there. El Elyon. But Plato's concept was very different -- Plato's god was immaterial and beyond space and time and perfectly good. That is, his Demiurge was perfectly good and creator of all. But all imperfections were the product of creations by the lesser gods.
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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

Post by dbz »

DCHindley wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:02 pm Philo was not happy with that. He followed the traditional Judean holy book Genesis, and felt that the God described there could have been nothing but all these principals in one. The God of the Jews had created matter as well as fashioned it, in addition to being the source of all intellectual constructs. The supreme God was also the creator of the material and spiritual hierarchies.
Per the religious syncretism of Second Temple Jewish texts.
  • The degree to which Jews reconciled the Bible with Greek philosophy, cannot be known beyond Philo—all else is lost!
[M]any Second Temple Jewish texts, including the writings of Philo of Alexandria, mention eschatological concepts developed in a Greco-Roman context. Significant among these are the many references to the Greco-Roman subterranean prison of Tartarus and the related mythology of the Titans and Giants. What are we to make of these references to Hellenistic mythology within Jewish works?
Burnett, Clint (2013). "Going Through Hell; ΤΑΡΤΑΡΟΣ in Greco-Roman Culture, Second Temple Judaism, and Philo of Alexandria". Journal of Ancient Judaism. 4 (3): 352–378 (352). doi:10.30965/21967954-00403004.
[Jewish and Christian Demonology] Among the Middle Platonists, Philo attempted to unite Platonic philosophy with Jewish theology. He is important to our study because his results were sometimes used by later patristic writers, He also points the way towards a different sphere of speculation on the subject of demons which in many ways is quite different from that pursued among the Greeks, Philo seems to have been the first person to make the identification between Greek demonology and Jewish angelology. (p. 35)
Walzel, D. L. (1972). Pagan and Christian demonology of the ante-Nicene period (PDF). MS thesis, Rice University.
Philo, who made the first attempt in Jewish history to reconcile the Bible with Greek philosophy, cannot have been unique; he must have had peers and a considerable audience, even in Palestine itself.

[But] Rabbinic literature betrays no hint that such interests existed. It is hard to believe that this silence is accidental.
[...]
[The goal] is clearly to demonstrate to Jews, and to any pagans who might read Aristeas, that the most highly regarded of all Hellenistic kings valued the Jews and treated them as equals; but it also served, surely, to show the Jews that it was possible to share in the intellectual and even social life of their Hellenistic environment without compromising their religion.

Moses Hadas (1956). "Judaism and the Hellenistic Experience: A Classical Model for Living in Two Cultures". Commentary Magazine.

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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

Post by dbz »

MrMacSon wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 12:02 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 6:43 pm If Plato's Demiurge was the perfect and good god, immaterial and beyond space and time
But Plato's Demiurge, iiuc, wasn't Plato's perfect and good god. Plato's Τὸ Ἕν / 'To Hen’ ( aka The Monad / The One ) was.

Plato's Demiurge was "a lesser divinity, one removed from the Most High".

The third level of Plato's hierarchy were the Daimones. And, iiuc, these were often seen as regional.
In the context of the REVISED thought of Plato of the first century CE, i.e. "Middle Platonism", is it still mainstream? Or is mainstream thought that a first-god then made second-god who then made a hierarchy that then spreads like an inverted tree of evolution?
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maryhelena
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“negative demiurgy.”

Post by maryhelena »

'Negative demiurgy' is an interesting term that Litwa has coined to demote the negative, the 'evil', aspect that can be discerned in the OT concept of god.

As my argument now draws to a close, I want to offer a practical suggestion regarding terminology that might in some way help us to surmount the current impasse about the use of “Gnosis” or “gnostic” as a global term. I propose that we call the idea (or ideology) of an evil creator, present in several early Christian groups, “negative demiurgy.”

“Negative demiurgy” is more precise and thus more useful as an analytical tool and comparative category. In the second century CE, it would describe the views of Marcionite and Sethian Christians, for instance—neither of whom we need call “gnostic” in a global sense. Negative demiurgy, I think, should not be understood as the central idea of a separate religion or religious phenomenon. Instead, I take it as a particular view possible in several discrete traditions, though mostly within what I would prefer to call summodeistic faiths (including early Judaism and Christianity).20 It is, to be sure, a minority position in the Abrahamic traditions. Yet it should not be left unstudied, not only since it is important for early Christian history and the history of biblical interpretation, also because it is alive and well in modern times.

