Chapter Concepts of Origenism from Late Antiquity to Modern Times : Freedom between Pre-existence and Apokatastasis

Abstract

Since late antiquity the debate about Origen and Origenism has focused on preexistence and apokatastasis. Within Origen’s Christian philosophy, however, these themes were side issues. They were neither at the core of his thought nor the starting points of his endeavour to forge a Christian concept of God and the spiritual and material world. Origen himself emphasised several times that human beings are not able to know anything about the beginning and the end of the universe. Humans can only acquire knowledge about the middle, the things between beginning and end, i. e. about the existing world and its history.