Descartes: God as the Idea of Infinity

Abstract:  This article returns to Descartes' texts and correspondence and looks to recent scholarship to reveal three key elements of Descartes' distinctive epistemological structure. It shows that because objectors ignore Descartes' opposition to the 'order of being' they are led to a binary and incorrect reading of his argument. However, by correctly following Descartes' own logic, the method of doubt can be used to prove the existence of an infinite God.     

公王与社公:客家村落的保护神

公王与社公是客家村落最常见,也最普遍的一种神明信仰,但长期以来却为论者所忽视。本文试图在田野调查的基础上,结合相关文献,以闽西武平县北部村落为例,就客家村落公王与社公信仰作一比较全面系统的描述和论述。全文四部分:一、公王与社公的设置;二、公王与社公的职掌;三、公王与社公信仰的社会功能;四、公王与社公信仰所反映的社会文化背景。     

Aristotle on God as Principle of Genesis

Aristotle holds that there must be multiple forms of human being and those forms constitute a genos, this paper argues. Aristotle advances his claim by arguing that the strength of a polis rests on the existence of a spectrum of useful essential differences among its citizens. The paper rejects the notion that eîdos is a homonym, and argues that it signifies `form,' not `species.' Its theses are based on analysis of passages in the Ethics, Metaphysics, Politics and other works. The argument of the paper is compatible with `individual' or `particular' forms. The paper also proposes a solution to the issue of `natural slavery.'     

Conscience as the voice of God: A jungian view

Archetypal psychology proposes a genetic basis for experiencing conscience as the Voice of God. Human beings are predisposed to submit themselves to parental directives, but they are also predisposed to submit themselves to some higher, spiritual law. True conscience differs from the Freudian superego in that it sometimes directs one to disobey the prevailing moral code.From the unconscious spring the basest motives and also the noblest motives. The religious person gives careful attention to both. It is difficult but not always impossible to distinguish true conscience from subtle self-deceit.     

Speaking of God after the Death of God

Abstract :  This article affirms the ability to talk about God in the twenty‐first century 40 years after God died (according to Death‐of‐God theologians) in the 1960s. It does so by an appeal to the proper combination of mystery and revelation ideally expressed in the paradox that God reveals Godself as hidden. The language of God's revealed hiddenness comprises a "middle way" which avoids the extremes of theological hubris on the one hand and atheism or unbelief on the other, making it possible to speak today of God in a faithful yet humble manner.     

God as Spirit—and Natural Science

The biblical sentence "God is Spirit" (John 4:24) occasioned the development of the Christian doctrine about God as Spirit. But since patristic times "spirit" was interpreted in the sense of Nus, which rather means "intellect." The biblical concept of spirit (pneuma), however, has its root meaning in referring to "air in movement," as in breath or storm. The similar concept of pneuma in Stoic philosophy has become the "immediate precursor" (Max Jammer) of the field concept in modern physics, so that the conclusion is suggested that God is spirit as something like a field of force rather than as intellect. This essay argues for such a conception by relating the divine eternity and immensity to the concepts of space and time, the basic requirements of any physical field. God's eternity and immensity are interpreted in terms of undivided infinite space (and time) which is presupposed in all concepts of parts of space or time (or space-time), therefore in all mathematical and physical measurement.