Tag: Internal Divinity

World and Soul – Origen

Synopsis:

Origen’s exposition on the material world – and its relation to the human soul – examines the complexion of evil, the genesis of virtue, as well as the internal frictions of the middle-ground vis-à-vis human action. Origen affirms the mono-causality of wisdom, righteousness, and truth in synthesis with God.

Excerpts:

“The never-ending thirst for wisdom must be chosen by souls as their first object. This necessarily means first of all a strong orientation inward involving the closing of one’s eyes to the outer world.

“To ask about the soul means to cast one’s gaze into the abyss of eternal eons and immeasurable waves of fate.

“Just as when our eyes rest upon something made by an artist, our mind burns to know how and in what way and to what purpose it was made, far more and beyond all comparison with such things does our spirit burn with an unspeakable longing to know the why and wherefore of the works of God which we see.

“You must understand that you are another world in miniature, and that there is in you sun and moon and also stars.

“For the body to grow and to become great lies not within our power. For the body takes its material size, whether large or small, from its genetic origin; but our soul has its own causes and its free will to make it large or small.

*All excerpts have been taken from Origen: Spirit & Fire, The Catholic University of America Press.

The Image of God – Origen

Synopsis:

In his essay on ‘the image of God’ the Roman Christian theologian Origen brings forth his thoughts on the image of God in Man. Utilizing Neoplatonist dynamics Origen reasons that the image of God exists in Man as the vital spirit.

Excerpts:

“Consequently that first heaven, which we have called spiritual, is our mind, which is itself spirit; it is our spiritual human being who sees and gazes upon God. But this corporeal heaven, which is called firmament, is our external human being, which sees corporeally.

“Not therefore from works does the root of justice grow, but from the root of justice grows the fruit of works.

“…the one who was made ‘in the image of God’ is our internal human, invisible and incorporeal and incorrupt and immortal.

“We are not commanded to tear out and destroy the natural impulses of the soul, but to purify them, that is, to purge and drive out the dirty and impure things which have come to them by our negligence so that the natural vitality of its own innate power might shine forth.

“We shall be like him’ (cf. Jn 3:2), this likeness is not due to nature but to grace. For example if we say that a portrait is like the one whose image is seen expressed in the portrait, the similarity is due to the quality of the expression – grace -, while in substance the two remain quite different.

*All excerpts have been taken from Origen: Spirit & Fire, The Catholic University of America Press.