Christianity, Naturalism and Gnosticism.

The West has been a clearly distinct Culture for two millennia, and an embryonic one for at least the half millennium before that: the period from 500 BC to 0 AD. Throughout these two and a half millennia there have been three, and only three, important Religions within Western Culture: Christianity, Naturalism and Gnosticism. This Essay is about these three Religious Visions, and about the fluctuations in popularity and influence, the variations in predominance, of each of them over the entire period.
Nowadays Christianity is not dominant in the West, and has not been so for many decades. In our time (2008 AD) the dominant Religion is Gnosticism, with Naturalism (Science) as a junior partner. With most of the modern Gnostic Sects the Message is Gnostic, the Medium is Naturalist. E.g. the Message of Global Warming is the oncoming of Catastrophe, but the signs are picked up and mediated by Scientists: the cumulation of small quantitative differences of planetary temperature. Likewise Marxism describes itself as Scientific Socialism; etc.

But first, the matter of Identification.

Religion

At the centre of a Religion is a System of Religious Belief. By distinguishing the set of Beliefs we identify a Religion: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. Here's a definition of the term 'Religious Belief':--

A Religious Belief is a belief in something as Divine, or
A Religious Belief is a belief about how humans should stand in relation to the Divine.
'Divine' means: not dependent on anything else.

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These are summary statements. Herewith two examples.

First, Anglican Christians:--

I believe in one God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
And of all things visible and invisible.

[Nicene Creed: Book of Common Prayer (AD 1662)].

These are the opening words of the Creed adopted at Nicaea, a town near Constantinople / Istanbul, by a Council of Churchmen in AD 326. This was the first attempt to achieve consensus amongst the official representatives of Christianity.
To be Almighty, and the Maker of all things, is to be not dependent. The Anglican God would certainly count as Divine. Note that He is an exclusive God; there are no competitors. Christianity is Monist (Monotheist); not Dualist, or Pluralist.

Second, Neo-Darwinism:--

There's a problem here. Modern Neo-Darwinism is saturated with implicit theology and metaphysics but, since the doctrine is ostensibly, and sometimes aggressively, anti-theistic and anti-metaphysical, such theology and metaphysics are never acknowledged, are never explicit. They are there, but they operate underground, and one can never be exactly sure what is being positively claimed -- except that the claim is large. I'll give two quotes from Richard Dawkins. He is the best known modern exponent of Neo-Darwinism but also, and more importantly, he has the virtue of lucidity. Apart from intermittent confusion resulting from an 'anti-metaphysical' metaphysics -- you have to cancel out for that -- his exposition is bold and clear.

We are survival machines -- robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. [The Selfish Gene / Preface to 1976 Edition.]

DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.
[River out of Eden / 1995 / p 155.]

As described, DNA is something of great power; also something not dependent -- it 'just is'. There is an air of the Divine about it: maybe not the Supreme God (Nature, presumably), but certainly one of the major gods.
How should one stand in relation to such a Divinity? The tone suggests that, before the mighty Gene, that Immortal Selfish Molecule indifferent to our hopes and fears, the appropriate stance for the human robots (you and me and the rest of us) is one of humility and fatalism.
Along with an implicit theology there is also an implicit polity, a structure of human power relations. Some individuals (Scientist Priests, such as Dawkins himself) are mediators between the god DNA and the masses. Being in touch with the god, knowing something of how he functions, they are not entirely robotic. Peering through the microscope, occasionally they bring back further revelations of the Will of the god to the rest of us -- the plebs, the uninitiated. Darwinist Biology is not Protestant -- there is no 'Priesthood of all Believers' -- it is a hierarchical Religion.

Unlike DNA, which 'neither cares nor knows', the Christian God is intensely concerned with Man and his fate. He is not indiffferent to humans; we are not seen as mere vehicles of a Divine protein molecule. The Nicene Creed goes on to say:--

Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God ...
Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven ...
And was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate ...
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life ...
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
And the life of the world to come,
Amen.

The implications of this Creed are spelt out for the Believer in texts and homilies. In the detail of conduct the Believer is guided by narratives of model behaviour illustrating the Christian virtues: Faith, Hope and Love. These virtues are activist, not fatalist.

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Anglicanism is a version of Christianity, and Christianity has been the dominant and formative Religion of Western Culture throughout most of its existence. Although Christianity, and its residues, informs so many of the inherited institutions of the West it is no longer the dominant Religion. A member of the Ruling Class of a Western Society -- especially in Europe, the original heartland of the West -- is nowadays more likely to believe in a Religion substantially similar to that promulgated by Richard Dawkins.
Neo-Darwinism is a version of Naturalism (the Doctrine that there is nothing apart from Nature). Within Neo-Darwinism there is a Priesthood, with Novices, and various grades of Hierarchs. The Laboratories function as Temples. But they are not Churches, not places where Laymen gather to Worship. There is no Worship, and no Ritual attendance for Laymen. However, across the planet this does not count as remarkable: there are forms of both Hinduism and Buddhism without Worship.

These are general remarks. Below I describe in more detail the Religions of Christianity, Naturalism and Gnosticism. I believe these to have been the three main Religions of the West over the last two thousand years. The discussion will be brief and crude, very simplified. But enough, I hope, to clear away some of the typical fogs of ignorance, and to forestall the main kinds of error. The discussion will also be a bit disorderly, a bit mixed up since, for example, it's not possible to characterize Christianity wiithout at the same time briefly characterizing one of its opposites -- viz Naturalism. However, I'll separate the discussions, and minimize the overlaps as far as possible.

[Some would prefer the term 'Materialism' to 'Naturalism'; others would use 'Nihilism' instead of 'Gnosticism'. These are reasonable alternatives. The main reason for my two usages is that they make it easier to discern the protean manifestations of each of the three Weltanschauungen over the whole historical period (of two and a half millennia) of Western Culture, and proto-Western Culture.]

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Christianity.

I'll start with isolation and identification, and then go into more detail.

Nature.

