Avicenna's Proof of the Truthful and How It Best Argues for Gnostic Ontology and Cosmology

Avicenna's Proof of the Truthful is a metaphysics-based ontological argument for the "necessary existent," a thing that exists by its own nature, rather than by contingency on any other thing. Avicenna argues that because everything we know in the universe is contingent on the existence of something that has existed before it, there must be something that is self-contingent at the beginning of the chain of contingency. That self-contingent thing is the necessary existent. The entire chain of contingency as a collective relies on the necessary existent.

Avicenna argues that for something to be the necessary existent, it must be:

A single thing. There cannot be multiple distinct necessary existents. If there were multiple, they would be contingent on their distinctions from each other, and thus would not be self-contingent.
Non-composite. If the necessary existent was made up of multiple parts, the whole would be contingent on its parts, which are made distinct from the whole by their existence.
Existent outside of material reality and all laws that govern it. If it existed inside material reality, it would be contingent on reality.
Capable of independent action. If the necessary existent is not capable of acting by itself, it would have no means to create the universe. The capability of action suggests a mechanism similar to thought or reason. If the necessary existent's action had no mechanism to decide courses of action, the necessary existent would have to be contingent on another force to decide the conditions under which it acts.
All-powerful. If there were any natural laws that limited the necessary existent's power, it would be contingent on those laws.
All-knowing. If there were any natural laws that limited the necessary existent's knowledge, it would be contingent on those laws.
Perfectly benevolent. The necessary existent could not be selfish or malevolent, for it has requires nothing external to it. There is no way it could be more powerful than it already is.
Complete and perfect in its every quality. The necessary existent must not be lacking in anything. It must be complete in itself. Its knowledge and its power and its goodness could not be less than they are, for that suggests that any of these traits exist governed by laws outside of the necessary existent, and thus the necessary existent would depend on them. Rather, the necessary existent defines power, knowledge, and goodness itself.

Avicenna argues that the necessary existent is the god of Islam, but I believe the argument does not fit within the framework of any traditional idea of God, including Allah. However, it fits as an argument for existence of the Monad in Gnosticism perfectly. The Apocryphon of John 2:5 instructs that we are not to interpret the Monad as God at all. The Monad according to chapter 2 of the Apocryphon of John perfectly matches up with Avicenna's necessary existent. The Monad "exists" outside of all reality, outside of the concept of "being" itself (Secret John 2:21). On the other hand, it can't be thought of as existent "outside" anything because it does not rely on physical or metaphysical boundaries. The Monad is perfect, yet it is above the concept of perfection entirely for perfection exists because of it.

Avicenna's points describe not only proof for the necessary existent, but define its qualities using only what can be inferred through reason. Nicene Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and virtually every religion that teaches traditional theism, all teach of gods who frequently display attributes (malevolence, lack of foresight, etc.) that would make them invalid candidates for being the necessary existent or the Monad. The only valid "God" would be one that is alien to us, and not a traditional living entity, similar to the Monad. Also, the Monad mustn't have created the physical world directly since everything in it is so far from the Monad's perfection. However, the Proof of the Truthful is a valid argument for the existence of "a" Monad, but it doesn't argue for the existence of "the" Monad in the context of Gnosticism. However, we can use reason derived both from Avicenna's Proof and Gnosticism to narrow down how the greater universe originated from the Monad. The Apocryphon of John 3:3-5 declares that the Monad creates Barbelo, the first thought, and the Mother-Father of the Pleroma, the Fullness, through mere knowledge of itself. If we were to secularize Barbelo, she would simply be the first created thing. The logic behind this is that through knowing itself as an entity, the Monad immediately established a distiction between itself and the "other." Something needed to fill that "other," so Barbelo was created.

At this point, nothing else exists in the universe other than the Monad, so Barbelo is a mirror of the Monad, an image of it (Secret John 3:8). However, the Barbelo could not possibly share the same perfection as the Monad, because it would make Barbelo identical to the Monad, which we know from the points established by Avicenna, is impossible. So, Barbelo must be slightly less perfect than the Monad. In order to get as close as possible to the Monad in its perfection, Barbelo emanated the rest of the Pleroma. Each Aeon in the Pleroma serves a specific purpose in the Mind of God to achieve a state in which the Pleroma as a godly being is most identical as it can get to the absolute perfection of the Monad. Barbelo's progress towards perfection was wise and benevolent, but regardless of this progress towards perfection, the Pleroman God could still not be truly perfect. And since every emanated entity was less perfect than the last (any two beings of identical perfection would possess identical traits, and would be the same being), this process of emanation continued until the birth of the Demiurge. This is how the physical universe was born.

You could refute this argument by saying that the chain of contingency exists in infinite regress. Meaning, our universe is contingent on something higher, which is contingent on something higher, ad infinitum. However, we have no reason to infer the existence of universes below ours, so what suggests the existence of universes above ours, aside from that which is contingent on the necessary existent? I believe Avicenna's Proof of the Truthful is more sound because it relies on what we already know about metaphysics, ontology, and cosmology.

You could also refute this argument by saying that a cosmological model like this is possible without belief in the rest of Gnosticism, and while that is true (Plato's Theory of Ideas is quite similar to this. I'm pretty sure Pythagoreanism was also similar. I believe the term "Monad" originated in Pythagoreanism.), essentially what you'd be declaring is that all of the above is true, but with different labels assigned to everything. For example, if you were to adopt a more secular version of the cosmological model of the Monadian Proof of the Truthful, you'd simply relabel Barbelo as the necessary existent's first creation.

The only assumptions of Gnosticism outside of the Monadian Proof of the Truthful are:

We can know the nature of the realm above ours in the cosmological model of the Monadian Proof of the Truthful.
The nature of this higher realm has been revealed to humanity and recorded by scribes.
A component of that nature, Christ, took the form of Jesus of Nazareth, and is responsible for the most direct and complete revelation of it to humanity that we have witnessed.
The records of Jesus' teachings and miracles are accurate enough to confirm his credibility.

12 january 2025