In a discussion over on TitusOneNine, commentator “Br. Michael, FOCD” asks, “Why, some two thousand years later must we refight the battles against Gnosticism and heresy?”
As I noted in my response, Br. Michael raises an interesting point, but perhaps not in the way that he intended. Consider that one of the main empirical arguments in favor of Christianity is the simple fact that the church survived persecution by both Temple officials and Romans. Perhaps we should apply the same analysis on gnosticism and heresy: they’ve also survived, despite nearly twenty centuries of ecclesiastical suppression. It just might be there’s something to them that we don’t fully appreciate.
Commenter “Sarah” then replied, “And if sin has survived, despite the church’s best efforts, ‘it might just be that there’s something to it we don’t fully appreciate.’”
No doubt about it. We don’t have a theory that satisfactorily explains either sin or heresy — why they exist at all, and why people continue to “catch” them.
Consider an analogy: It’s said that during a yellow-fever epidemic in 1793, people tried a variety of things to ward off the disease, including burning gunpowder to purify the air and sprinkling vinegar on hankerchiefs which were then held to the nose. Those didn’t work either, because the underlying theory was inadequate.
(Yellow fever was only brought under control starting in 1900, when Walter Reed, a U.S. Army physician, showed that the disease was carried by mosquitoes.)
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