本文旨在檢視與闡發知名漢學家David Pankenier如何透過「政治―宗教想像」模型，詮釋周朝初建時的「天命」。他主張周人談論天命是基於占星學與關聯性宇宙論，「政治―宗教想像」模型可說明在宏觀宇宙與微觀宇宙的關聯下，周初「天命」因何可以作為政治合法性的媒介，並展現出理性化宗教的演變。為了建構與支持此模型，Pankenier援以Mircea Eliade、Kenneth Burke與Peter Berger之論點。Burke對於宗教語言之類比使用的討論，顯示當現世領域之語言類比應用於超自然領域時，將發生永恆與現世領域間優先性逆轉的可能性。就天命而言，「命」原是被應用於現世領域之王命，當被應用於天命後，便發生優先性的逆轉，使得天象成為超自然神性意志的實現，並天命成為社會秩序的證成。為了闡發此模型，本文欲藉Kendall Walton的假想理論予以再詮釋。透過假想理論，我們可以更清楚語言使用的功能，以及天命何以展現出理性化宗教的演變。

This paper aims to examine and explore how David Pankenier, a prominent sinologist, interprets heaven’s mandate in the early Zhou by an account of “politico-religious imagination”. He argues that Zhou founders’ talk about heaven’s mandate is based on astrology and correlative cosmology, such that we can illustrate how, under the macrocosmos-microcosmos correspondence, heaven’s mandate could be a way of political legitimation and a representation of the development of rationalized religion. To establish and support this model, Pankenier invokes the accounts of Mircea Eliade, Kenneth Burke, and Peter Berger. Burke’s discussions of the analogical use of religious language demonstrate the possibility that a reversal in priority between the temporal and the eternal realms may occur when the language applied to the temporal realm is analogically applied to the supernatural being. In the case of heaven’s mandate, the word ming is first applied to rulers’ orders, but a sort of reversal in priority occurs when celestial phenomena become an actualization of the supernatural divine will, and heaven’s mandate becomes a justification for social order. This paper aims to explore this model and explicate it by invoking Kendall Walton’s theory of make-believe. I argue that by invoking the notion of make-believe, we can see more clearly both how the use of language functions and how “heaven’s mandate” manifests the development of rationalized religion.