In the period from 2500 BC to 700 BC, in the Eastern mediterranean and North Africa, the writings and inscriptions that have survived indicate that people saw the Universe as saturated with gods. They were everywhere, and into everything: pushing, pulling, informing, deciding. For example, in both Egypt and Greece, the Sun God -- under various names: Amon-Ra, Apollo ... -- masterminded, each day, the progress of the Sun across the sky. It's difficult for us to understand the ancient texts describing these matters; the presuppositions are remote and alien.
With the writings of Homer (ca. 850 BC) it gets a bit easier. We are at the beginning of a transition period. Ulysses especially, with his ducking and diving, his shrewd calculation and robust instinct for survival -- we can understand that well enough. We seem to be watching a recognizably semi-modern human being in action. I think that, with Ulysses, we have the first sustained depiction of an individual in World History; the outline of the person is becoming clear. But even in the Odyssey, in the case of any particular happening, it's often quite hard to know who or what was decisive. Was it the Goddess Athena, was it Ulysses, or merely an accident of circumstance? It seems that the author himself didn't know, hadn't made up his mind.

Between 700 BC and 400 BC there occurred, amongst a few thinkers scattered amongst the cities of Ancient Greece -- these people were later to be known as Philosophers -- a profound shift in Weltanschauung, in the main set of Absolute Presuppositions: viz a turning away from Myths, the 'likely stories' of the immortal, superhuman gods and the beginnings of the Idea of Nature, conceived as a realm of events, mostly regular, which occur without the continual intervention of these gods. Thales (d. 546 BC), of Miletus -- an Ancient Greek city on an island near the coast of modern Turkey -- is celebrated as maybe the first natural scientist, the first man to have looked for explanations of events without having recourse to supernatural causes. From the fragments that have come down to us it is clear that these thinkers were profoundly intelligent, but we don't have much detail. What we do have is the summary of their work by Aristotle (d. 322 BC), plus a comprehensive exposition of his own ideas -- in the Metaphysics and the Physics -- ideas which centre on the notion of Causation. Almost all subsequent work on these matters in Europe takes off from Aristotle.

Is Nature self-sufficient?

The question arises: Is this all? Is there nothing besides? Does the orderly realm of Nature include everything?
In the long tradition of European thought, both Ancient Greek and Christian, the answer has almost always been in the negative. No, the Europeans said, Nature does not exist in itself, in its own right; it is not self-sufficient. There is something besides. Nature is dependent upon a higher power, usually called God. It is true that in the 18th century there were many anti-Christians. However, they were mainly Deists. Although they denied the Christian God, and the Incarnation, they did acknowledge a single God, a Supreme Being above and beyond Nature. However, entirely unlike the Christian Theists, they saw God as First Cause only. They saw no ongoing relationship between God and Man. God created the Universe and then remained aloof, letting the Universe get on with it. He was indifferent to the fall of a sparrow.
[In practice, in the West, Deism has usually turned out to be a way station on the road from Christianity to Naturalism or Gnosticism.]

It is only quite recently, in the 19th Century, that large numbers of persons (Naturalists -- more strictly: Metaphysical, or Complete, Naturalists) arose who came to answer the question in the affirmative. Yes, they said; Nature is all. It is uncreated; it exists now, and has alway done so. The Metaphysical Naturalist believes in Nature exclusively. Nature is the whole show, everything, the vast dynamic system, the process in space and time which is going on of its own accord. (Nature is therefore Divine.)
Every event happens because of some other event within Nature. The match stick flares because I took it out of the matchbox and struck it against the abrasive strip. And all events are of this kind -- interlocked, multiply interconnected, and therefore explicable entirely in terms of causative mechanisms and earlier events, at least in principle. The Regularity of Nature -- all events interlinked, determined, caused -- is an Absolute Presupposition. Like every other Grand Theory it is not empirically provable. Although it becomes plausible, insofar as we get by in Presupposing it. This is the argument from Pragmatism and Fruitfulness: the Theory works, and it generates fruitful ideas.

According to the Naturalist nothing exists on its own. So there are no true beginnings; there's no such thing as Free Will, no genuine Spontaneity of the person. The Metaphysical Naturalist may use the term 'Free Will' -- although he prefers to avoid it; the less said the better -- but if he does use the term it's a grudging usage; it is seen as a mere interim convenience, an unfortunate hangover from the past. Someday, in the not too distant future, he'll get around to explaining it all causally, scientifically.
With this mode of reasoning, what is being placed before us by the Metaphysical Naturalist is a large blank cheque, which we are asked to sign. But why should we sign? Why should we extend an unlimited block of intellectual credit to the Metaphysical Naturalist? Has he shown himself to be a person of such consistent and unimpeachable integrity and such supreme competence that we have reason to put blind faith in him? I think not.

Supernaturalists.

The Christian is a Supernaturalist, and the Supernaturalist believes in two different kinds of event: Natural events (those that are part of Nature) -- like striking the match; and Supernatural events (those that are not part of Nature). Supernatural events are themselves also divided into two classes: routine events, and special events.

Routine Supernatural events are all those where we don't just respond reflexively to a sensation -- to a bright light, say (we blink); or to an itch (we scratch) -- but where we also use judgement. We use Logical Reasoning (Truth and Error): he was in London at the time, therefore he could not have been in Wales, where the burglary occurred. Or we use Moral Reasoning (Right and Wrong): he is hurt; you are aware of this and are nearby; therefore you ought to help him.
These Routine Supernatural events occur all the time, although intermittently, as part of every human life. They are Supernatural in that there is nothing within Nature which requires them to happen.
To us this may seem a strange use of the word 'Supernatural', but it is fundamental to the Western tradition. The usage goes back as far as Plato and Aristotle, well before the rise of Christianity. The two Greek philosophers saw Nous, the Rational aspect of intellect -- including both Logical and Moral Judgement -- as the Supernatural, godlike element in Man; not a part of Nature.

