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Origen Of Alexandria Stereotypes

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Out of the four Church Fathers, I liked St. Clement of Alexandria the most (in a close second was Origen of Alexandria.) He was probably the most appealing to me because of his openness to other cultures and their ideas, and being able to connect with them and write works that could be open to and appeal to those people from the other cultures. His idea of spiritual refinement I found to be in total agreement with, and that faith is truly not in opposition to reasoning. If there was one that I found the least appealing, it would have to be Tertullian of Carthage. I respect that he was bold, open, and ready to tackle head-on his own faith and the faithfulness of others, and was courageous enough to "roast" heretics in his writings. Yet, I could …show more content…

As a class, we have discussed that some people have felt outed by the perceived stereotypes that only Catholics are admitted to go to heaven or hell, because the religion puts such an emphasis on judgement for those who follow the Catholic religion, and that seems to others that they are the only ones allowed to those places, and everyone else can go elsewhere. The idea that all people are good on the very inside and would one day return to God could possibly be more appealing, and people could possibly be less scared of the threat of what could seem like eternal purgatory, or eternal damnation that awaits them in Christ's …show more content…

After we die) and be reunited through salvation and go back to God in loving Union with Him. The packet states in Origen's theories "in the end all created spirits, even Satan and his demons, will turn back to God and be saved" and the back of the handout on the "Notes on Gnosticism" includes "receiving knowledge and escaping back from the material world" back into this "divine realm" where God originally resided in whole before the splitting and the other "god" appeared. Another similarity is God as the creator of all, that he created other divine beings. Even though we don't believe in the "pleroma" or the "aeons" and that they generated other divine beings, for Catholicism, he did create his divine servants and messengers - the angels. Catholics also believe that there is a Savior who is coming to bring us back to our Lord in his divine realm, and in Catholicism and Christian Gnosticism, that savior is Jesus Christ; however, Catholics believe that Jesus was incarnated and is both fully divine and fully human, while Gnostics believe that Jesus isn't human and never had a physical body due to their beliefs that matter is evil. Also, Catholics believe that Jesus, who is God the Son, and God the Father are both one God just different person, while the Gnostics believe that God the Father and God the Son differ, and that Old Testament God was lesser than the New Testament

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