Has Gnosticism Influenced Your Theology?

I hear a great amount of discussion these days among Christians concerning the idea of a "schizophrenic God." I am speaking of the rift between what some call the “God of the Old Testament” and the “God of the New Testament.” Admittedly the God of the OT, who seems to have used the sword and violence to accomplish His purposes, appears to contradict the God of the NT, who asks us to accomplish His purposes in the power of Love only. For most, this rift is simply one more of those rifts that scripture presents that merely needs to be thought through logically and explained. I frankly tire of the many attempts to make this so called schizophrenic God somehow work. I must admit, with all the humility that I can muster, that I have no idea what to make of this tension, and I spend little time trying to make anything of it. Thankfully God is much greater than I, and I don’t need to clarify this tension in order to follow Jesus. I was recently made aware of an old Gnostic perspective. I would like to share this perspective not as an explanation, but as a warning. How much has your theology been shaped by Gnosticism?

In this Gnostic perspective there was a great and ultimate God of Love. There were many lesser gods under this Great God of Love. At first, all of these lesser gods were good and in close communion with the Great God of Love; however, over a very long period of time, things degenerated as they usually do. Some of these lesser gods became worse and worse… less and less like the Great God of Love. There came to be a layering of power, with perfect Love as the ultimate power. The gods that had the most love in them were the most powerful. The gods that had degenerated the most, had little love in them and were answerable to the more powerful and more loving gods.

Finally, one of the lesser gods that still had quite a bit of power, took all of the gods under him and forced them into a physical creation. This God was Jehovah God of the Old Testament. Of course, this physical creation had some good in it still, but it clearly had much bad in it. It continued to degenerate even farther until it seemed that Love would disappear altogether.

Thankfully the Great God of Love saw what Jehovah did. He realized that things had degenerated so far that He would have to fix them Himself. The great God of Love came Himself, as Jesus, to re-establish Love as the ultimate power of the universe. This re-establishment of love promised a day when Jehovah’s physical creation would be destroyed and the Great God of Love would reign over a Kingdom that would know nothing but Love .

Note: You can obviously see why the Gnostic saw the physical as evil. The only thing the Gnostic weren’t quite sure about, was the fact that the Great God of Love came in a physical form to save the whole situation.