Origen’s Trinitarian Subordinationism: An Essay in Reevaluation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31802/2658-7491-2019-1-1-66–92Keywords:
Origen, Christianity, Neo-Platonism, patristic studies,, dogmatic theology, subordinationism, triadology, God, logos, essence, hypostasis, coessentialityAbstract
The article is based on an analysis of authentic (including some newly discovered) Greek writings by Origen. The author demonstrates that Origen understands God the Father as the God in an absolute, primal and original meaning, as “God as he is”, the one who possesses the divine nature in wholeness of its apophatic and cataphatic properties. The Son-Logos adopts this nature only partially and is viewed by Origen as a “second God”, who receives “divinity” in a broader sense from the Father and possesses it “by the means of communication”. The Son is unequal and subordinate to the Father, who outranks the Son not only by his unbegotten and primal divinity, but also by his power, benevolence, knowledge, worship etc. According to the author, Origen lacks a clear notion of the unity of God and of the coessentiality of the Father and the Son. Also, Origen is not clear enough formulating ontological grounds for their unity as his theology presumes a kind of unity of the Father and the Son, which is rather spiritual/moral and rational/volitional that based upon unity of their essence or nature. The author therefore is convinced that, regardless of all attempts of modern Western scholars to reassess Origen’s trinitarian teaching presenting it as a “relational subordinationism” agreeable to the Cappadocian Fathers, his teaching on the Father and the Son still is an ontological subordinationism or a “subordinationism of essence”, close to Philo’s subordinationism of the Logos in its relation to Existent or to Plotinus’ subordinationism of the Nous in its relation to the One.
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