Confucius and Christ: Chinese Philosophy and Christianity in Dialogue

NewTestamentChristian said:

A hobby of mine since the age of fourteen has been reading philosophy and in college, majoring in history and minoring in philosophy, I became very interested in existentialism (Kierkegaard all the way; I found Sartre unbelievably boring and dry). I ended up taking a course in Chinese philosophy and was blown away by the parallels in western thought. Many Christians think of eastern philosophy as some weird, New Age stuff but I disagree. If anything the Chinese in particular knew the Biblical God, called Shangdi, “the Lord on High,” and Tian, “Heaven.” There is much that Confucius, Mencius, Mo Tzu, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and others would say to Christ. I am inclined to think that people like these are Virtuous Pagans. Perhaps they can even be called Unknowing Christians, as St. Justin Martyr points out that anyone who teaches a philosophy that has the logos embedded in it is a Christian without knowing it (and St. Augustine points out that there were Christians before Christ sticking with St. Justin Martyr’s point). When we look at China today there has been a great technological upscale but a complete moral collapse. Yes, in the early 20th century China was an extremely rural country, but there was at least a concrete system of morals outlined thanks to books like The Analects, The Mencius, and The Book of the Way and it’s Virtue. Christianity showed up in China as early as the 6th century and prior to that Buddhism showed up in China around the 1st or 2nd centuries I think. That being said to help integrate Christianity into China, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism were used as a lens to understand the message of the Gospel. Centuries later Fr. Matteo Ricci would translate some of the Confucian texts into Latin, write an apologetical work arguing that Christianity and Confucianism are complimentary (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), and a moral treatise that became quite popular China (The Book of the Twenty-Five Paragraphs). Ultimately the Chinese philosophers stressed the idea of Dao or “the Way” (this is similar to logos), the concept of ren (literally “human-heartedness;” this is strikingly similar to agape), Tian as a moral force in the world, and the example of both the sage and the junzi (“superior man”). The texts required for the course were A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Fung Youlan and A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-tsit Chan; I highly recommend both.

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NewTestamentChristian said:

Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, writes about a Holy Spirit being in all of us. I see your point, but you accused me once before of trying to merge Christianity with Buddhism while I was simply suggesting it as a lens. Certainly you must see where I am coming from.

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NewTestamentChristian said:

Don’t you think that if Christ is the word of God made flesh then other cultures in the world would get just a slight glimpse of Him before His coming? And you say “See Him for who He is” and ask me to avoid a lens. There was no Bible before 397 AD. The Nicene Creed came around in 325 as an attempt to stop heretical thinking. All we had were early testimonies about Jesus (the Pauline Epistles, the canonical gospels, other gospels that ware non-canonical) and the Old Testament in Greek. This being said, how could we really know who Jesus is during this period? Arianism was popular during this time as were Marcionism and Gnosticism. These give false testimonies of Jesus. When the Church Fathers began to develop the canon and discuss the theology of what would become the Bible, they were using Greek philosophy as a lens to argue for certain positions and used it to defend against heresy. The doctrine of the Trinity is pulled from Platonism but formatted to define a God that is truly active in the world.

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FireDragon76 said:

Huston Smith is worth checking out. He grew up in China, the son of Methodist missionaries, and wase raised in a Confucian culture. He also studied Hinduism and Zen Buddhism, and was an adovcate of what is called perennialism- the proposition that all religions are rooted in the same primordial experiences, and therefore tend to share common features. He was a popular writer at one time on the subject of what was then called 'comparative religions'.

More recently, David Bentley Hart has been a leading Christian voice in this perspective. He's an eastern theologian and philosopher that has been involved in interreligious dialogue.

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NewTestamentChristian said:

