Almighty Power Research Articles

Joseph Smith, Thomas Paine, and Matthew 27:51b–53

Joseph Smith, Thomas Paine, and Matthew 27:51b–53

Park Inhwan’s Poem Research

이 논문은 박인환의 초기 시와 중기시를 ‘희망’과 ‘불안’의 두 키워드로 살펴봄으로써 세계를 대하는 시적 주체의 고뇌와 의식 세계를 보다 면밀히 관찰하는 데 그 목적이 있다. ‘일제강점기’, ‘해방 정국’, ‘6.25 전쟁’ 등의 역사적 격변을 경험했던 박인환은 ‘시 쓰기’를 통해 험난한 사회와 싸우고자 했다. 시인이 선시집 <후기>에서 밝히고있듯, 그의 시작(詩作) 활동은 ‘시대와 싸우며 가장 의지할 수 있었던 것’으로 요약될 수 있는 것이다. 박인환의 초기 시는 해방 후 혼란한 사회에 대한 시인의 현실 인식을 잘 반영하고 있다. 박인환은 공동체 의식, 즉 ‘연대’를통해 낙관적인 미래로 나아갈 수 있다는 ‘희망’을 견지했다. 그러나 동인 활동의 실패, 남로당 사건 등의 개인적고난을 겪으면서 ‘희망’의 시선에서 밝은 미래의 가능성을 엿보고자 했던 그의 세계 인식은 점차 ‘불안’으로 이행하게 된다. 1950년, 한국 전쟁을 기점으로 박인환의 시는 완전한 ‘불안’의 세계를 담지하게 된다. 그러나 그의 시에서 나타나는 ‘불안’은 전쟁이라는 특정 상황이 아닌, 개인의 ‘실존’의 문제와 맞닿아 있다. ‘공포’가 두려움을 야기하는 특정한 상황 속에서 나타나는 감정이라면, ‘불안’은 자기가 불안해하는 그것이 무엇인지 알 수 없는, 즉 대상이 불확실한 감정이다. 박인환의 경우, 시적 주체의 ‘불안’을 야기하는 것은 자기 존재에 대한 근원적인 물음에서부터 기인한다. ‘불안’의 세계는 ‘나’라는 존재에 대한 끊임없는 고민을 유발하며, ‘불안’의 기분 속에서 세계는 그 의미를 상실한다. 박인환의 시에서 나타나는 ‘신의 부재’는 무의미의 세계를 표상하는 독특한 지점을 내포한다. 신의 전능한힘이 인간의 삶을 구원해주지 못하는 세계에서, 개인의 유한한 삶은 오로지 개인의 몫이 되고 만다. 이로써 시적주체는 ‘죽음’과 더 가까워지고, ‘죽음’과 직면함으로써 자기 고유의 존재 가능성을 획득하게 된다. 박인환 시에 나타나는 ‘희망’과 ‘불안’의 두 세계는 시대를 극복하고자 한 고뇌의 산물이라는 점에서 그의 시의 한계점으로 회자되어온 ‘허무주의’와 ‘감상성’의 문제를 극복할 수 있는 가능성을 보여준다.The purpose of this paper is to more closely observe the world of agony and consciousnessof the poetic subject dealing with the world by examining Park In-hwan’s early and mid-term poemsas two keywords: hope and anxiety. Park In-hwan, who experienced historical upheaval such asJapanese colonial era, Liberation Jungkook, and the 6.25 War, tried to fight a tough society throughPoetry Writing. As the poet reveals in “The Collection of Poetry” and “The Later”, his beginningactivities can be summarized as “what he was able to rely on the most while fighting the times.”His writing activities can be summarized as “Park In-hwan’s early poems reflect the poet’sperception of the reality of a chaotic society after liberation. Park In-hwan maintained his “hope”that he could move toward an optimistic future through a sense of community, that is, solidarity. However, the possibility of a bright future from the perspective of “hope” through personal hardshipssuch as the failure of the driver’s activities and the Namrodang incident. Starting with the Korean War in 1950, Park In-hwan’s poems contained a complete world of“anxiety.” However, the “anxiety” that appears in his poem is not related to a specific situationcalled war, but to the problem of individual existence. If “fear” is an emotion that appears in aspecific situation that causes fear, “anxiety” is an emotion in which you do not know what it isthat you are anxious about, that is, an uncertain object. In the case of Park In-hwan, causing the‘anxiety’ of the poetic subject stems from the fundamental question of one’s existence. The worldof ‘anxiety’ causes constant concern about the existence of ‘me’, and in the mood of ‘anxiety’,the world loses its meaning. The absence of God in Park In-hwan’s poem implies a unique pointrepresenting the world of meaning. In a world where God’s almighty power cannot save humanlife, an individual s finite life is solely up to the individual. As a result, the poetic subject becomescloser to ‘death’ and acquires its own possibility of existence by facing ‘death’. The two worlds of“hope” and “anxiety,” which appear in Park In-hwan’s poem, show the possibility of overcoming theproblems of “nihilism” and “sensitivity,” which have been talked about as limitations of his poems.

