Zain's Guide to Overthinking Everything

Notes on the Basics of Gnosticism            The Gnostics were an early sect of Christianity who had various beliefs, scriptures, and branches. Gnosticism derived its name from the Greek word “gnosis” which means knowledge. However, for them it signified an intimate, experiential knowledge of the divine and esoteric wisdom that are necessary for liberation. The Gnostics generally claimed that this world was created by a false God known as the Demiurge who is the god of the Hebrew Bible and is an evil vengeful god. While the Demiurge claims to be the highest God, in reality it is a creation of an emanation or Aeon, Sophia, of the absolutely transcendent real God, the Monad or the Neoplatonic idea of the One. Human beings are essentially divine spirits trapped within physical bodies and through proper gnosis or knowledge, one can achieve spiritual enlightenment and salvation and this gnosis was taught by Jesus Christ. In their cosmology, Aeon...

Solving the Synoptic Problem: Investigating Gospel Harmony Theories            The three Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they share many of the same stories in a similar sequence and even sometimes identical wording. They stand in contrast to John, whose content is largely distinct who often different in these details. For simplicity’s sake, despite the Gospel authors being unknown, they will be referred to by their traditional names. As shown in the diagram above, the three synoptic Gospels share similar information about the life of Jesus. Statistically. over three-quarters of Mark’s content is found in both Matthew and Luke, and 97% of Mark is found in at least one of the other two synoptic gospels. Furthermore, 23% of Matthew and 23% of Luke have material in common that is not found in Mark. The question of how these 3 Gospels share the same information so closely while being written at di...

Debating The Filioque and Incarnation: A Comparative Analysis of Eastern Orthodox and Thomistic Perspectives on the Trinity The Eastern Orthodox claim that the three persons in the Trinity have the same divine will and power since they are the One God. However, if one does not affirm that they have the possibility of becoming incarnate then this would entail that they do not have the same power as only the Son has the power to become incarnate, while the Father and Holy Spirit cannot. If there are three persons who are each divine and yet share different powers then there is a strong argument that this leads to three gods rather than one. The idea that the Son alone has the power to become incarnate comes from Book 4 Chapter 4 of An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by John of Damascus, “The Father is Father and not Son: the Son is Son and not Father: the Holy Spirit is Spirit and not Father or Son. For the individuality is unchangeable. How, indeed, could individuality continue to exi...

Notes on the Basics of Neoplatonism   Neoplatonism revolves around the idea of an all-powerful transcendent divinity, The One, and its emanation. The movement was founded by the Greek Platonist philosopher, Plotinus (204-270 AD). According to The Enneads , Plotinus’ primary text of Neoplatonism, The One is an omnipotent force which exists beyond all categories and is the single source of light from which the entire universe is illuminated. The One, however, is not directly the creator of our universe. Rather, The One represents a higher level of divinity and reality than the Demiurge or the divine intellect which is the creative element of the divine and a manifestation of the radiance of The One which permeates the lower levels of the cosmos which are visible to man. The One is so simple such that it does not contain any parts or be divided and beyond reality that it cannot even be said to exist or to be a being since it is utterly beyond. The system can be divided between the inv...

Challenging the Trinity: Indexicals and the Leftow Dilemma     The Doctrine of the Trinity stands as a central tenet of Christian belief, positing the existence of three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—within the divine unity of God. However, a nuanced examination reveals intriguing challenges that will be discussed in detail. This blog post will present two more arguments against the Doctrine of the Trinity. I have already discussed the Logical Problem of the Trinity (LPT) and how the Trinity contradicts Divine Simplicity elsewhere on my blog.   The Argument from Indexicals:   Indexical: A linguistic expression whose reference can change based on the context. Examples of indexicals include I, he, she, here, that, etc. If Person A says I am happy and Person B utters the same sentence, even though the sentence is the same, Person A is saying it while person B is saying it. In the orthodox conception of the doctrine of the Trinity, there is only one mind ...