How do we know what we know? A conversation with my brother about the scientific method, knowledge, gnosis, and truth
Aristotle and philosophers say that for something to be known, it must be true, must be believed, and must have evidence for it to be the case. The problem arises when trying to fulfill the evidence condition--what counts as evidence and how much evidence is enough. The scientific method can go only so far under the rules imposed by logic. Plato felt the evidence condition could never be met. Plato said that if one knows something to be the case, it must be inherent knowlege. In other words, it must be gnosis.
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Yearning for the Pleroma 2025
"To those who belong to the remembrance, however, he revealed the thought ... with the intention that it should draw them into a communion with the material. This was in order to provide them with a structure and a dwelling place, but also in order that by being drawn toward evil they should acquire a weak basis for their existence, so that, instead of rejoicing unduly in the glory of their own environment and thereby remaining exiled, they might rather perceive the sickness they were suffering from, and so acquire a consistent longing and seeking after the one who is able to heal them from this weakness" (Tripartite Tractate, verse 98, 99).
"What our Savior became, out of willing compassion, is the same as that which the ones for whose sake he appeared had become because of an involuntary passion: they had become flesh and soul, and this holds them perpetually in its grip, and they perish and die... For not only did he assume their death for the ones he had in mind to save, but in addition he also assumed their smallness, to which they had descended when they were born with body and soul; for he let himself be conceived and he let himself be born as a child with body and soul" (Tripartite Tractate, verse 114, 115).
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We Are the Second Order of Powers
These new creatures that were devised are better than the Deficiency because they come from the union of the entire Fullness, whereas the Deficiency came out of a mistaken solo effort by Logos alone. Out of this union of the Fullness and Logos came what are called the Second Order Powers, and these powers are better and greater than those of the imitation because they did not come into being out of ego and out of lack of thought. This new fruit of the Fullness and Logos was fitted purposely into the boundary that surrounded the Fall, and so because they were fitted to live within this boundary, they were able to have a cooperative structure the way the Fullness had a cooperative structure.
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First Emanations of Consciousness
When their generations had been established, the one who is in control wished to lay hold of and to bring forth that which was not yet manifest, and he brought forth those within him.
For that reason the Father had also thought in advance that they should exist not only for himself, but should exist for themselves as well, that they should remain in thought as mental substance, but also exist for themselves.
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Gnostic Memes of Jesus
When we invite Christ in—let’s say you're at a revival or you listen to an old Billy Graham sermon on the radio or you're reading the book of John in the Bible and you have the urge to invite Christ to take over your life, that is what it means to invite Christ into your soul—and Christ is a different order of powers than we are. We are what's called Second Order of Powers. The First Order of Powers were the Aeons; we're the Second Order of Powers. The Third Order of Powers is the Christ. And there is a Third Order Power for every Second Order Power. That's how it is that Jesus or Christ comes with your face and knows everything about you because Christ is an image of the perfection that you can be. Jesus was the first human that fully embodied the Third Order of Powers. Now it's your turn...
When we invite Christ in, we invite the Christ to take residence in our souls and in our bodies. We invite the Christ's Third Order Powers to replace our own Second Order Powers because we're leveling up. We're leveling up to a more powerful and loving Godly existence when we invite Christ in.