- they use Jesus Greek name instead of Hebrew when coming up with number scheme
- high amounts of numbers of all sorts mentioned in scriptures: any scheme could be created to contradict another
- they must pick and choose numbers which match their scheme versus numbers that contradict (arc numbers have nothing to do with the gnostic numbering scheme)
- Only one God
- by rejecting this, numerable gods are added to the story
- without this truth, need to constantly expand worlds and gods to continuously explain universe
- rejecting this truth after having it makes them worse than heathen
- Everything made by His Word
- if angels or other beings created our world without God's knowledge, it would make them greater than He which would contradict them being His angels and Him being all powerful
- if God had used His angels, with His will, to create the world it would still be made by Him
- World ideally formed by God's will and desire, not defect
- if God did not make world, would have had to come into existence on its own somehow (requires endless fables of novelty and mental gymnastics)
- stain or defect could not exist in His creation unless permitted or by direct will (one would require God to be evil while the other for Him to be not omnipotent/all knowing)
- Author of Knowledge or Ignorance?
- if God is author of knowledge then why create the mother in ignorance?
- Christ could not be born in ignorance in order to enlighten us (if He were then how would He have become enlightened? - and then why would whoever enlightened Him not have enlightened us, making Christ's job obsolete?)
- Intelligent Beings Unintelligent?
- Even animals who have no reason know of their creator
- How then could angels, who have reason and superior intellects to both animals and us, be ignorant of their creator?
- St. Irenaeus calls it "utter folly!"
- Purpose of Existence
- what meaning would there be for an ignorant eon or person to exist?
- why would God create some naturally bad? (Calvinism influence?)
- Spirits Cast no Shadow
- things below could not be shadows of things above
- if not so, then things above could not be spiritual but material
- light of God fills all things, not some / vacuum and shadow have no existence
- Ambiguous Fables
- taking ambiguous parables and scripture, they twist it with even less clarity (giving ambiguous explanations to questions of ambiguity), conjuring up a false god of their never previously sought
- received ideas from heathen but changed names (adopting fables as their own)
- asking questions without giving true answers
- err by both defect and excess
- claim the material world to be made by the passionate emotions of the mother
- 30 eons contradicted by their own doctrine
- Christ was not quite 30 when first starting ministry
- why would 12 apostles represent 12 eons without 10 + 8 more apostles?
- why 30 eons broken down into unequal groups (no explanations or accounts for their productions / no reasons for their perplex ideas)
- is each eon the same age or did one produce the other?
- is each eon of the same substance? - all capable of passion? - and then would the Father not produce passion?
- they accuse Christians of not thinking enough of things above, yet Gnostics truly ponder and obsess over things below
- speech and silence cannot coexist
- yet it is claimed that such coincided
- how could intelligence be sent forth from the Father without staying within Him?
- all God's attributes must exist together simultaneously, not sent forth and separated from Him
- if enlightened Gnostics already knew the truth then why did Jesus need to descend?
- Are they the ones that taught Christ (in their own minds)?
- and if not then why do they lie?
- Judas' Importance?
- cannot be the suffering eon since he was replaced by another apostle
- also bible itself mentions he is son of perdition
Conclusion
- Love vs Knowledge
- Love of Christ more important than knowledge
- seeking knowledge without Christ leads to puffed up false knowledge absent from Christ/Truth
- only knowledge of Christ's love is important: other knowledge is secondary and not required
