Questions: Gnostic Theodicy – Take Two

The theological problem known as 'the problem of evil,' or as 'theodicy' (the justness of God), is the result of a theological definition of God comprising of three elements: all-powerful, meaning that there are no external limits on the power of God; all-knowing, meaning that there are no external limits on the knowledge of God; and all-good, meaning that there are no external limits on the goodness of God. What flows from this definition is the difficulty of avoiding assigning some responsibility for evil to such a being who knows about the evil in advance, has the power to prevent the evil, and, being good without limit, would have to act to prevent the evil.

The problem goes like this: since there is no external limit, there is nothing other than God that can be responsible for evil, but God is all-good and so cannot allow evil that God could prevent. However, there is no limit on the knowledge and power of God so there is nothing other than God that can be responsible for evil, but God is all-good and so cannot allow evil that God could prevent... Rinse. Repeat.

If we modify the definition, the problem goes away. If God is not all-good, then God can allow evil to occur, or even cause it. (A common pragmatic belief, even if denied in theory.) If God is not all-knowing, then God cannot be expected to know each instance of evil that will occur in order to prevent it. If God is not all-powerful, then God may not be able to prevent every instance of evil. The other way out of the problem is to deny the existence of evil in various ways, and that is the usual strategy employed by theologians. (There are also self-limited and all-good arguments.)

From the Gnostic texts we see statements comparable to the all-good part of this theological definition. The other two definitional elements, all-powerful and all-knowing, are certainly not present as understood and formulated in contemporary theology. For example, in Gnostic stories the ultimate divinity emanates aspects of the divine nature rather than acting as a creator wielding power upon a separate creation. There is also the question of whether it is valid and to what extent it makes sense to re-frame ancient Gnostic stories into modern theological arguments.

One of the things that annoys some academic scholars of Gnosticism is the mythic rather than theological nature of Gnostic texts. Our culture is so used to theological ways of thinking that the mythic form seems unwieldy. Yet there is a fundamental difference between the mythic and theological in the nature of meaning.

The analogy that comes to mind is the characters of a story, be it a book or a film, being translated into a game, such as a video game or trading card game. The character is removed from the story, the context of meaning, and is then defined by attributes relative to other things in the game. It may be fun to play the game, to move outside of the story, but it is a fundamentally different enterprise from that of telling the original story. Likewise, translating the ultimate divinity from Gnostic stories into a game piece with theological attributes and moving outside of the story is a very different thing from the telling of the original stories.