Special Supernatural events are called Miracles. Special Supernatural events (Miracles) are rare. Christianity is built around two such extended Miracles.
Firstly there is God's Creation of Nature, including Man, over the space of a few days, as described in the Book of Genesis. [The Book of Genesis is also part of the Sacred Canons of both Judaism and Islam].
Secondly, there is the extended Miracle of the Incarnation of God in the Person and Life of Jesus Christ. Not symbolically or allegorically, but really, actually, at a particular place and time. (The time: ca. 0-33 AD; the place: the region we now know as Israel and Palestine). The life and death of Christ are described in the Gospel Narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John , and in the Acts of the Apostles. The deeds of Christ include a number of Miraculous Episodes, such as the Raising of Lazarus from the dead ( John 11:41 ), and the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (Matthew 14:13 ). But pre-eminent are the miraculous happenings associated with Easter, the most important festival of the Christian year. At Easter time are symbolically reenacted and celebrated the central set of events of Christianity: the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus, His Bodily Resurrection on the third day afterwards, and the various Miracles over the next several weeks.

Impostors.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
[Communist Manifesto : 1848].

The Class Struggle is the dynamic core of Marxism. One who does not believe in it as central is not a Marxist. Likewise, for Christianity, one who does not believe in the Divinity of Christ is not a Christian. However, Christianity is two thousand years old, and by now there are quite a few fraudulent tricksters who have infiltrated: well-dressed, glib conmen and conwomen who have captured positions at various levels of the hierarchy. Below is an example.

There is a Bible on a pedestal in Gretta Vosper's West Hill United Church in Toronto. She would prefer it did not have a special place, she said, because it is just a book among other books. In a similar way, the cross that is high above the altar has no special meaning, but there are a few older congregants for whom the Bible and the cross are still nice symbols so there they remain ...

Ms. Vosper does not believe in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the miracles and the sacrament of baptism. Nor does she believe in the creeds, the presence of Christ in communion or that Jesus was the Son of God ...

In With or Without God, her book that was formally launched this week, she writes that Jesus was a "Middle Eastern peasant with a few charismatic gifts and a great posthumous marketing team."

[Charles Lewis, National Post.
Published: Saturday, May 03, 2008].

Love.

I have written above that

A Religious Belief is a belief about how humans should stand in relation to the Divine.

But what of the other direction? How does God stand in relation to Man? The answer: God loves Man. On this point the texts are both explicit and distinctive. In Christianity the emphasis on Love is greater than in any of the other major Religions. Here is the definitive text:--

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

[John 3:16-17]

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Naturalism.

Over the last two and a half millennia the word 'Nature' itself has shifted in meaning a few times. However, it's possible to identify three phases of 'Naturalism', where the meaning of this word has remained sufficiently steady during each phase, and where each of the meanings is a modification of the same common core:--

First phase: Original Semi-Naturalism.
The period of the Ancient Greek Natural Philosophers, commencing with Thales (6th Century BC). You could call them semi-Naturalists. They were not Metaphysical Naturalists. Aristotle belongs with this lot. They did not deny the existence of a Supernatural realm, but insisted that there was still plenty of scope for human enterprise. They emphasized empirical observation and logical thinking, as against unchecked speculative opinion on the one hand and, on the other, the emotional oratory and rhetorical tricks of the successful Barrister before the assembled Athenian Citizens, or the crowd-pleasing fantasies of the Storytellers in the Bazaar. Not surprisingly, the uncomproming rigour of their thinking was often unacceptable to demagogues and the mob and, as in our day, they sometimes had to get out of town fast. The existence of a large number of fiercely independent City States in Ancient Greece was a great help to intellectual development. There were boltholes, enclaves of safety for the vulnerable green shoots of the mind. To paraphrase a modern saying: 'Mostly I haven't a clue what he's on about. And he may be an impractical bad-tempered old curmudgeon; but he's our curmudgeon, so lay off.'
The second phase: Articulate Semi-Naturalism..
This was during the later Mediaeval Period in Western Europe -- say from 1200 AD to 1450 AD. The study of Natural Science flourished, especially amongst the Friars of the Franciscan Order (founded 1209 AD). By the time of Roger Bacon (1214 - 1294) the procedure of Methodological Naturalism was well understood. [Methodological Naturalism is semi-Naturalism, but more exactly discriminated. The name is 20th Century; the idea is not].
The Mediaeval Methodological Naturalists were Christian practitioners of Natural Science. They were not Metaphysical Naturalists. They had no quarrel with the main doctrines of the Church, since they accepted the notion of two Realms -- Natural and Supernatural -- the Supernatural Realm being the one that was underpinned by Revelation. Methodological Naturalism was practised especially in the Universities of Oxford and Paris, where the foundations of European Natural Science were laid, even if not explicitly described. [See Essay ].
Mediaeval Western Europe was not as politically devolved as Ancient Greece in the era of City States, and Enlightenment Critics have often characterized it as a Theocracy. This is seriously misleading, since there was a sufficient degree of Separation of Powers -- between Church and State -- for most intellectuals to be able to find safe houses in which to continue their work. It was left to us Moderns to eliminate the loopholes by inventing really efficient and really hideous monolithic Theocracies: the Total States, most of them Marxist, of the 20th Century.

The above is all a bit abstract. I'll try to bring it to life with a couple of extensive quotes from Roger Bacon. All of the great thinkers in the Western Tradition-- and Roger Bacon is certainly one of these -- have this remarkable characteristic: they don't date. They could have been writing yesterday. Another quality: they are notably versatile and integrated. They don't split the person into bits: they tend to take the whole of human learning and experience as their field, without ever mixing up the methods appropriate to each sub-domain.

Roger Bacon:

[Despair over Thirteenth Century Learning. (Abridged)].

Doctors, and especially Doctors of Divinity, are scattered abroad in every city and town and borough. Yet the truth is that there has never been so great ignorance and such deep error. For more sins reign in these days than in any past age; and sin is incompatible with wisdom. Everywhere we shall find boundless corruption, and first of all in the Head. For the Court of Rome, which once was ruled by God's wisdom, and should always be so ruled, is now debased. The Holy See is torn by the deceit and fraud of unjust men. Justice perishes, all peace is broken, infinite scandals are aroused. This bears its fruit in utterly perverse manners; pride reigns, covetousness burns, envy gnaws upon all, the whole [Papal] Court is defamed of lechery, and gluttony is lord of all. . . if this be so in the Head, what then is done among the members? Let us see the prelates; how they run after money, neglect the cure of souls, promote their nephews, and other carnal friends, and crafty lawyers who ruin all by their counsels. The whole clergy is intent upon pride, lechery, and avarice; and wherever clerks are gathered together, as at Paris and Oxford, they scandalize the whole laity with their wars and quarrels and other vices. Princes and barons and knights oppress and rob each other, and trouble their subjects with infinite wars and exactions, wherein each strives to despoil the other even of duchies and kingdoms, as we see in these days...