The rhetorical purpose of the battle between protagonist and antagonist in 2 Maccabees 9

The main theme in 2 Maccabees seems to be the use and abuse of “power”. The very striking battle for power, as presented in 2 Maccabees 9, is the focus of this article. The research questions are: Who are the protagonist and the antagonist in 2 Maccabees 9? How does this chapter describe these characters? What is the nature of the struggle between the protagonist and antagonist? What is/are the rhetorical function(s) of the struggle in 2 Maccabees 9? What is the rhetorical purpose of 2 Maccabees 9? As 2 Maccabees is a narrative, written in a world where rhetoric played an important role in communication, the text is interpreted with the help of rhetorical criticism and narrative criticism. Attention will be given to specifically the text’s description of the antagonist and protagonist and the rhetorical function(s) of these descriptions will be interpreted. As the use and abuse of power play such an important role in the description of these characters, the phenomenon of power will be interpreted by using definitions and discussions by sociologists and psychologists where relevant. It is concluded that the text of 2 Maccabees 9 aims at moving the reader from an attitude of doubt and distrust in God, because of the bad things that happened, to an attitude of trust and obedience in God, who is just and powerful. God is presented as the supernatural power, with the implicit warning that no human being can ever affect this power. It is a message of hope for the victims of power abuse. It is a piece of advice and a warning to be spiritually intelligent and to hold on to the almighty power of God, with the promise that God will always be there, listen to the prayers of believers and act in love towards them. It is also a warning to never oppose God. The reader is persuaded in 2 Maccabees, especially in Chapter 9, of the advantages of a spiritual intelligence. It clearly demonstrates that no abuse of power by humankind, can ever limit the power of God.

The World of Wars: Risky Systems – A second-order observation of future wars

The world of the future will not be one without wars. The many hopes we have about a future peace governed by a more or less confederal state will not make wars obsolete. Regular wars and irregular wars will continue and probably on different subjects than we are used to. The article proposes that the form of war will be more about temporalities, i.e. fast interchanges or, rather, more risky protracted wars of attrition and exhaustion and less on tactical well defined territories. The West can neither dominate such wars nor establish one world that is ruled or even governed. The risk is that we have the systems we have. They have their own path dependencies, their temporal bindings and their own stories to tell. In the worst case, the West sticks to an imaginary of almighty power – and then it will lose. We tend to forget that our present past will be experienced and told differently in the future. The “extreme 20th century” will have another history and another impact. Its extremes will be narrated as more extreme, and its temporal bindings become easier to observe. The much celebrated “revolutions in military affairs” will not dominate future war systems. Unipolarity is fading away. Kantian convergences may appear.

