Origen and Alexander- Mid 3rd Century Theology Flashcards
What issues does Origen address and is particularly concerned with what.
Trinity
Christology
Diversity in God
What us our first task according to Origen?
To see who and what the only begotten Son of God is by looking at the different names of Son and what these tell about his character
According to Origen, one of the key names for the Son of God is Wisdom. It is clearly his preferred name for the Son of God. Origen combines these two names for the second person of God to arrive at a new understanding of his eternal distinction. He writes, “we recognize that God was always the Father of his only-begotten Son, who was born indeed of him and draws his being from him, but yet is without beginning… Wisdom, therefore, must be believed to have been begotten” what? How does Origen finish this sentence?
- beyond the limits of any beginning that we can unerstand
- Jesus is Wisdom; following Justin and breaking away from Irenaeus who said Spirit is Wisdom
At the end of PA 1.2.3 Origen issues a warning to those who would assign “a beginning to the Word of God or the Wisdom of God”. What is the logical implication of such a denial against which Origen warns?
- *-Assigning the title of father implies Father was ALWAYS father, but was God father before the Son of God
- If everyone calls God “father” he was always a father
- Father is a source but this is not temporal (happened at a certain point in time)
How is Origen’s logic different from 2-Stage Theology?
- Different from 2-stage Theology (Monad to two parts) in that there was no time when the father and son weren’t distinct and God is by nature diverse
- Eternal Generation - Son has always been eternal and distinct
What was one illustration the 2-Stage Theologians used? What were the weaknesses of this argument?
- 2-Stagers used two torch illustration, one lit and one unlit, same fire passed, but then became separate at a certain point in time
- 3 weaknesses of 2-Stage illustration
1) Weak on Son and HS’s eternal existence as DISTINCT beings
2) Weak on the Son and HS’s ETERNAL existence as distinct beings
3) Father can’t be “father”” until Logos is born
How does Origen illustrate the nature of the Son?
Origen Illustrates - Son is Son by nature because ETERNAL and DISTINCT
1) Brightness as begotten form eternal light - highlights that brightness comes from light and shares traits of the source such as ETERNALITY; brightness is DIFFERENT than the source that creates it therefore the son is distinct; fatherhood of God secures the eternality of the son and vice versa 2) The image of an invisible God - = that he (son) is the invisible image of the invisible God just as according to the scripture narrative we sat that the image of Adam was his son Seth.
What is the major flaw of Origen’s argument?
He continues to think of things in terms of hierarchies, including the diversity that is essential to the being of God.
How is Origen’s proclivity to think hierarchically evident?
- Origen believes in Subordination(levels of divinity):
- Power corresponds to divinity: more power, more divine
- Activity corresponds to power, more activity, more ability to act (power)
- Activity - Power - Divinity: all are connected
- Holy Spirit is divine, Son is more divine (because creates), Father is most divine (started creation)
- Becomes problematic when he says the HS and Son are less divine but they are all God (How can you have a God that is all powerful?)
- Also says that the Holy Spirit is created, way less power than father and son
What does Origen say about the role of the Son in the origin of the Holy Spirit?
Holy Spirit made through the word – most honored of all things made through the word.
The Son is the Word and came before the Holy Spirit.
According to Origen, what is it that baffles and strikes with amazement the “human understanding with its narrow limits”?
- We see in Jesus some things that are so human that he doesn’t differ at all from us; we see things that are so divine that he is no different from God
- How can Jesus be both human and divine?
- Each nature exists in one and the same person; Jesus is the person with two natures, both human and divine
While acknowledging that he must “pursue [his] contemplation with all fear and reverence”, what does Origen “seek to prove”?
How the reality of each nature exists in one and the same person
According to PA 2.6.3, in what capacity did Jesus’ soul act in his person and why was it necessary for it to act in that capacity?
“The soul than acting as a medium between God and the flesh, there is born as we said the God man, the medium being the existence to whose nature it was not control to assume a body.”
As a “reward for its love” the union between the Word of God and his soul is unique. Indeed, if “the grace of the Spirit was not given to it (his soul) as to the prophets”, then what did his soul possess that secured its union with God?
-Soul explains how the divine inhabited the human body
On what ground does the existence “in Christ (of) a rational soul… constitute a difficulty”?
-Problematic because souls are susceptible to evil so how do you have a soul or being that could choose to do evil that is also divine;
