In this long thread on the Trinity I have been trying to explain how Christians came to the view that Jesus was God but that he was separate from God the Father – that both were God, but they were two different persons, and yet there was only one God. I will have far less to say about the Spirit, since he/she/it got added to the mix more or less because Christ was already in it, as we will see.
So far I have taken us up to the early third century, where one view had come to be widely rejected even though earlier it had been prominent: that Jesus actually *was* God the Father, come in the flesh (often called “modalism”). Now I want to look at a more sophisticated way of understanding the relationship of Christ to the Father. This one comes in the writings of Origen, one of the truly important Christian thinkers of the first three Christian centuries.
Origen came from Alexandria and was exceptionally learned and unbelievably prolific. According to the church father Jerome, Origen published 2000 books: including commentaries on the Bible, treatises, and homilies. He was without a doubt the most influential theologian before St. Augustine. In part that was because he accepted the “orthodox” view of things but tried to figure out how they actually *worked*. No one had done that before, at least in anything like this depth.
Origen provided an overview of his thinking in his book “On First Principles” (sometimes it goes by it’s Latin name, De Principiis, even though he wrote it in Greek). You can still buy it today! It’s very interesting reading if you are intrigued by early Christian theology. Among other things, Origen tries to figure out how Christ could be equal with God, fully God himself, yet distinct from God, and human too.
How exactly could a pre-existing divine figure become human? How, in becoming human, did it not diminish its divinity? And how can the human be divine without ceasing to be human? Origen’s solution is one of the ideas that ended up making him susceptible to the charge of heresy – centuries after his death. He came to believe in the “pre-existence of souls.” In this view, not only did Christ pre-exist his appearance on earth as a human, so did everyone else.
Now here’s a view you don’t run across every day — or could even guess! To see how it works, join the blog! There’s a small membership fee, and every nickel of it goes to charity Click here for membership options
Objections to Origen, then, seem to have been a matter of taste. Since when does one’s personal taste or preference have any bearing on the truth? A lot of theology seems to be conducted on the level of: “I don’t like that, so it isn’t true. So there. Patooie! You go to hell!”
To be fair, this seems like the basis of most philosophy. We can try to find analogies, examples, and rationalizations to defend our intuitions about the universe, but those intuitions are just a series of highly personalized attempts to feel our way through a dark and winding cave.
I certainly find Origen’s myth more satisfying than the version of the trinity I was taught. But that probably says a lot about how I value Christ’s humanity over his divinity. And how I prefer an existential and unfinalizeable soul to one whose salvation can be so easily carved in stone.
I find Origen’s ideas attractive too, but that and a dime won’t even buy me a cup of coffee. Finished reading a critique of some ideas in statistical mechanics by a respected physicist, and I could see where he missed a beat, in the interests of having a “tidy” universe. Even top notch scientists make judgements sometimes based on “simplicity”, “beauty”, and so on, when there’s no a priori reason for the world to have any of those properties. I wonder– does that mean we’re all human??
Origen’s ideas seem to share some similarities with Eastern thought in terms of the pre-existence of souls and karmic law, but I’m guessing you probably don’t see any cultural influences from the East on his thinking(?)
Regardless, I find the parallels fascinating. If our human existence has any purpose to it, learning (and growing) from our earthly experiences and mistakes must be a big part of it.
I think different cultures developed similar ideas sometimes, and this would be a case of it.
There are views of “pre-existence” in both Greek and Roman circles before Paul (e.g., Plato; Virgil)
Careful lads, philosophy is a slippery slope,
a pile of words emerging from enculturation, consciousness and self-metaprogramming.
“The truth? You can’t handle the truth!”
–Col. Nathan Jessup (A Few Good Men.)
“….the truth will set you free.”
—some troublesome rabbi
“Quid est veritas?”
–attributed to Pontius Pilate
Professor, wouldn’t Origen’s belief that since that one unique soul “was human, it could be . . . . called the Son of Man” evidence an ignorance of Jewish apocalypticism?
I don’t think I would expect Origen to be versed in Jewish apocalyptic thought, given his milieu.
I wonder if Origen derived his views in part from Philipians 2:6-9, which claims Jesus has the form of God. Much like the iron has the form of fire? Jesus humbled himself, and because he was obedient God “highly exalted him and bestowed on him the greatest name”. Seems clear that Paul didn’t think of Jesus and God as equivalent. Exalt yourself for obeying yourself? Bestow a great name on yourself for being humble? Doesn’t seem to make much sense from a Trinity perspective. Bart, any comments?
Yes, this was an important passage for Origen. And yes, the logic of the passage would seem to work against what Paul’s saying in the context, which is one reasons scholars have long thought that he’s quoting a known piece, rather than composing it himself. His view, though, to be fare, is not that Jesus did these things in *order* to be exalted, but that if you humble yourself you *will* be exalted.
Not surprisingly, my favorite early church fathers got labelled heretics. Origen’s still aces with me.