There is another measure of the effect of this corruption. For the faith of Christ has been revealed to the world, and certified already by saints without number... And we have our Lord Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the altar; everywhere and daily we make it at our will, in accordance with His precept, "Do this in remembrance of me"; we eat and drink Him, and are turned into Him, to become Gods and Christs... Certainly if men had faith, reverence, and devotion to this sacrament, as they are in duty bound, then they would not corrupt themselves with so many errors and sins and wickednesses, but would know all wisdom and wholesome truth in this life.

It sounds all too familiar. It's clear that Oxford and Paris haven't changed much; and the contemporary doings at Westminster and Brussels easily match the performances in Mediaeval Rome.
The current (2008) New Labour administration at Westminster has refused to debate at any length the document (EU Constitution) which definitively obliterates the UK as a functioning Nation State. And the 'Opposition' made only feeble noises of dissent.
Year by year the auditors of the EU administration at Brussels refuse to pass the accounts as acceptable -- and nothing happens. No one resigns, or is dismissed. This is slow strangulation; would not decapitation be better?
The Soviet Union was equally corrupt, and modern China is certainly so, but the UK used to be vastly superior to this, as were many of the Continental States of Europe.

However, our situation is more bleak than that of the Mediaevals. At least they understood the nature of sin and the nature of wisdom, and the incompatibility of the two. Besides this, they had their wonderful Churches, and the continuous availability of their Faith. Better, I think, all in all, than Prozac and Psychotherapy, supplemented by Holidays in Spain.

And here is Bacon writing, in 1268 AD, on the necessity of experiment:--
There are two ways of acquiring knowledge, one through reason, the other by experiment. Argument... neither makes us certain nor so annihilates doubt that the mind rests calm in the intuition of truth, unless it finds this certitude by way of experience... Even if a man that has never seen fire, proves by good reasoning that fire burns, and devours and destroys things, nevertheless the mind of one hearing his arguments would never be convinced, nor would he avoid fire until he puts his hand or some combustible thing into it in order to prove by experiment what the argument taught...

Authors write many things and the people cling to them through arguments which they make without experiment, that are utterly false. It is commonly believed among all classes that one can break adamant [diamond] only with the blood of a goat, and philosophers and theologians strengthen this myth... Similarly it is commonly believed that the secretions of the beaver that the doctors use are the testicles of the male, but this is not so, as the beaver has this secretion beneath its breast and even the male as well as the female produces a secretion of this kind. In addition also to this secretion the male has its testicles in the natural place and thus again it is a horrible lie that, since hunters chase the beaver for this secretion, the beaver knowing what they are after, tears out his testicles with his teeth and throws them away...

Experience is of two kinds. One is through the external senses... And this experience is human and philosophical just as far as a man is able to make use of the beneficent grace given to him, but such experience is not enough for man, because it does not give full certainty as regards corporeal things because of their complexity and touches the spiritual not at all. Hence man's intellect must be aided in another way, and thus the patriarchs and prophets who first gave science to the world secured inner light and did not rest entirely on the senses. So also many of the faithful since Christ... Virtue, then, clears the mind so that one can better understand not only ethical, but even scientific things. I have carefully proved this in the case of many pure youths who, on account of their innocent minds, have gone further in knowledge than I dare to say, because they have had correct teaching in religious doctrine... And indeed, since all speculative thought proceeds through arguments which either proceed through a proposition by authority or through other propositions of argument, in accordance with this which I am now investigating, there is a science that is necessary to us, which is called experimental. I wish to explain this, not only as useful to philosophy, but to the knowledge of God and the understanding of the whole world: as in a former book I followed language and science to their end, which is the Divine wisdom by which all things are ordered. And because this experimental science is a study entirely unknown by the common people, I cannot convince them of its utility, unless its virtue and characteristics are shown. This alone enables us to find out surely what can be done through nature, what through the application of art, what through fraud, what is the purport and what is mere dream in chance, conjuration, invocations, imprecations, magical sacrifices and what there is in them; so that all falsity may be lifted and only the truths of the art retained. This alone teaches us to examine all the insane ideas of the magicians in order not to confirm but to avoid them, just as logic criticizes the art of sophistry...

Many modern professional scientists would look askance at some of the above -- most obviously the section on spiritual development, and the necessity of virtue. And yet I think the evidence of our time favours Roger Bacon. At the deepest level all human dimensions overlap: there is no way of going 'Beyond Good and Evil'. The delusion, that you can do so, is one of the more sophisticated tricks of the Devil, especially designed to appeal to the highly educated, to the ones who look down upon the plain speakers, to the ones who look down upon those who cannot speak in polysyllables. If you do try to go beyond the two central moral criteria -- the evidence is overwhelming and unequivocal -- you will, without fail, end up practising one of the more horrifying versions of Evil.
It has become clear that prescribed procedures -- going by the book -- are in themselves not sufficient. Without virtue any organizational procedure can easily be subverted by a clever performer. The institutional devices of modern official science -- most obviously the device of peer review -- have been notably unsuccessful in preventing fraudulence and unsubstantiated claims. The Global Warming 'Consensus' is merely one of the more extreme of many examples.

[The two quotes of Roger Bacon are from Internet Mediaeval Sourcebook: Fordham University].
The third phase: Total Naturalism.
The Mediaevals were Methodological Naturalists, but not Metaphysical Naturalists. The third phase of Naturalism within the West starts in the 18th Century, in the era of self-sufficient Reason, the era of the Enlightenment. The Mediaeval division into two Realms is rejected. This is the period of thoroughgoing Naturalism, both Methodological and Metaphysical. The Supernatural is emphatically denied -- it is an illusion, a product of supersitition and ignorance. Nature is all. From now on, when I use the term 'Naturalist' it will usually mean this thoroughgoing kind.
[There are many versions of Naturalism -- Scientism, Positivism, Logical Positivism, Atheist Humanism -- but they don't vary much. I shall not consider them separately.]

