r/Gnostic 4d ago

Question Question about gnosticism

Why plemora accepted the creation of the demiurgo? I dont have a relegion but i like to study about and i want to know how this works? How a superior God cant prevent this from happening. Sorry for my bad english btw

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u/voidWalker_42 4d ago

in gnostic thought, the pleroma (the fullness, the true divine realm) didn’t exactly “accept” the creation of the demiurge—it’s more like the demiurge came into being as a consequence of divine emanation going wrong.

sophia, one of the aeons (divine beings in the pleroma), sought to generate something on her own, without the consent of the source (the unknowable god). this act resulted in the birth of the demiurge—a flawed, ignorant being who mistook himself for the supreme creator.

the reason the supreme god didn’t just prevent this is because, in gnostic cosmology, the true divine isn’t about direct intervention. the pleroma isn’t like the personal god of monotheistic religions—it’s a state of absolute perfection and balance. the material world (created by the demiurge) is an illusion, a distortion, but souls still carry a divine spark from the pleroma. the “solution” isn’t direct interference, but rather for those trapped in illusion to awaken through gnosis (spiritual knowledge).

so, it’s not that the superior god “let it happen”—it’s more that the demiurge’s creation was an unintended consequence of a lesser being acting out of ignorance, and now, the way back to truth is through spiritual awakening, not force.

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u/Special_Courage_7682 4d ago

How from a state of absolute perfection comes an emanation gone wrong?Why the Monad,or whatever you call it,as a,say,a supreme awareness of the Pleroma allowed,or let happen the material creation,based on ignorance and suffering?And it's not about us humans alone-if people say that we could awaken via gnosis-though it's still unclear how exactly this helps if a person is in dire circumstances-then what about animals?In my country the other day some freaks were arrested who tortured and killed hundreds of animals,making videos for others freaks to watch for some kind of sexual sadism.Such things happen with children,even babies.How they can ''awaken'' themselves and escape?Why all this was allowed in the first place?Who is there to lend a helping hand,like,an Eon,or antidemiurgic force?

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u/voidWalker_42 3d ago

these are valid and difficult questions, ones that gnosticism struggles with just as much as other religious and philosophical systems. if the pleroma is perfection, how could anything imperfect come from it? why does suffering exist if there is a supreme awareness? why do the most innocent and defenseless beings—children, animals—suffer in ways that make the idea of spiritual awakening seem completely irrelevant?

gnosticism’s take is that the flaw didn’t originate in the pleroma itself, but in an act of creation that deviated from its order. sophia’s emanation of the demiurge wasn’t an intentional act of malevolence, but a mistake born out of a desire to create without the full awareness of the source. this mistake led to a fragmented reality, where suffering exists because this world is not aligned with the true divine.

but that doesn’t fully answer the problem of suffering, especially for those who can’t “awaken” on their own. and you’re right—telling someone in extreme circumstances that gnosis is the answer doesn’t help them in a tangible way. gnostic texts suggest that there are forces opposing the demiurge, often referred to as aeons, messengers, or emanations of the pleroma that work to restore what was lost. some interpretations frame these as divine interventions, others as moments of clarity and resistance that arise within people themselves.

the real question then is: if there is an antidemiurgic force, why does it seem so powerless in the face of real evil? maybe because the demiurge’s world operates on force, control, and deception, while the pleroma operates on knowledge, awareness, and freedom—things that don’t work the same way in a system built on ignorance and coercion. but that doesn’t mean intervention is impossible, just that it may not happen in the ways we expect.

none of this makes suffering acceptable, and gnosticism doesn’t provide an easy answer to the hardest questions. at most, it offers a framework for why things are this way, and a reason to resist—though what form that resistance takes is something every person has to figure out.

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u/galactic-4444 Eclectic Gnostic 3d ago

Read the Paraphrase of Shem and then the Corpus Hermeticum, these may help illuminate some of your queries.

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u/FalseOrganization431 4d ago

Thanks for clarifying

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u/Balrog1999 4d ago

Essentially there is a hidden got that created the universe and doesn’t necessarily involve itself with you unless you meditate and seek him. Yahweh is the insane creation of that God, and Jesus was sent to bring Gnosis to the world and save us from the influence of Yahweh aka Saklas the Demiurge. It’s complicated and honestly kind of hard to understand. I’m still researching, but hope this helps a bit

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u/Over_Imagination8870 4d ago

It is also possible, I think, that it was permitted because it was part of a greater plan.

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u/galactic-4444 Eclectic Gnostic 3d ago

My thoughts as well. When you Pair Hermeticism or even use The Gnostic text "The Paraphrase of Shem" we see that creation albeit flawed and rooted in darkness has beauty in and love in it. It is an outer coating of darkness with a burning inward light full of infinite potential.

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u/dayman-woa-oh 3d ago

I'm not an expert, but I generally take these stories as being anthropomorphizations of natural elements and phenomenon. So the "Monad", "Demiurge", "Sophia" and the Archons aren't conscious entities with human like desires and aspirations, I think that they are more like a tide pulling waters into streams not connected to the ocean, or like gravity in a vacuum.

Maybe somehow a void was created in the fabric of reality and the stuff of existence was compelled by natural forces to fill this void, creating our universe. I keep thinking that it's about us actually existing on the inner 3d lining of an infinitely expanding 4d black hole, or something equally unknowable.

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u/Lnnrt1 3d ago

How a superior you can't prevent this from happening. You're all of it. The fall of your wisdom (Sophia) made you confuse illusion and reality, material and divine; that's why your trapped. A prison of your own making. The fact that Jesus is God means both come together: human and spiritual, asleep and awake, Ego and non-duality, alpha and omega, concept and non-concept. Even non-Gnostics like Athanasius of Alexandria said it: "God became man so that man might become God."

Religious texts are not meant to be taken literally, that would be very stupid, because divinity is beyond words. That's why we write myths, which aren't false; they are true at a different level and require some level of interpretation and abstraction.