Christian Gnosticism as ʼotherʻ Enlightenment. Reflections on Christian philosophy

Abstract

Enlightenment thought and gnosticism speak of a self-Uberation of man through the light of knowledge. But there is a/so “another” enlightenment, Christian gnosis, which is distinct from the historical formulations of gnosticism and which is understood as faith in man’s possibility of being enlightened. Christian gnosis and gnosticism diverge in their ways of conceiving both the “beginning”, in the Biblical sense, and man as image of God. Moreover, in explaining the origin of evil and pain, gnosticism introduces a contradiction into God. In Christian gnosis man approaches the historical fact of the incarnation of God and the limits of his own reason. Hence it is not a case of philosophism or of dogma tic speculation, but of a speculative reflection on the contents of Christianity, starting from the interior mystical experience of them.