The difference between evil and good is very noticeable, especially in today’s society. With the development of wars, murdering of one another, and increase in overall crime, there are various attempts that religions make to explain how and why the world is the way that it is. The idea that God created and intended for the world to be perfect is a common belief that is held by Christians. Christians also believe that evil and sin was introduced into the world by Satan, and that Jesus was sent to bring salvation to mankind because humans are incapable of saving themselves. Those who practice Gnosticism believe that they can obtain the same knowledge that God has, allowing them to obtain salvation themselves and explain the many questions that …show more content…
This belief was started around the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. and ended around the 5th century A.D. (Chambers Dictionary). It originated in the Mediterranean and spread to central Asia before the Christian Church rejected its beliefs around the 5th century A.D. Gnostic groups have the belief that salvation is only experienced by “mystical knowledge” instead of faith in God and doing what He commands (Chambers Dictionary). Mystical knowledge or mysticism is when a person has a direct experience using their own intuition, through methods of deep meditation or even magic (Chambers Dictionary). A person may have out of body experiences in which they are shown visions, such as John in Revelations of the Holy Bible. John ascended into Heaven and God showed him visions of Heaven and the apocalypse in order to warn others to heed to His instructions. The purpose of the vision was not to make John experience the same knowledge as God. John stated that only God knows when He will send Jesus back to Earth and only God has the power to …show more content…
“They believe that Christ’s purpose in coming to earth was to teach mankind how to achieve the special knowledge” allowing them to be able to discover the origin of humanity, transcend through realms, and return to God where they can experience the same divinity of and power of God (Chambers Dictionary). Ignorance, or lack of knowledge, is believed by Gnostics to be the reason why the human spirit is trapped inside of the body (Global Dictionary of Theology). Gnostic beliefs seemed to have received its roots from Gentiles, which were non-believers in Christianity. Birger Pearson, the author of “Early Christianity and Gnosticism In The History of Religions” states that “the sacramental life of early Gentile Christianity reflected the influence of Hellenistic mystery religions, and the Christ myth itself developed under the impact of a Gnostic redeemer myth”. Gnosticism is formally introduced in the New Testament in 1 Timothy 6: 20-21” (Pearson, B.) In this passage of scripture, Apostle Paul warns Christians to not to get caught up in acquiring knowledge that contradicted having faith in God. It is also believed that in Acts 8: 9-24, Simon the sorcerer, was practicing Gnosticism and may have played a part in the spread of it. He performed acts by magic that amazed people that saw him and compared him to having the same power of God. When Simon saw how Philip was able to