Saturday, February 18, 2017

OF "NO" AND "ALL" AND ORIGEN

OF "NO" and "ALL" and ORIGEN If no means no, then all means all. The above declaration or idea was inspired by my reading in ON FIRST PRINCIPLES (2013), Chapter VI, "The Consummation of the World," by Origen, 3rd Century African philosopher and, perhaps, the first Christian theologian, who writes: "Now when it is promised that in the end God is 'all in all' (1 Cor 15:28), we must not imagine, in strictly logical wise, that animals either cattle or wild beasts, will come to the end, lest it should be implied that God dwells even in animals, whether cattle or wild beasts; neither will stocks and stones, lest it should be said that God dwells in them also. So, too, we must not suppose that any evil reaches that end, lest when it is said that God is 'all in all' he should be said to dwell even in some vessel of evil . "For although we say God is everywhere and in all things, for the reason that nothing can be empty of God, still we do not say it so as to mean that he now actually is in all things in which he is present. Hence we must look more carefully what this condition is that marks the perfection of blessedness , and the end of all things, in which God is said to be not only in all things, but even to be all things. Let us inquire, therefore, what are I these 'all things' which God shall be 'in all things' 1 Cor 15:28).  P. 324 1 Corinthians 15:28 (KJV) states: "And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." Having read scripture and Origen, I am obliged to reiterate the above: If no means no, then all means all. Where there can be no death, just as assuredly, there is no life; as life and death are not severable, but one; like day and night are one day, being but flipped as in wet and dry; positive and negative, inversions. God is not obliged to evade "evil" as most good men vainly try to do . In Isaiah 45:7, God says: "I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." Thus, to my beloved brother, Origen, whom I love, I must state : If no means no, then all means all. Origen says: "And he will be all things in each person in such a way that everything which the rational mind, when purified from all the dregs of its vices and utterly cleared from every cloud of wickedness, can feel or understand or think will be all God and that mind will no longer be conscious of anything besides or other than God, but will think God and see God and hold God and God will be the mode and the measure of its every movement and in this way God will be all and all to it ." Id. 324 By now dear reader, having heard Origen out, I need not reiterate my thesis, but just to be clear, it is : " if no means no, then all means all."