The Evil Creator Today

A key inspiration for negative demiurgy in contemporary discourse is—once again—Christian scripture.21 This time, however, the most vocal critics of the biblical creator are not alternative Christian theologians but humanists and freethinkers still endeavoring to detach politics, science, and education from the structures of religious ideology. In so doing, they continue the project of the Enlightenment, which proved so influential for the founding of Western democracies.

Litwa, M. David. The Evil Creator (p. 303). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Richard Carrier gets a mention:


When Carrier closed his Bible after finishing the final page, he (by his own testimony) declared aloud, though alone in his bedroom: “Yep, I’m an atheist.” In this case, “atheist” meant not only that he did not believe in the biblical god but also that he indignantly opposed the character of its putative deity. In Carrier’s own mind, at least, the act of Bible reading played a constitutive role in helping him toward his negative demiurgical conclusions.

Litwa, M. David. The Evil Creator (p. 306). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

I'm sure that many on this forum are aware of Richard Dawkins view of the OT god:

A similar univocal reading of scripture is manifest in Dan Barker’s 2016 book God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction. In this work, Barker unpacks Richard Dawkins’s (in)famous statement that the “Old Testament” god is “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”43 To this (already rather full) list, Barker adds negative attributes of his own: god is “a pyromaniacal, angry, merciless, curse-hurling, vaccicidal [cow killing!], aborticidal, cannibalistic slavemonger.”44

Litwa, M. David. The Evil Creator (p. 311). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Perhaps, at the end of the day, it's our thinking about the 'evil god' that needs updating. Rather than viewing the OT god as beyond the pale - perhaps the OT stories were articulating something other than inhumanity. Perhaps, the OT creator god was, after all is said and done, simply a basic fundamental principle of human existence. We create and we destroy - yes, in the physical environment that demonstrates our capacity for inhumanity - but we also create and we also destroy our intellectual worlds as well. 'Negative demiurgy', a god of a negative dualism between our ideas not our neighbour, produces intellectual, philosophical, spiritual values. A principle the NT highlights with it's focus on the cross as the route to spiritual, hence philosophical/intellectual, growth or salvation. (human, flesh and blood, sacrifice is anti-humanitarian - a 'heavenly', intellectual sacrifice of outdated devalued ideas, can produce new value.)
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Re: “negative demiurgy.”

Post by GakuseiDon »

maryhelena wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 1:56 pm 'Negative demiurgy' is an interesting term that Litwa has coined to demote the negative, the 'evil', aspect that can be discerned in the OT concept of god.
No doubt Litwa has forgotten more about the topic than I'll ever know, but I prefer my categories of "Creator-as-God" and "Creator-as-Demiurge".

If it is "Creator-as-God", then the evil and suffering in this world needs to be explained. It opens the door to intermediaries like the Logos, daemons and angels. The intermediaries have a similar role to a Demiurge.

If it is "Creator-as-Demiurge", with the Demiurge being the craftsman of this physical world, then it explains this world. The Demiurge doesn't have to be evil, but the implication of that category is that there also exists a higher God. The Demiurge can be a creative tool for that higher God, or ignorant of the higher God, or even an evil rebel of that God.

There are downstream implications for both categories. Christianity divided itself along the lines demarcated by those two categories.

A similar univocal reading of scripture is manifest in Dan Barker’s 2016 book God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction. In this work, Barker unpacks Richard Dawkins’s (in)famous statement that the “Old Testament” god is “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”43 To this (already rather full) list, Barker adds negative attributes of his own: god is “a pyromaniacal, angry, merciless, curse-hurling, vaccicidal [cow killing!], aborticidal, cannibalistic slavemonger.”44

Litwa, M. David. The Evil Creator (p. 311). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

It puts me to mind of Eusebius of Caesarea's comment in Praeparatio Evangelica Book 12 Chapter 31:
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/euseb ... book12.htm

Now you may find in the Hebrew Scriptures also thousands of such passages concerning God as though He were jealous, or sleeping, or angry, or subject to any other human passions, which passages are adopted for the benefit of those who need this mode of instruction.

