Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J. F.

Buch: The Way to Nicea

Titel: The Way to Nicea

Stichwort: Entwicklung im Verstehen Gottes: Origines (Origen)

Kurzinhalt: It is clear from this passage that Origen was not enough of a speculative thinker to conceive that there could be anything incorporeal in God's creation. It is also clear that ...

Textausschnitt: 123b Origen, following in Clement's footsteps, and as if suspecting that there could still be some lingering doubt about the matter in some people's minds, undertook a systematic refutation of the notion that God was a body.1 He called the Son wisdom itself, in order to make it understood that he was neither something unsubstantial nor, on the other hand, a body;2 and although in general he doubted that any rational creature could live entirely without a body-at least some finer, less crass kind of body-he totally excluded the Blessed Trinity from this general rule. The following passage is rather long, but it is worth transcribing here, so well does it reveal both the mind and the method of Origen:

"At this point some ask whether, as the Father generates the Son and brings forth the Spirit, but not in the sense that they did not previously exist-since in the Trinity there is no before and after-but in the sense that the Father is the origin and source of the Son and the Spirit, whether there might not be a similar sort of communion or closeness between rational creatures and corporeal matter. To investigate the matter more fully and carefully, they begin by asking whether this corporeal nature itself, which supports the life and contains the motions of spiritual and rational minds, will also share in their eternity, or whether, separated from them, it will perish and go to earth. To get a more precise grasp of the matter, it seems that we must first ask, whether it is at all possible for rational natures, when they have come to the peak of holiness and blessedness, to remain without bodies-which to me seems very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain-or whether they must always remain joined to bodies. If someone were to explain how they could in fact be entirely without bodies, then it would follow that corporeal nature was created from nothing, for periods of time, so that, just as from not-being it came into being, in the same way, when its service was no longer required, it ceased to be. (Fs)

"However, if it cannot at all be affirmed that any nature, excepting the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, can live apart from the body, then, led by reason, we are forced to the conclusion that while it is, first and foremost, rational creatures that were created, still it is only in thought that material substance can be separated from them; to our way of thinking, it was made for them and after them, but they never did and never do live without it, for only the life of the Trinity can be rightly thought to be incorporeal. Therefore, as we have said above, that material substance, being by nature such that it is transformed from one thing into another, when it is drawn to beings of a lower order, becomes a more crass and solid kind of body and serves to distinguish the visible species of this world in all their variety; but when it is at the service of more perfect and more blessed beings, it shines in the splendor of the 'heavenly bodies', and, in the vesture of 'the spiritual body', it adorns 'the angels of God' or 'the children of the resurrection', all of whom together will fill out the variety and the diversity of the one world. (Fs)
[...]

125a It is clear from this passage that Origen was not enough of a speculative thinker to conceive that there could be anything incorporeal in God's creation. It is also clear that he was so much an exegete that he considered that a fuller understanding of the matter was to be sought, with all due fear of God and with all due reverence, in the scriptures themselves. Let us look, at least, at a single sample of the method he used, and the great care he took, in examining the scriptures himself. Commenting on the first verse of the prologue to St. John's Gospel, he asserted that it is not enough to ask in what sense Christ is the Word, while leaving out of account all of his other titles, such as, the light of the world, the way, the truth and the life, the good shepherd, I am he, who speaks with you, the master, the Lord, the Son of God, the door, the true vine, the bread of life, the living bread, the first and the last, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the light of the gentiles, the servant of Jahwe, and, as he said, thousands more.1 Origen himself looked for a synthesis of all of these; he recognised that there was a distinction of reason between them;2 he affirmed that "Wisdom" was older than all of the other titles;3 and he went, more or less systematically, through the whole list of titles.4 (Fs)

126a However, no one who reflects at all can assemble and order titles in this way, without at least giving some hint as to what that reality is, to which the titles are to be attributed. Origen's solution to this fundamental problem was predominantly Platonist: the Father was divinity itself and goodness itself; the Son, on the other hand, was the Word itself, wisdom itself, truth itself, the resurrection-and-the-life itself, but the Father was something better than all of these, something unknown to us.5 If one asks how these Platonic ideas could then be brought together and united with each other, while being associated with the two distinct hypostases of the Father and the Son, the answer would seem to lie in the eclecticism of that time:6 as well as taking over the categories of the Platonists, Origen also borrowed from Stoic materialism the notions of ousia and hypostasis.7 If one urges that this is hardly consistent, then one has come to the basic difficulty, which can be explained in two ways. For, in the first place, as we remarked above, Hal Koch believes that one cannot insist too strongly that Origen was not a metaphysician, in the proper sense of the term. Secondly, however, the point must be made differently, more from a theological point of view. For, while Origen accepted with his whole heart both the truth of the scriptures and the preaching of the Church,8 what he sought above all was a spiritual meaning, going beyond the totality of literal meaning.9 Unfortunately, however, neither in the philosophers nor by his own efforts did he find any sure criterion by which to judge the truth of this spiritual meaning. This failure of his should cause us no surprise, since the doctrine expounded in Plato's dialogues is aimed essentially at raising the mind above the things of sense, generating enthusiasm for spiritual things and replacing myth with better myths; but it contains so little understanding of the Yes, Yes, and No, No of the gospel, that both being and non-being are also reduced to ideas.10 (Fs)