FROM PATRISTIC & BYZENTINE PHILOSOPHY (Origin) 10. The body of the rational creatures.

A fundamental question concerning the rational creatures (= anima), is if they were at the beginning and will at the end be supplied with a body or not. In On First Principles one can find opposite conclusions: that Origin has absorbed the Platonic conviction that nothing of corporeality can arrive at the contemplation of God, and the Christian tradition according to which the body will be resurrected at the end. It is more precise to state the second as the fact that the final corporeality (= initial) of the anima (and in general of the rational creatures) is not intended in the sense it will always be accompanied with a body. Therefore when speaking of the anima + corpo, the anima only theoretically can be distinguished from the body. To understand this concept one needs to understand the Origens doctrine on the rational nature and the material nature. Material nature is conceived in a historical manner as the informed and amorphous (of no particular kind or character; indeterminate; having no pattern or structure; unorganized) substrate (something that underlies or serves as a basis or foundation), capable of assuming all forms and transformations according to the determined quality to form diverse objects. Rational nature is conceived in the same way, and the quality that determines various forms of this or that creature is the free will. In part, therefore, instability is a particular characteristic of rational creatures, and there is the capacity of material nature to transform itself in every moment according to the various qualities that determine it: one comes like this to institute a strict parallel between rational nature (=anima) and the material nature (=body), in the sense that this has the capacity to adapt itself, becoming heavier or lighter, finally assuming, in correspondence with the final beatitude of the soul, the perfect condition of spiritual body. In this way the corporeality of the rational nature is connected by Origen with its mutability. In this mutability, therefore imperfect, the rational creature has need of a body. Once the connection of the corporeality of the rational creature with its imperfection is made, one can deduce also its perpetuity; in fact, also in the moment of the supreme beatitude the creature remains always imperfect, in respect to God, because its possession of the good will never be as perfect as in God. Therefore there is the necessity for a body also in this condition .