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Translated by W. Curtis.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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104 Pages
Page 14
CHAPTER IV
ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS: MAN'S FREEWILL AND GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE
Of objects that move, some have the cause of motion outside them. Such are objects which are lifeless and in passive motion simply by force of condition, and those which are moved by force of nature and of life in the same manner and not like things which move occasionally, for stones and stocks that have been quarried or cut off from growth, being in passive motion simply by force of condition, have the cause of motion outside them.
Such too are dead bodies of animals and movable parts of plants, which change position under compulsion and not as animals and plants themselves change their position but in the same manner as stones and stocks cut off from growth--although even these may be said to move in respect that, all bodies in decay being in flux, they possess the motion inherently attendant upon decay. Besides these a second class of moving objects are those which move by force of their internal nature or life, which are said by those who use terms in their stricter sense to move of themselves.
A third kind of movement is that in animals, which is termed spontaneous movement, whereas, in my opinion, the movement of rational beings is independent movement. If we withdraw from an animal spontaneous movement, it cannot be any longer conceived as even an animal; it will be like either a plant moving by mere force of nature or a stone borne along by some force external to it: Whenever an object follows its own peculiar movement, since that is what we have termed independent movement, it must needs be rational. Thinkers therefore who will have it that nothing is in our power, will necessarily assent to a most foolish statement, firstly that we are not animals, and secondly that neither are we rational beings, but that, what we are believed to do, we may be said to do by force as it were of some external cause of motion and in no sense moving ourselves.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/prayer.asp?pg=14