Connecting the Image of God as Almighty Father, Narcissism, Trump, and Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland

Given Jung’s understanding of emergence as unconscious materials unattended emerging into lived life, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States calls for analysis of unconscious collective attitudes. Trump’s enthusiastic supporters embrace his narcissism, including his claims to almighty power, obedience, and adoration, claims characteristic of the God image of the Judeo-Christian Father almighty. This essay proposes that Americans socialized to worship that image of God have not been aware that they are divinizing narcissistic traits. Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Wieland or the Transformation, An American Tale (1798) portrays such a God and a phantom narrative unveiling murderousness in the narcissistic divine Father-son relations. Brown concludes with a call for the development of “juster notions” of divinity. Recognizing the latent murderousness in the narcissistic image of God the Father almighty potentially leads to recalling that projection and collectively accepting responsibility for inner murderousness.

Релігійний концепт Бог / Θεοσ / God в новогрецьких, англійських та українських пареміях

The article deals with the religious concepts found in modern Greek, English and Ukrainian proverbs (paremias). The relevance of this research is due to the fact that it identifies similarities and differences of this concept concludes different ethnic groups. They are verbalized not only and not so much in language codes, but in memory of the historical extent of their existence. The results of the analysis of common and distinctive features in three languages are illustrated on the example of the religious concept «Бог / Θεός / God». The religious concepts occupy a special place among cultural concepts. They are a reflection of human mentality, because they permeate all spheres of life. The religious concept is characterized as a multidimensional mystical-semiotical and axeological formation within three major contexts – spiritual world-outlook, cultural history, and linguistic semiotics. The concept БОГ / ΘΕΟΣ / GOD finds its implementation in proverbs, which points to its significant role of everyday life of the Greek, English and Ukrainian-speaking communities. The concept «God» is the basic cultural concept. The Christians believe that God is something unrecognizable and mysterious, and He absorbs the idea of soul, eternal life, kindness, openness and sincerity. Indeed, people in everyday communication use some proverbs and sayings marked by religious concepts. The ideological groups of the concept БОГ / ΘΕΟΣ / GOD were formed on the basis of a continuous sample. The most interesting way is to trace the transformations of certain concepts of culture, which from different perspectives can be considered the key components of the mental peculiarity of the people in one or another historical period. We found some definitions of this concept such as: 1) Owner; 2) Almighty Power; 3) Help; 4) Fair punishment.

Sprawiedliwość Boga wobec Szatana na podstawie „Jedenastego kazania do ludu” św. Cezarego z Arles

Cezary z Arles (†543) w jedenastym kazaniu do ludu dokonał precyzyjnego omówienia zagadnienia, dotyczącego sprawiedliwości Boga wobec szatana. W kazaniu tym, dał tak wyczerpujące wyjaśnienie na ten temat, że jest ono swoistego rodzaju traktatem teologicznym. Bóg, jak zauważa, mógł użyć wobec szatana swojej wszechmocy, nie uczynił jednak tego, ponieważ nie chciał naruszyć sprawiedliwości. Bóg jest sprawiedliwy tak wobec szatana, jak i wobec człowieka. Cezary wyjaśnił, że szatan sam siebie zgubił, nikt go do tego nie zmusił, a powodem była zazdrość. Z kolei szatan, jak zauważył Cezary, z zazdrości doradził człowiekowi wybór zła, nie zmusił człowieka do odwrócenia się od Boga, ponieważ człowiek był wolny. Człowiek natomiast, zamiast należeć do Boga, który go stworzył, wybrał propozycję szatana, która sprowadziła na niego śmierć. Cezary pokazał też dwa etapy wyrwania człowieka z niewoli szatana. Pierwszym było Wcielenie, czyli przyjście Chrystusa w ciele podobnym do ciała grzesznego, drugim był krzyż. Sprawiedliwy Chrystus przyjął na siebie niesprawiedliwość i ujawnił zbrodnicze i niesprawiedliwe postępowanie diabła. Szatan w Wielki Piątek, gdy zabił Chrystusa na krzyżu, przekroczył prawo sprawiedliwości. Dopuścił się zbrodni na Jezusie, stał się winny, gdyż skazał na śmierć całkowicie niewinną osobę. Szatan jako winny, musiał przeżyć konfiskatę tego, co zagarnął – człowieka. Chrystus, jak wykazał Cezary, uwolnił rodzaj ludzki spod władzy szatana przez swoją sprawiedliwość. Uczynił to nie jako Bóg, lecz w ludzkim ciele. Sprawiedliwość Chrystusa ujawnia Jego miłosierdzie względem człowieka.

