Preface: "Focus is everything. Unless one approaches history with a question providing focus, he will wander in the marvelous halls of great museum of life" (Thomas Langan, Traditional and Authenticity in the Search for Ecumenical Wisdom, 1992, p. 208). This work entitled A Compact History of the Supernatural and Natural is a prolegomena or introduction to two other books, namely, Metaphysics of Theology of Energy and Epistemology of Theology of Energy. Divided into seven chapters as seen below, it is a concise description of how the relationship between the supernatural and the natural has been treated by some major thinkers in the history of Western philosophy. The Platonic supernatural thought of St. Gregory Palamas --- the St. Thomas Aquinas of Eastern Christianity --- is also included, as his mystical theology begins to have an impact on many Western naturalistic minds today.

1. Ultimate Reality and Meaning of Plato's Theory of Forms and the Problem of Universals concerning Postmodern Relativism (2001/ Grateful acknowledgments are due to the Institute of URAM, as well as Profs. Janine and Thomas Langan, Michael Vertin, Joseph Bracken, Helen Andretta, and Alexander Berezin, etc.)

2. St. Augustine's Platonic-Aristotelian Christian God as the All-Present Being Itself: URAM for the Modern or Postmodern Generation (April 19, 2002/ Grateful acknowledgments are due to Profs. Janine and Thomas Langan, as well as Prof. Michael Lapierre, S.J. and Prof. Leonard Kennedy, C.S.B.)

3. Significance and Possibility of Presenting the Metaphysics of Being of St. Thomas Aquinas as a Theory of Everything (February 19, 2002/ Grateful acknowledgments are due to Profs. Janine and Thomas Langan, as well as Prof. Leonard Kennedy, C.S.B.) [While the so-called grand theory in physics is a unified theory of everything which pertains only to the physical or material dimension, St. Thomas's metaphysics of being is really a unified theory of everything, spiritually, humanly and materially. It needs to be re-discovered.]

4. St. Gregory Palamas's Distinction between God's Essence and Energy (1998/ Grateful acknowledgments are due to the Institute of URAM. This article was published in 1998, in the March issue of the URAM journal)

5. Awakening from the Kantian anti-Supernatural Slumbers (2001/ Grateful acknowledgments are due to Profs. Thomas and Janine Langan, Prof. Michael Lapierre, S.J. and Prof. Terence Fay, S.J., Prof. Guy Trudel, C.S.B., and Prof. John McRae, Anne Rooney, and Tony Ercolani. For further information, click here).

6. An Emerging Metaphysical Macroparadigm Shift from Being to Energy-Being (1999/ Grateful acknowledgments are due to the Institute of URAM, in particular to Prof. John Perry, S.J., and Prof. Kevin Sharpe. This article is now published in a special URAM issue dedicated exclusively to Studies on Energy , i.e., URAM vol. 25, no. 4, December 2002.)

7. Concluding Review (April 19, 2002/ Grateful Acknowledgments are due to Profs. Janine and Thomas Langan, and Prof. Michael Lapierre, S.J.)

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Update: April 21, 2004/ The Department of Religious Studies, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, has published Awakening from the Kantian anti-Supernatural Slumbers in its biannual Fu Jen Religious Studies, no. 8 (2003.12). Praise God! Grateful acknowledgments are due to Prof. Joseph Chan and his staff.