demiurge (from Greek demiourgos, ‘artisan’, ‘craftsman’), a deity who shapes the material world from the preexisting chaos. Plato introduces the demiurge in his Timaeus. Because he is perfectly good, the demiurge wishes to communicate his own goodness. Using the Forms as a model, he shapes the initial chaos into the best possible image of these eternal and immutable archetypes. The visible world is the result. Although the demiurge is the highest god and the best of causes, he should not be identified with the God of theism. His ontological and axiological status is lower than that of the Forms, especially the Form of the Good. He is also limited. The material he employs is not created by him. Furthermore, it is disorderly and indeterminate, and thus partially resists his rational ordering.
In gnosticism, the demiurge is the ignorant, weak, and evil or else morally limited cause of the cosmos. In the modern era the term has occasionally been used for a deity who is limited in power or knowledge. Its first occurrence in this sense appears to be in J. S. Mill’s Theism (1874).
See also GNOSTICISM , PHILOSOPHY OF RELI- GION , PLAT. W.J.Wa.