Science e Gnosis Man, Measure of All Things Without God, no Longer Has Any Measure In our pursuit of health and long life through the means provided by the scientific and medical establishment, we can spot the traits of Gnosticism, an ancient Christian heresy, and of the modern claim to an unlimited dominion over reality: the body a prison to escape from, and reality empty of meaning, to be manipulated as we please. The outcome is tragic: the incapacity of all human power to save man from himself gives rise to nihilism and violence What can Christians do in this situation? What the Church did in the early centuries: witness that reality is not empty of meaning. God has chosen to become one of us, with a body amongst other bodies. “The Christian finds a positive answer in the fact that God has become man; this is the event that surprises and comforts what would otherwise be a misfortune” (Fr Giussani), and so defends the inexorable positivity of reality by Michael Waldstein* History, according to a well-known proverb, repeats itself. In our pursuit of health and long life through the means provided by the scientific and medical establishment, we relate to the world and to our bodies in a manner strikingly similar to the first Christian heresy, ancient Gnosticism. According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, even the bloodiest persecutions suffered by the early Church were a small danger compared with Gnosticism. Many Gnostic groups continued to live within the Church. They understood themselves as “true” Christians, as the “spiritual” elect, superior to the “fleshly” or “psychic” ordinary believers. In one of the most important Gnostic texts, the Apocryphon of John, Jesus comes down after His ascension to reveal the true secrets of the world to His beloved disciple John. The main mystery He teaches him is that the creator of the visible world worshiped by the Jews and ordinary Christians is the devil (called Yaldabaoth). There is a purely spiritual world above the material cosmos. Jews and ordinary Christians know nothing about this higher world. The creator-devil Yaldabaoth does have some understanding of the spiritual world. His goal is to capture spiritual substance of the higher world in the human body in order to increase his own power and glory. The body is a prison constructed by the devil to imprison the spiritual self that is originally part of a divine world. Sexual intercourse is the main means by which Yaldabaoth establishes his rule. The sexual order originated in the rape of Eve by Yaldabaoth. “Then Yaldabaoth saw the virgin (Eve) who stood by Adam. He was full of ignorance so that he wanted to raise up a seed from her. He defiled her and begot the first child and similarly the second: Yahweh, the bear face, and Eloim, the cat face. Up to the present day sexual intercourse of marriage continued because of the Chief Ruler (Yaldabaoth). In Adam he planted sexual desire.” (Codex Berolinensis Gnosticus 8502, 62,3-63,6). Sex is from the devil. The consequence of sex, having children, is the most important part of the devil’s plan, because each child is a new imprisonment of heavenly spiritual substance in a body. Rebellion against the devil, the prince of this world, means rebellion against sexual passion. It also means rebellion against procreation. The refusal to procreate is an essential element in the struggle for liberation. Masters and possessors of nature Apart from the contraceptive ideology of the Gnostics, their attitude about sex seems rather the opposite of the easy-going love of sexual pleasure characteristic of our culture. Yet cultural analysis must probe deeper. The roots of our contemporary scientific-technological culture lie above all in two seminal thinkers of the Englightenment, Francis Bacon and René Descartes. According to Bacon, the learning of the Greeks and Scholastics is like a boy: it can talk, but it cannot generate; it is fruitful in controversies, but not fruitful for gaining power over nature and thereby improving the human condition. Knowledge exists for the sake of power. This is the goal we should strive for. According to Descartes, “it is possible to reach knowledge that will be of much utility in this life; and instead of the speculative philosophy which is now taught in the schools [ie, scholastic philosophy] we can find a practical one, by which, knowing the nature and behavior of fire, water, air, stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us we can employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves masters and possessors of nature” (Discourse on Method, 6). Masters and possessors of nature: Bacon’s and Descartes’ ambition for power over nature was not small-souled, but a grand ambition. We can make ourselves masters and possessors of nature. Even the heavens and the stars will serve us. Far-reaching progress in science and technology is pre-programmed in this ambitious vision. The impact of the ambition