People and paradigms: mental networks and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex

A mental network can be thought of as an emotionally imposed schema. The first part of this paper suggests that the mental network provides an integrated explanation for the diverse functions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and that mental networks provide the building blocks for self and Theory of Mind. The second part of the paper combines the mental network with the idea that theories generate emotions to provide an integrated explanation for paradigms, ideologies, sweeping statements, mysticism, theology, fundamentalism, conspiracy theories, and various concepts of God.

Antiunitarian Arguments from Divine Perfection

Some have argued that unipersonal concepts of God collapse into incoherence, so that such a being is no more possible than a square circle, or at least that such theologies are, as non-trinitarian, significantly less probable than some trinitarian theologies. I discuss the general strategy and examine recent arguments by William Lane Craig, C. Stephen Layman, Thomas V. Morris, and Richard Swinburne based on divine love, flourishing, and glory. I show why none of these arguments is compelling, as each has at least one weak premise.

Sartre’s Three Gods

I argue for three different concepts of God in Being and Nothingness. First I review the relevant scholarship with regard to Sartre, religion, and God. Second I show how Sartre uses three Gods in his ontological system: God as Nature, God as radical Otherness, and God as absolute Value. Third I show that Sartre’s conception of the imaginary explains how a purer, more theoretical conception of God can be perverted into more anthropocentrised and anthropomorphised versions. Fourth I consider the consequences of sticking to more Sartrean notions which ultimately can emphasise humility, respect, and responsibility before Nature, the Other, and Value, thereby calling for a reduction of both anthropomorphism and -centrism in religious faith and our conceptions of God.

Divine Agency, Divine Freedom, and Divine Suffering

This chapter argues that traditional concepts of God as pure act, impassible, atemporal, and simple should be rethought in light of the canonical claims the Christian tradition makes about divine action. First, it examines why we should hold to a strong account of divine agency. On this basis, it argues that we cannot avoid predicating such concepts as choice, mercy, rational deliberation, love, suffering, wrath, and patience to God. The chapter calls this divine “agentism.” Second, it argues that the central claims of agentism are incompatible with the thought of Thomas Aquinas (“Thomism”) and some of its major exponents. Third, it argues why Thomism is unpersuasive. Finally, it indicates some directions for future research in this area.

Sacred art as the highest manifestation of a person's spiritual worldview

The article is devoted to the problem of the formation of a spiritual worldview, the spiritualization of a person, a meeting with the sacred world, God, which is very relevant in the modern technogenic world, through communication with the sacred art, which has its own symbolic language, its own characteristic for each religion, signs that are important for a person as a spiritual, in its main essence, being. The author reveals the nature of sacred art, compares attitudes towards it in the Middle Ages and in our time, reveals the deep symbols of sacred architecture and painting in Christianity, sacred architecture in Islam, and painting in Chan Buddhism. A comparative analysis of the symbols of the sacred art of these religions showed the profound unity of their main ideas: the idea of creating the world in the Void (Creatio ex Nihilo), the idea of the creation of the world by Light, the idea of the manifestation of the Word of God in Christianity and Islam; revealed the common goal of the sacred art of these religions — unity with God, the spiritual world, nature by getting rid of their egoistic subjectivity; discovered a similarity in the creative process of an icon painter in Christianity and an artist in Chan Buddhism and led to conclusions about the synonymy of the concepts of God in Christianity, Allah in Islam and Emptiness in Buddhism.

Concepts of God, Divinities, Ancestors, and Spirits in African Traditional Religious Thought

The concept of god, divinities, ancestors, and spirits in African traditional religious ontology has been misunderstood by many scholars to the point of seeing Africans as people who did not know the supreme being nor worship him. Africans were seen as worshipping strange god(s). Against this backdrop, the researcher undertook this study to show that the concept of god is not strange to Africans and that in traditional Africa there is no atheist. Africans rather see the divinities as special beings, offspring, and/or apparitional beings who receive their authority from the supreme being to serve in the unitary theocratic system of the supreme being's government. This study adopts the descriptive and analytical research methods to investigate African traditional religious lifestyle, beliefs, and practices. This chapter concludes by suggesting that there is the need for proper religious education, a theology of enculturation, and understanding of African worldviews in order to sustain Africans' beliefs and practices.