The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1
V. Documented Definitions and Usages
Before surveying Origen’s specific teachings, first note a few definitions of key expressions and usages that pinpoint his meaning. CFF1 1008.2
1. MEN ARE SOULS IN BODIES
Origen defines “men” simply as “souls that are placed in bodies.” 16 CFF1 1008.3
2. SOUL IS IMMATERIAL, INVISIBLE, IMMORTAL
Origen repeatedly refers to the “soul” as a “substance,” 17 partaking of the “eternal nature,” which “should last forever.” It is “immortal and incorruptible,” sharing the nature of God. And “every substance which partakes of that eternal nature should last for ever, and be incorruptible and eternal.” 18 Because of the importance of the term we add two citations as examples: CFF1 1008.4
“The soul over which He exercises this providential care is immortal; and as being immortal and everlasting, it is not, although not immediately cared for, excluded from salvation, which is postponed to a more convenient time.” 19 CFF1 1009.1
“For God deals with souls not merely with a view to the short space of our present life, included within sixty years or more, but with reference to a perpetual and never-ending period, exercising His providential care over souls that are immortal, even as He Himself is eternal and immortal. For He made the rational nature, which He formed in His own image and likeness, incorruptible; and therefore the soul, which is immortal, is not excluded by the shortness of the present life from the divine remedies and cures.” 20 CFF1 1009.2
These souls, Origen elsewhere soberly avers, are as immortal, eternal, and incorruptible as God Himself! CFF1 1009.3
3. DEATH NEITHER PERISHING NOR DESTRUCTION
Death, according to Origen, is nothing more than a departure. Man, created for life, will not be destroyed. Death produces only a change. Its “substance certainly remains.” And “according to the merits of the indwelling soul,” the fleshly body will “advance to the glory of a spiritual body.” 21 CFF1 1009.4
“For death is nothing else than a departure from life—and as it was not to follow that those beings which had once been created by God for the enjoyment of life should utterly perish, it was necessary that, before death, there should be in existence such a power as would destroy the coming death.” 22 CFF1 1009.5
4. “DESTRUCTION” IS NOT CEASING TO BE
As to destruction, Origen denies that it eventuates in nonexistence. The soul was created to live and cannot cease to be. It is indefeasible. CFF1 1009.6
“Its [the soul’s] destruction, therefore, will not be its non-existence, but its ceasing to be an enemy, and (to be) death. For nothing is impossible to the Omnipotent, nor is anything incapable of restoration to its Creator: for He made all things that they might exist, and those things which were made for existence cannot cease to be.” 23 CFF1 1009.7
Then he adds, concerning those things “created by God for the purpose of permanent existence,” that— CFF1 1010.1
“for those things which agreeably to the common opinion are believed to perish, the nature either of our faith or of the truth will not permit us to suppose to be destroyed.” 24 CFF1 1010.2
5. “FIRE” CONSUMES FUEL OF SIN
The fire by which each wicked person is punished is his “own fire.” CFF1 1010.3
“Every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire, and is not plunged into some fire which has been already kindled by another, or was in existence before himself.” 25 CFF1 1010.4
Of this fire, he adds, the “fuel and food are our sins”—the “hay and stubble.” Evil “boils up to punishment, and is set on fire to chastisements.” 26 CFF1 1010.5
6. “CONSUMING FIRE” SIMPLY REFINES
The reference to God as a “consuming fire” calls for understanding of the “deeper meaning,” says Origen. He will “purify His own people,” and the “things” which are evil—the “wickedness”—will be “consumed by God.” Thus this “consuming fire” is to “refine the rational nature,” to “thoroughly cleanse away the evil.” 27 CFF1 1010.6
7. EARTH’S “CHANGE” IS NOT ANNIHILATION
When the heavens and the earth are changed they do not perish. “If the fashion of the world passes away, it is by no means an annihilation or destruction,” but a “kind of change of quality and transformation of appearance.” Everything is “tending to that goal of happiness,” in which God will be “‘all and in all.’” 28 CFF1 1010.7
8. “WORLD’S END” IS ITS SUBJUGATION
The expression, “end of the world,” indicates its “perfection and completion.” It comes to pass when all enemies are “subdued to Christ,“ when all beings in Heaven and earth bend the knee to Christ. 29 That is the great consummation. CFF1 1010.8
9. “FALL” COUNTERACTED IN FUTURE AGES
Those who “fell from that primeval unity and harmony” are “by the ineffable skill of His wisdom” to be transformed and restored. 30 Those “removed” from the “primal state of blessedness” are not removed “irrecoverably.” They “may recover themselves and be restored to their condition of happiness.” In the “future world,” and in the “ages to come, when there shall be the new heaven and new earth .... it may be restored to that unity promised by the Lord,Jesus.” “All those beings” who “fell away” may be “restored” under the “instruction of the angels.” 31 CFF1 1011.1
Such is the essence of Origenism. CFF1 1011.2