David Hume (d. 1776) was the leading exponent of this version of Naturalism. He was a great debunker, celebrated as a writer against Miracles and against Christianity. I have little to say about him, since I cannot understand why his statements on these matters are taken seriously. Why do I say this? Because, having read his writings I find that, without exception, he presupposes what he is trying to prove. I.e. he begs the question. This is masked by the smooth flow of placid urbanity -- intermixed with the occasional sneer at the unenlightened mob and the old-fashioned traditionalist. The smooth flow is nonetheless pretty flat, and you tend to become sleepy and accepting, until you realize with a shock what a con it all is. Of course Miracles are to be rejected if you hold that the regularity of Nature, at all times and in all places, is always to be presupposed, and that the answer of any reasonable man in any particular case is that a Miracle did not occur. Quite so.
You have to read the stuff -- and it's too long to quote -- to get the idea. It goes on and on; there's no change in rhythm; you are lulled. The length, and the verbosity, are important. They are strategies of argumentation: it is rhetoric masked as reasoning. It's the whole ambience, the mindset, which is important.

David Hume et al. wrote for a small educated ้lite. It was not until the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) that thoroughgoing Naturalism reached a wider audience within the Anglosphere. Darwin's book has proved to be the most effective tract ever written in favour of Metaphysical Naturalism, i.e. the rejection of all forms of the Supernatural.
There are difficulties with Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Firstly, it seems to be overly ambitious. How can a theory explain the mechanism of its own creation? An eye cannot see itself; a man cannot lift himself by his own bootstraps. Secondly, on those qualities which are peculiar to man it is for the most part either unilluminating, or simply wrong. Thirdly, it doesn't seem to fit the steadily accumulating empirical evidences (fossils, etc.) as well as one would expect. However, I shall say nothing further about all this, but concentrate on another problem.

In 1929 Edwin Hubble, an experimental astronomer, produced strong evidence for an expanding universe. The idea is that the Universe is a measurable number of of years old, and was formed by an explosion -- the Big Bang -- from 'something' of minute size. Most modern Astrophysicists go along with Hubble.

There are now two strong pieces of evidence suggesting that the Universe, i.e. what the Scientists call Nature, may not have existed from eternity:--

(1) The Mediaeval Thinkers, who laid all of the main foundations of European Natural Science, did not agree with Hume and Darwin. Much of their reasoning proceeded expressly from the presupposition that God created the Universe at a particular point of time in the past. My argument here is the one from fruitfulness: the theory, of Restricted (Methodological) Naturalism, delivered the goods.

(2) The Big Bang: the Universe is 'only' about 13.7 billions years old.

Together the two arguments are not inescapably conclusive -- we cannot confirm by experiment --but should be taken seriously. The Doctrine of Total Naturalism is not so obviously and overwhelmingly cogent as many of its proponents would have us believe.
There are other arguments against Naturalism, some of which I have already discussed, but the above are two of the simplest.

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Gnosticism.

A first, rough characterization. Unlike both Christianity and Naturalism -- which are monist -- Gnosticism is a radically dualist Religion. According to the Gnostic there are two Worlds, quite separate.
First there is the 24/7 World -- the Material World, and Society -- in which we have most of our being. This is a lost cause; for the most part spoiled, conflicted, polluted, evil. Whatever one's attitude one cannot expect much of it.
Secondly there is a supramundane World of bliss: peace, harmony, freedom and rest. One gains understanding of this second World through 'Insight' ( what Gnosis actually means -- the dispelling of False Consciousness). Occasionally one gets to stay in this wonderful World for a bit: drugs, sex; or a brief period of Revolutionary Liberation within a Society.

In the modern West the clearest articulations of Gnostic bliss have been, on the one hand the Marxist Utopia: the State become unnecessary and withered away, and man working happily at various tasks as the mood takes him; on the other hand the devout Vegan Environmentalist, living at one with Gaia and recycling everything.

Within Western Culture Naturalism, Gnosticism and Christianity have continally grown, mutated, overlapped. Like Naturalism, Gnosticism has passed through three phases.

The first phase: overlap, confusion, clarification.
The period: 200 BC to 500 AD. The main places: the various cities of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean: Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Byzantium ... In these cities Gnostics and Christians were in constant contact and competition. Gnostic groups tended to focus upon a charismatic leader -- Valentinus, Marcion, Basilides, etc. -- and the sets of beliefs varied considerably. At first there was overlap -- some groups called themselves Christian Gnostics -- but as the Christians gradually formulated a single coherent theology, they increasingly distanced themselves from the Gnostics. By 200 AD there was in circulation a substantial polemic: a book (Against Heresies), written by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, describing the various Gnostic teachings, and attacking each of them.
By 500 AD Gnosticism was no longer a major movement, at least in its places of origin; Christianity was overwhelmingly dominant.

The second phase: underground.
The period: 500 AD to 1789 AD. The main places: the cities of Western and Central Europe. Gnosticism didn't disappear without trace but, being proscribed by the Church as a Heresy, it went underground. There were various developments during the Middle Ages but, since they don't bear much on the main line of my argument, I shall not discuss them.

The third phase: resurgence and triumph.
The period: 1789 AD to the present. The places: the whole of the West but also, to some extent, the whole planet. The year 1789 AD is the date of the French Revolution, the year in which the Roman Catholic Church was decisively defeated. For a few years it was expelled from France. With the defeat of the French Armies some decades later the Church recovered some of its influence, but it has been on the defensive ever since.
Since 1789 the dominant religions throughout large parts of the West have tended to be Gnosticism and Naturalism, usually in combination. (E.g. Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Environmentalism.)

Both Christianity and Naturalism have, at various times, been articulated by thinkers of power and expressive ability. Not so with the Gnostics. They have been notable for imaginative lushness and fluency rather than intellectual rigour and clarity. As a consequence Gnosticism is not easy to characterize. The movement has always consisted of a bewildering variety of sects. Nevertheless there is a core, which I shall now try to delineate. To facilitate a cumulative understanding I'll use a table of subheadings, with commentary.

Dimension	Exposition; Example; Contrast
Name	Gnosis is a Greek word, meaning Knowledge. Not the intellectual or philosophical kind, but primarily religious, and leading to redemption. Since all Religions have this strand of thought, and make this kind of claim -- of redemptive knowledge -- how does this make Gnosticism distinctive? The truth shall make you free, say the Christians. [John 8:31-36]. And the Naturalist Scientists clearly imply that scientific knowledge will also have this effect. The difference is one of emphasis, and this is reflected in the Name. Knowledge, for both Christian and Naturalist, is not primary. Faith / Belief -- this is primary, and knowledge follows as an inevitable consequence. The Christian is one who, first and foremost, Believes in the Divinity of Christ. The Naturalist is one who, first and foremost, Believes in the Divinity of Nature. The Gnostic is one who, first and foremost, Knows. This makes him one of an ้lite.
Constituents	Gnosis is Insight into Divine Secrets, and is given by Revelation. If anyone has gnosis he fulfils the will of Him who has called him. ... He knows whence he has come and whither he goes. Gnosis is available only to the elect, to those capable of receiving it. Gnosis is esoteric; and the possessors of this wonderful knowledge are immune to the force of every evidence and argument from outside the zone. They are without humility; they don't go in for doubt. They can be exasperating in their self-sufficiency and imperturbability: they know, they imply, as they look pityingly upon you, the ignorant. This describes many modern Marxists, Psychoanalysists, Environmentalists, Feminists but seems to have been equally true of their counterparts in Ancient Alexandria and Antioch. Gospel of Truth: Nag Hammadi Codex.
Cosmogony / Stages.	In Christianity it is God alone who creates the World: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And he is pleased with what he has done: And God saw that it was good. After the main work he makes man: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. Satan is around, of course; and is destructive; but he is a minor figure, and certainly he has no substantial powers of creation. The Creation Myth, the Cosmogony, of Gnosticism, is very different. The Early Gnostics have clear Creation Myths. They were prolific Mythographers. There is variation amongst the sects, but nevertheless an identifiable central line. As with most Cosmogonies there are three stages. There are two creative Powers. The higher, Supreme Power, is Pure Spirit, Pure Light, and wholly Good. This Supreme Power played no part in the creation of the World, and seems to take little interest in it. At first the Supreme Power dreamed away through endless Time; but then came the Demiurge. It is the Demiurge [Greek demiourgos: craftsman] who made the World (Matter), and all that is in it, including we unfortunate humans. The Demiurge is some kind of offshoot from the higher Power. There was an episode of rebellion: a breakaway -- the Myths vary. The Demiurge is somewhat like a fallen Angel, only more powerful. However, all is not entirely lost, since every human has within him a splinter, a fragment of Pure Spirit, of Light -- a piece of the Godhead. And this fragment is of course indestructible. As for the World, the creation of the Demiurge, it is irremediably evil. Nothing to be done about it. Matter, Body, the World, the Flesh and the Devil -- Ugh. Modern Gnostics have Creation Myths which are less clear than this, since overt Mythology is no longer intellectually respectable. But the Myths are there, and no less influential, even though subterranean. I'll give summaries and representative statements from the more important sects. There are surface antagonisms, but the various groups are aware that they constitute a family. Marxists, Psychoanalyticals, Feminists, Environmentalists understand each other, since they all speak dialects of the one root language. The foundations of Modern Gnosticism were laid in the period 1650 AD - 1800 AD, the Age of Enlightenment. As with the original Gnostics there is the same emphasis on Light and Reason. 'Enlightenment' is merely the modern word for the Ancient Greek word Gnosis. We have seen the Light; we are the Enlightened ones, the Illuminati, the ones who Know; we have Insight. With the Mediaeval Christians there is the dictum: Faith precedes Knowledge . With the Gnostics, especially the Modern ones, there is the dictum: Reason is original and self-sufficient . The whole of modern Higher Education is saturated with the Presuppositions of Gnosticism. For now, I shall pass over this early period (1650 - 1800), since I shall be discussing it in more detail in later Essays. Marxism:- First Epoch: Primitive Communism -- Equality, Unsophisticated Happiness. Second Epoch: Private Property; Capitalism and Exploitation -- Social Classes, the State, Inequality, Misery. Third Epoch (Utopia): Full Communism ; no Private Property -- Equality once more; withering away of the State; a Paradise of intelligent, healthy, happy humanity. [Only the Second Epoch is ever treated at length, but there are occasional brief references to both First and Third Epochs in the writings of Marx and Lenin.] Psychoanalysis :- This is a notably colourless variant of Gnosticism. Redemption is a muted affair; more like an acceptance of defeat. Unlike Early Gnosticism and Marxism, where the extended Unit of Time sometimes spans Millennia, but alternatively the lifetime of an individual, in Psychoanalysis the Unit of Time is only the latter period. First Epoch: The Womb. Mostly Paradise; not much to be said. Second Epoch: The murderous fantasies of Oedipal conflict; of (enforced, but necessary) Separation from Mother; adapting to the Reality Principle. Third Epoch: A settling for second best. The nine to five round of the Bourgeois male. In Melanie Klein's version of Psychoanalysis one is given the bleak choice of the Paranoid-Schizoid position or the Depressive position. Environmentalism; the Greens:- Most people -- for reasons of morality, self-interest, aesthetics -- look after their surroundings more or less well; have been doing so for thousands of years. Environmentalism is not about that. The Movement is a coalition of various groups: Animal Rightists; Tree Huggers; Vegetarians; etc. The core principle of the Movement is, and always has been, a hatred of humanity -- vile, polluting creatures that we are. Structurally the Movement is isomorphic with Marxism: the same three stages, with concentration on the middle stage; the same surface gloss of scientificness combined with complete indifference to logic and empirical accuracy. Stages:-- First Stage: Hunter Gatherers, at one with Nature. Recent favoured groups have been the Indians of the Amazon Rain Forest, and the Australian Aborigines. They are ideal mythic creatures. Very few Environmentalists have ever seen a representative of either group: they have the wit never to go near them. Pretty pictures are much better. (And pictures don't stink). Second Stage:-- The Fall: the advent of Christianity, Science, Technology, Industrial Society. Environmentalism is more gloomy