Origen of Alexandria
c.185-253 · Eastern Christianity · Prominent
Origen was a scholar in Alexandria who wrote the first systematic Christian theology, On First Principles. He read scripture on three levels, plain, moral and spiritual, so one passage could carry a fact, a lesson and a mystery at once. He held that souls existed before their bodies and that in the end everything returns to God, fallen angels included. Councils condemned him later.
Signature
The position Origen is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence
- End of Things
- Apokatastasis
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- The Divine
- mildly leans Indescribable (62 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly leans Unity (36 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ethics
- leans Means (75 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly leans Pacifism (32 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Origen refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Clerical Theocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative / Divine Drama
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Apokatastasis
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Receptive Intellect / Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo / Emanation
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Logos
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul / Unconditional Salvation
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?