You need to realise the while Origen believed in a three-fold interpretation, he did not think every passage had each of the three meanings. Sometimes the literal meaning was simply not what the passage meant. Origen could be quite scathing towards people trying to take figurative passages in Genesis literally.
I'm well aware of the three-fold interpretation approach thanks.
5.1.31 Regarding Rom 5:12-14 For that tyrant, who is called death, was exercising dominion from Adam, who was the first to give entrance to him by his own collusion, so that he could pass through to all men....
5.5.9 So then Adam offered sinners a model thorough his disobedience; but Christ, in contrast, gave the righteous a model by his obedience..... It is also on this account that he became obedient unto death, (Phil 2:8) in order that those who follow the example of his obedience might be made righteous by righteousness itself, just as those others were made sinners by following the model of Adam's disobedience.
Notes on Origen on Romans
He is not talking about humanity, he is talking about the person, Adam. This is the proper way to speak of Adam in a New Testament context and the context of the creation account. When dealing with skeptics he simply suggested that you dismiss their objections but emphasizing the philosophical aspects. Your right, he had no problem with a figurative interpretation but clearly he regarded Adam as the first parent of humanity and the originator of sin in the human context.
Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars--the first day even without a sky? And who is found so ignorant as to suppose that God, as if He had been a husbandman, planted trees in paradise, in Eden towards the east, and a tree of life in it, i.e., a visible and palpable tree of wood, so that any one eating of it with bodily teeth should obtain life, and, eating again of another tree, should come to the knowledge of good and evil? No one, I think, can doubt that the statement that God walked in the afternoon in paradise, and that Adam lay hid under a tree, is related figuratively in Scripture, that some mystical meaning may be indicated by it.
Origen de Principiis
That's just not how the passage reads, there was a sky, it was just dark. The progression of the narrative is from the surface of the earth and whatever interpretation you take hold of there is only one real doctrinal issue. Sin.
]If you look at the passage you just quoted, Origen isn't saying there is a figurative meaning as well as a literal, he is saying it only appears to refer to Adam as an individual, what Moses was talking about was mankind in general.
What he is saying is that there is a deeper meaning, that's exactly what he is saying. He is not making the figurative and literal meaning mutually exclusive but is instead looking into the mysteries associated. No, he didn't favor a rigid literal interpretation but he wasn't sold out to a figurative reading of the text either.
The issue isn't that Origen was referring to 1Cor 15:22, it is how he was interpreting it. If Origen is interpreting Adam as the earth to fit the Jeremiah quote ("for it is written regarding Adam, You are earth"), then he is not talking about us all dying in Adam the individual, but everyone in the whole earth (Adam) dying.
This is the quote and it's self-explanatory:
IN ADAM ALL DIE, and THUS the world FALLS PROSTRATE and requires to be SET UP AGAIN, so that in Christ all may be made to live [1 Cor 15:22]. (Homilies on Jeremias 8:1)
You need to watch out for anachronisms, reading Augustine's doctrine of inherited guilt from Adam back into Origen, a writer two centuries before.
It was not invented by Augustine, it's a Pauline doctrine from Romans 5 and I Corinthians 15 and Genesis 3. There is nothing dated about the narrative and if you don't want to believe it that's your business but it's what the Scriptures say and the ECF believed. Rationalize it anyway you like, original sin is a New Testament doctrine and the eight times Adam is mentioned in the New Testament it refers to Adam, the first parent of humanity.
I'm not arguing with you in circles again over this, if you don't believe it I really don't care but I don't need you to tell me what the Scriptures teach or what the ECF taught. You have proven unreliable in the past with nearly perfect consistency.
Origen though some literal interpretations were simply ignorant. With Paul's statement that Adam is a figure of Christ Rom 5:14, you would need to show my interpretation is erroneous rather than just claiming it, and you would need to show Origen didn't interpret Adam that way.
I need to do nothing of the sort. Origen speaks of Adam as the first parent of humanity and the source of original sin. Yes, he entertained the figurative approach and that's his prerogative but clearly he took Adam literally.
I would need to see the original argument Philis is referring to to know if it was a straw man or not, but I was replying to your response to her first point, that the church fathers had different interpretations of the creation account. Pointing out literal interpretations of Adam and the fall does not take from the figurative interpretation of the creation days and even if figurative interpretations of Adam were rarer than for the creation days, we still have at least one church father, Origen who interpreted him figuratively.
You keep telling me what I need to do as if simply not believing the Genesis account of creation makes you some kind of an authority. Philis is using a strawman argument, that is the error in the argument. She is making a straw man argument that you are defending by begging the question of proof.
I don't know where you get the nerve to pontificate to me as if I were subservient to you or somehow less informed. The TEs on here are blatant in their fallacious arguments and consumed with their own private interpretations that are contrary to the clear testimony of Moses and Paul on this matter.
Origen took Adam literally because Paul did, it's as simple as that. When dealing with skeptics he complained that the room for a figurative interpretation is never made. Yes, he warned against a rigid literalism that he regarded as ignorant but with regards to the sin of Adam he is not speaking of him as a figure of humanity. He is speaking of him as the Scriptures present him, the first parent of humanity.
I'm dizzy chasing this one for the umpteenth time around the mulberry bush. Thanks for the exchange, if you get some fresh material let me know.
Have a nice day
Mark
