Validity of Origen's writings?

[Fascinated With God]

I changed the title so ignore the poll and all comments before the end of page 6. I didn't know where I was when I started this thread.

My question now is what is the validity of Origen's writings considered to be?

 

[Tree of Life]

My assertion is that body/soul/spirit is a reflection of the 3 persons of the Trinity. It helps me understand the Trinity better because I can see my spirit as a separate person that sometimes makes me do things I don't understand, but my spirit is not a separate entity.

The soul can have a carnal greedy will of its own, psychikos in Greek vs psyche/soul. The spirit/pneuma can lean towards pneumatikos, spiritual wisdom and ultimately spirit body in the Resurrections. Those who have unclean spirits probably had something wrong with their spirit, to begin with.

Clearly, they have a consciousness of their own since they survive death. I assert they have a will of their own as well. Having sentient consciousness with a will is a good description of our physical state, that I would argue applies to all three aspects of our being.

That makes me feel like the Trinity is an intuitively obvious truth if you put it in a certain light. I feel inspired by believing that it is so fundamentally true that it can be derived from intuitive deduction.

While we are made in the image of the Triune God, there exists no trinity of persons within an individual human being. It is highly debatable and I think incorrect to say that man is tripartite (body, soul, and spirit). Rather, man has two aspects: body and soul/spirit. Soul and spirit are not really two distinct things. Anyone who suggests that they are will have a very difficult time explaining how they are different.

 

[chevyontheriver]

My assertion is that body/soul/spirit is a reflection of the 3 persons of the Trinity. It helps me understand the Trinity better because I can see my spirit as a separate person that sometimes makes me do things I don't understand, but my spirit is not a separate entity.

The soul can have a carnal greedy will of its own, psychikos in Greek vs psyche/soul. The spirit/pneuma can lean towards pneumatikos, spiritual wisdom and ultimately spirit body in the Resurrections. Those who have unclean spirits probably had something wrong with their spirit, to begin with.

Clearly, they have a consciousness of their own since they survive death. I assert they have a will of their own as well. Having sentient consciousness with a will is a good description of our physical state, that I would argue applies to all three aspects of our being.

That makes me feel like the Trinity is an intuitively obvious truth if you put it in a certain light. I feel inspired by believing that it is so fundamentally true that it can be derived from intuitive deduction.

I said 'no' because that would basically be modalism. God sometimes being Father, other times being Son, other times being Holy Spirit. God is all the time Father AND Son AND Spirit, which is how they relate to each other in boundless love.

The aspect of our nature that most maps the Trinity is man and woman and offspring. The man and woman are one flesh and out of that one flesh proceeds another of their nature. From this insight comes pope John Paul II's 'Theology of the Body'.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I would agree that we unfortunately do not have any perfect analogy by which to understand God.

We are made in the image of God. But only God alone is three Persons - neither confused nor subsumed within one another but distinct - in one Being.

Our analogies can help us think about that a little, but at a certain point it's best to just accept and not try to fully figure out God - because He is beyond something that could be contained and understood within a human mind. We also risk slipping into heresy. Indeed, there is a danger of "creating our own god" (i.e. an idol) if we try to apply our own ideas to define God.

But it's a good thing to contemplate those things we do know about God. Meditating upon God is a good thing.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Soul and spirit are not really two distinct things. Anyone who suggests that they are will have a very difficult time explaining how they are different.

They are definitively distinct and the great difficulty of distinguishing the two is precisely what the following verse refers to:

God's word is living and active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword and cuts as deep as the place where soul and spirit meet, the place where joints and marrow meet. God's word judges a person's thoughts and intentions. -Hebrews 4:12
​

Where does cartilage turn into marrow? Yet there is a clear distinction to God between soul and spirit. That is precisely why I asked this question because it brings up many complicated issues.

And I get VERY disparate response when bringing it up in other contexts, from occasional expressions of epiphany to more common but very disparate approaches at arguing against it. So I decided it was time to focus on this alone because it keeps coming up in other debates.

 

[Fascinated With God]

We also risk slipping into heresy. Indeed, there is a danger of "creating our own god" (i.e. an idol) if we try to apply our own ideas to define God.

Yes, that sort of issue is certainly part of why I brought the subject up. That danger is especially present in such a subject that is Biblically verified as being very difficult to comprehend.

But it's a good thing to contemplate those things we do know about God. Meditating upon God is a good thing.

Thank you, that's why I chose my handle.

My grandfather who raised me was twice master of his Masonic Lodge and when the military told him he had to get a degree to get a promotion he got a degree in comparative religion. Also a deacon in our church. My grandmother had a plack on her wall that said, "Lord, guide me to always seek the truth, and deliver me from those who have already found it!"

God can never be fully comprehended and it is a never-ending process.

 

[Fascinated With God]

I didn't realize where I was when I made these posts and was freely speculating as if this were like General Theology. Starting on page 6 I stick to the rules.

 

[TuxAme]

Man is made in the image of God, but that doesn't mean that we have a triune nature as He does. To be made in His image means, on one hand, to have a rational soul- not to be a trinity of persons. This sets us apart from the rest of His creation.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Man is made in the image of God, but that doesn't mean that we have a triune nature as He does. To be made in His image means, on one hand, to have a rational soul- not to be a trinity of persons. This sets us apart from the rest of His creation.

Rational soul or spirit? "God is spirit" yet God also refers to His soul as his feelings in the OT & NT.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Man is made in the image of God, but that doesn't mean that we have a triune nature as He does. To be made in His image means, on one hand, to have a rational soul- not to be a trinity of persons. This sets us apart from the rest of His creation.

If the soul and spirit are not separate bodies then why does the soul always go to Sheol in the OT but speculate that spirits go to heaven? Eccl 3:21

 

[ViaCrucis]

My assertion is that body/soul/spirit is a reflection of the 3 persons of the Trinity. It helps me understand the Trinity better because I can see my spirit as a separate person that sometimes makes me do things I don't understand, but my spirit is not a separate entity.

The soul can have a carnal greedy will of its own, psychikos in Greek vs psyche/soul. The spirit/pneuma can lean towards pneumatikos, spiritual wisdom and ultimately spirit body in the Resurrections. Those who have unclean spirits probably had something wrong with their spirit, to begin with.

Clearly, they have a consciousness of their own since they survive death. I assert they have a will of their own as well. Having sentient consciousness with a will is a good description of our physical state, that I would argue applies to all three aspects of our being.

That makes me feel like the Trinity is an intuitively obvious truth if you put it in a certain light. I feel inspired by believing that it is so fundamentally true that it can be derived from intuitive deduction.

This has two problems:

1) It intimates Modalism, by denying the real distinction of Persons in the Trinity.
2) It assumes trichotomism, a strict division of the human person into three parts: body, soul, and spirit.

The problem with the Modalistic issue, should be obvious.

The issue with trichotomism isn't that it is necessarily false, so much as it isn't necessarily true. Scripture instead tends to speak of human beings as having a material dimension as well as a spiritual dimension. Ideas like "soul" and "spirit" are not well defined, nor are they even necessarily to be understood as different things at all. Many look to the passage in Hebrews which speaks of the word of God as living and active, even cutting soul and spirit and assume this means the soul and spirit are entirely different things. But the text doesn't really suggest this, as the meaning isn't the cutting of the soul from the spirit; but rather cuts even the soul and spirit--the most interior things of man, as the author also speaks of the joints and marrow and the thoughts and intents of the heart. The word is so sharp that it can cut asunder, even the deepest things.

Even moreso, to speak of the "parts" of man can also be manifold, indeed we must also speak of the mind, the will, the heart, etc.

I am personally drawn toward the idea known as the psychosomatic union, that is, man is a union of body and soul. The body is the material dimension, the soul the immaterial--the will, feeling, conscious thought, even the animating principle of the body. The body without the soul is a corpse, and the soul without the body is naked. God created us to be these things together, "then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (Genesis 2:7). The absence from the body that arises from bodily death is an unnatural state, one that happens because of the fallenness of the world. That is why we look forward to the resurrection of the body in the Age to Come, when God makes all things right, restores all things--this is our future and glorious hope.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Rational soul or spirit? "God is spirit" yet God also refers to His soul as his feelings in the OT & NT.

The term "rational soul" refers to the fact that the human beings are rational (i.e. thinking) animals. Our life is distinct from other animals or, say, plants. The distinction is that we have sentience and sapience, we can reason, we have reasoning faculties. Human beings are unique among God's creatures here on earth in that we are morally culpable. We have a rational soul, a thinking soul, the capacity of rational, higher thought and reasoning.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

I'm arguing that we are 3 persons and we have a spirit body even before the resurrection, but it is like tattered filthy rags and not able to manifest materially. It is only able to affect our consciousness until the resurrection.

We aren't three persons. We are one person--you are you, and I am me.

Also, there is no such thing as a "spirit body"; that idea arises from a very flawed reading of 1 Corinthians 15 where the Apostle, in speaking of the resurrection of the body, says that the body is sown "a soulish body" (soma psychekos) and the body is raised "a spiritual body" (soma pneumatikos). What is sown is this body of skin and bones, and what is raised is this body of skin and bones. But this body of skin and bones is sown "soulish" but raised "spiritual", it is sown mortal, it is raised immortal; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in honor; it is sown corruptible, it is raised incorruptible.

The spiritual body isn't a "spirit body", it describes the body in the resurrection, even as Paul says in Romans 8:11, that if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead is also in us, then He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies; or as Paul says in Philippians 3:21, that at Christ's coming He shall transform our lowly body to be like His glorified body. The body He has, in the resurrection, as we remember, is "flesh and bone" not like a spirit or a ghost.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Fascinated With God]

1) It intimates Modalism, by denying the real distinction of Persons in the Trinity.

I wouldn't try to argue modalism in an orthodox board even if I believed in it.

2) It assumes trichotomism, a strict division of the human person into three parts: body, soul, and spirit.

Fascinating! Thank you! So there is a traditional theological term to describe my point of view that is not unorthodox. There is also dualism the most popular, and monism which is growing today and I despise. To me trichotomism and dualism are the only spiritual options, monism is a form of semi-materialism, in my opinion, that produces many statements that atheists would agree with.

Many look to the passage in Hebrews which speaks of the word of God as living and active, even cutting soul and spirit and assume this means the soul and spirit are entirely different things. But the text doesn't really suggest this, as the meaning isn't the cutting of the soul from the spirit; but rather cuts even the soul and spirit--the most interior things of man, as the author also speaks of the joints and marrow and the thoughts and intents of the heart. The word is so sharp that it can cut asunder, even the deepest things.

It refers to dividing joint from marrow, not an internal division of the joint or the marrow.

Even moreso, to speak of the "parts" of man can also be manifold, indeed we must also speak of the mind, the will, the heart, etc.

Speaking of the Trinity as "parts" is a violation of the Nicene Creed, so trichotomy can't be parts either.

You bring up some interesting points about heart/kardia and mind/dianoia. I came across this confusing website about traditional Greek concepts that gives a graph that includes spirit/pneuma, but not soul. Instead, it has mind/dianoia and kardia and life/zōē.

"Life," "Soul," " Mind," "Heart", and "Spirit" | Christ's Words in Greek

So I'm not sure what to make of these extra terms.

I am personally drawn toward the idea known as the psychosomatic union, that is, man is a union of body and soul. The body is the material dimension, the soul the immaterial--the will, feeling, conscious thought, even the animating principle of the body. The body without the soul is a corpse, and the soul without the body is naked. God created us to be these things together, "then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (Genesis 2:7). The absence from the body that arises from bodily death is an unnatural state, one that happens because of the fallenness of the world. That is why we look forward to the resurrection of the body in the Age to Come, when God makes all things right, restores all things--this is our future and glorious hope.

I had a hard time finding anything on psychosomatic union. After several pages I only found one page that gave even a full paragraph of detail. It mentions 1 Thessalonians 5:23 as a supporting point that soul and spirit are not distinct, but it includes the body which is clearly distinct so why aren't the other two?

So, what happens to the spirit in dualism? The reference I found alternately referred to dualism as a union of flesh and spirit. So then what happens to the soul?

Here is the reference I found from oca.org, Orthodox Churches of America: Our true destiny

-CryptoLutheran

Thank you for you long and thoughtful post. I've been lurking for a long time and I like your posts.

 

[Fascinated With God]

The term "rational soul" refers to the fact that the human beings are rational (i.e. thinking) animals. Our life is distinct from other animals or, say, plants. The distinction is that we have sentience and sapience, we can reason, we have reasoning faculties. Human beings are unique among God's creatures here on earth in that we are morally culpable. We have a rational soul, a thinking soul, the capacity of rational, higher thought and reasoning.

-CryptoLutheran

My question was not about reason, but about whether it's source is from the soul or the spirit.

 

[Fascinated With God]

We aren't three persons. We are one person--you are you, and I am me.
Also, there is no such thing as a "spirit body"; that idea arises from a very flawed reading of 1 Corinthians 15 where the Apostle, in speaking of the resurrection of the body, says that the body is sown "a soulish body" (soma psychekos) and the body is raised "a spiritual body" (soma pneumatikos). What is sown is this body of skin and bones, and what is raised is this body of skin and bones. But this body of skin and bones is sown "soulish" but raised "spiritual", it is sown mortal, it is raised immortal; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in honor; it is sown corruptible, it is raised incorruptible.

My issue with 1 Cor 15 is does the psychikos refer to the entire soul being transformed or only the lower animastic parts. I see soul as being in between spirit and flesh. "The soul is in the blood" but the spirit is not associated with any part of the body.

It's like the way the sins of the father are visited on the sons, it is something that comes thru the blood and soul, not the spirit. But that transference of sin is not a material physical action.

The spiritual body isn't a "spirit body", it describes the body in the resurrection, even as Paul says in Romans 8:11, that if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead is also in us, then He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies; or as Paul says in Philippians 3:21, that at Christ's coming He shall transform our lowly body to be like His glorified body. The body He has, in the resurrection, as we remember, is "flesh and bone" not like a spirit or a ghost.

Romans 8:11 uses spirit in a manner that seems to me like the interchangeable manner soul and spirit are sometimes used. Philippians refers to the body being glorified, not evaporated or merged.

 

[Athanasias]

Yes it is. Man and Women are made in the image and likeness of God. One way we reflect that is our sexuality. We get to be co-creators with God. God creates the soul and we create the body. In the sacrament of matrimony the two become one and the one(family unit) nine months later becomes 3 thus reflecting the image of Triune God. This is one reason why satan hates authentic Holy sexuality in Christian marriage. This is also one reason why contraception is so sinful.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Yes it is. Man and Women are made in the image and likeness of God. One way we reflect that is our sexuality. We get to be co-creators with God. God creates the soul and we create the body. In the sacrament of matrimony the two become one and the one(family unit) nine months later becomes 3 thus reflecting the image of Triune God. This is one reason why satan hates authentic Holy sexuality in Christian marriage. This is also one reason why contraception is so sinful.

I was with you till you brought in contraception. How does that apply to the subject of soul and spirit?

 

[Athanasias]

I was with you till you brought in contraception. How does that apply to the subject of soul and spirit?

Simple really. Marriage is made and ordered by God for two reasons in Genesis. Unity with the spouse and procreativity(again reflecting the complete self giving love that Christ gave to the father and the Church). To purposely block the possibility of life giving union with the spouse is to amputate part of what Marriage and the marital act is naturally ordered by God for. This is why all Christians even the reformers rejected all forms of birth control as sinful until 1930 when the Anglican first allowed it. Truth does not change. There is a great book written by a bible Christian that documents this called the bible and birth control. I highly recommend it.

Here are some links on this. This one is called

Children of the Reformation
A Short & Surprising History of Protestantism & Contraception by Allan Carlson

Children of the Reformation

And this is a great article by Dr. William Marshner

Church Teaching Against Contraception Prior To 1054 – Dr. William H. Marshner

 

[Natsumi Lam]

While we are made in the image of the Triune God, there exists no trinity of persons within an individual human being. It is highly debatable and I think incorrect to say that man is tripartite (body, soul, and spirit). Rather, man has two aspects: body and soul/spirit. Soul and spirit are not really two distinct things. Anyone who suggests that they are will have a very difficult time explaining how they are different.

Well if we consider that man is the temple of the Holy Ghost...we are the 3 part temple of Solomon.

Outer courts: body
Inner courts: soul
Holy of Holies: spirit.