Gospel ofTruth —II
Gospel ofTruth —II Last week we plowed into the first section of the Gospel of Truth , attributed to Valentinus, ending with numerous descriptions of a Heaven on Earth. The last section that we read was this knotty Zen puzzle: “And as for him, them he found in himself, and him they found in themselves, that illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all, in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks, since he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all.” A wondrous concept is embedded in the descriptor: “in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks”. And it generates much food for thought, much revamping of our WASP visual image of God as a benevolent Grandfather with an unconditional forgiving kiss for all his erring children. This sentence implies that God exists inside and outside of Himself, and was Himself responsible for the flawed universe that Valentinus complained of. Remember, last week we heard Valentinus accuse God...