Response to Mr. Evett: Origen

Here is an excerpt of my reflections on Origen, which may be helpful:

In order to understand his eschatology, we have to understand how he understands the “Fall,” so I will briefly mention it in passing. He claims that all creatures are as diverse as they are due to the declension of their fall. All creatures were created originally good; they are not good to the extent that they have rebelled. For example, Lucifer is merely the nature of darkness and evil, how did he exist before evil was manifested (I.V.5)? And you cannot have two co-eternal forces, because neither of them would be omnipotent. So, the state of affairs of each creature is due to how far each one has defected from participating in the goodness of God (which is essential to God alone). It also might be helpful to mention here that the rate of the improvement of each creature has to do with his or her position in rebellion, e.g., Lucifer will take longer to improve than humans, because he fell further into rebellion.

Origen begins his discussion of “the end or consummation,” by stating that the very nature of the idea relates to some type of perfection or consummation of things. Following this, he warns that discussion of issues like this cannot be done with the dogmatic precision of used for the doctrine of the Trinity. Eschatology is more a of an open ended conversation (I.VI.1). What I find most interesting about Origen’s eschatology is what most would term “universalism;” however I think slapping on this ‘label’ fails to give justice to what he contributes. As we talked about in class, he does not necessarily follow closely to linear logic, such as ‘all will be saved, therefore no one can choose not to be saved, and therefore no one has free-will.’ In fact, Origen holds paradoxes in his attempt at a comprehensive theology. The best example of this might be the tension between free-will and his belief that after eons of time, even Lucifer and the fallen angels will be restored to peace and harmony with the rest of creation. He seems to maintain the existence of free-will in this by saying that sometime in the future, even the enemies of Christ will be subject to Him, but in the same manner that we are subject to Him – seeking salvation. This would lead me to think that far from forcing fallen angels to love Him, Christ would ‘woo’ them with His beauty, love and glory, in the same way He evokes love from us by loving us first. In the First Chapter of Book II he elevates the wisdom and power of God, by asserting that God will restore and transform all things into harmony, despite how far each creature has fallen, and God has arranged for this to happen without forcing any creature against the liberty of free-will. This leads him to believe that the whole world, with all of its diversity and members, is like one huge body held together by one soul. While this sounds Neo or Middle-Platonic (Origen is considered the latter), it also seems logical that if God is all powerful, and created all things, then God will redeem all things. This would mean all things are under God’s wisdom and power, making all things a sort of diverse-whole, which is Origen’s world-body metaphor. This brings us to the next aspect of Origen I see significant: salvation as incorruption.

Origen has interesting and diverse ideas on bodies, souls and their origin and salvation. He maintains continuity with earlier fathers such as Irenaeus, however, by maintaining that salvation is primarily incorruption. Even though Origen appears to have a very strong distinction, even dichotomy, between mind/spirit and matter, he does not maintain a Platonic form of salvation, which would consist of souls being released from their imprisonment in material bodies. Also, far from being Gnostic, he defends the bodily incarnation of the Son, and the goodness of creation. As neither Gnostic nor Platonist (at least here), Origen ridicules the idea of co-eternality of matter, and reasons through why he believes that only God has the quality of ‘incorporality.’ He says that it is impossible for any creature to ever have been without corporeal form, and it will never be possible. Following 1 Corinthians 15, he asserts that what is corruptible will put on incorruption, and what is mortal will put on immortality. Though often speculative, in my opinion Origen remains humble about what we can and cannot know about the future. This is why he responds to questions of the future of bodies with an admitted semi-ignorance. For while he maintains that this world will not pass away, he claims that the fashion of this world will pass away (drawing upon 1 Corinthians 7:31). He states in I.VI.4, “…it is by no means an annihilation or destruction of their material substance that is shown to take place, but a kind of change of quality and transformation of appearance.” This seems to be a view of ‘bodies with a future” in concert with the New Testament, Apostolic witness and the fathers before Origen. It is also relevant to conversation, I think, to conversation these days about how to treat bodies and materials, not the least of which is the earth we are destroying.

I think Origen’s eschatology is worth thinking through again today because his story of the future is more coherent with the scriptural story of the past than typical contemporary Christian stories of the future. (What I mean by “typical” is this: sometime called “Judgment Day” God is going to shut off forever the possibility of any creature turning towards the love of God, and those who have not yet will be tortured for eternity, while the rest of creation live in communion with God in harmony, in an incorporeal, spiritual state of existence). This latter account leaves us with many questions: “Why would God, who is love, will the misery of any of his creatures? If God created all things, and “it was good,” why would God allow any of his creatures to be lost from God forever? Why would God destroy his “good” creation?,” etc. Logically, it looks as though we would have to give up either free-will, or the redemption of all things – God being All in All. Maybe we can hope with Origen that over ages, evil habits will not become evil nature, and all creation will respond to the love of God.

Well, this is one voice worth listening to. All thoughts are welcome.

Peace~Thomas