Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00764)

--- In theos-talk@y..., "Daniel H. Caldwell" <comments@b...> wrote:
> Koot Hoomi wrote to A.P. Sinnett:
> 
> "A Being however gigantic, occupying space and having length 
breadth 
> and thickness is most certainly the Mosaic deity; 'No-being' and a 
> mere principle lands you directly in the Buddhistic atheism, or the 
> Vedantic primitive Acosmism."

It might be worthwhile to mention the ideas of Basilides in this 
regard. Foe the benefit of Larry and others who might find it 
relevant, he claimed to have inherited the esoteric teaching of 
Matthias and Peter.

Theists (Christians,usually, in this country) argue that there must 
be a God (i.e., theirs) because the world must have come from 
somewhere. As John Stuart Mill pointed out, the argument is 
basically flawed because we then have the right to ask where God came 
from. If we posit a superGod which was the origin of God, we still 
have the same problem. This is known in philiosophy as the "infinite 
regress" and is considered absurd.

In abstract the argument is that being can only originate with Being; 
therefore if there is being (the Creation) there must have been a 
Being which preceded it (the Creator.)

Basilides solved the problem by positing that being could be preceded 
either by Being or by Non-Being. He therefore does not dispute the 
argument that the Creation implies a Creator, and he allows that the 
Creator had a Creator, and so forth, but that ultimately one of these 
series of Creators was preceded by Non-Being and there the regress 
ends. The solution is ingenious, but if you look at it carefuilly, 
it does away with the need for a Creator, since the Creation could 
have proceeded directly from Non-Being. This is how I interpret a 
statement Feuerstein made to me in a letter, and which I have always 
considered a truly awesome thought:

"In Buddhis, there is no Creator, which is whythe Creation remains 
the mystery that it is."

The ideas Basilides and Valentinus wrote about were supposed to be 
sequestered rom the vulgar masses, and with the rise of the catholic 
church they xame to be completely ignored. Somehow I think the wrong 
party won.