Antihistoricism of Lev Shestov

Lev Shestov did not belong to those philosophers for whom philosophy of history was the central theme. However, the very time he lived in did not allow him to remain completely apart from reflecting on historical events. History, according to Shestov, should be understood as what is dealt with personal relations between man and God. In this situation, man ought to constantly make a free moral choice, which is not determined by the reason. Thus, the Russian thinker demonstrates the approach to understanding history, which became widespread several decades later when philosophers had to take into consideration the tragic phenomena of totalitarian regimes and two world wars to conclude that any conception of rationalized history implies, on the one hand, the annihilation of man as a subject of history, and, on the other hand, the destruction of many thousands of human lives. It is the permanent moral choice that, according to Shestov, determines not only the fate of a man, but also the fate of the mankind, and even the fate of God. In Shestov’s philosophy, God is described as something incomprehensible for man rather than the almighty power that predestines all the events in the world history by means of endowing them with definite meanings. Shestov believed that man can become absolutely free only if he relies on God completely, without any rational justifications. The author shows that Shestov’s criticism of any methodology in historical research which aims at interpreting history in a rational way was an attempt to protect man and his freedom from the curse of rationalism. It is this protection that should be considered, in the author’s opinion, the core value of his existential philosophy of history.

Sublime y terror en Pierre Michon: la sacralidad ante la prueba de la duda

Glory and its other face, terror, are central to the entire oeuvre of Pierre Michon. In Les Onze the almighty power becomes full Terror when it pretends to embody revolutionary legitimacy in a painting. The alchemy of the sublime here becomes suspect, since the painter and the picture are fictitious. Has Spirit abandoned History? Michon examines the precise moment when faith is on the wane. Convinced that glory is impure, he revisits the landmarks, manifest in art, when we “left religion” (Marcel Gauchet), incarnated in art: medieval (Abbés); postromantic modernity (Rimbaud le fils); and finally postmodernity (La Grande Beune). In Les Onze we traverse the terror of History without losing its meaning because a form of primitive violence finally links this terror to a primeval process.

Sleep Phenomena from the Perspectives of Islam and Science

This article discusses the phenomenon of sleep, with emphasized to its importance, sleeping times, sleeping positions and even the etiquette of sleeping, from the views of Islam and Science. The Quran and Science are inseparable and the relationship between the two is highly balanced. Scientists have said that the phenomena of sleep is a miracle that deserves to be analysed and studied in depth, as it is a complex phenomena. Glory and Praise to be Allah Almighty has decreed in the Quran of the importance of sleep in the day and night, and that sleep is one of the signs of Allah’s Almighty power and is a miracle to be studied by each individual. Islam places great importance on taking care of one’s body and sleep is one need that has to be fulfilled. Scientists have stressed that sleep is needed to rest the brain, improve memory, and increase one’s energy. This shows that Islam places great importance on having productivity and alertness in each individual’s deed. Many scientific facts that had been clearly stated in a fundamental manner in the Quran could only be analysed with the advanced technology of the 20th century. These facts were not known when they were first revealed and are proof that the Quran is the book of Allah Almighty. The view of Islam on the sleep phenomenon is in line with and is according to the findings of contemporary scien

