The question whether the Ruist (Confucian) idea of Tian (heaven) or Taiji (ultimate polarity) is transcendent in comparison to Christian ideas of the Creator-God remains controversial in the history of Christian-Ru interaction. To tackle the debate, this dissertation investigates the intellectual histories of “creatio ex nihilo” in the Greek-European Christian tradition and of “sheng sheng” (birth birth) in the Chinese Ru tradition, and compares these ideas with a methodology combining the pragmatist use of “vague category” and the hermeneutical “situational thinking.” The emergence of the idea “creatio ex nihilo” from Plato to Augustine championed the “ontological dependence” of cosmic realities upon the Creator-God. Divine creation was typically thought of as one process whereby divine intelligence implants ideas and forms into an inchoate form of being so that varying realities are created. However, Descartes’ theory of “created eternal truth” conceptualized divine creation as not being constrained by any rule of intelligence. This Cartesian voluntarism pushes the theistic vocabularies of creation to their limit such that it allows us to delineate a de-anthropomorphic sub-tradition within the main theistic tradition of “creatio ex nihilo.” Descartes’ thought was refined by Schleiermacher and Tillich. There were two distinctive ancient Chinese cosmologies: one Daoist pioneered by the Dao De Jing, and the other is Ruist initiated by the Appended Texts in the Classic of Change. When Wang Bi employed the ontology in the Appended Texts to interpret the cosmogony of Dao De Jing, his understanding of Taiji influenced the Ru tradition to reach an idea of creation similar to “creatio ex nihilo.” Accordingly, Taiji’s creativity can be characterized as “generatio ex nihilo,” an unconditioned constantly creative cosmic power without a creator standing behind the scene. Wang Bi’s thought was refined by Zhou Dunyi and Zhu Xi. As this project demonstrates, the Ru tradition of “generatio ex nihilo” provides the most apt comparison to the de-anthropomorphic sub-tradition of “creatio ex nihilo.” If we define transcendence as what is indeterminate and ontologically unconditioned by the existing world, Taiji’s “sheng sheng” conceptualized as “generatio ex nihilo” is even more transcendent than the mainstream theistic Christian understanding of divine creation.

The genre affiliation is a postmodern study: Virtual Reality (VR) becomes a comprehensive concept, in the face of modernism's illusion, when rhetoric validates all discourses. All is VR. The study is in three sections with an overall introduction and conclusion: the first section introduces VR in its postmodern setting, the second section establishes the postmodern timeless/spaceless paradigm of HyperReality in which all Hermeneutics are being done from, the last section draws the paradigm into the Creatio Ex Nihilio discourse of the Scriptures. The proposed theological model is an intratextual theological model, however when YAHWEH precedes language then all discourses become intratextually part of the Biblical discourse. Human creativity is a metaphorical journey; the Fall was the outset of two languages, one in the presence of YAHWEH, while the other one void of this presence led to a nihilistic abstract constellation. Sin in VR is the unbiblical appropriation of this constellation. / Thesis (M.Th.)

The genre affiliation is a postmodern study: Virtual Reality (VR) becomes a comprehensive concept, in the face of modernism's illusion, when rhetoric validates all discourses. All is VR. The study is in three sections with an overall introduction and conclusion: the first section introduces VR in its postmodern setting, the second section establishes the postmodern timeless/spaceless paradigm of HyperReality in which all Hermeneutics are being done from, the last section draws the paradigm into the Creatio Ex Nihilio discourse of the Scriptures. The proposed theological model is an intratextual theological model, however when YAHWEH precedes language then all discourses become intratextually part of the Biblical discourse. Human creativity is a metaphorical journey; the Fall was the outset of two languages, one in the presence of YAHWEH, while the other one void of this presence led to a nihilistic abstract constellation. Sin in VR is the unbiblical appropriation of this constellation. / Thesis (M.Th.)

Scholars and storytellers alike have deemed George MacDonald a great mythopoeic writer, an exemplar of the art. Examination of this accolade by those who first applied it to him proves it profoundly theological: for them a mythopoeic tale was a relational medium through which transformation might occur, transcending boundaries of time and space. The implications challenge much contemporary critical study of MacDonald, for they demand that his literary life and his theological life cannot be divorced if either is to be adequately assessed. Yet they prove consistent with the critical methodology MacDonald himself models and promotes. Utilizing MacDonald’s relational methodology evinces his intentional facilitating of Mythopoesis. It also reveals how oversights have impeded critical readings both of MacDonald’s writing and of his character. It evokes a redressing of MacDonald’s relationship with his Scottish cultural, theological, and familial environment – of how his writing is a response that rises out of these, rather than, as has so often been asserted, a mere reaction against them. Consequently it becomes evident that key relationships, both literary and personal, have been neglected in MacDonald scholarship – relationships that confirm MacDonald’s convictions and inform his writing, and the examination of which restores his identity as a literature scholar. Of particular relational import in this reassessment is A.J. Scott, a Scottish visionary intentionally chosen by MacDonald to mentor him in a holistic Weltanschauung. Little has been written on Scott, yet not only was he MacDonald’s prime influence in adulthood, but he forged the literary vocation that became MacDonald’s own. Previously unexamined personal and textual engagement with John Ruskin enables entirely new readings of standard MacDonald texts, as does the textual engagement with Matthew Arnold and F.D. Maurice. These close readings, informed by the established context, demonstrate MacDonald’s emergence, practice, and intent as a mythopoeic writer.

Many contemporary naturalistic philosophers have taken it for granted that a robust theory of free will, one which would afford us with an agency substantial enough to render us morally responsible for our actions, is itself not conceptually compatible with the philosophical theory of naturalism. I attempt to account for why it is that free will (in its most substantial form) cannot be plausibly located within a naturalistic understanding of the world. I consider the issues surrounding an acceptance of a robust theory of free will within a naturalistic framework. Timothy O’Connor’s reconciliatory effort in maintaining both a scientifically naturalist understanding of the human person and a full-blooded theory of agent-causal libertarian free will is considered. I conclude that Timothy O’Connor’s reconciliatory model cannot be maintained and I reference several conceptual difficulties surrounding the reconciliation of agent-causal libertarian properties with physical properties that haunt the naturalistic libertarian.