Shawn T Murphy

Yes Edward, God is truly The Creator and has always been, but we know that God gave creative ability to His Son; Who created all that is good. And didn’t God give creative power to pretty much each of His children? Certainly artists and musicians have some creative ability.

Even the fallen souls have retained some of their creative ability, for it would be hard to comprehend that the implements of torture were created by God, or by any divine being. I am pretty certain that the concept of slavery is a creation of the king of this world, not the King of Heaven or God. Come to think about it, could God have created any of the vices? God is Love and, therefore, not capable of hate.

Edward, I am somewhat confused now about Origen’s position as to souls inhabiting all of creation. In his commentary on the Gospel of John, in some of the few original Greek fragments that have remained, we find Origen accepting the concept of animals profiting from the Word. From book 13 we have Origen clearly saying that Jacob’s livestock believe in Jesus, albeit in a simple manner. (38) But everyone does not draw water from Jacob’s fountain in the same way. For if Jacob and his sons and his livestock drank from it, (Cf. Jn 4.12) and the Samaritan woman too comes to it and draws water when she thirsts, perhaps indeed Jacob, with his sons, drank in one way with full knowledge, and his cattle drank in another, both more simply and more beast-like, and the Samaritan woman drank in yet another way than Jacob, his sons and his livestock.
(39) For some who are wise in the Scriptures drink as Jacob and his sons. But others who are simpler and more innocent, the so-called “sheep of Christ,” (Cf. Jn 10.26) drink as Jacob’s livestock, and others, misunderstanding the Scriptures and maintaining certain irreverent things on the pretext that they have apprehended the Scriptures, drink as the Samaritan woman drank before she believed in Jesus.

At this point it might be good to digress somewhat and admit that the actual works of Origen available to us today are limited. This we know, but I think we must also admit that much of his work has been altered from its original meaning, either by Rufinus in his Latin translations, or by Greek rewritings stemming from the period after Origen’s Anathematism. For example, the Greek version De Principiis (First Principles) which came from an opponent of Origen, Photius, is filled with the dogma of those who condemned Origen. In addition, we must remember that even if we had all of the original writings of Origen, we would not possess his knowledge. Again from book 13 we have Origen’s comments about the unwritten/unwritable Word.

(28) For indeed, Scripture has not contained some of the more lordly and more divine aspects of the mysteries of God, nor indeed has the human voice and the human tongue contained some, as far as the common understandings of the meanings are concerned. “For there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were each written, I suppose not even the world itself would contain the books that would be written.” (Cf. Jn 21.25)
(28) John is forbidden to write when he is about to record all that the seven thunders said. (Cf. Rv 10.4) Paul, too, says that he has heard words that cannot be spoken. (Cf. 2 Cor 12.4.) These were not words that were not permitted to be spoken by anyone, for angels were permitted to speak them, but not men, “for all things are permitted, but not all things are beneficial.” (Cf. 1 Cor 6.12)
(29) And he says that “it is not permitted to man to speak” those things that he had heard, “words that cannot be spoken.” (Cf. 2 Cor 12.4)

Dear Gabriela,
Since you are joining our little discussion on Origenes2000.org, I have decided to send you a little present. You will be receiving from Amazon.com the most important (remaining) writings of Origen.

As you will notice it is in French! His commentary on the Gospel of John was his most important work. Unfortunately, there are only a few of the 32 books in there original Greek. This book that I am sending has Rufinus’ translation of books 1 to 10. You can skip this for now. We know that Rufinus drastically shortened Origen’s work and adapted it to the Roman dogma of his time.

The fragments of books 13 through 32 are enough to give you a good feel for Origen’s teaching and his vast knowledge of the scripture.

I hope you enjoy it!
Love Shawn

Dear Gabriela,
I am sorry to here about Anna Flávia and I will pray for her and the soul of her baby.

I have forwarded to you an email from Edward and one from Andrew. Together with yours today, I just had to laugh! When ever you are ready to join our discussion, please do so, you are more than welcome.
Love Shawn

Ps. Just follow the link attached and have a look at the discussion and add your comments or questions as you like.

It is interesting Edward that you chose the mind as your example of a triad in nature. I would think that Socrates and Origen would have excluded this part of nature in their search for signs of God. This is the only part of nature which contains the free will, which you pointed out earlier. Therefore, the mind or intellect is not something created by God, but rather the fruit of our application of His greatest gift: free will. I would have thought that one would look to the various realms of nature in order to find signs of a triad. Looking in the seas below, on land, in the sky and in the heavens above a triad is hard to find. When we search these realms of nature, firstly, we find individuality; even down to the lowest levels, such as individual snowflakes and the uniqueness of each piece of pollen. Secondly, we find a benevolent hierarchy, with kings of land, sea, and sky keeping balance with those he depends upon for his survival. Finally, we often find dualism and polarity. We find identical twins, but never identical triplets.

Occurrences of triadic behavior or symbolism did come out of the pagan cultures of old though. I am not an expert on pagan cultures, but from the web I have this description of Luxor: “On the east bank of the Nile at Luxor lies the magnificent Luxor Temple which was dedicated to the great god Amun-Re, his wife Mut and their son Khonsu (the moon god) – together representing the Theban triad.” http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~ancient/luxtem1.htm Knowing what practices went on at this temple, I think we can all agree that it had nothing to do with God the Father in Heaven.

