Merger

James Wynn · 03 Feb 2011, 20:45 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:45:34 -0600
Subject: (urth) Merger
In-Reply-To: <C5B82CCC-97CD-4AF5-830C-EC11D4EDBC08 at butcherbaker.org>
References: <SNT123-W192433A24BA050B02D51FCFE70 at phx.gbl>
	<C5B82CCC-97CD-4AF5-830C-EC11D4EDBC08 at butcherbaker.org>
Message-ID: <4D4B13EE.8020604 at gmail.com>

>>> "Increate" means "not created". "Pancreator" means "creator of all". It
>>> seems logically inconsistent that these could be separate persons.
>> Well, I am only a novice in these areas, but my understanding among those who believe in
>> separate beings is that God/Increate is a being of pure spirit while the Demiurge created
>> all the material things we see. Maybe God created the raw material but the demiurge shaped
>> it? I dunno.
> I need to go back and see where Demiurge is used. IIRC it is something Thecla says. Anyone else?
>
> Demiurgos is a false or half creator.
> So,  in a Gnostic worldview, YHVH is a entity distinctly separate from the Godhead.  That is, there is a true, uncreated prime mover, but that isn't the god of Abraham.  The Demiurgos is deluded, thinking itself the most-high, but it is the living abortion of Sophia.  This is a problematic heresy from the official view, of course, because, then "who the F is YHVH and how did he dupe us?". But gnostics then have the Logos issuing from the true Godhead as a saviour for those trapped in the demiurge's creation.
>
> So, when a character uses Demiurge, they most likey do NOT mean to equate it with Pancreator or Increate, because, theologically, if one uses the term, it implies understanding the difference in ontological levels.

It is easy to think of "demiurge" as meaning "half-creator" because we 
often use "demi" to mean "something less than" or as synonymous with 
"semi" or "hemi". But actually it means only "skilled worker" or 
"craftsman".  It comes from the Socratic Dialogues. Of course, with the 
new understanding that Plato was a Pythagorean, perhaps its roots even 
drawn from there. Anyway, the God of Genesis or the Logos of the Gospel 
of John could be properly called a "demiurge".

Among CERTAIN Christian Gnostics, the demiurge is something of a bad guy 
and something separate from the Increate/Pancreator. He is a created 
being who made the world. Manicheanism is seen as the name brand of such 
philosophies. However, in many (most?) Gnostic philosophies--even 
Christian ones--this is not the case. In fact, in a lot them, the world 
was made by multiple demiurges called archons.

So the question is, was Wolfe riffing off one of the particular 
"anti-Semitic" Gnosticisms or another more generic brand?

u+16b9

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