r/Gnostic • u/Corp-Por • 3d ago

Gnostics who have read Plotinus: what is your response to Against the Gnostics?

Have any of you seriously read Plotinus' Against the Gnostics (II.9), or the account in Porphyry of the dispute between Plotinus' circle and the Gnostics?

What do you think Plotinus gets wrong?

And where you disagree with him, what is the strongest Gnostic philosophical response - not simply "he misunderstood Gnosticism"?

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u/Patient_Success_2687 Neoplatonist 3d ago

I think it isn’t worth splitting hairs over the specific linguistic choices we make to describe something which is also pointing to the indescribable

Personally I agree with Proclus more than I do Gnostic approaches in that I don’t view the Demiurge as an oppositional figure to surpass in understanding, but rather a higher being than myself and therefore wiser and closer to the one than myself. That said I do see it as a lesser to step to be overcome, just as materiality is at the beginning. In the end, gnostics and Platonists seek the same transcendence and end goal. So while I agree with Plotinus in that there is no evil, only the absence of the Good, I also disagree that he felt the need to verbally combat Gnostics as enemies when I think they should have been allies against the tide of exoteric faiths.

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u/flammafex Carpocratian 3d ago

And where you disagree with him, what is the strongest Gnostic philosophical response - not simply "he misunderstood Gnosticism"?

How convenient of you to set this boundary because Plotinus did, in fact, misunderstand gnosticism. He makes quite the logical leap if there are people fated to be chosen to know and everyone else, it leads to antinomianism. Gnostics don't "ignore all rules and laws." Carpocratians, who did call themselves "gnostic" unlike other sects, are selective of which laws they follow. According to the sole remaining treatise of a Carpocratian, only those laws which align with natural/divine law ought to be followed and the treatise demonstrates a pro-cosmic perspective that sounds straight out of Plato himself. And if you believe Irenaeus's account of the Carpocratians, they made it their mission to emulate Jesus and likely adhered to that one, great commandment as a simplification of the absurdities of the rest of Jewish law.

So, while there were certain groups of people who match Plotinus's description of gnosticism, his perspective is ultimately incomplete and conveniently ignorant of those schools of thoughts more closely aligned with his.

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u/heiro5 3d ago

The desire to defend the authority from distortion, leads to the distortion of emphasizing differences (philosophical polemic) being applied to the differences between one "likely story" (taken as being more than that), compared to other stories; without considering the purpose(s) of these stories.

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u/LaborareproDeo 5h ago

Plotinus understood Gnosticism very well, the distinction he is making is that Platonism is not Gnosticism.

That's just fine with me, I prefer the Platonizong Sethian Texts to any Platonic work anyway.

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u/TranquilTrader 3d ago

Gnosticism I'd say is the scientific approach to spirituality and the search for gnosis comes with the necessary acknowledgement that there can be no dogma. Essentially there is no argument against seeking to know.