Treatise On The First Principle

Origen’s On First Principles is a foundational work in the development of Christian thought and doctrine: it is the first attempt in history at a systematic Christian theology. For over a decade it has been out of print with only expensive used copies available; now it is available at an affordable price and in a more accessible format. On First Principles is the most important surviving text written by third-century Church father, Origen. Origen wrote in a time when fundamental doctrines had not yet been fully articulated by the Church, and contributed to the very formation of Christianity. Readers see Origen grappling with the mysteries of salvation and brainstorming how they can be understood. This edition presents G. W. Butterworth’s trusted translation in a new, more readable format, retains the introduction by Henri de Lubac, and includes a new foreword by John C. Cavadini. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Doctor of the Church, wrote: “Origen is the stone on which all of us were sharpened.”

Seeking what he describes as "the utmost limit of the knowledge our natural reason can achieve . . . concerning the True Existence [that is God]," John Duns Scotus (1265–1308) offers in this treatise one of philosophy’s most rigorous and ambitious attempts to deduce God’s existence from purely metaphysical theorems. As elucidated by its concise philosophical commentary, Thomas M. Ward's new translation of the Treatise on the First Principle puts a masterpiece of natural theology within reach of a new generation of English-reading students of philosophy.

In the first, what is eminent is said to be prior whereas what is exceeded in perfection is posterior. Put briefly, whatever in essence is more perfect and noble would be prior in this manner. It was this kind of priority Aristotle had in mind in his proof that act is prior to potency in the ninth book of the Metaphysics where he calls act prior according to substance and form (species). "The things that are posterior in becoming," he declares, "are prior in form and in substantiality."

Examines the development of Hume's ideas and their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions.