Gnostic Christian Testimony

From: "Christine S."
Hello Mr. Babinski:
From your website, I understand that you were a Fundamentalist Christian, went to university and took Science/Biology, and became disillusioned with religion and God. That is what I see in a nutshell, please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe you were disillusioned before you went to university? Either way, I see you're either an agnostic or athiest.

ED: You can read my full testimony online, plug it into a search box by title: "If it wasn't for agnosticism, I wouldn't know what to believe." I explain that I remained a young-earth creationist during my entire four years in college. I think I explained that as well in my other online testimony concerning my loss of faith in young-earth creationism. I evangelized teachers and fellow students the entire time. It was years after college and after reading criticisms of young-earth arguments that I grew disillusioned about creationism. And it was years after that before I became disillusioned about Christianity in general.

I am a university graduate too, used to be an agnostic, too. Have you ever heard from a Roman Catholic turned agnostic, turned
kinda-Christian, turned Gnostic Christian?

ED: Cool. New Agey sort of Christian?

Truth be told, like you, I've always loved science. I was baptised into Roman Catholicism as a baby. From the age of 6 or 7, the most exciting thing for me was to bring home books from the library on cosmology, astronomy, geology, gemology, paleontology, archeology, paleoanthropology (nothing enthralled me more than paleoanthropology and astronomy however). So as you can see, I was a big lover of the natural sciences from very young, and I've read everything I could ever get my hands on about it my entire life. My specialist knowledge, such as required for a Bachelor of Biology, is just not there, however, I do have a great general knowledge of many types of physical and natural science just borne of reading of a natural curiousity.

Having been born a Roman Catholic, I know they have the spiritual truth. The Roman Catholic Church has accepted science and evolution, which was a boon to me at my age that I didn't come from a denomination that insisted solely on literal interpretation of the Bible. I could never accept an entirely literal interpretation as all I saw were contradictions as well. Even with the blessing of science by my church however, for the longest time, I still saw contradictions, much like you. I couldn't appreciate the Bible nor its spiritual teaching as the Roman Catholic Church says it is the sole disseminator of truth and there is no personal interpretation. Well, in sanctifying that I could think for myself in science but not in spiritual matters, those tenets basically killed my spirituality and I became agnostic in high school through my 20s. In my 20s, I prayed to God sometimes, and He always took care of me, but I was just that, a kinda-Christian.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago when I had a spiritual incident that set me wondering, but not searching. Then another nudge later last year to start searching, and my searching finally led me to the place I should have started, the Bible, more importantly, the New Testament. As a Roman Catholic they never tell you to read the Bible on your own, which I finally did for the first time in my late 20s, innocent as a child and with spiritual eyes as directed by Jesus Christ. As I read and came to the end of the New Testament, I could not stop the shaking in my hands and heart as I finally realized that there are NO contradictions between God and Science.

ED: I'm glad it was easy for you. It was however, a bit more difficult for Christian civilization and Christian theologians and scholars as a whole to come to terms with such advances in knowledge as heliocentricity, the age of the earth, and evolution.

I found the spiritual truth of the Bible and Jesus Christ for myself. I now see that God created the Earth and Universe, and all the natural laws and mathematical principles that rule over it all. Science and mathematics are so perfect that only the perfect God could have created them. You can't have such perfect order and logic and beauty in the Universe without there being a God! Impossible.

ED: I agree there's beauty and life in this deadly cosmos, but I also see that everything dies, life is fleeting, and everything is not beautiful. Have you read my online piece, "Why We Believe in a Designer" Also, some kinds of life simply go extinct. Nobody really realized the fact of extinction until after the 1700s. Even in Thomas Jefferson's day, when faced with some of the early discoveries of large boned mammals in the earth, like mammoth bones in North America, Jefferson and other deists simply assumed that such creatures still roamed the earth some where because the Creator had an "equal" eye on everything, and created it for various purposes. Jefferson is quoted as saying, "Oh yes, I heard from an Indian in the north that they still see such creatures roaming about (mammoths)." But he was wrong. And in fact, most species go extinct never to be seen again. We know of 16 species of ancient elephantine species that did so, even before human beings began forming civilizations. The question of the purpose of such massive extinctions, as well as the problem of the deaths of a very high percentage of all of the young produced in each generation by any and all species, remains a question for deists, gnostics, etc.

He also created a world that wonderously enough, provided the clues that would present themselves millions and billions of years later, when a species arose (out of that miraculous process that God created, called evolution) that was capable of receiving the Spirit and Intelligence of God, which is Humankind, who are His children, created in His image and likeness. Humankind, in God's image, is Spiritual and Intelligent enough, having been gifted from God Himself, that we can ponder who we are, where we come from, where we are going, what we can create, what we can achieve. We are the only ones who can dicipher the message that God so wonderously ensured through evolution, fossilization, mathematics, astronomy, etc. that would be waiting for us to discover and tell the story of the Earth, Universe, and how we came to be physically, and spiritually.

That is the truth of God, and that's how I know God exists. Once I realized the above, 18 hours later, as a thief in the night as said by Jesus Christ, I was baptised of the Holy Spirit, in God's presence where time and space did not exist (God is eternal and unchanging, the One True God of All in All that always was and will always be, communing with Him, I have never known such Love, Compassion, Eternity, I still cannot fully comprehend it in my normal consciousness) and renewed in Life, Light, Spirit, Wisdom and Love of God, and the Kingdom of God that came to be within me, again as said by Jesus Christ. I now know I was given this gift precisely because I understood the spiritual truth of the Bible and God for myself. I know myself, and I know everyone has a spark of the divine within them, they just have to realize that, and trust me, war would end immediately. Now I know that Science and God do not contradict each other, and that there are NO contradictions in the Bible once you can see the spiritual truth, that we are God's children, on the Way described and personified by Jesus Christ, back the Light, back to God our Father, whence we came. Every scientific discovery is in fact, an ultimate glory of God and His creation, and the immensely amazing, completely incomprehensible wonder of the order and beauty of it all.

ED: I was baptized in the holy spirit as well, if you want to call it that. The precise description of what I experienced is found in my testimony, "If it wasn't for agnosticism, I wouldn't know what to believe." But being "baptized in the holy spirit" doesn't mean my questions have been answered as you seem to imply they have been for you.

That is why God and Science can, and in fact do, live together in harmony, and complement each other. It's not Evolution vs. Creation, but Evolution AND Creation, that's how it always was, and that's how it always will be. The sad thing that people don't realize, is that Science is a proof that God exists, and God is a proof of the validity of Science. This is the truth, from a fellow science-nut, and also now, a God-nut, since truly, in spiritual truth, there are no contradictions when you understand the Bible and the use of allegory in uncovering that truth. Literal intrepretation doesn't give the whole story, literal and figurative interpretation in spiritual truth, as promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, and Gnostic Christianity, do.
Sincerely,
Christine S.

ED: We are both sincere. And I don't think it matters too much whether we are right or wrong on such metaphysical matters. I doubt either of us can see as clearly behind the metaphysical curtain as we'd both like to be able to do. And I doubt that any infinite intelligent being is going to condemn people to eternities of hell for not agreeing on what lies behind that curtain.