Could there be an amoral religion? If so, what might be the purpose of such a religion?
Extremist 'antinomian' sects of early Christianity - including but not limited to Gnostics - were amoral, inasmuch as they believed that salvation in Christ and mystical union with God had rendered them free from conformance to every moral injuction.
They had their roots in the so-called
Libertine Christians of the first century church in Corinth, later castigated by their enemies as
antinomians (from the Greek: ἀντί, "
against" + νόμος, [moral] "
law") and who evolved into the
Carpocratians of the second century CE, only for their ideas to resurface in the medieval '
Brethren of the Free Spirit' and then in the
Ranters of 17th century England.
You can find support for almost
anything within the wider rubric of 'heretical' Christianity - once you move outside the orthodox mainstream, inclunding unrestrained amorality and unlimited sexual freedom.
Some of these primitive Christian sects, like the Valentinian Gnostics, were brain-numbingly metaphysical and arcane; others were radically egalitarian, including the holy-spirit guided Montanist church which recognised women as bishops and priests but also encouraged ethical rigorism and strict fasts; another variety were fanatically ascetic, such as the Encratite Christians who forbade marriage and practised vegetarianism; while others again were devoutly Jewish and Torah-observant but also socially radical, like the Ebionite Christians who adhered to voluntary poverty and rejected the Apostle Paul as an apostate from the law of Moses.
And then you had the good old Carpocratian Christians, who - according to the partisan wording of the church father st. Irenaeus - taught their "
followers to perform every obscenity and every sinful act" as a means of salvation, meaning absolutely free sexual licence and hedonism.
The Carpocratian Christians believed the sex impulse was natural and God-ordained, and that God had made everything common to mankind at the beginning, and so considered patriarchal, monogamous and polygamous marriage to have been introduced through the sins of men. For this reason, they believed in sexual freedom outside the bonds of marriage and practised polyandry, sleeping with each other as they pleased without compunction.
The ascetic Encratitite Christians countered with the view that the sex impulse, if not contained, could be destructive: resulting in self-centeredness, rape, abuse and moral decline. For this reason, they opposed marriage entirely and enforced celibacy on the entire community, near enough.
The orthodox (with aberrant exceptions) came to affirm elements of both contradictory positions and to reject the remainder of each: sex was natural and good. Marriage was good. True, Christians had a newfound freedom in Christ but it shouldn't mean that one is enslaved to lustful passions either, which are not good either. Faithful monogamous sex is the best way to go therefore.
Among this plurality of sects and theologies, the 'Libertine' strain stands out in particular not only for its notoriety in the ancient world and remarkable persistence down the centuries, in one form or another, but equally due to the fact that its provocative "
sexual principles" and proto-libertarian-communist social ethic might actually (according to one commentator) have "
had a remote chance of succeeding, for among second-century Christians the question was not whether communal principles were desirable, but what those principles should be and how far they should be taken" (
ibid.), to reference Gaca again (who is Associate Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University) and indeed because "
this apostolic ideal of equitable sharing did not disappear without a trace once Christianity became more fully absorbed into society, with its man-and-wife conventions of marriage, childrearing, and property ownership, for communal monastic orders developed in support of this ideal." (
ibid.)
In his epistles, Paul's engages in rhetorical disputes with his opponents - namely, (1) the '
Judaizers' (
Galatians 2:14) or circumcision faction, who still believed in the necessity of Gentile converts complying with the Mosaic covenant and being ritually segregated from Gentiles, (2) the '
Ascetics' who reasoned that "
it is well for a man not to touch a woman" (
1 Corinthians 7:1) and even forbade marriage and (3) the '
Libertines' (
1 Corinthians 5-6) who believed that so-called '
Christian freedom' from the constraints of ritualistic law now meant that, "
Anything is permissible" (
1 Corinthians 6:12-20), which compelled Paul to tell them, "
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love” (
Galatians 5:13) and to remind them of the sacredness of their bodies: "
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Do you not see that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body with her? for God has said, The two of them will become one flesh. Therefore glorify God with your body." (
1 Corinthians 6).
The Libertine strain in the early churches had led some Christians to engage in causal sex as a legitimate lifestyle: "
It is actually reported that there is sexual licence among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans" (
1 Corinthians 5).
Carpocrates taught that human beings should strive to live life vigorously, and aim to experience every condition of life ideally in one lifetime. If we can trust the patristic critics of his doctrine (and we need to exercise some caution when they aren't quoting directly from works by summarizing), he believed that one would continually reincarnate - similar to 'samsara' in Dharmic religions and Platonism but with a hedonistic solution - until one had experienced everything this life had to offer, and ideally if one was able to experience everything one could in just one lifetime, then the transmigration of the soul would cease and the liberated person would therefore go to heaven in '
completeness', having become like Jesus. If one failed to accomplish this salvific freedom, the penalty would be that the soul will return to 'pay the very last mite,' a concept the Carpocratians took from their interpretation of Jesus's parable in
Luke 12:58, which Catholics often read as a description of purgatory, but the Carpocratians understood as referring to the bondage of reincarnation.
The ideal life, therefore, for the Carpocratian Christians was a life whereby one has experienced all, either through successive rebirths or preferably in a single full life. They appear to have adapted this doctrine from Jesus's words in the Gospel of John that: “
A thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they [human beings] might have life and have it more abundantly” (
John 10:10).
A complicated doctrine, no doubt, and greatly advanced in metaphysical speculation since the days of Paul's Corinthian Libertines, but the same essential idea of Christian freedom and life-affirmingness is present:
CHURCH FATHERS: Against Heresies, I.25 (St. Irenaeus)
"So unbridled is their madness, that they declare they have in their power all things which are irreligious and impious, and are at liberty to practice them; for they maintain that things are evil or good, simply in virtue of human opinion...
Men cannot be saved until they have gone through all kinds of experience....
They deem it necessary, therefore, that by means of transmigration from body to body, souls should have experience of every kind of life...unless, indeed, by a single incarnation, one may be able to...by once and for all, and with equal completeness, doing all those things which we dare not either speak..., in order that, as their writings express it, their souls, having made trial of every kind of life, may, at their departure, not be wanting in any particular.
It is necessary to insist upon this, lest, on account of some one thing being still wanting to their deliverance, they should be compelled once more to become incarnate. They affirm that for this reason Jesus spoke the following parable...
And in their writings we read as follows, the interpretation which they give [of their views], declaring that Jesus spoke in a mystery to His disciples and apostles privately, and that they requested and obtained permission to hand down the things thus taught them, to others who should be worthy and believing. They write: "We are saved, indeed, by means of faith and love; but all other things, while in their nature indifferent, are reckoned by the opinion of men -some good and some evil, there being nothing really evil by nature.""
--Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. Bk. I, Ch. 25, 4
As you can see from the above quote, the Carpocratians were amoral but still believed in the necessity of 'love' - so I guess they may had some degree of subjective morality amidst all the explicit antinomian amoralism.