Big Data for Development: From Information - to Knowledge Societies

The article uses an established three-dimensional conceptual framework to systematically review literature and empirical evidence related to the prerequisites, opportunities, and threats of Big Data Analysis for international development. On the one hand, the advent of Big Data delivers the cost-effective prospect to improve decision-making in critical development areas such as health care, employment, economic productivity, crime and security, and natural disaster and resource management. This provides a wealth of opportunities for developing countries. On the other hand, all the well-known caveats of the Big Data debate, such as privacy concerns, interoperability challenges, and the almighty power of imperfect algorithms, are aggravated in developing countries by long-standing development challenges like lacking technological infrastructure and economic and human resource scarcity. This has the potential to result in a new kind of digital divide: a divide in data-based knowledge to inform intelligent decision-making. This shows that the exploration of data-based knowledge to improve development is not automatic and requires tailor-made policy choices that help to foster this emerging paradigm.

L'expérience paulinienne d'une identité en tension

This article about the tension undergone by Paul in his identity begins by stressing the complexity of the character by briefly recalling the three cultures to which he belonged. It goes on to examine the reversal of all his certitudes on the road to Damascus, at a moment when, in his elitist conception of a chosen people, his was an extreme view of an exclusive identity on the way to becoming a murderous one. He was then sent onto the path of God the creator whose grace in Jesus-Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is offered to all nations. Not a universal entity towering over the world, but one that challenged and reversed the values of the world, setting men on the path to dispossession. Through his identification with the Crucified Christ, Paul abandons the Greek logic of a God of order and thought, as well as the Jewish logic of a God of signs, miracles and almighty power. The liberated power that becomes his reference is that of agape.

Callaloo, Everyone?

Callaloo, Everyone? Marlon B. Ross (bio) I wish that I could remember the first time that I dipped into the pages of Callaloo. But I cannot. I remember seeing a reference to the name "callaloo" and pronouncing it aloud to myself as a graduate student, still encased by the parochialisms of the English lit. canon that had nursed my larger ignorance of the "written" literature of the African Diaspora. Discovering that the journal Callaloo had something to do with writing the black experience, and thus had something to do with my own experience, I was distractingly puzzled by the name itself. As someone who had barely traveled beyond the high barriers that constitute the borders of Texas, and having boarded frigates of books to take me lands away with only the most dutiful of hungers for standard texts, I had no idea what callaloo meant. Was callaloo the name for some crucial thing or experience in African American culture that I had somehow missed out on? Did it have something to do with voodoo, that sphere of the spiritual strictly forbidden in my staunch Baptist home, but seeping through the crevices from "superstitious" aunts and cousins who were said to dabble in it when Baptist prayers and shouts had failed? Voodoo. Callaloo. Possibly. On the one hand, not knowing what callaloo meant spawned in me a sort of anxiety, a prospective shame, that the measure of my professional knowledge might turn out to be the deficit of my cultural self-knowledge. On the other hand, the name callaloo re-ignited in me the sensuous pleasure of sounding words, the discipline of recitation, a belief in the almighty power of The Word fostered by years of nourishment in Sunday School, Summer Bible School, and an all-black elementary school. It was this curiosity about the spelling of words, the mysterious meanings of words, the hauntings of worlds in words, that had driven me into the rigidities of graduate school in English in the first place. The name set in motion a nest of imaginings. Was callaloo a songbird's call, like the whippoorwill, the cawing of the crow, or the mockery of the mocking bird? Was callaloo a chant? Was it an alarm? Was it an echo calling me home? Learning from the dictionary that callaloo is a type of food served in the West Indies was not much help. What was its taste? What did it smell like? How did it feel against the tongue? Smooth or grainy, bland or sharp, sweet or bitter, or bittersweet? What a comfort to discover recently that Charles Rowell was also unfamiliar with the word when it was first suggested to him by Lelia Taylor. "When she first uttered the word callaloo," he writes, "I was immediately attracted to its sound; and when I later came to its English spelling, I fell in love with the unique appearance it makes on a page. Without knowing all of its cultural and spiritual implications, I knew that I would make callaloo the name of the journal. Actually all I knew about the word for more than ten years was just what Lelia Taylor told me" (Introduction to Making Callaloo: 25 Years of Black Literature, [End Page 87] 1976–2000). Charles's intellectual instinct in naming a journal devoted to black southern writing with a word that would be unfamiliar to many black southerners was uncanny and propitious. Each time I taste from the pages of Callaloo, I get this same sense of disorientation that I experienced on first hearing the word. It tastes so familiar but looks so unfamiliar, both homey and estranging, both rooted and floating. Reading Callaloo often generates this identity disturbance, as though temporarily inhabiting an obscure crevice nestled within the skin of blackness, shielded from the screen of an all too intimate black identity. The journal balances and imbalances that small place between the region of identity's encrusted epidermis of racial assumptions and the unchartered layers of common experience binding Diasporan people of African descent to one another beyond the mastery of the enslaving past. For the journal Callaloo, the cultural historical affinity with an African and enslaved heritage is ironically...

