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Medieval Theories of Future Contingents

The philosophical debate concerning the truth-value of singular statements about future contingents derives from Chapter 9 of Aristotle's treatise De interpretatione (Peri hermeneias). In Chapters ... divine omniscience which was discussed in Augustine's City of God (V.9). In response to Cicero's De fato and De divinatione, Augustine refuted the claim that the possibility of events having happened otherwise ...

Simo Knuuttila

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-futcont/

Theologians are Baal worshipers

We are speaking about the most grievous sin of breaking the first commandment. Baal - means lord, possessor, husband. Worshipers of Baal take their great Lord

who is of the principalities, powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world, of spiritual wickedness in high places as spoken of in Ephesians 6:12 – “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, and against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” They are drinking from the golden cup full of abominations and filthiness of spiritual fornication of Rev. 17.

Theology in not a Bible term. It originates as a category in the definition of philosophy as arranged by a pagan who lived hundreds of years before Christ named Aristotle.

Theology is the arduous mental reconciliation of the Bible with pagan philosophy. Using the half truth of the first mover concept of Aristotle, the Living God of Abraham and Jesus and the Bible is replaced by a god who is far away, outside of time. Not withstanding the solemn admonition of Jesus "call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven” Their spiritual fornication begins with the so called early church “fathers”. Origen finally wrote it down in the second century in which he called anyone who believed the Bible literally a heretic as well as any one who was an anthropomorphite. This long term means that if you believe that God has a body and if you believe the Bible that God in his body talked with Adam and Eve Origen says you are a heretic. This spiritual fornication of joining paganism to christianity was foundational in the writings of these so called early church fathers.

Upon this pagan concept the definition of the Living God of Abraham and the Bible is changed to the far off lord known as Baal in the Old Testament. All who believe these things are the same false priests of Baal as in the days of Elijah. They are the personal manifestation of spiritual wickedness in high places. If you believe in a pagan god you are a pagan. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be

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their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you..” II Cor. 6: 14 Theologians by yoking pagan philosophy to Christianity become out of concord with God and into concord with Belial.

John chapter one tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was

with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men… was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” The Living God is striving with every man in the world.

Placing God out of time there is added the pagan concept that God foreknows all things from all eternity and everything is predetermined from the beginning of creation. Meticulous misinterpretations are made of the Bible to try to give credence to this pagan concept, ignoring the active interaction of the eternal Spirit of God with every soul on earth. But ignoring the plain statement of God that he is in time when he declares to Abraham “now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son” God declares that did not foreknow but that he KNEW from that moment in time. The Bible declares in Heb 4 God said, “I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.” God is in time. Believing the contrary concept makes you a worshiper of the great Lord (Baal).

Implicit in the pagan concept is that God is responsible for all things. Theologians by their premise are accusers of God making him ultimately responsible for all who are lost, declaring “Grace plus nothing”. This spiritual fornication is the most horrible for they are defaming God in the most intimate area of accusing him by premeditated intention of causing all of the tragedy and being responsible for all of the works of Satan.

The mighty presence of the God of all Spirits striving with every heart convincing of sin judgment and righteousness is ignored. The theologian instead substitutes his supposed superiority of understanding declaring that just trusting his theory of redemption with all your power of belief will place you in a position where God must make you part of his kingdom. In this defiant attitude of holding God to his covenant, theologians were identified by Jesus “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Their faith has a belligerence toward God

Theologians are intoxicated with the wine of superiority which was called by Jesus the leaven of the pharasees. Their pagan root leads them to suppose they are Philosopher Kings as described by Plato in his Republic. They wear the toga and pattern their buildings after the Parthenon. Theologians exhibit their intellectual gifts disdaining and ignoring the gifts in every believer. They take the name of pastor but have no care for discovering and developing those over whom they the suppose they are placed as spiritual leaders.

http://themartyrcall.blogspot.com/

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Edward Moore author of the following Email: emoore@theandros.com St. Elias School of Orthodox Theology

A Revelation of the Everlasting Gospel-Message Jane Lead - 1697.htm

I. Anthropomorphites: They take literally the anthropomorphism that the Bible attributes to God and to the soul and consequently picture God as corporeal: against these Origen clearly affirms the absolute incorporeality of the three Persons and of the soul.

Against the Anthropomorphites Origen explains that God is Spirit, and He alone is without body.

But the substance of the Trinity, which is the beginning and cause of all things, ‘of which are all things and through which are all things and in which are all things’, must not be believed either to be a body or to exist in a body, but to be wholly incorporeal.

But if it is impossible by any means to maintain this proposition, namely, that any being, with the exception of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, can live apart from a body, then logical reasoning compels us to believe that, while the original creation was of rational beings, it is only in idea and thought that a material substance is separable from them, and that though this substance seems to have been produced for them or after them, yet never have they lived or do they live without it; for we shall be right in believing that life without a body is found in the Trinity alone. Now as we have said above, material substance possesses such a nature that it can undergo every kind of transformation.

II. Millenarians or Chiliasts, because they take literally the thousand years of Apocalypse 20:1-10. They believe that there will be a first resurrection of the just, who will reign for that time in the heavenly Jerusalem which will come down to earth. They will enjoy with Christ happiness before the final resurrection.

M. Simonetti says, "The decisive reaction against millenarism came from the Alexandrians, who propound a much more spiritual conception of Christian eschatology. Origen rejected the literal interpretation of Rev. 20-21, gives an allegorical interpretation of it and so takes away the Scriptural foundation of millenarism."

Origen denied the millenarism, considering the exegesis of the literalists on some promises concerning the kingdom of Christ was "unworthy of the divine promises." He castigates the follies of literalist believers who read the Scriptures like the Jews whose belief in the future Messianic kingdom is understood as political and material rule. They cherish dreams of dwelling in an earthly Jerusalem after the resurrection, where they will eat, drink and enjoy sexual intercourse to their hearts" content.

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Origen opposes the doctrine of the resurrection current among the millenarians or Chilliest. As regards to the state of the body after this resurrection, they imagine that it will be identical with the earthly body so that people will eat and drink, marry and procreate, and that the heavenly Jerusalem will be like a city here below. The spiritual body will differ in nothing from the psychic body and everything in the Beyond will be like life in this lower world. For, being anthropomorphisms, the millenarians take literally the biblical anthropomorphisms. They suppress all difference between the terrestrial body and the glorious body, keeping only the identity.

III. The Literalists, because they preserve the literal meaning of the Scriptures, even to the absurd lengths of which anthropomorphism and millenarianism are examples: Origen's doctrine of Scriptural allegory is also directed against these.

Multiple Ages, Metempsychosis, and the Restoration of AllOrigen did not believe in the eternal suffering of sinners in hell. For him, all souls, including the devil himself, will eventually achieve salvation, even if it takes innumerable ages to do so; for Origen believed that God's love is so powerful as to soften even the hardest heart, and that the human intellect - being the image of God - will never freely choose oblivion over proximity to God, the font of Wisdom Himself. Certain critics of Origen have claimed that this teaching undermines his otherwise firm insistence on free will, for, these critics argue, the souls must maintin the freedom to ultimately reject or accept God, or else free will becomes a mere illusion. What escapes these critics is the fact that Origen's conception of free will is not our own; he considered freedom in the Platonic sense of the ability to choose the good. Since evil is not the polar opposite of good, but rather simply the absence of good - and thus having no real existence - then to 'choose' evil is not to make a conscious decision, but to act in ignorance of the measure of all rational decision, i.e., the good. Origen was unable to conceive of a God who would create souls that were capable of dissolving into the oblivion of evil (non-being) for all eternity. Therefore, he reasoned that a single lifetime is not enough for a soul to achieve salvation, for certain souls require more education or 'healing' than others. So he developed his doctrine of multiple ages, in which souls would be re-born, to experience the educative powers of God once again, with a view to ultimate

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salvation. This doctrine, of course, implies some form of transmigration of souls or metempsychosis. Yet Origen's version of metempsychosis was not the same as that of the Pythagoreans, for example, who taught that the basest of souls will eventually become incarnated as animals. For Origen, some sort of continuity between the present body, and the body in the age to come, was maintained (Jerome, Epistle to Avitus 7, quoting Origen; see also Commentary on Matthew 11.17). Origen did not, like many of his contemporaries, degrade the body to the status of an unwanted encrustation imprisoning the soul; for him, the body is a necessary principle of limitation, providing each soul with a unique identity. This is an important point for an understanding of Origen's epistemology, which is based upon the idea that God educates each soul according to its inherent abilities, and that the abilities of each soul will determine the manner of its knowledge. We may say, then, that the uniqueness of the soul's body is an image of its uniqueness of mind. This is the first inkling of the development of the concept of the person and personality in the history of Western thought.

The restoration of all beings (apokatastasis) is the most important concept in Origen's philosophy, and the touchstone by which he judges all other theories. His concept of universal restoration is based on equally strong Scriptural and Hellenistic philosophical grounds and is not original, as it can be traced back to Heraclitus, who stated that "the beginning and end are common" (Fragment B 103, tr. J. Barnes 1987, p. 115). Considering that Origen's later opponents based their charges of heresy largely on this aspect of his teaching, it is surprising to see how well-grounded in scripture this doctrine really is. Origen's main biblical proof-text is 1 Corinthians 15:25-28, especially verse 28, which speaks of the time "when all things shall be subdued unto him [Christ], then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all" (KJV, my emphasis). This scriptural notion of God being "all in all" (panta en pasin) is a strong theological support for his theory of apokatastasis. There are, of course, numerous other passages in scripture that contradict this notion, but we must remember that Origen's strength resided in his philosophical ability to use reason and dialectic in support of humane doctrines, not in the ability to use scripture in support of dogmatical and anti-humanistic arguments. Origen imagined salvation not in terms of the saved rejoicing in heaven and the damned suffering in hell, but as a reunion of all souls with God.

Eternal Motion of SoulsA common motif in Platonism during, before, and after Origen's time is salvific stasis, or the idea that the soul will achieve complete rest and staticity when it finally ascends to a contemplation of the good. We notice this idea early on in Plato, who speaks in the Republic (517c-d, 519c-e) of a state of pure contemplation from which the philosopher is only wrenched by force or persuasion. In Origen's own time, Plotinus developed his

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notion of an 'about-face' (epistrophê) of the soul resulting in an instant union of the soul with its divine principle, understood as an idealized, changeless form of contemplation, allowing for no dynamism or personal development (see Enneads 4.3.32, 4.8.4, for example). Influenced indirectly by Plotinus, and more directly by later Neoplatonists (both Christian and pagan), the Christian theologian St. Maximus the Confessor elaborated a systematic philosophical theology culminating in an eschatology in which the unique human person was replaced by the overwhelming, transcendent presence of God (see Chapters on Knowledge 2.88). Origen managed to maintain the transcendentality of God on the one hand, and the dynamic persistence of souls in being on the other. He did this by defining souls not by virtue of their intellectual content (or, in the Plotinian sense, for example, by virtue of their 'prior' or higher, constitutive principle) but rather by their ability to engage in a finite manner with the infinite God. This engagement is constitutive of the soul's existence, and guarantees its uniqueness. Each soul engages uniquely with God in contemplating divine mysteries according to its innate ability, and this engagement persists for all eternity, for the mysteries of the godhead are inexhaustible, as is the enthusiastic application of the souls' intellectual ability.

Eternal Motion of Souls

A common motif in Platonism during, before, and after Origen's time is salvific stasis, or the idea that the soul will achieve complete rest and staticity when it finally ascends to a contemplation of the good. We notice this idea early on in Plato, who speaks in the Republic (517c-d, 519c-e) of a state of pure contemplation from which the philosopher is only wrenched by force or persuasion. In Origen's own time, Plotinus developed his notion of an 'about-face' (epistrophê) of the soul resulting in an instant union of the soul with its divine principle, understood as an idealized, changeless form of contemplation, allowing for no dynamism or personal development (see Enneads 4.3.32, 4.8.4, for example). Influenced indirectly by Plotinus, and more directly by later Neoplatonists (both Christian and pagan), the Christian theologian St. Maximus the Confessor elaborated a systematic philosophical theology culminating in an eschatology in which the unique human person was replaced by the overwhelming, transcendent presence of God (see Chapters on Knowledge 2.88). Origen managed to maintain the transcendentality of God on the one hand, and the dynamic persistence of souls in being on the other. He did this by defining souls not by virtue of their intellectual content (or, in the Plotinian sense, for example, by virtue of their 'prior' or higher, constitutive principle) but rather by their ability to engage in a finite manner with the infinite God. This engagement is constitutive of the soul's existence, and guarantees its uniqueness. Each soul engages uniquely with God in contemplating divine mysteries according to its innate ability, and this engagement persists for all eternity, for the mysteries of the godhead are inexhaustible, as is the enthusiastic application of the souls' intellectual ability.

Eternal Motion of SoulsA common motif in Platonism during, before, and after Origen's time is salvific stasis, or the idea that the soul will achieve complete rest and staticity when it finally ascends to a

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contemplation of the good. We notice this idea early on in Plato, who speaks in the Republic (517c-d, 519c-e) of a state of pure contemplation from which the philosopher is only wrenched by force or persuasion. In Origen's own time, Plotinus developed his notion of an 'about-face' (epistrophê) of the soul resulting in an instant union of the soul with its divine principle, understood as an idealized, changeless form of contemplation, allowing for no dynamism or personal development (see Enneads 4.3.32, 4.8.4, for example). Influenced indirectly by Plotinus, and more directly by later Neoplatonists (both Christian and pagan), the Christian theologian St. Maximus the Confessor elaborated a systematic philosophical theology culminating in an eschatology in which the unique human person was replaced by the overwhelming, transcendent presence of God (see Chapters on Knowledge 2.88). Origen managed to maintain the transcendentality of God on the one hand, and the dynamic persistence of souls in being on the other. He did this by defining souls not by virtue of their intellectual content (or, in the Plotinian sense, for example, by virtue of their 'prior' or higher, constitutive principle) but rather by their ability to engage in a finite manner with the infinite God. This engagement is constitutive of the soul's existence, and guarantees its uniqueness. Each soul engages uniquely with God in contemplating divine mysteries according to its innate ability, and this engagement persists for all eternity, for the mysteries of the godhead are inexhaustible, as is the enthusiastic application of the souls' intellectual ability.

Edward Moore Email: emoore@theandros.com St. Elias School of Orthodox Theology