Origenism at the Cambridge School as a Political Idea

The article touches upon the influence of philosophical and religious thought of the late Hellenistic era represented by Origen and Origenism on the formation of the political idea of freedom. Modern theologies that turn to Origen’s legacy as a source both Catholic (Jean Danielou, Henri de Lubac, Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner) and Protestant ones (Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann) reasonably enough use Origen’s ideas to support theological anthropology compatible with modern values of human freedom and dignity. Against the Augustinian views, it argues that people are essentially free and inspired by Origen defend individual freedom and choice and reject the absolute predestination of human destinies. In this context, Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, and Jürgen Moltmann are the most important. However, as the beginning of this adaptation, bearing undoubted political conclusions, we can certainly consider the Cambridge school Origenists of the seventeenth century, which we also call the Cambridge Platonists. Only at a very superficial glance it can be argued that they deliberately stood apart from the conflicts of their times, from the bitter antagonisms of the Great Rebellion and Restoration, which would have fully defined their distant political position. The article also studies the side of the philosophical teachings of the Cambridge school, which reflected the teachings of Clement of Alexandria and Origen the Christian about the Christian gnosis, about free entities and the need to convert to the religion of Jesus and conform unto God.