Voorsienigheid, persoonlikheid en spiritualiteit - 'n vier-kantige voorsienigheidsleer

This article focuses on the problem of the doctrine of providence, namely that God's goodness and his almighty power are not understandable in the light of the pain and suffering in this world. It suggests that the different answers that theologians give to this problem are related to their personalities and their spirituality. With the help of the Myers-Briggs-Type-Indicator the article indicates how the four different human functions and the preferences people have for a specific function are related to the different answers to the problem of the doctrine of providence. The article also examines the preferences pointed out in the Gospels concerning the life of Jesus Christ. It is suggested that He functioned in all four preferences. Therefore the conclusion is drawn that we should look at the doctrine of providence through the eyes of all four human functional preferences in order to arrive at a four-sided doctrine of providence. Die vrae waaroor dit in die voorsienigheidsleer gaan, is van die heel moeilikstes waarmee 'n mens hom kan besig hou (Potgieter 1998:17). (Acta Theologica, Supplementum 3, 2002: 48-65)

Holocaust and theology

AbstractHolocaust Theology, first developed by Jewish scholars, has had a definite impact on the Christian attitude with regard to Judaism. It made Christianity aware of its Anti-Judaist thinking and acting in the past, one of the root causes of Anti-Semitism and one of the factors that led to the Holocaust in Nazi-Germany during World War II. Similar forms of industrial killing and genocide did happen, however, elsewhere in the world as well. Most important of all was the ' metamorphosis ' of the Christian concept of God: no longer did God's almighty power and benevolent will for his chosen people dominate the theological discourse, but God's compassion for those who suffer and and the Gospel of Peace and human rights. Mission to the Jews was gradually replaced by Christian-Jewish dialogue. Both in mission studies, ecumenism and intercultural theology, theologians seem to have received the fundamental truth of the early patristic saying: There is no violence in God. This makes a new alliance of theology with the humanities possible on the level of academia and enables a critical stand of theology against the political power play causing the actual clash of civilisations.

Reconsidering Absolute Omnipotence

Philosophical debate about the problem of evil derives, in part, from differing definitions of almighty power or omnipotence. Modern atheists such as John McTaggart, J. L. Mackie, Earl Condee, and Danny Goldstick maintain that an omnipotent God must be able to accomplish anything, even if it entails a contradiction. On this account, the Christian God cannot be omnipotent and benevolent, for a benevolent, omnipotent God would have forced free agents to desist from evil and this prevented the introduction of suffering into the world. It does not matter if the idea of creating free agents that were forced to be good entails a contradiction. On this account, a God who is truly omnipotent can perform contradictory feats.In this paper, I argue that the atheistic tradition is mistaken. In the first place, even an absolutely omnipotent God could, as an act of benevolence, create a world in which there is suffering. In the second place, I argue that the concept of absolute omnipotence is fatally flawed. An absolutely omnipotent God would lack, in a decisive sense, power. He would be weak rather than strong. So the atheist's argument fails when it is evaluated in light of a more rational account of omnipotence and when it is carefully considered on its own terms.

