"They teach us to Til the soil to unearth the truth. All good agrarians know that!"
Very droll. :-)
We could back into all of this by attempting to analyze in detail exactly what the influences of Origen on Orthodoxy were and are. This is a very complex topic, but must always end with the fact that Orthodoxy has never considered Origen to be a saint, and he is considered to be a father of the Church only under very qualified conditions. It is most proper to say that we consider him, like Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, to be an early Christian writer/thinker.
Actually, though, I would rather very much enjoy going through a great amount of bandwidth (or even a small amount) discussing the specifics of the neo-Platonism of Orthodoxy. Not what the "non-controversial consensus" of non-Orthodox scholars about our theology is, but rather a straight-forward discussion of what we believe and how we pray and worship, and how it is or is not neo-Platonic.
In other words, do we live our spiritual lives like neo-Platonists, or do we live like Christians? Or if you will, suppose that the average educated American were to walk into one of our churches and stand through a few services, and maybe chat with parishioners at coffee-hour after Liturgy. Suppose that this person were to be given a question (choose one best answer): Did what you just experience strike you as being based in a. the philosophy of Plato, or b. the Old Testament? What do you think the answer would be?
You may chuckle at the Orthodox self-understanding as a continuation of the Hebrew religion that Christ came to fulfil. I am equally free to chuckle at the idea that an ancient Jew might walk into the local Reformed church today and recognize what was going on as worship, let alone a continuation of his religion.
We've gotten to the point where you say that "Neo-Platonism is an essential core to Orthodoxy although it obviously must be different in some important ways from the pagan form."
That's at least a start. I'd still like to know some specifics about what that essential core of Neoplatonism exactly is that I believe and that I live out in my spiritual life.
Regarding Edward Moore, I'm afraid I've never heard of the guy. I looked him up on the internet, and it appears that he got his doctorate from and teaches at some correspondence course school in Seward, Nebraska that I've never heard of that is affiliated with a rather bizarre little "Orthodox" group that I've never heard of.
Even assuming that he knows what he is talking about, I'm not quite sure of what to make of his comment that " in his zeal to correct Origen, and, as we have seen, to provide a rational, philosophical explication of Christian dogma, Maximus ended by articulating a salvation theory that is, perhaps, more Neoplatonic than authentically Christian."
So St. Maximus, in his zeal to correct a Platonist, ended up articulating a Neoplatonic theology? Hm.