Origen on the inspiration of Scripture

From On First Principles, Book IV, Chapter I:

"Now if we consider how in a ery few years, although those who professor Christianity are persecuted and some are put to death on account of it while others suffer the loss of their possessions, yet the word has been able, in spite of the fewness of its teachers, to be "preached everywhere in the world" (cf. Mt 24:14) so that the Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish (cf. Rom 1:14) have adopted the religion of Jesus, we shall not hesitate to say that this achievement is more than human, remembering that Jesus taught with all authority and convincing power that his word should prevail (cf. Mk 13:31).

"Consequenctly we may reasonably regard as oracles those utterances of his such as...." 

Further on:

"Now when we thus briefly demonstrate the divine nature of Jesus and use the words spoken in prophecy about him, we demonstrate at the same time that the writings which prophesy about him are divinely inspired and that the words which announce his sojourning here and his teaching were spoken with all power and authority and that this is the reason why they have prevailed over the elect people taken from among the nations. And we must add that it was after the advent of Jesus that the inspiration of the prophetic words and the spiritual nature of Moses's law came to light."

In other words, the Scriptures themselves do not attest independently of their own inspiration; they are wholly dependent on the coming of Jesus Christ.

Later on in Chapters II - III he explains that the Scriptures must be understood in a spiritual way. Passages have both a "soul" and a "body." The body is the physical, literal, or straightforward meaning, when there is one. But there isn't always a "bodily sense" that is acceptable! Origen gives a list of examples (Chapter III) in which the Bible cannot be taken literally, starting with (interestingly enough) the creation story:

"Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars? ... And when God is said to 'walk in the paradise in the cool of the day' and Adam to hide himself behind a tree, I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events."

He gives many other examples of things from Scripture which he finds to be unlikely or even "impossible."

To me, the most significant thing about these arguments is that they come from what is perhaps the first systematic theology ever written in the Christian tradition. Far from some modern liberal interpretation of the Bible, this comes from one of the oldest sources we have on Christian doctrine. And while I disagree with Origen about many things, this is one thing on which I agree totally, and I can't express quite enough how thankful I am for it. It makes the Bible readable. Everyone who has read the entirety of Scripture knows that there are passages and even whole themes (such as the divinely ordered destruction of the peoples of Canaan) that present impossible problems for Christians. But if we read every passage in a spiritual way, inspired not just by any thoughts that happen to arise in our heads but rather by the person of Jesus Christ found in the gospels, we rediscover the Bible as a source of power. We find in all of these stories of war and divine wrath a story about our own struggles with sin and evil and longing for redemption.

And what could be more Christian? Christ is the center; the rest must be understood in terms of him.

Free will and theodicy

Reading through Origen's On First Principles, I discovered that he used free will as a way of justifying God, to the point where he quite apparently says that all souls are born into different stations in life because of the good or bad they did in previous lives. Aside from the fact that this sounds more like a Hindu doctrine than a Christian one, I was struck by how much it differs from the Augustinian interpretation of grace. Calvin took Augustine to the extreme. For Calvin, there is no reason to justify God in the first place. God foreordains everything according to His good purpose, and if it makes no sense to us, it is only because we are so limited and/or corrupted.

Now being acquainted with these two extremes in Christian thought, I'm tempted to go the moderate route. It seems perfectly reasonable that God would create the world with creatures of various stations, not because of any question of merit, but rather simply because diversity is a good and beautiful thing (contra Origen). On the other hand, it also seems reasonable to think that many of these creatures have free will, and will be judged on the basis of what they do with their limited capacities, in proportion to the extent of those capacities. To suggest, as Calvin seems to do, that we can't use our common sense to understand what is right and wrong for God to do puts us in a pretty bad position when it comes to theology--how do we know that God is not actually a demon?

But the moderate route isn't entirely satisfying. If God isn't truly in control of everything that happens, how can we call Him Lord of all creation? There are many passages of Scripture that seem to attribute to God absolute power over human actions, even the human mind. So Isaiah 63:17--"Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you?" Or Proverbs 16:9--"The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps." Or Jeremiah 31:33--"I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." There are plenty of other verses which affirm human responsibility, but these are hard to ignore.

The difficulty in trying to justify God is trying to determine just what kind of universe He should have made. I suppose Calvin saw this more than most of us. It seems impossible to imagine a universe for which God could not receive some reproach. The fact that anything exists at all is a miracle and, at the same time, a condemnation--if I exist, I am doomed to be whatever it is I am and not something else. One could imagine that this horrible tension is the root of all sin. Adam and Eve had a paradise to live in, yet they still found themselves tempted by what it was not.

At the same time, to jettison all sense of justice by which to evaluate God's action is to destroy prayer as it is found in the Bible. There are, of course, the psalms, which make very direct complaints to God, calling on Him to remember His steadfast love and His promises. But the paragons of prayer are Abraham and Moses. Abraham negotiated with God over the destruction of Sodom: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" And Moses interceded for his people on the basis of reason: "Why should the Egytians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'?" If these men had been willing merely to accept God's plans, convincing themselves by some theological argument that whatever God did was right, they would never have been heroes of the faith.

I don't see any way out of the tension between what is and what is not. It seems to me the essence of life itself. We desire to reach a point of perfection, where we can finally stop and say, "It is enough." Yet we know that if we stopped completely, that would be an end to life itself. All life is motion and change. A perfect, finished worked of art is lifeless. It is only in the contemplation of that art, in the active appreciation, that we derive any pleasure from it.

Behold the central paradox of Christian theology. Christ did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a human being, and become obedient even to the point of death on a cross. He who knew no sin became sin. God took on imperfection in order to attain perfection.

What does this have to do with free will? Only that in Christian thought, free will relates to theodicy, the justification of God. Some will justify God's wrath by reminding us of our responsibility. Others will justify it by asserting God's supremacy. The argument goes back and forth eternally. The disagreement is honest. It is a living response; any resolution to the argument would mean we are no more than a lifeless work of art.

Prayer, more than debate, is a living response. Abraham and Moses argued their case before God. Jesus, and then Stephen the martyr, prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Ultimately, the resolution of God's wrath is on the cross. Christ died for us while we were still sinners. We are told he even went and proclaimed the good news to the dead (1 Peter 3:19). For the Christian, then, there is limitless hope for the salvation of the world, of every soul. There is no reason to resign ourselves to believing in the eternal damnation of some for the sake of God's eternal purpose (contra Augustine and Calvin). God's eternal purpose is the cross, that impossible event which changes everything.

Jesus told his disciples to take up their own cross. This is the ultimate living response. Instead of justifying God by our theories, we ought to vindicate Him by imitating Him. Whether or not this is a free choice, I still don't know, but it is a choice: to take up our cross daily, to embrace the contradiction in our own lives between our desire to be and our desire to be something else.

Origen on creationism

Okay, so Origen didn't actually write about creationism. But he did write some things that might be relevant, such as the following passage from The Philocalia (emphasis added):

Anyway, will any man of sense suppose that there was a first day, and a second, and a third, evening and morning, without sun and moon and stars? and the first, as it were, even without a heaven? And who is so silly as to imagine that God, like a husbandman, planted a garden in Eden eastward, and put in it a tree of life, which could be seen and felt, so that whoever tasted of the fruit with his bodily teeth received the gift of life, and further that any one as he masticated the fruit of this tree partook of good and evil? And if God is also said to walk in the garden in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under the tree, I do not suppose that any one will doubt that these passages by means of seeming history, though the incidents never occurred, figuratively reveal certain mysteries. Moreover, Cain's coming out from the presence of God, if we give heed, is a distinct inducement to inquire what is meant by "the presence of God," and by a man's "coming out from" it. Why say more? They who are not quite blind can collect countless similar instances of things recorded as actual occurrences, though not literally true.

Note: this was written approximately 18 centuries ago by a Christian theologian. Doesn't that make it seem a little silly that we still have arguments about creationism?

Origen on justice and goodness

Origen, in refuting the heretics who separate the God of the Old Testament from the God of the New Testament, and thus separate justice and goodness accordingly, seems to rather make the issue of biblical interpretation more difficult, rather than less:

Now I think they must, in the first place, be required to show, if they can, agreeably to their own definition, that the Creator is just in punishing according to their deserts, either those who perished at the time of the deluge, or the inhabitants of Sodom, or those who had quitted Egypt, seeing we sometimes behold committed crimes more wicked and detestable than those for which the above-mentioned persons were destroyed, while we do not yet see every sinner paying the penalty of his misdeeds. Will they say that He who at one time was just has been made good? Or will they rather be of opinion that He is even now just, but is patiently enduring human offences, while that then He was not even just, inasmuch as He exterminated innocent and sucking children along with cruel and ungodly giants?

