We began a discussion about Gnosticism yesterday that I wanna continue today.
Normally I don’t like to spend too much time talking about unbiblical ideologies and philosophies because I’d rather focus on Scripture…
But we have to in this case…
Because the invasion of certain anti scriptural schools of thought has changed Biblical history and not in a good way…
One of the first things you should know about the history of Gnosticism is that it last reared its ugly head in a big way during the period scholars call “The Enlightenment”…
A term I find ridiculous by the way…
Because whenever you go from the purity of God’s Word to something else, you arrive at anything but enlightenment.
You go from light to darkness.
Anyways, I digress.
So as I was saying, mankind’s last bout with Gnosticism occurred during the 18h century period known as The Enlightenment.
The chief promoters of this movement were philosophers such as Voltaire, Kant and Hume.
These men wanted to free mankind from the burden of having to bow down to and obey a God they could not see.
So in response to this ungodly uprising, another movement arose to fight it.
This movement was the institute we know today as “Systematic Theology”.
Systematic Theology wanted to fight against the Enlightenment…
And to a lesser degree, they also viewed the birth of the printing press which resulted in mass distribution of the Scriptures as a threat.
Probably one of the best ways to describe systematic theology is to liken it to the Jewish Talmud.
It’s basically a codified system of manmade doctrines created by the religious authorities of the day.
The idea was to have a formal system of answers to deal with thorny Scriptural issues and properly communicate God’s thoughts to the average layman.
However, there was only one problem with systematic theology.
It did more harm than good…
A lot more harm actually.
It was systematic theology that birthed the idea that the New Testament somehow replaced the “Old”.
And irony of ironies, in an attempt to fight against the secular humanism brought about by the enlightenment, systematic theology created another unbiblical doctrine.
They introduced the idea that obedience to the Father had now been replaced by total liberty through faith in “Jesus”.
Wanna know how “Jesus worship” came about at the expense of the Father?
Well, say hello to Systematic Theology.
While their intent was good, boy did they ever cause more damage than harm.
If there was ever movement that has introduced so much confusion and twisted truth to the body of believers, you’d be hard-pressed to find something worse than systematic theology
Let me finish up with this point.
Don’t be fooled by anyone who tells you the idea that the “Old” Testament has been done away with or has been replaced by the NT was an idea that originated in ancient times.
It did not.
It’s a false teaching that’s only about 250 years old.
And here’s another news flash for you.
The notion that the “Old” Testament is dead and gone was completely UNKNOWN to the church fathers (yes, gentile church fathers man!).
Think I’m lying?
Well, just hold on homies…
Because I’m gonna prove it in my next post…
The harm of systematic theology – absolutely!
Never thought of it as a response to enlightenment and the beginnings of secular humanism, but great point.
When we respond to the world on their terms, it warps the truth of the Word.
The main source of knowledge is revelation, not intellect and reason. Of course they are good tools, given by HaShem, but they must be impressed by theology without leaving too much of their fingerprints on it as they handle it.
Great comment…and very well articulated. I love the point you made when you said “When we respond to the world on their terms, it warps the truth of the Word”.
We should let the Word dictate our responses, not the world.