The pagan Greeks and Romans also had their triad in Neptue (Poseidon). Again from the web we have: “Neptune was the name that ancient Romans gave to the Greek god of the sea and earthquakes, Poseidon. He was the brother of Jupiter (Zeus) and of Pluto (Hades). After the defeat of their father Saturn (Cronos), the three brothers divided the world in three parts to be ruled by one of the three brothers. Jupiter took the sky, Neptune the sea and Pluto the underworld. Neptune had the reputation for having a violent temper. Tempests and earthquakes were a reflection of his furious rage. He was depicted as a bearded men holding a trident and seated in a seashell drawn by sea-horses. One day Neptune saw the water nymph Amphitrite dancing in the island of Naxos and fell in love with her. He promptly asked her to marry him but unfortunately she refused. However, not discouraged by Amphitrite refusal, Neptune sent one of his servant, a dolphin to look for her. The dolphin found her, and pleaded Neptune’s cause so persuasively that she changed her mind. As a reward for finding and returning Amphitrite to him, Neptune immortalized the dolphin by placing it in the heavens as the constellation Dolphinus. Neptune and Amphitrite had several children. Among them was Triton whose name was given in 1846 by William Lassell to the principal moon of the planet Neptune.” http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/Definitions_gods/Neptune_def.html Again, I would hope that we could agree that the ‘god of the bitter sea’ also has nothing to God the Father in Heaven.

I would like to also add my reverence of God, and I do realize Andrew that I should do it more often. I agree whole heartedly that we cannot ‘know God’; we are far too far away from Him. Origen noted in his discourse on John 1:1 that the only reason that Jesus ‘knows God’ is because of His constant closeness to God. Those who have ventured too far away no longer ‘know God’, but this gives me hope. Hope that the opposite is true and if we can move closer to God that we can start to again learn to ‘know Him.’

Dear Gabriela,
I tried to call you tonight. I have been very busy also. My brother and his family (2 girls 18 and 16) came to visit last week. We had a nice time, but the younger girl has been having the same types of problems that my brother had from the age of 12. She is burdened with anxiety, which I believe is caused by a spirit that is connected to her. We know from our teachings and from the bible that evil spirits can inhabit people, or at least bother them. There is always a reason for this, caused from a pervious life mostly. That is why it can affect even young children.

Our house is a very peaceful place, but I was surprised about how many things went wrong while they were here. Some people might say ‘negative energy’, but I do understand what it is. I just am not sure how I am supposed to help her. We talked a lot about God, Jesus and our purpose here on earth, but I do not think she was happy talking about these things.

Her father was able to put aside his evil spirit a few years ago, but only after he had gone very wrong and tried to kill himself. He is starting to learn what it is that drove him to be so bad, and who it was who came to rescue him. He thinks it was Jesus, but I am sure it was one of His Angels. Jesus would be too busy if He had to personally save all of us!

I talked to my daughter today, and she said that I sounded sad. When I said that I was a little sad, she started to cry for me. She has such a big heart, for such a little girl! I wish I had a little of her love. So we all understand your “saudade”.

I called because I missed you too and felt bad for not having written in while. Being busy is not a reason to not write or just talk.
Love Shawn

Dear Gabriela,
When I was praying for the sick today, a picture came to me that I thought I should pass along to you. Cancer is a disease that each person could have, but the doctors today do not know why one person gets it and the next does not. There are people who smoke for 30 years and never get lung cancer, and then there are others who were never even close to a smoker that end up with it.

I know two nurses who have worked in different hospitals for at least 20 years each in the cancer section. They, more than the doctors, have spent enough time with the patients in order to understand the lives that these people have led and understand the stresses that are in their lives. When I sit and talk to these two women about my spiritual view, they begin to understand the deeper reasons why people end up with cancer; especially certain types of cancer. There seems to be a very close relationship between cancer of the sexual organs and the level of stress that exists between two people. This is not to say that every woman with a bad relationship ends up with breast cancer, but that cancer is only a symptom of something deeper, which actually causes the cancer to form. These two nurses will tell you many stories about women who made full recoveries once their husband left them. (If you take away the root cause, you will eliminate the symptom. This was the basis of Dr. Edward Bach’s work http://www.bachcentre.com )

With this I just wanted to have you think about what the real cause of your cancer was. This is the picture that I wanted to give: Thiago is protecting you from what ever it is that caused your sickness. He made the decision to sacrifice himself in order to protect you from it.

I just suggest that you meditate about this. The cause may have noting to do with what I said above. It could be something purely at the spiritual level; a sickness of your soul that he decided to carry for you.

Love Shawn

Dear Gabriela,
I guess all I wanted to say is that I do not like the idea of being “married to the church.” For me, devoting your life to God or Jesus means following his laws; especially “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is often harder to do when you are married to a person and not a church.

I did not want to be confusing, I just wanted to say that the really great people in history are not good examples for us to follow.

I have been having long discussions with Andrew from Liverpool. They are interesting and I will tell you how they come out.

Have a wonderful day.
Love Shawn