The Old Testament "Creator-as-God" explained!
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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

Post by Leucius Charinus »

GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 12:50 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:43 pmAFAIK it was the heretical Gnostics who first adopted the term demiurge into Christian writings. Exemplars of these in the NHL. Their adoption was systematic.
I don't know whether Christians adopted the idea of Demiurge or whether it was pagans with the idea of the Demiurge adopted Jesus Christ. I suspect that it went both ways once "Jesus Christ" became a heavenly resource that could be invoked for magical power by independent religious entrepreneurs.
I'd argue that whoever wrote the NT apocryphal material (which includes the NHL) were those responsible for the adoption the demiurge because that is where the term systematically appears in conjunction with themes from the NT and LXX.

The inclusion of Platonising treatises are a chief characteristic of many of these tracts. I'd therefore also argue these authors were not independent religious entrepreneurs but rather highly literate independent philosophical commentators on Christian canonical literature including the OT "Creator-as-God"
  • "In the Book of Thomas, the teaching of Jesus has become Platonised,
    while Plato's teaching has become Christianised."

    John D. Turner, The Book of Thomas and the Platonic Jesus, pp.606-607
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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

Post by ABuddhist »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:02 am
GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 12:50 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:43 pmAFAIK it was the heretical Gnostics who first adopted the term demiurge into Christian writings. Exemplars of these in the NHL. Their adoption was systematic.
I don't know whether Christians adopted the idea of Demiurge or whether it was pagans with the idea of the Demiurge adopted Jesus Christ. I suspect that it went both ways once "Jesus Christ" became a heavenly resource that could be invoked for magical power by independent religious entrepreneurs.
I'd argue that whoever wrote the NT apocryphal material (which includes the NHL) were those responsible for the adoption the demiurge because that is where the term systematically appears in conjunction with themes from the NT and LXX.

The inclusion of Platonising treatises are a chief characteristic of many of these tracts. I'd therefore also argue these authors were not independent religious entrepreneurs but rather highly literate independent philosophical commentators on Christian canonical literature including the OT "Creator-as-God"
  • "In the Book of Thomas, the teaching of Jesus has become Platonised,
    while Plato's teaching has become Christianised."

    John D. Turner, The Book of Thomas and the Platonic Jesus, pp.606-607
Why could independent religious entrepreneurs not also have been highly literate independent philosophical commentators? A highly literate independent philosophical commentator would have a relevant skill set in order to be an independent religious entrepreneur, I think. Just consider Franklin Jones, whom even his enemies concede was a brilliant writer about religious/philosophical topics even as he was an egomaniacal cult leader. Jones had a achelor's degree in philosophy from Columbia University and a master's degree in English literature from Stanford University.
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Re: Creator-as-God vs Creator-as-Demiurge and antinomianism

Post by dbz »

DCHindley wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:02 pm The difference between Plato and Philo has to do with divine principals:

Plato believed that there were three

1) The One,
2) the Demiurge (he actually uses three Greek words for this principal), and
3) unformed matter.

All were timelessly existent, The One developed by expanding mathematically to include all necessary intellectual constructs. The Demiurge (or Craftsman) simply gave physical form to the cosmic unformed matter.

Philo was not happy with that. He followed the traditional Judean holy book Genesis, and felt that the God described there could have been nothing but all these principals in one. The God of the Jews had created matter as well as fashioned it, in addition to being the source of all intellectual constructs. The supreme God was also the creator of the material and spiritual hierarchies.
"Philo was not happy with that.", nor was he unique in revising the original thought of Plato (Platonism_1.0).

In the first century CE, Platonism_2.0, i.e. "Middle Platonism" becomes mainstream thought.

Per Platonism_1.0
1) The One,
2) the Demiurge (he actually uses three Greek words for this principal), and
3) unformed matter.

In Platonism_2.0 they are pushed from dualism in a monistic direction!​


Platonism_1.0 strikes me as if a computer programmer created a simulated world using object oriented code, while Platonism_2.0 relies on the programmer to do everything :)
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