A hobby of mine since the age of fourteen has been reading philosophy and in college, majoring in history and minoring in philosophy, I became very interested in existentialism (Kierkegaard all the way; I found Sartre unbelievably boring and dry). I ended up taking a course in Chinese philosophy and was blown away by the parallels in western thought. Many Christians think of eastern philosophy as some weird, New Age stuff but I disagree. If anything the Chinese in particular knew the Biblical God, called Shangdi, “the Lord on High,” and Tian, “Heaven.” There is much that Confucius, Mencius, Mo Tzu, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and others would say to Christ. I am inclined to think that people like these are Virtuous Pagans. Perhaps they can even be called Unknowing Christians, as St. Justin Martyr points out that anyone who teaches a philosophy that has the logos embedded in it is a Christian without knowing it (and St. Augustine points out that there were Christians before Christ sticking with St. Justin Martyr’s point). When we look at China today there has been a great technological upscale but a complete moral collapse. Yes, in the early 20th century China was an extremely rural country, but there was at least a concrete system of morals outlined thanks to books like The Analects, The Mencius, and The Book of the Way and it’s Virtue. Christianity showed up in China as early as the 6th century and prior to that Buddhism showed up in China around the 1st or 2nd centuries I think. That being said to help integrate Christianity into China, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism were used as a lens to understand the message of the Gospel. Centuries later Fr. Matteo Ricci would translate some of the Confucian texts into Latin, write an apologetical work arguing that Christianity and Confucianism are complimentary (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), and a moral treatise that became quite popular China (The Book of the Twenty-Five Paragraphs). Ultimately the Chinese philosophers stressed the idea of Dao or “the Way” (this is similar to logos), the concept of ren (literally “human-heartedness;” this is strikingly similar to agape), Tian as a moral force in the world, and the example of both the sage and the junzi (“superior man”). The texts required for the course were A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Fung Youlan and A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-tsit Chan; I highly recommend both.

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David Lamb said:

I've not heard of Hutson Smith. Hudson Taylor is the one I always think of when I think of missionary work in China.

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David Lamb said:

Hudson Taylor is the one I always think of when I think of missionary work in China.

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NewTestamentChristian said:

Many Christians think of eastern philosophy as some weird, New Age stuff but I disagree.

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Akita Suggagaki said:

Since the beginning of humanity there has been a search for meaning and purpose.

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NewTestamentChristian said:

A hobby of mine since the age of fourteen has been reading philosophy and in college, majoring in history and minoring in philosophy, I became very interested in existentialism (Kierkegaard all the way; I found Sartre unbelievably boring and dry). I ended up taking a course in Chinese philosophy and was blown away by the parallels in western thought. Many Christians think of eastern philosophy as some weird, New Age stuff but I disagree. If anything the Chinese in particular knew the Biblical God, called Shangdi, “the Lord on High,” and Tian, “Heaven.” There is much that Confucius, Mencius, Mo Tzu, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and others would say to Christ. I am inclined to think that people like these are Virtuous Pagans. Perhaps they can even be called Unknowing Christians, as St. Justin Martyr points out that anyone who teaches a philosophy that has the logos embedded in it is a Christian without knowing it (and St. Augustine points out that there were Christians before Christ sticking with St. Justin Martyr’s point). When we look at China today there has been a great technological upscale but a complete moral collapse. Yes, in the early 20th century China was an extremely rural country, but there was at least a concrete system of morals outlined thanks to books like The Analects, The Mencius, and The Book of the Way and it’s Virtue. Christianity showed up in China as early as the 6th century and prior to that Buddhism showed up in China around the 1st or 2nd centuries I think. That being said to help integrate Christianity into China, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism were used as a lens to understand the message of the Gospel. Centuries later Fr. Matteo Ricci would translate some of the Confucian texts into Latin, write an apologetical work arguing that Christianity and Confucianism are complimentary (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), and a moral treatise that became quite popular China (The Book of the Twenty-Five Paragraphs). Ultimately the Chinese philosophers stressed the idea of Dao or “the Way” (this is similar to logos), the concept of ren (literally “human-heartedness;” this is strikingly similar to agape), Tian as a moral force in the world, and the example of both the sage and the junzi (“superior man”). The texts required for the course were A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Fung Youlan and A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-tsit Chan; I highly recommend both.

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fhansen said:

I've found great insights in my limited studies of eastern thought and philosophy. Man is created to seek and find truth, and he's bound to find aspects of it, having the image of God imprinted within both as a likeness to himself and as a higher goal to be further sought. Christ brings it full circle, with full and complete revelation, of who God is, and of His will for man. Augustine once said that, "All truth is God's truth", and I think we should acknowledge and applaud it wherever we find it.

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Akita Suggagaki said:

Can we find meaning, purpose and truth rationally all on our won? Some say yes.

Or do we need divine help, revelation also? Some say yes.

I think the we need divine assistance to open our eyes to what is right in front of us.
But I also think that God provides that assistance in and through different religions and philosophies.

That is not to say they are all right or equal.

We need to discern our way through them.

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fhansen said:

Having come to know Christ, I pretty much had to put all the rest aside; there just wasn't much point in it. But that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the goodness in man's search for truth in a variety of ways, including Western philosophy as well, or see those as a stepping stone or support system for myself individually and for humankind down through time.

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