III. Pivotal Christian Doctrines Assailed by Origen

Before turning to documented detail in the next sections, let us take a bird’s-eye view of the major depredations made by Origen upon the pivotal doctrines of the primitive faith. This will bring the larger picture before us in broad outline, with the details to be filled in later. Here are nine basic points.CFF1 1004.2

1. SCRIPTURES ROBBED OF AUTHORITATIVE FORCE

As noted, Origen maintained that the literal sense of Scripture is not its true meaning. Indeed, that was perhaps his primary emphasis in exegesis. Following the allegorical method of Plato and Philo, he so spiritualized the intent of the Scriptures as to deprive them of all authority and force. He denied the literality of the Bible narratives, such as the Creation narrative and the Fall, and many New Testament historical records as well, declaring them actually to be fabrications. He declared the prophecies to be filled with dark sayings, and he muddied even the clearest and most explicit statements of Holy Writ by his mysticism.CFF1 1004.3

2. SWEPT APOSTOLIC FAITH INTO DISCARD

The basic doctrines and eschatological teachings of the apostolic faith—the Second Advent, bodily resurrection, cataclysmic end of the world by divine interposition, millennium, destruction of sin and sinners, and the establishment of the kingdom of God at the end of the age—were thus all swept into discard by Origen’s allegorizing interpretation as the darkness of mystic philosophy increasingly supplanted the light of Scripture truth.CFF1 1005.1

3. PRE-EXISTENCE COUPLED TO RESTORATION ISM

Origen felt a compulsion to develop and enunciate what he conceived to be the foundational principles concerning the universe, God, and man. Two distinctive fundamentals of his system were (1) the pre-existence of the soul, and (2) the universal restoration of all souls. Without pre-existence he could not explain and defend the present state of things in the world or bring them to accord with is view of the justice of God. And without universal restoration of all to righteousness he could not bring his system to a final issue, he thought, worthy of God’s justice and mercy. Moreover, his system must embrace man’s free will, which must not be coerced. So universal restoration became the keystone in his theological arch, without which his whole system would collapse.CFF1 1005.2

4. IMPINGED VAUNTED FREEDOM OF WILL

Origen rightly held that God made man capable of good or evil, with power to choose as he might elect. And yet Origen would make God bound to win (or force) that responsible free moral agent back to the life he had chosen to forsake—thus actually violating the freedom-of-the-will principle he had set forth. God truly made man capable of choosing either life and immortality or evil and death. But Origen said, No, the evil you chose shall be removed from you, irrespective of what you do, and the good that you did not choose to cherish shall be enforced upon you. Origen thus reduced the free moral agent, made to walk in the freedom of choice, to a creature regulated by the irresistible law of control.CFF1 1005.3

5. RELATIONSHIPS TO THE EMPIRE REVOLUTIONIZED

In the more mundane sphere the teachings of Origen likewise led logically to another revolution of thought and attitude on a vital question lying at the foundation of all theological and social developments—namely, Christianity’s relationship to the state, or empire. Prior to Origen, the Christian community abstained from involvement in political life, refusing to make appeals to tribunals and declining to participate in military activities. They sought to guard themselves from the contaminations of the age by the simple device of separation.CFF1 1006.1

Before Origen, the conversion of the Roman Empire had not been expected. Christians were in but not of the world. It had been generally believed that the empire would be destroyed by the speedy return of Christ, with His millennial reign following. But Origen planted the seed of the revolutionary concept of the gradual conversion of the empire to Christianity. He relentlessly exposed the chiliastic extravagances of the day, and laid the foundation for the revolutionary task of preparing Christianity for a new destiny—its establishment on earth and the restoration of all souls to the fellowship of God and the purity of heaven.CFF1 1006.2