than Marxism, since Marx thought that Industrial Society would be redeemed, with the inevitable victory of the Proletariat. Third Stage:-- Return to the Golden Age (Hunter Gatherers). Most of the world's population will die, of course; but that will be no bad thing. I'll illustrate; with many quotes, since most people don't realize just how serious and far out are the radicals amongst the Environmentalists; serious in their desire to wipe out -- or at the least, decimate -- the Human race. Environmentalism is the most extreme of all the modern Gnostic Movements, and has a huge following in the West. Al Gore has a very big Constituency. Modern man has made a rubbish tip of Paradise. He has multiplied his numbers to plague proportions, caused the extinction of 500 species of animals, ransacked the planet for fuels and now stands like a brutish infant, gloating over his meteoric rise to ascendancy, on the brink of a war to end all wars and of effectively destroying this oasis of life in the solar system. [Greenpeace leaflet: Thank God Someone's Making Waves. (No date)] To learn plainly to hate mankind, to detest the spawning human being, that is the only cleanliness now ... If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal palace ... [Letters of D. H. Lawrence: Vol III (1919-1921) / Vol I (1901-1912)] If we desire a certain type of civilization and culture, we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it. [George Bernard Shaw: Preface to 'On the Rocks'.] The discovery of the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revolutions the world has seen. The struggle in which we are now engaged is similar to the one waged by Pasteur and Koch in the last century. How many diseases must owe their origin to the Jewish virus. [Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf.] Note the dates of the Letters of Lawrence -- long before the rise to power of the Nazis. Intellectuals of imagination can be dangerous. They give the ideas to demagogues of genius like Hitler. But the above is merely a snippet. Environmental literature is full of exhortations to initiate a more thorough version of the 'Final Solution', this time applied to the whole human race:-- Massive human diebacks would be good. It is our duty to cause them. It is our species' duty, relative to the whole, to eliminate 90 percent of our numbers. [Tom Regan (ed.): 'Earthbound' / Random House / New York / 1984 / p 269.] The extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species ... Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. [Les. U. Knight / 'Wild Earth' / Summer 1991 / p 72.] Fulminations of hatred. However, Environmentalists are also capable of love:-- Do you know that your Fuhrer is a vegetarian, and that he does not eat meat because of his general attitude towards life and his love for the world of animals? ... Do you know that your Fuhrer is an ardent opponent of any torture of animals, in particular of vivisection? ... [Hitler will] fulfil his role as the saviour of animals from continuous and nameless torments and pain ... by making vivisection illegal. [Nazi propaganda, reported in: Christopher Paul Roberts / 'National Socialism and the Modern Animal Rights Movement ...' / Northeastern University (1990).] [The Sourcebook for most of the above quotes is: The Cross and the Rain Forest / Robert Whelan; Joseph Kirwan; Paul Haffner / Acton Institute / Grand Rapids / 1996.] Feminism :-- Statistically not quite as murderous as Environmentalism, since only half the human race deserves extermination. First Stage: Mother Goddesses. Women revered, as superior beings. Second Stage: The Fall -- the Goddess dethroned. Father gods take over. Women enslaved. Third Stage: Men defeated, and either put in their proper, inferior place, or else wiped out altogether. MANGLISH: the English language as it is used by men in perpetuation of male supremacy ... Words like "manglish" are "reality-violators" and "consciousness raisers" which function "to make us realize that language is the basis of our thought and that our thought patterns are steeped in sexism-racism, class snobbery, adult chauvinism, and other lousy values". [Varda One / 1970 / Everywoman / October 23.] MALE: "The first males were mutants, freaks produced by some damage to the genes ... Maleness remains a recessive genetic trait like color-blindness and hemophilia with which it is linked. The suspicion that maleness is abnormal and that the Y chromosome is an accidental mutation boding no good for the race ... If the Y chromosome is a degeneration and a deformity of the female X chromosome, then the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female." [Elizabeth Gould Davis/ 1971 / 35]. WAR: Is "the male's normal method of compensation for not being female, namely, getting his Big Gun off; [it] is grossly inadequate, as he can get it off only a very limited number of times; so he gets it off on a really massive scale and proves to the entire world that he's a Man." [Valerie Solanas / 1968 / 6]. [War] is "the only appropriate word for women's lives. More than 2000 women are raped in this country every day; 50 percent of women are beaten by the men they live with ... etc., etc." [Sonia Johnson / 1983 / 6]. WHITE MEN: "Are the ruling class; the ruling class are white men. It is true that not all white men are capitalists or possess extreme class privilige, but it is safe to assume that 99.44% of them are racists and sexists. It is not just rich and powerful capitalists who inhibit and destroy life. Rapists, murderers, lynchers, and ordinary bigots do too and exercise very real and violent power because of their white-male privilege. [Barbara Smith / 1979 / 125-6.] [99.44% of us. There's precision for you. Who would have thought. We're doing well.] WILD: "Wild is the name of the Self in women, of the enspiriting Sister Self. The wildness of our Selves is visible to wild-eyes, to the inner eyes which ask the deepest 'whys,' the interconnected 'whys' that have not been fragmented by the fathers' 'mother tongues' ... These are the 'whys' ... which lie sleeping, sometimes half-awake, in the wild minds of women." [Mary Daly / 1978 / 344]. WOMAN: "By a woman, then, I understand an individual human being whose life is her own concern; whose worth, in my eyes (worth being an entirely personal matter) is in no way advanced or detracted from by the accident of marriage; who does not rise in my estimation by reason of a purely physical capacity for bearing children, or sink in my estimation through a lack of that capacity." [Cicely Hamilton / 1909 / 19-20]. [All Feminist quotations are from: Cheris Kramarae, Paula A. Treichler / A Feminist Dictionary / Pandora Press / 1992.]
