Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J. F.

Buch: The Way to Nicea

Titel: The Way to Nicea

Stichwort: Origenes, Dialektik; ho theos - theos; Logos: Gott durch Partizipation

Kurzinhalt: We are now in a position to locate Origen within the general dialectic that brought about a development in the manner of conceiving the Trinity; Origen understood the phrase, "The Father is greater than I" as having universal application: ...

Textausschnitt: 59c
4. We are now in a position to locate Origen within the general dialectic that brought about a development in the manner of conceiving the Trinity. (Fs)

60a In the first place, through his insistence on the strict immateriality of both the Father and the Son, he undermined every conception or theory which, unable to transcend the level of the senses, could think of the generation of the Son, and the unity of the Father and the Son, only in terms of "within" and "without", "separated" and "united", or other such spatial images. (Fs)

60b Further, not only did Origen exclude every appeal to a material analogy; he also introduced a spiritual analogy. For he focussed attention on a procession which belongs to rational consciousness itself, within which, in his own words, "an act of willing proceeds from the mind". In some such way, he thought, we should conceive the Son's proceeding from the Father. (Fs)

60c Origen's conception of this spiritual analogy is, however, different from that of later theologians, who had a precise grasp of the meaning of consubstantiality, and so admitted only one divine intellect, common to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and similarly, only one divine will. Origen, on the other hand, held that the Father knows himself much more perfectly than the Son knows him,1 and that the will of the Son is only the image of the Father's will.2 (Fs)

60d The Father and the Son, then, are two hypostases, one of which, coming from the other, is related to its source as image to exemplar; these two hypostases, each in its own manner, create and maintain their mutual relationship, by understanding and willing. "This image", says Origen, "also contains the unity in nature and substance of the Father and the Son".1 To come close to his meaning here, one may think of the highest form of Platonic participation, and think of it both as intellectual and as free. (Fs)

61a
5. It will be well to say something about this notion of participation, which somehow pertains to the very notion of image itself. For Origen ho theos and theos had different meanings, as had ho logos and logos. And so he thought that he had found a middle way between Sabellianism and Adoptionism, inasmuch as he held that the Father was the God, while the Son was God by participation, and was also the mediator through whom others were deified. (Fs)

[...]

"Herein1 lies the solution to the problem that disturbs many people who, professing their love for God, and fearful of saying that there are two gods, fall prey to false and impious doctrines, either denying that the Son is really distinct from the Father, because he whom they call the Son is only God with another name, or else denying the Son's divinity, saying that his nature and essence are quite different from the Father's.2 To them we say that autotheos is indeed the God [God himself], which is why our Saviour, praying to the Father, says, 'that they may know you, the one true God'. Whatever else, other than him who is called autotheos, is also God, is deified by participation, by sharing [metochE] in his divinity, and is more properly to be called not the God [ho theos] but simply God [theos]. This name, of course, is his in a special way, who is the first-born of all creation, being the first to be with God, drawing the divinity to himself; he is more to be honoured in this name than the other gods there are besides him (they whose God is the God [ho theos], according to the saying, 'The God of gods has spoken, and has summoned the earth') to them he gives being, drawing in abundance from God that whereby he might make them gods and give them help and support according to his own goodness".3


61b This style of thought, grounded in Plato's notion of participation, is applied by Origen not only to the divinity itself, as in the passage just cited, but also to other things. [...] Indeed, Origen understood the phrase, "The Father is greater than I" as having universal application: the Son and the Holy Spirit are incomparably more excellent than all other things, but between them and the Father, in turn, there is at least as great a gap, if not a greater one