Origen and the Emergence of Divine Simplicity before Nicaea. By Pui Him Ip

Abstract

This study examines how early Christian theologians in the ante-Nicene period appropriated the philosophical concept of divine simplicity to present a coherent understanding of God in response to contemporary heresy. This appropriation led to the emergence of the “ trinitarian problematic ” of how to reconcile notions of divine simplicity with the scriptural revelation of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The author seeks to uncover the “ doctrinal ecology ” of the second and third centuries that gave rise to this problematic and its complex solution in the thought of Origen of Alexandria.