Abstract
Ancient Greek humanism emerged at a time of intense questioning of religious beliefs, producing Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. So did Chinese humanism, with its many voices belonging to outstanding individuals. But tradition speaks more of schools of thought than of the individuals as such. These grappled with problems which also preoccupied religious thinkers in the West, problems like: ‘Why are we in this world, and what is the meaning of life?’ In this context, we can discern in the schools of Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism, three distinct vantage points: what I call the moralist, the naturalist, and the political positions.
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Notes
Burton Watson, trans., Mo Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 125.
Wolfgang Bauer, China and the Search for Happiness, translated by Michael Shaw (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), p. 30.
Chuang Tzu, ch. 33. See Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 365–66.
Burton Watson, trans., Hsiin Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 85.
Taken from Gregory’s On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, quoted in Paulos Mar Gregorios, Cosmic Man: The Divine Presence: The Theology of St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330–395 A.D.) (New York: Paragon, 1988), 13.
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961–63), vol. 2, p. 42.
Martin Buber, ‘China and Us’ (1928), in A Believing Humanism: My Testament (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967), p. 189.
Paulos Mar Gregorios, Cosmic Man: The Divine Presence: The Theology of St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330–395 A.D.) (New York: Paragon, 1988), chs 6–8.
See also Julia Ching, ‘The Mirror Symbol Revisited: Confucian and Taoist Mysticism’, in Steven T. Katz, ed., Mysticism and Religious Traditions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 154, 233–34.
Consult Johann Auer’s contribution to the article on grace in Sacramentum Mundi, ed. by Karl Rahner et al. (New York: Herder & Herder, 1968), 412–14; see also Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel, Etudes historiques (1946).
Robert N. Bellah and Philip E. Hammond, Varieties of Civil Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980).
Burton Watson, trans., Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), pp. 17–18.
Julia Ching, Probing China’s Soul: Religion, Politics, and Protest in the People’s Republic (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), pp. 92–94.
Léon Vandermeersch, Le Nouveau monde sinisé (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1986), especially pp. 204–16.
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© 1993 Julia Ching
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Ching, J. (1993). Love or the Law: Confucianism and its Rivals: Mohism and Legalism. In: Chinese Religions. Themes in Comparative Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22904-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22904-8_5
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