Contending with Conversion: Reflections on the Reformation of Lucius the Ass

ON THE BEACH AT Cenchreae the fugitive ass awakes from his night-time sleep aware of the all-encompassing presence around him of the supreme goddess. Sensing the chance to end once and for all the misfortunes that have plagued him since his catastrophic, metamorphosing experiment with magic, he purifies himself by bathing in the sea, then prays to the almighty power to restore him to human form. Asleep once more, he has a vision of the goddess emerging from the water. She identifies herself as Isis, and says that she has come in answer to his prayer. The goddess tells the ass that he will find the roses he needs to escape his asinine form the following day, her special day, in the hands of a priest who will be taking part in a ceremony to mark the end of winter when a boat will be ritually dedicated to the sea. Next morning, as the townspeople prepare for the holy day, the ass finds the procession of Isis' worshippers and eventually eats the garland of roses the priest offers him. At once he returns to his human shape, and the crowd of onlookers recognises the miracle Isis has performed in their midst. The ceremony of the ship duly takes place, the new Lucius now among the worshippers, so filled with enthusiasm for the goddess that he afterwards takes up residence in her temple. There he has more visions, and learns that he must be initiated into the goddess's mysteries. The priest advises him how to prepare for the great event, and when Isis has signalled the appropriate day the priest initiates Lucius before a group of fellow devotees. Soon after, Lucius returns to his home in Corinth, until once more at Isis' command he travels to Rome and there devotes himself to a life of worship in her temple in the Campus Martius. A year passes. More divine messages then bring the news that Lucius must also be initiated into the mysteries of Isis' consort Osiris, and indeed into Isis' mysteries a second time. The rituals are carried out, and finally Lucius becomes an acolyte in the cult of Osiris. It is at this point that the account of Lucius' marvellous adventures, recounted in book eleven of Apuleius' Metamorphoses, comes to a close.

Poetical Justice, The Contrivances of Providence, and the Works of William Congreve

Some years before the appearance of William Congreve's first work in 1693, the Rev. John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, delivered a sermon in which he urged the greatest wits of his age to put aside their conceit with that scoffing humour which is so easy, and so ill-natured, and is not only an enemy to religion, but to every thing else that is wise and worthy, and to undertake instead a nobler exercise for their tongues and pens. Wit, he said, is a keen instrument, and every one can cut and gash with it, but to carve a beautiful image and to polish it requires great art and dexterity. He proposed, therefore, a subject great enough to exercise the wit of men and angels ; he proposed that they praise that infinite goodness, and almighty power, and exquisite wisdom which made us and all things, that they vindicate the wise and just providence of God, in the government of the world, and that they endeavor to make out the beauty and harmony of all the seeming discords and irregularities of the divine administrations. 1 Whether or not Congreve ever regarded this particular exhortation by one of the greatest preachers of his age is unimportant to my argument (though I should note that Congreve's library did contain at least three separate editions of Tillotsons' sermons 2) . Nevertheless, the archbishop does provide me with fit terms for my argument, which is simply this: the plays of William

James Thomson and John Norris

In a previous article I showed that James Thomson's juvenile poem, “The Works and Wonders of Almighty Power,” was for the most part a paraphrase of certain passages in the Moralists, a philosophical rhapsody, by the Earl of Shaftesbury. Another one of Thomson's juvenile poems, “Upon Happiness,” contributed to The Edinburgh Miscellany in 1720, was inspired by a letter John Norris wrote at All-Souls College, April 18, 1683, entitled “An Idea of Happiness: Enquiring wherein the greatest Happiness Attainable by Man in this Life does consist.” In addition, Thomson was perhaps indebted to John Norris for some of the general treatment of theme found in his “Preface” to the second edition of Winter (1726).

The Source of James Thomson's "The Works and Wonders of Almighty Power"

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Source of James Thomson's "The Works and Wonders of Almighty Power"Herbert DrennonHerbert Drennon Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 32, Number 1Aug., 1934 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/388119 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.