for power on the knowledge of nature was massive and far-reaching. Both Bacon and Descartes reject the ancient principle that nature acts for an end. Pre-given ends in nature are, in fact, an obstacle for the one who wants to use nature for his or her own ends. “Seek knowledge, and knowledge will give you power. But it would be more accurate to say that the new science sought first power over nature and, derivatively, found a way to reconceive nature that yielded the empowering kind of knowledge: Seek power, and you will devise a way of knowing that gives it to you” (Leon Kass). Escape from reality Descartes conceived of nature as mere “res extensa.” The world is a mechanism without meaning and purpose of its own. The proper use of this world is to subject it completely to human purposes. Here one can see the point of contact with Gnosticism. The Gnostics experienced the world as a hellish place, created, ruled, and occupied by a powerful creator, the devil. Salvation meant escape from this terror. The Cartesian universe is not a hellish place, but an indifferent one. It is neither a demonic nor a truly hospitable place, congenial with the interests of the person. It is mere matter that must and can be used in whatever way we see fit. The Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas argues rightly that the modern alienation of human beings from their mechanistic universe is even greater than the alienation of the Gnostics from their hellish prison. “There is no overlooking one ordinal difference between the Gnostic and the existentialist dualism: Gnostic man is thrown into an antagonistic, anti-divine, and therefore anti-human nature, modern man into an indifferent one. Only the latter case represents the absolute vacuum, the really bottomless pit. This makes modern nihilism infinitely more radical and more desperate than Gnostic nihilism could ever be for all its panic terror of the world.” Nihilism and violence Nihilism and violence belong together, as Dostoevsky shows in his novels, especially Crime and Punishment. This is perfectly reasonable. If there is no meaning in that which I subject to my power (this is nihilist premise), there can be no limit to my power. This final conclusion deeply characterizes the manner in which the scientific and medical establishment pursues its progress. What people want most of all is pre-given to the technological establishment as an end. The most commonly desired end in our culture is health, prolonging one’s life. Since the people who have money pursue this end, the medical establishment, following free market principles, follows their desire and works for their end in whatever manner it can. As a matter of principle, there can be no limit in the way the end is pursued, except the rights of other persons who are able to claim and defend their right. Those who are still weak, like embryos, are left without defense. They can be produced and used for medical therapy. Again Hans Jonas’s insight is penetrating. “Bacon’s formula says that knowledge is power. Now the Baconian program by itself, that is, under its own management, has at the height of its triumph revealed its insufficiency in the lack of control over itself, thus the impotence of its power to save not only man from himself but also nature from man. Bacon did not anticipate this profound paradox of the power derived from knowledge: that it leads indeed to some sort of domination over nature (ie, her intensified utilization), but at the same time to the most complete subjugation under itself. The power has become self-acting, while its promise has turned into threat, its prospect of salvation into apocalypse.” Reality is filled with meaning What is it that Christians can do in this situation, in which the person is more deeply alienated from the material cosmos than the Gnostics could ever be, in which it seems impossible to stop the self-generated momentum of technological power, in which Christianity becomes more and more marginalized, considered intellectually backward by the scientific establishment and morally offensive by the political power aligned with this establishment? They can do what the Catholic Church did in that first major crisis of its intellectual and spiritual life, the Gnostic heresy. They can reaffirm the goodness of the material world with joy. The material world is not empty of meaning. It is filled with meaning. “The Word became flesh and dwells among us and we see His glory” (Jn 1,14). God chose to become one of us, with a body among bodies. The event of His self-revelation takes place in the body. This event in flesh and blood makes it possible for us to encounter Him. This was the answer the Church gave to Gnosticism almost two thousand years ago. It is the answer we can give today to this deeper and more desperate Gnosticism characteristic of the scientific and political establishment. * President of the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria