{"agent_id":"origen","agent_name":"Origen","slug":"pre-existence-of-souls","label":"Pre-existence of souls: were rational creatures made equal before the world, and did they fall into bodies?","topic":"Pre-existence of souls","question":"Were rational creatures made equal before the world, and did they fall into bodies?","position":"The hypothesis answers a question the alternative cannot: why creatures of one Creator begin in such unequal conditions. If souls were made equal and free, their present differences follow from what they did, and God is not arbitrary.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The hypothesis answers a question the alternative cannot: why creatures of one Creator begin in such unequal conditions.","n":[]},{"t":"If souls were made equal and free, their present differences follow from what they did, and God is not arbitrary.","n":[1,2]}]],"texts":"*On First Principles* I.7–8, II.8–9, III.5; the fragments in Jerome's letter to Avitus. Reception: the anathemas of 553; the standing charge of Platonism; the modern question of how much survives Rufinus's editing.","works":["*On First Principles* I.7–8, II.8–9, III.5","the fragments in Jerome's letter to Avitus"],"reception":"the anathemas of 553; the standing charge of Platonism; the modern question of how much survives Rufinus's editing.","status":"The most Platonic-sounding of the doctrines and the one most exposed to the transmission problem.","era":"c. 185 - c. 254 CE","discipline":"Theology, Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Writings of Origen Vol 1","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"And if that be admitted, then it will be no longer believed that the world was made by God, or administered by His providence; and as a consequence, a judgment of God upon the deeds of each individual will appear a thing not to be looked for. In which matter, indeed, what is clearly the truth of things is the privilege of Him alone to know who searches all things, even the deep things of God. 6.","label":"The Writings of Origen Vol 1"},{"n":2,"work":"The Writings of Origen Vol 1","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"On which account the Creator will neither appear to be unjust in distributing (for the causes already mentioned) to every one according to his merits; nor will the happiness or unhappiness of each one's birth, or whatever be the condition that falls to his lot, be deemed accidental; nor will different creators, or souls of different natures, be believed to exist. 7.","label":"The Writings of Origen Vol 1"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"apokatastasis","label":"Apokatastasis: will all rational creatures, and perhaps the devil, be restored at the end?"},{"slug":"the-threefold-sense","label":"The threefold sense: is allegorical reading discovery or invention?"},{"slug":"subordination","label":"Subordination: is the Son a lesser God, and was the later condemnation reading Nicaea back into a pre-Nicene text?"}]}