 One perplexing issue before we encounter the models is the range of their connection to a lived religious tradition. The “religious models” purport to provide an understanding of reality as it is believed (or held by faith) to be in a particular tradition—as evidenced by their efforts to capture as much as they can of a tradition’s key texts, figures, practices, symbols etc.—while “philosophical models” do not do this. For example, the models of the Dao in  Section 2.3  seem to be religious models given the regular citations of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi and liturgical practices in explication and defense of the models. Some philosophical models include Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover or divine Nous (Physics Bk. VIII, Metaphysics Bk. XII), Plato’s Demiurge in the Timaeus (29–30) or Plotinus’ One in the Enneads. None of these modelers turn to traditional sources to explain or defend their views; indeed, it is not even clear what traditional sources would be germane. Perhaps there are intermediate “quasi-religio-philosophical models”, e.g., Spinoza 1677 or Hegel 1832, which have some salient connection with a religious tradition, either because of the model’s status as a revision of a traditional model or because they share some key features of ultimacy within a religious tradition.