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Elliptical Model and Ultimate Concern: A Reconstruction in Philosophy of Religion



Author(s)

Jianhua Wu

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2026.10.009

Xunyang Taiji City Institute of Philosophical Innovation, China

Contemporary philosophy of religion is largely governed by a propositionalist framework that interprets faith as assent to propositional claims, reducing epistemological inquiry to questions of evidential support. This paper argues that such a framework conceals the structural dimension of faith: faith is not primarily directed toward an intentional object but embedded within existential-defining structural conditions. This article develops an elliptical geometric model as a formal language for analyzing Paul Tillich’s notion of “ultimate concern.” Four geometric components of an ellipse—two foci, the moving point, invariant 2a, and eccentricity e—map onto four structural features of ultimate concern: the unconditional, concrete human existence, constitutive constraint, and existential tension. The model is defended as structural isomorphism rather than rhetorical metaphor. Based on this formal framework, the concept of “structural cognition” is articulated to forge a middle position between evidentialism and Reformed epistemology. Furthermore, this paper introduces “elliptical dissolution” within philosophy of death, which resolves three persistent puzzles for the deprivation account: the no-subject problem, the timing problem, and the symmetry problem between prenatal and post-mortem non-existence. Limitations and future research directions of the elliptical formal model are clarified.

ultimate concern, epistemology of faith, philosophy of death, religious pluralism, structural cognition