Declamations Against the Demiurge
Okay, this is going to be a bit weird, but in some strands of Gnostic thought, the world was made by a malevolent and ignorant aeon called Yaldabaoth. Yaldabaoth - a divine yet malformed being from the “fullness,” born from Sophia generating offspring without her consort - makes the world and makes it bad. Yaldabaoth is the demiurge (literally “craftsman”) who created all things, the Lord of Hosts in the OT, with his own entourage of heavenly beings, and is tricked into creating Adam and Eve with a divine spark within them. He is the bad guy in Gnostic theology.
You can read more about Yaldabaoth in Gnostic theo-cosmology in the Apocryphon of John, which is probably the best example of Gnostic theology.
I did a weird thing, I asked ChatGPT to write me a poem criticizing Yaldabaoth and it is quite funny but also a good intro into the Gnostic demiurge Yaldabaoth.
You have to read it yourself:
In the Apocryphon of John, Yaldabaoth is quite a sight,
A lesser god who thinks he's got the world in his might,
He's arrogant and foolish, with a touch of delusion,
Creating flawed beings in his own confusion.He's like a child playing with a toy,
Thinking he's the master, oh what a ploy,
But in reality, he's just a flawed creation,
A bumbling deity with no true foundation.He's jealous of the higher realms above,
But his power is limited, not as grand as he'd love,
So he creates mankind in his own flawed image,
A mix of good and evil, a chaotic scrimmage.Yaldabaoth may think he's the ruler of all,
But in truth, he's just a god who's bound to fall,
His arrogance and pride will be his undoing,
As the higher realms watch, silently viewing.So let's not be fooled by Yaldabaoth’s claim,
For in the end, he's just playing a futile game,
A flawed god with a limited reign,
In the grand scheme of things, he's simply mundane.
And that, boys and girls, is why we don’t do gnosticism!
Your posts about Gnosticism reminded me of a recent conversation among internet Christians about the Nicene Creed. Many in that discourse concluded that the Creed lacked value in the modern day since it lacked discussion of the relationship with God and man. I disagreed, but it occurs to me that the Creed itself puts us on guard against Gnosticism and other systems, because the prescriptive doctrinal statements sideline them immediately, which in turn protects us from second order theological implications in those systems.