Nielsen’s Nook

Nielsen’s Nook
Nielsen’s Nook
Contemplative, reflective, and irenic we pray.
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Snapshot of Problems with Origen

Will Nielsen
April 28th, 2006
Tags: • • • • •

[ This relates to The Originist Crisis of the Sixth Century, (chapter 3) in John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought. This is not the Synopsis of the chapter, but a precursor. ]

  • Cosmology: Creation is co-eternal with God.Â
  • Anthropology: Like Plato, Origen believed in the pre-existence of souls.
  • Christology: Christ is not the λόγος (logos). Rather Christ is a soul that inhabited a human body (Platonic influence). This is similar to the “assumed man” of Nestorius that did not distinguish between eternal generation of the Son and creation in time.
  • Eschatology: There is not a bodily resurrection; rather, Origen held to ἀποκατάστασις (apokatastasis), which is the belief that we are freed from our bodies and returned to our original immaterial state. Under the rubric of ἀποκατάστασις even Satan will be restored.

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