The Superego God

This article is an attempt to describe the structure of imaging God at the superego level At the superego level of religious development, this structure has three interrelated pieces: first, there is an adolescing self; second, there is fettered imaging; and third, there is the God the adolescing self is able to relate to in fettered imaging, and this is the Superego God. The article concludes with a brief look at how the adolescing self hears and speaks about the Superego God.The author acknowledges with gratitude the invaluable help in writing this article of Neil J. McGettigan, Religious Studies Department, Villanova University, Villanova, PA.     

The God Beyond

This article is an attempt to describe the structure of imaging God at the adult level At the adult level of religious development, this structure has three interrelated pieces: first, there is an adult self;second, there is unfettered imaging; and third, there is the God the adult self is able to relate to in unfettered imaging, and this is the God Beyond. The article concludes with a brief look at how the adult self hears and speaks about the God Beyond.The author acknowledges with gratitude the invaluable help in writing this article of Neil J. McGettigan, Religious Studies Department, Villanova University, Villanova, PA.     

雷公“显圣“雷灾与预防

2000年8月29日凌晨4时许,天空雷雨交加.突然一声巨响,将河南省濮阳市岳村乡东寨村一棵高20余米、直径达50厘米的老槐树自距地面1米以上部分撕裂成碎片,个别碎片被抛到50米开外的地方.此事引起当地群众的很大惊慌.一些人认为这一年为龙年,是“龙“发怒或“神仙“下凡.为此,方圆几十里的群众赶来烧香拜佛,每天达4000余人,闹得当地群众生产、生活不得安宁.……     

The Hidden and Triune God

Luther rightly perceived that God is hidden in his presence. The challenge systematically is to integrate discourse about God's hiddenness with a serious trinitarianism. The attempts by Gregory Palamas and Karl Barth to do just this are judged inadequate. A constructive proposal begins by recognizing that God's hiddenness is an impenetrability of his moral agency in his history with us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rather than a correlate of God's ontological uniqueness or our creaturely epistemic limitations. God's hiddenness must be thought of in terms of the sheer factuality of God the Father, which limits theodicy; the suffering of the Son, and thus the rejection of idolatry; and the freedom of the Spirit.     

The Power of God

Much contemporary analytic philosophy understands the power of God as belonging to the same logical space as the power of human beings: a power of efficient causation taken to the maximum limit. This anthropomorphic picture is often explicated in terms of God’s capacity to bring about any logically possible state of affairs, so-called omnipotence. D.Z. Phillips criticized this position in his last book, The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God. I defend Phillips’s argument against recent criticism by William Hasker, contending that the omnipotence thesis is either false or trivial. I trace the superficial plausibility of the thesis to a Cartesian understanding of personal agency, in the light of which God’s power over the whole material world is an inflated version of our more modest power over our own bodies: it is the power of immaterial souls to control material phenomena. This comparison is expressed to perfection in the work of Richard Swinburne, my main target. I argue that by making God a force among other possible forces, in-principle able to be resisted, however feebly, by contrary forces, this picture reduces the Creator to a creature.     

道和神

一、“道”生神 中国古代的神。在道教形成以前,中国古代就有神灵。古代最高神就是天帝。《尚书》的《舜典》称,“在璇玑玉衡,以齐七政,肆类于上帝,禋于六宗,望于山川,遍于群神”。《尚书》说的“上帝”就是“天”,“天帝”。注称“上     

The Authority of Scripture and the Triune God

Consideration of what is meant by authority is a vital task for theology, and especially for those involved in theologically engaging with Scripture. After some general reflections on the nature of authority this article turns specifically to examine biblical authority. The challenges facing those who would offer an account of biblical authority are presented. The generating question for the positive proposals advanced in this essay is: what difference does the doctrine of the Trinity make to the account we render of biblical authority? The action of the triune God is the appropriate context for locating Scripture's salvific ministry. Moreover, Scripture is space that God gives us without violating our creatureliness. Scripture is both part of the created order and a participant within God's saving history. The doctrine of the Trinity invites us to articulate an account of biblical authority that is historical and timeful.