Confucianism

From the point of view of soteriology, however, an exclusivist emphasis declares that outside of the Roman Catholic Church there is no other truth that brings salvation.

2.2 Confucianism

Confucian understanding and, thus, any commentary on the Christian doctrine of salvation, raises an issue of delicacy and requires careful specification. The term

“Confucianism” refers to the principles of ethics, morals and politics as codified by Confucius. However, the very same term, "Confucianism", means totally different things for different representatives of Confucianism. Each of the different schools of Confucianism, with their own doctrines, calls their tradition "Confucianism".

One of the important features of philosophy and religion, of course, is generally that they developed by adding new interpretations to the earlier forms of the existing philosophy or religion. This feature particularly applies to Chinese philosophy and religion, since “appreciating the ancient tradition” occupies a particularly important position in them. New interpreters always try to find support from the ancients rather than to proclaim that they have found any thing new, although their interpretations are totally new and are different from the ancient one. It is essential to make clear distinctions, therefore, among these different schools of Confucianism. Otherwise, the real Confucian ideas and opinions concerning the Christianity cannot be discovered. I explain in the following the different meanings of Confucianism.

Confucianism is a worldview, a social ethic, a political, and a scholarly tradition, and a way of life. Also, Confucianism is a historical phenomenon. The emergence of the Confucian tradition has close relationship with Confucius (551-479 BC), who considered himself a "transmitter" rather than a "creator" of culture. He consciously tried to reanimate the old to attain the new. The scholarly tradition envisioned by Confucius can be traced back to the sage-kings of the antiquity of the Shang 商 Dynasty (c. 1600-1100 BC) and the Zhou 周 Dynasty (1099-221 BC). This tradition is exemplified in the Five Classics (Wujing 五经), which are the first part of the Confucian primary scriptures. According to Hanfei Zi 韩非子 (d. 233 BC),

133 Cf., Gernet 1985, 212, and Sun 1994, 67-71.

2. The preconditions for the dialogue

shortly after Confucius' death his followers split into eight distinct schools, each of which claimed to be the legitimate heir to the Confucian legacy. However, later only the traditions of Mencius (Mengzi 孟子 390-305 BC) and of Xun Zi 荀子 (298-238 BC) have been transmitted. Over the past two thousand years the Mencian tradition has occupied a dominant position as the official heir of Confucianism. Xun Zi tradition has only played a secondary role.¹³⁴

Different scholars have divided Confucianism into different schools. The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci divided Confucianism into Ancient (authentic) Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism.135

Du Weiming 杜维明, the director of the Harvard Yenching-Institute, divided Confucianism into three epochs of the Confucian Way. In his view, Confucius was not the founder of Confucianism in the sense that Buddha was the founder of Buddhism and Christ was the founder of Christianity. As a major ethical and spiritual tradition, Confucianism emerged in ancient China originally as a tiny stream among several currents of thought. It gradually grew in strength to become the dominant intellectual force in the period of 550 to 200 BC. In the later history Confucianism has influenced Chinese very deeply. Confucius may have initiated a cultural process known in the West as Confucianism, but he and those who followed him considered themselves part of a tradition which had its origins two millennia previously when, legend has it, the sage-kings Yao and Shun formed a moral community by their exemplary teaching. Confucius' conception of politics as a moral persuasion became a defining characteristic of East Asian political culture. Moral self-cultivation is an inseparable dimension of political leadership. 136 According to Du, the Confucianism

134 Concerning Confucianism Du Weiming has made a detailed study, cf., Du 1995. Christian Confucian He Shiming has also made a series of studies, see He 1996 (1,2,3,4,5).

135 Ricci 1985, 57-98.

136 Du says, Confucianism is a way of life of East Asia. Confucianism was not an organized missionary tradition, but by the first century BC, it had spread to those East Asian countries under the influence of Chinese literate culture. Since the fifteenth century the age of Confucianism, in the centuries following the Confucian revival of Song dynasty (AD 960-1279), embraced Choson dynasty in Korea and the Late Le dynasty in Vietnam. And it has embraced Tokugawa Japan since the seventeenth century. Prior to the advent of the Western powers in East Asia in the mid-nineteenth century, the Confucian persuasion was dominant in East and Southeast Asia. The story of Confucianism does not begin with Confucius (551-479 BC). The Chinese term, rujia, which is inadequately rendered as Confucianism, literally means the "family of scholars", signifying a genealogy, a school, or a tradition of learning. See Du 1995, 146-154.

of Confucius and its development of Mencius and Xun Zi in the 3rd century BC are the first epoch of the Confucian Way. The development of Confucianism in the Song 宋, Ming 明 and Qing 清 dynasties since the 10th century, is called the second epoch of the Confucian Way.¹³⁷ The development after the Westerners’ arrival in the 20th century in China is the third epoch of the Confucian Way.138

Hall and Ames, two Western scholars, have described Du's division by another term, "waves", as follows: The first wave was Confucius as a man of Lu whose teaching spread throughout the central states to become the acknowledged state thinking in the Western Han. The second wave was the gradual spread of Confucian teachings to Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. The third wave is the imminent impact of Confucianism as it becomes a significant factor in the evolution of Western philosophy.139

It is important to make clear the form of Confucianism to which I refer in this study, since almost all the schools of Confucianism call themselves the authentic representative of Confucianism, although they forward different theories. Thus, in order to find out which Confucians have commented on the Christian doctrine of salvation and what particular Confucianism they have represented, I am going to divide Confucianism into five schools: Ancient Confucianism, the Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius, Neo-Confucianism, Cultural Nationalist Confucianism, and Modern Confucianism.

The notion of Ancient Confucianism refers mainly to the tradition prior to Confucius (551-479 BC). Matteo Ricci considered this as the authentic Confucianism. In that time Christianity was not born and, of course, had not yet had any encounter with China; but the Confucian tradition of those times has later become the basis of the Confucian responses to Christianity. This is the case no

137 This reemergence of Confucianism as the leading intellectual force involved both a creative response to the Buddhist and Daoist challenge and an imaginative reinterpretation of classical Confucian insights against the background of the Buddhist conquest of China and the Chinese transformation of Buddhism. Thus, when Confucians tried to learn Buddhism in order to protect Confucianism from the Buddhist challenge, the result was that these Confucians were deeply influenced by Buddhism (and Daoism); thus, the second epoch of Confucianism, which has been usually called Neo-Confucianism, became a mixture of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. See Du 1995, 167-183.

138 Du 1995, 214-218.

139 Hall & Ames 1987, 312.

2. The preconditions for the dialogue

matter whether they were Neo-Confucian followers, Cultural Nationalist Confucians, or Modern Confucians. The ancient tradition is mediated through the so-called Five Classics, which are texts, songs, and rituals of the ancient time. It is believed that the Five Classics were themselves constituted as such by Confucius.¹⁴⁰ The Five Classics represent the ancient tradition of the Legendary Three Kings and Five Emperors,141 which can also be observed in the Oracle Inscriptions.¹⁴² They have been considered as the primary source of Ancient Confucianism.143

The concept "the Confucianism of Confucius 孔子 and Mencius 孟子 " refers to the tradition of thinking, which was established by Confucius in the fifth century BC and developed by Mencius in the fourth century BC. The so-called “Four Books”

(Sishu 四 书) are usually considered as the primary scriptures of this school of Confucianism.144

It should be noted that Confucianism became a dominant thinking in China since Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (ca. 179-104 BC) in the Han 汉 Dynasty (206 BC - AD 8). Both the Five Classics and part of the Four Books were taken as its primary scriptures. But it was not until Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), that the Four Books were collected together. Zhu Xi's (and his fellows') interpretation of the Five Classics and especially of the Four Books have become an inseparable part of Confucian literature. However, the interpretations of Zhu Xi and others were usually referred to as the scriptures of "Neo-Confucianism".

No encounter between Christianity and Confucianism had yet occurred at that time. The attempt of Matteo Ricci in the 16^th-17^th centuries was the first academic attempt of Christianity to get in touch with the Neo-Confucians. Later, Cultural

140 It is said that Confucius edited Six Classics and employed them as textbooks to teach his disciples, but the Book of Music (Yuejing) has been lost; thus, only Five Classics remain in transmission.

However, the date and authenticity of each of these Five Classics are disputed issues.

141 The Five Emperors refer to five legendary rulers of antiquity. There are three different sets, two of which include Yao 尧 and Shun 舜. The Three Kings are King Yu 禹 (r. 2183-2175 BC?), King Tang 汤 (r. 1751-1739 BC?), and King Wen 文 (r. 1171-1122 BC), founders of the Xia 夏 (2183-1752 BC?), Shang 商 (1751-1112 BC), and Zhou 周 (1111-249 BC) dynasties, respectively. Chan 1963, 260, note 21.

142 The Oracle Inscriptions are one of the earliest archaeological discoveries in the Shang dynasty (1751-1112 BC), where Chinese characters have been used.

143 Appendix I: “The Five Classics”.

144 Appendix II: “The Four Books”.

Nationalist Confucians and Modern Confucians continued the dialogue with Christians. In the following section, I will analyze these three groups of Confucians, who have made responses concerning the Christian doctrine of salvation.

2.3 The Confucians who have mostly commented on the Christian doctrine of