One of the great theological debates in the early church arose from Gnosticism. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/is-matter-evil

It was movement in late antiquity which held that the material world was evil. Salvation was understood in terms of deliverance from the material world into a spiritual realm. Early Christian writers resisted the idea, holding that the material world was not evil. Yet many questions remain unresolved, particularly the question of how human beings are able to transcend the material order.

This lecture explores such questions in dialogue with Philip Pullman's complex Dark Materials trilogy which provides a framework for discussing how human beings relate to the material world, and the origin of evil.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/is-matter-evil

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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