Gnosis and Lundström’s theology

Gnosis and Lundström’s theology is Karl Lundström’s account of a divine truth that precedes institutional religion and conventional morality. In his conversation with Sofia Zetterlund, he links that imagined original purity to childhood, invokes ancient and modern writing about children’s sensuality, and disputes the authority of the Bible’s human authors. The doctrine matters not as an established explanation of his actions but as the language through which he presents them: Sofia hears a theory of lost innocence alongside a defense of his abuse of Linnea Lundström, and wonders whether the two are connected.

The doctrine of an original truth

Lundström describes his faith as belief in a divine truth and a God beyond human understanding. In his account, God was once close to humanity, but that inward voice has faded over centuries. He treats religious institutions, including churches and the priesthood, not as reliable guardians of the divine but as human inventions that have obscured what existed at the beginning. The distinction lets him separate the God he claims to believe in from the rules through which society has defined right and wrong.

When Sofia asks what was present at the beginning, Lundström answers with “Gnosis. Purity and wisdom.” He says he once thought God existed in Linnea when she was little and that he had found Him there, but immediately qualifies the belief: he may have been wrong. His account then shifts from a particular child to a general claim that children are less pure at birth today, already contaminated in the womb by the noise of the outside world. He characterizes that noise as lies, distractions, and material concerns. The movement is significant: childhood first appears as a possible site of divine presence, then as something vulnerable to corruption before birth.

Literature as defense

The theology develops within a conversation that has already turned into what Sofia recognizes as Lundström’s defense speech. He insists that he has not claimed to do anything wrong and presents his impulse as one that men share but suppress. From there, he invokes a literary lineage, moving from antiquity to the twentieth century to argue that writers have treated children’s sensuality openly. He names Archilochus and Alcman, then Nabokov and Pasolini, noting that Pasolini wrote about boys.

This appeal does more than establish that such writing exists. By setting his impulse beside works of literature, Lundström recasts his conduct as part of a longstanding human subject rather than confronting its particular harm. The sequence also exposes a tension in his argument: he condemns the world’s chatter as lies and distractions while drawing on literary examples to make his own case. Sofia recognizes phrases from his police interviews, so his speech is not a spontaneous change of subject; it repeats a defense he has previously given. The conversation’s movement from his general claim about men to literary precedent makes his theology part of an effort to explain, and normalize, his behavior.

Scripture, morality, and responsibility

Lundström argues that society rests on a moral construct and asks why humanity is imperfect if it reflects God. He answers his own question by distinguishing God from the Bible: “Because God isn’t the one who wrote the Bible, people did …” He places the true God beyond feelings about right and wrong and beyond the Bible, then describes the Old Testament God as unpredictable and jealous because, in his view, that figure is essentially human. His proposed original truth about humanity is therefore set against a scripture he regards as a human construction.

The distinction leaves an important gap between rejecting inherited moral authority and establishing an alternative basis for conduct. Lundström asserts that divine truth exceeds judgments of good and evil, but the conversation offers no independent confirmation that his doctrine explains his abuse or makes it permissible. Its function in the scene is revealed through the circumstances in which he presents it: Sofia is trying to approach the core of a discussion about the harm done to Linnea, while he elaborates a system that relocates truth beyond ordinary moral judgment. His explanation is thus also a form of evasion, whether or not he understands it that way.

Sofia’s response and the doctrine’s limits

Lundström tells Sofia that “Gnosis” means wisdom in Greek and connects her name to the female emanation responsible for the Fall in Gnosticism. The personal address makes his abstract account unexpectedly pointed: he interprets her name through the theology he is advancing. The scene does not establish that Sofia accepts this interpretation. After Lundström is taken back to the cells, she remains seated, thinking instead about Linnea, who is only just into her teens and already badly damaged.

Sofia wonders whether Lundström’s religious thoughts might explain why he abused his daughter, but the narrative preserves that connection as a question, not a conclusion. Her concern turns toward what may happen to Linnea and whether, like Tyra Mäkelä, she might become an abuser herself. That fear places the doctrine beside a possible cycle of harm rather than treating it as a self-contained philosophical system. In the papers Sofia searches, the available information about Linnea is scant: she is in her first year at boarding school in Sigtuna, earns good grades, and is the school champion at 800 metres. The contrast between those concrete details and the immense theological claims around her makes Linnea more than an example in Lundström’s theory. She is the person whose future and suffering his account cannot resolve.