If I didn't know any better, I'd almost say this was an atheist responding. It would be one thing, after all, if every evildoer really got his just deserts; then perhaps we could make sense of God's wrath in the Old Testament. Since real life doesn't quite work that way, what are we to do with God's "justice"? It gets even worse, as Origen points out the troublesome manner in which the New Testament presents God's goodness:

Again, in a certain parable of the Gospel, where the king enters in to see the guests reclining at the banquet, he beheld a certain individual not clothed with wedding raiment, and said to him, “Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment?” and then ordered his servants, “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Let them tell us who is that king who entered in to see the guests, and finding one amongst them with unclean garments, commanded him to be bound by his servants, and thrust out into outer darkness. Is he the same whom they call just? How then had he commanded good and bad alike to be invited, without directing their merits to be inquired into by his servants? By such procedure would be indicated, not the character of a just God who rewards according to men’s deserts, as they assert, but of one who displays undiscriminating goodness towards all. Now, if this must necessarily be understood of the good God, i.e., either of Christ or of the Father of Christ, what other objection can they bring against the justice of God’s judgment? Nay, what else is there so unjust charged by them against the God of the law as to order him who had been invited by His servants, whom He had sent to call good and bad alike, to be bound hand and foot, and to be thrown into outer darkness, because he had on unclean garments?

If Origen, in seeking to refute heretics, only plunges us deeper into doubt over the Scripture's portrayal of God, what are we to do? The resolution seems to be this line:

Now, such are their opinions, because they know not how to understand anything beyond the letter; otherwise they would show how it is literal justice for sins to be visited upon the heads of children to the third and fourth generation, and on children’s children after them. By us, however, such things are not understood literally; but, as Ezekiel taught when relating the parable, we inquire what is the inner meaning contained in the parable itself.

In other words, we just need to get back to the Origen-al meaning of the texts.

Origen on the planets and the stars

Origen's rationalism is just painful in this passage from De Principiis:

But to arrive at a clearer understanding on these matters, we ought first to inquire after this point, whether it is allowable to suppose that they are living and rational beings; then, in the next place, whether their souls came into existence at the same time with their bodies, or seem to be anterior to them; and also whether, after the end of the world, we are to understand that they are to be released from their bodies; and whether, as we cease to live, so they also will cease from illuminating the world. Although this inquiry may seem to be somewhat bold, yet, as we are incited by the desire of ascertaining the truth as far as possible, there seems no absurdity in attempting an investigation of the subject agreeably to the grace of the Holy Spirit.

We think, then, that they may be designated as living beings, for this reason, that they are said to receive commandments from God, which is ordinarily the case only with rational beings. “I have given a commandment to all the stars,” says the Lord. What, now, are these commandments? Those, namely, that each star, in its order and course, should bestow upon the world the amount of splendour which has been entrusted to it. For those which are called “planets” move in orbits of one kind, and those which are termed ἀπλανεῖς are different. Now it manifestly follows from this, that neither can the movement of that body take place without a soul, nor can living things be at any time without motion. And seeing that the stars move with such order and regularity, that their movements never appear to be at any time subject to derangement, would it not be the height of folly to say that so orderly an observance of method and plan could be carried out or accomplished by irrational beings? In the writings of Jeremiah, indeed, the moon is called the queen of heaven. Yet if the stars are living and rational beings, there will undoubtedly appear among them both an advance and a falling back. For the language of Job, “the stars are not clean in His sight,” seems to me to convey some such idea.

When one is absolutely convinced that order cannot come into being without reason, one will even ascribe souls to the sun and the moon.

Origen on final consummation

From De Principiis, Book I, Chapter VI:

But since Paul says that certain things are visible and temporal, and others besides these invisible and eternal, we proceed to inquire how those things which are seen are temporal—whether because there will be nothing at all after them in all those periods of the coming world, in which that dispersion and separation from the one beginning is undergoing a process of restoration to one and the same end and likeness; or because, while the form of those things which are seen passes away, their essential nature is subject to no corruption. And Paul seems to confirm the latter view, when he says, “For the fashion of this world passeth away.” David also appears to assert the same in the words, “The heavens shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; and they all shall wax old as a garment, and Thou shalt change them like a vesture, and like a vestment they shall be changed.” For if the heavens are to be changed, assuredly that which is changed does not perish, and if the fashion of the world passes away, 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. Isaiah also, in declaring prophetically that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, undoubtedly suggests a similar view. For this renewal of heaven and earth, and this transmutation of the form of the present world, and this changing of the heavens will undoubtedly be prepared for those who are walking along that way which we have pointed out above, and are tending to that goal of happiness to which, it is said, even enemies themselves are to be subjected, and in which God is said to be “all and in all.” And if any one imagine that at the end material, i.e., bodily, nature will be entirely destroyed, he cannot in any respect meet my view, how beings so numerous and powerful are able to live and to exist without bodies, since it is an attribute of the divine nature alone—i.e., of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—to exist without any material substance, and without partaking in any degree of a bodily adjunct. Another, perhaps, may say that in the end every bodily substance will be so pure and refined as to be like the æther, and of a celestial purity and clearness. How things will be, however, is known with certainty to God alone, and to those who are His friends through Christ and the Holy Spirit.