Stages (fantasy) Stages (real time)	The protracted history of our miserable species, according to the Gnostic Sects, goes through the three stages, as indicated above. On the surface -- but only there -- this history is much the same as that spelt out in the Christian Story: Paradise; Fall; Salvation. In the actual life of a Gnostic, in Real Time, the sequence of stages tends to get mixed up. Stages II and III tend to alternate but, after quite a short while, Stage II settles in, bleak and permanent. This because Gnostics are parasites, and in our Universe Necessity is inexorable. Someone has to drive the bus; someone has to wash the dishes, and the Gnostic -- unless he belongs to the small group of clever manipulators -- will soon be detected as the freeloader he is, and put down accordingly. Sometimes there is an attempt by the Gnostic to get to the third stage quickly -- using drugs, etc. As in the 1960s and 70s. The period has been chronicled by three English poets: An erratic poet (John Lennon); a great poet (W. H. Auden); and a gifted semi-Nihilist (Johnny Rotten). The Hippies, the self-styled Beautiful People, wore beads and sandals, and some of them had pretty clothes. Stoned to the eyeballs, they were fed their pleasure syrup by the Beatles:-- Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today... Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace... Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one. ['Imagine' / 1971 / John Lennon.] He later described the song as "virtually the Communist Manifesto". ] ---------------------------------- And here's a different way of seeing. ... In no time one reaches the gate over which is written large: MAKE LOVE NOT WAR. ... The rose-bushes have no thorns. An invisible orchestra plays the Great Masters: the technique is flawless, the rendering schmaltz. ... He feels Her hand in his and hears Her murmuring: At last! With me, mistaught one, you shall learn the answers. What is Conscience but a nattering fishwife, the Tree of Knowledge but the splintered main-mast of the Ship of Fools? Consent, you poor alien, to my arms where sequence is conquered, division abolished: soon, soon, in the perfect orgasm, you shall, pet, be one with the All. She does not brutalize ... She simplifies ... All but a privileged Few, the elite She guides to Her secret citadel, the Tower where a laugh is forbidden and DO HARM AS THOU WILT is the Law. Dear little not-so-innocents, beware of Old Grandmother Spider: rump her endearments. She's not quite as nice as She looks, nor you quite as tough as you think. [Circe / W. H. Auden / 1969.] 1969 was the year of Woodstock, and the murderous activities of Charles Manson (a fan of the Beatles). Auden was wiser than Lennon, McCartney et al. He knew something about Good and Evil; knew that it is only a short step from endless narcissistic gratification and self-indulgence to the killing fields of the Ukraine (1933-34) and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany (1939-45).] --------------------------- And finally, another perspective. Honest, I think, as far as it goes. God save the queen She ain't no human being There is no future In England's dreaming Don't be told what you want Don't be told what you need There's no future, no future, No future for you God save the queen We mean it man We love our queen God saves ... Oh God save history God save your mad parade Oh Lord God have mercy All crimes are paid When there's no future How can there be sin We're the flowers in the dustbin We're the poison in your human machine We're the future, your future God save the queen We mean it man And there is no future In England's dreaming No future, no future ... No future for me ... No future, no future, No future for you ['God Save the Queen' / Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) / 1977.] However, John Lydon was never more than a semi-Gnostic. There was always an element of realism and joyfulness in him, and he has grown happier with age.
Good and Evil Truth and Error Beauty and Ugliness	The Gnostic is the eternal teenager, the perpetual Rebel. He is against the whole Cosmos. He never grows up -- growing up is the ultimate defeat. When he is high, on drugs or delusions, he sometimes sees a kaleidoscope of soft, pretty colours; but much of the time he sees the Universe, and everything that is in it -- Matter, Body, the World and all its works and manifestations -- as Evil, Disgusting, Nauseating. In the BCT era -- i.e. Before the Collapse of Tradition, which occurred during the 60s -- many School Anthologies of Poetry in Britain would have included the Ode on a Grecian Urn of John Keats (1795-1821). Here is Keats's profession of faith: Beauty is truth, truth beauty -- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Not so, say the Gnostics, and since the 1960s their vision has been dominant in Britain, affecting all social classes. Until that time it was prevalent only amongst a section of the Upper Classes. Nowadays in the Arts Beauty and Goodness are no longer central; they are classed as mere illusion and self-deception. Ugliness and Evil Rule -- OK. Truth resides only in Filth, Excrement, Repulsiveness, Betrayal and the drearily mundane. Examples below. Visual Arts:- Large sums are paid for the works of artists such as Tracey Emin. 'My Bed' (1999) is typical. The bed is an actual one, not a model or a picture. The sheets of the bed are stained yellow, and on the floor around it are condoms, empty cigarette packets, a pair of knickers with period stains. The bed is left as it was after she stayed in it for several days feeling suicidal because of 'relationship difficulties'. Cinema / Theatre / TV:-- Although the Gnostics have seemingly conquered -- and not just amongst the Highbrows -- and you have to comb the lists now (AD 2008) to find anything alternative, yet the sheer dreariness and -- quite soon -- the repetitiveness, talentless triviality and stupefying boredom of the Gnostic vision has provoked some reaction. Increasingly, the younger generation goes for Fantasy, which is only partly Escapism. They are searching.
An Evolutionary Perspective.	Gnosticism is Nihilist and Suicidal. It can destroy, or badly maim, a Culture fairly quickly -- e.g. Russia after 1917. As a consequence a dominant Gnostic Movement within a Culture doesn't last long: the Culture dies, and sometimes the Race that bears it as well. Sometimes it survives much longer, smouldering away, by becoming one strand amongst several, as in Europe during what I have called, above, the second phase (500 AD to 1789 AD). Think of it as an Epidemic: Incubation Period; Time of Virulence; Resistance and Regeneration. The Incubation Period of modern Gnosticism occurred on the Continent of Europe; from 1650 AD, and throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries: 250 years. Virulent there from about 1900 AD onwards. The disease became virulent in the Anglosphere a bit later, from about 1960. It has been raging amongst us for 50 years, worldwide: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Gnostics have set the agendas -- for discussion and opinion -- of the Establishments of all the English-Speaking countries for several decades, and have often been overtly in control. (Media, Arts, Politics, Academia). There are signs of regeneration recently (both in the Anglosphere and on the Continent) but as yet not strong. We are floundering. I don't see how the West (i.e. White Euro-Christian Culture) can survive beyond a few more decades unless there is a powerful resurgence. However, no one can predict the future.

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