Unconditional Positive Regard
Unconditional positive regard is a technique used by Carl Roger in his client-centered therapy. Positive regard involves receiving things such as love, warmth, and acceptance from the important people in a child’s life. According to Roger, we all have a basic need for positive regard in our childhood. Those who receive unconditional positive regard-full and warm acceptance of people for who they truly are-early in life are more likely to actualize their positive potential. However, some children receive positive regard only when they act in certain way. They acquire conditions of worth-they must act and think in line with the values of the important people in their lives to receive positive regard. Thus, these children may distort actions and thoughts that do not meet their conditions of worth. They live their lives according to other’s values and do not know their own true feelings and who they truly are.
I want to put unconditional positive regard under the category of redemption. Giving unconditional positive regard is very difficult. We will more or less set up our own standards to judge if someone is lovable and acceptable. But I believe we all receive unconditional positive regard from God-his grace. God’s unconditioned love is not blind. He knows very much about people he loves-their weakness and sins, but fully accepts them and never asks anything in return. There is nothing we can do to win his love. His giving of love is without any preconditions. As in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.
Mengyuan Tang on Human Studies
7:23 pm, 10.21.13
I like the way you relate Human Studies to Redemption. I agree with you that Human Studies enable us to better understand ourselves, and as a result many thoughts and behaviors can be explained or even effectively treated. Although phrenology is considered as a pseudoscience, it is true that it helped people seek truth about themselves. It established the basis of physiological psychology.
Mengyuan Tang on Physiology and Redemption
4:41 pm, 10.21.13
I like the way you relate physiology to the category of redemption. Our mental life is an interaction of biological and non-biological factors. Physiology provides valuable biological information to explain human behaviors and biological treatments often have desirable effect when other methods have failed.
Mengyuan Tang on Born free
8:38 pm, 10.07.13
I also love Rousseau’s idea about education. From his point of view, the best way of teaching is to return to nature and let children be free to follow their own curiosities. The tutor should be responsive to each one’s particular interests. This reminds me of a famous Chinese philosopher Confucius. One of his well-known educational principles is “education in accordance with individual difference,” which is similar to that of Rousseau.
Mengyuan Tang on Hume and The Fall
7:01 pm, 10.07.13
I agree with you that Hume’s theory on knowledge can be put under the category of Fall. He believed that everything we knew was learned from experience, but he also claimed that we could never really know anything because all we ever experience was thought or habits of thought. Hume would consider the subjective experience about knowing God as simple ideas based on our own mind. Hume maybe would not argue that it wasn’t real, but it was unknown. But as Christians, lacking faith of God means being alienated from God, which does match the Fall.
Mengyuan Tang on Rousseau and the ongoing creation
5:28 pm, 10.07.13
I like the way you related Rousseau’s view of human nature to the category of Creation. I think his belief that humans are born good can be understood as the nature of human nature. Although we are sinful because of the fall in the Garden of Eden and being contaminated by society, from very beginning, people were made “in the image of God” whose essence should be innocent and close to God.
Mengyuan Tang on The "Jewish Plato"
12:13 am, 09.24.13
I think it is true that knowledge and wisdom come from God and He wants to impart knowledge to us. Bible is the most important way to gain knowledge directly from God. There may be other ways we can also gain knowledge from God, but indirectly.
Mengyuan Tang on
11:54 pm, 09.23.13
I like your post discussing the Averroes’s idea that all human experiences reflect God’s influence. In line with Creation, God’s influence in everything-he created the world and man and with Restoration, his influence is definitely shown through salvation.
Mengyuan Tang on David Hume and The Fall
11:00 pm, 09.23.13
I like how you relate Hume’s moral philosophy to the category of fall. I believe the science of human nature help people get to know about their fallen state and gain knowledge of good and bad, which as a result may ameliorate the consequence of the fall.
Mengyuan Tang on Plato's Allegory and Redemption
6:24 pm, 09.09.13
I like your thoughts about comparing Plato’s Allegory to the Redemption. I have the same feeling that we are all like the prisoners in the cave. People do not believe in God are the chained prisoners, they believe in the creations rather than the true Creator. Christians are the freed prisoners, they are out of the cave and free to live a life in Christ. Christians try to help free others in the cave from the chain of ignorance and sin, but it is not an easy thing.
Mengyuan Tang on The Golden Mean
5:57 pm, 09.09.13
The idea of the Golden Mean from Aristotle is also intriguing to me. It reminded me of a famous philosopher in my country, Confucius who lived about the same as Aristotle. He had a similar idea about the Golden Mean, called Doctrine of the Mean. With Aristotle, the golden mean or virtue is in the middle and far from tow extremes. Those are great thoughts that you relate the Golden Mean to the category of Redemption and Creation. I think it may also fit into the category of Fall. It is difficult to be at balance. People may easily go to one extreme of lack or the other extreme of excess, which are the opposite of virtue and good.