Against Duelisms: A (Pro)gnosis for Critical Practice

Lessl's passionate characterization of "gnostic scientism" provides a fascinating frame for thinking about ways in which contemporary advocates construct and maintain places of privilege. Despite its provocative suggestions, we are nonetheless cautious about his particular retelling of religious history and its implications for rhetorical criticism.

I

Lessl's nostalgic look at the second-century debate over "true Christianity" reveals a fairly uncomplicated distinction between the Church fathers and gnostic heretics. Gnosticism, according to Lessl, is "at the very center . . . an extreme form of dualism which regards immateriality as fundamentally good and materiality as fundamentally evil." Challenges to gnostic dualism were held in check by the self-proclaimed spiritual elite and enforced by the coercive "prohibition of questions." In the end, though, the doctrinal work of the Church fathers (namely Irenaeus, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and later Origen and Augustine) rendered gnostic thought heretical. Thus orthodox (literally "straight thinking") Christianity was preserved for the ages. Lessl invites us to think of natural scientists in the same way—heretics who essentially maintain power through the prohibition of questions. Lessl appears to be longing for the day when "straight thinking" people will smoke out the scientistic heretics and bring 'em to justice. Yet, Lessl's uncomplicated rendering omits vital parts of the gnostic story and supplants his critique of dualism with something else—rhetorical duelism, a bit of heresy in its own rite(s).

While most scholars agree that dualistic thinking is a dominant feature in the gnostic tradition, it may not be appropriate to suggest that it resides "at the very center." Indeed, gnostic writings exhibit such a range of attitudes and beliefs that reducing its core to dualistic thinking is to risk oversimplification. ¹ It is true that gnostics were characteristically cosmological and anthropological dualists, but so too were they characterized by antinomianism, docetism, anticlericalism, encratism, asceticism, and vegetarianism, to name a few. Perhaps what this diverse and decentralized movement shared more commonly was the idea of gnosis, literally "insight" or "wisdom." It was the gnosis that created in Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus, Mani, and others the notion that they could see beyond the literal interpretation of the Scriptures to a deeper, more particular rendering of the gospel. It was the gnosis that gave one a sense of the divine within. It was the essence that separated the "mere" Christian from the "spiritual" Christian who possessed special understanding. Most often, that special understanding was manifest in dualistic thinking, but not necessarily. Elaine Pagels, for instance, has observed that the Gospel of Philip, a gnostic work discovered at Nag Hammadi, attempted to harmonize the strict dichotomies traditionally associated with gnostic thought with a notion of freedom found in the Pauline discussion of love in 1 Corinthians, chapters 8 and 9. In this light, gnosis is not a matter of materiality (bad) versus immateriality (good). Such dichotomies, according to the Gospel of Philip, are false dichotomies enforcing uniformity and denying the unique insight of individual gnosis. ²

By reducing gnosticism to a unified adherence to dualistic thinking, Lessl fails to account adequately for diversity within the movement and implies that the gnostics constitute a unified front against orthodox Christianity. If we accept this view and then apply it analogically to the scientific community, we get an inaccurate picture of what is going on and fall into duelistic thinking—thinking that polarizes and conjures scenarios of good guys and bad guys doing battle for the minds of our children. The stakes are high in this duel, and Lessl would have us believe that where we find gnosticism we will also find the "prohibition of questions."

II

That certain questions are never engaged or are flatly dismissed is, according to Lessl, a defining characteristic of the gnostic—ancient or modern. In the case of scientists of the positivist belief, writes Lessl, "all questions reaching beyond the scope of ordinary logic and empirical evidence...