But the gnostics kept God’s perfection by offloading evil onto the demiurge. The standard story can’t resolve the contradiction between divine perfection and a flawed creation.
Well yes, even the gnostics weren’t so ludicrous as to suppose that the foundation and source of all things is imperfect. If you find something imperfect, then you haven’t found the source of all things, because that source can’t be limited by anything external, nor by more foundational parts internal to itself. It would have to be unlimited and perfect. But the problem is that material reality is obviously imperfect and subject to evil.
The three main options that arise from this are that there is no such source of all things (atheism), something internal to material reality resulted in its imperfection (the main theistic religions), or the source is so removed from material reality that material reality is imperfect (the solution that gnosticism proposes). The gnostic solution collapses into absurdity unless, like Plotinus, we say that matter itself is inherently privative, since the source of all that exists can’t be fully removed from anything that exists by definition.
The main difference between gnostic and Christian theologies, as I see it, is (1) the relation of God to material reality – did he create it or is it utterly removed from him – and (2) whether the source of material reality’s imperfection is internal (i.e., human and/or angelic) or external (i.e., the demiurge). Chuck’s proposal that the source of creation’s imperfection is outside of it falls within the gnostic school of theologies on this account.
That’s what the Manichees believed but I don’t see how it’s coherent at all, unlike other gnostic theologies. The idea that there are two sources of all things seems to collapse into absurdity, since either you can’t distinguish one from the other, or one is the source of the other in which case that one is the real source of all things.
I actually agree, from an outside perspective gnosticism is no less philosophically coherent than Christianity. The reason why Christianity rejected gnosticism isn’t because it’s fantastic but because of the Christian commitment to the inherent goodness of material reality, which stems from the doctrine of the incarnation, at least as I see it.
I don’t see the point you’re trying to make. Maybe you think what I wrote was some kind of mental gymnastics, but I was honestly trying to impartially describe the opposing views of gnosticism and Christianity – so, no, it wasn’t intended as a refutation of any of Chuck’s statements. The idea that imperfection is the result of forces within material reality, rather than external to it, isn’t obviously mental gymnastics either.