AN EXPOSITION ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES BY ORIGEN

RESEARCHER:

JOHN JAMES-UDOETTE

Being a term paper submitted to the department of Philosophy, Dominican

University Ibadan, in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Bachelor’s degree of
Art.

MATRIC NUMBER: DU/262

COURSE: EARLY CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY (PHI 201)

LECTURER: SR CHRISTINE UGOBI, IHM

DATE: JANUARY 2023

 Origen was the first Christian to write systematic theology, in which he explained
how everything the Bible teaches can be true and how those truths relate to one another.
Origen begins the first book of On First Principles with a preface that states what is clear
from the Apostles' teaching. First and foremost, there is only one God, the creator who gave
the Law and sent Jesus Christ. Second, God the Son was born of the Father, served God in
the creation of all things, became a man, was born of a virgin, died, and rose again. Third, the
prophets and apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Fourth, souls have free will and reason and are rewarded or punished after death.
Fifth, there is a devil and bad angels. Sixth, the world was created and will be destroyed.
Seventh, the Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures, which have both an obvious and a hidden
meaning. Eighth, good angels contribute to human salvation. According to Origen, anyone
who wishes to create a linked series and body of truths must begin with this foundation.

Origen claims that God the Son is also God’s wisdom and Word. God the Son must
be coeternal with the Father because God has always been the Father and has always
possessed wisdom and his Word. He is also the life that all things live by and the truth that all
things truly exist by. While some may have reasoned that God exists and communicates
through a divine Word, no one would consider the Holy Spirit's existence without the
revelation in Scripture. Nothing in the Bible suggests that the Holy Spirit was created,
implying that it is uncreated and coeternal with God the Father. This Holy Spirit only works
with believers. 

God the Father creates all beings, God the Son creates some beings with rationality,
and God the Spirit creates holiness in the rational beings who obey God. Those who receive
holiness from the Spirit must continue to long for more, lest they become satiated and fall
away through neglect.

Thinking about the good angels and bad demons falling away due to neglect makes
Origen wonder if they were created that way or if they chose to be that way. According to
Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, all spiritual powers were created good. Those who had become
angels continued to obey God, but those who had become demons deviated. However,
because every rational being has free will, Origen speculates that some demons may repent
and be restored to their former positions.

Next, Origen muses on the sun, moon, and stars, concluding that they are rational
beings ordained by God to serve humanity. Similarly, the angels carry out various functions
assigned to them by God based on their behaviour prior to the creation of the earth. Origen
concludes the first book by claiming that rational souls can move between the three ranks of
angels, demons, and people. He has already stated that angels can become demons and that
demons can become angels through repentance, but in this final section he states that people
can become angels.

He even claims that these souls will become one spirit with the Lord until no one can
tell the difference.
 Origen raises the question of whether or not the world was created in the second book.
He believes that such a well-ordered world cannot exist by chance and contends that the
world requires an architect. He claims that free will refutes the Stoic notion that events in the
world repeat themselves indefinitely, and he envisions three possible outcomes for the world.
One is that matter will be destroyed, another that bodies and spirits will become ethereal, and
a third that souls will leave the realm of change and enter an unchanging heaven.

Following that, Origen refutes those who claim that the God of the Old Testament is
not the Father of Jesus Christ. He then demonstrates that goodness and justice are
inextricably linked, as opposed to those who claim that the Old Testament God is just and the
New Testament God is good. Origen speculates about the Incarnation, saying that God chose
the most obedient human soul to unite with himself, and that because Christ's human soul
always freely chose to do good, its nature was changed so that it became immune to sin.
Origen says the Holy Spirit explains the hidden meaning of Scripture to the believer and even
communicates unutterable consolation.

When it comes to the nature of the soul, Origen defines it as the living part of a being
and claims that saving a person's soul restores all of their rational powers. Next, Origen
considers the objection that a just God did not create the world because people are born into
such disparate circumstances, some privileged and others impoverished. He responds to this
charge by claiming that during a prebirth existence, every soul either moves toward or away
from God. Those who choose God in their birth circumstances are rewarded, while those who
reject him are punished. People's souls and bodies will be reunited in the final judgement
after death, God will consider all the circumstances of earthly existence, and he will reward
and gives punishment according to what one deserves.

Finally, Origen disagrees with those who believe that eternal life is one of fleshly indulgence,
claiming that the soul's deepest desire is for understanding, which will be satisfied in the
heavenly world.

The third book is about free will, which Origen defines as the rational part of a person who
decides which of the external promptings and internal desires to follow. He cites many
passages of Scripture that assume people can do whatever they want, but then he addresses
passages of Scripture that appear to assert the opposite. Origen explains that the same sun
melts the wax and hardens the clay, beginning with God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart.

As a result, while many Egyptians sought God’s help during the plagues, Pharaoh
freely chose to defy God. Origen explains Romans 9:16. It is not of him who wills,... but of
God who shows mercy - as another example of a situation in which humans do things but the
Scripture attributes the overall result to God. The most difficult verses to explain are Romans
9:18-21, which state that God has mercy on those who deserve it and hardens those who
deserve it. Origen cannot easily explain these verses away, so he cites several other verses in
which Paul teaches free will and says that we should not think the Apostle contradicted
himself. Despite what it appears to affirm, this passage cannot teach otherwise because Paul
clearly believes in free will. Origen argues in the rest of this book that the way the devil
tempts people demonstrates that they have free will.

The fourth book is about interpreting the Bible. Using numerous examples, Origen
teaches that the Scripture must be interpreted on three levels, which correspond to the human
being’s flesh, soul, and spirit. The obvious meaning is the flesh, the soul is the edifying
meaning, and the spiritual is God's hidden wisdom for the perfect individual. God put various
absurdities in the Bible to demonstrate the necessity of this threefold interpretation. The
eating of vultures, for example, is prohibited by law.

Because no one would consider eating a vulture, even in a famine, this prohibition must have
a soulish or spiritual meaning. Origen concludes his work with a recapitulation of his Trinity
teachings, defending them as taught by the spiritual sense of the Scripture.