Abstract
This chapter examines a cultural renewal that focuses on traditional communities with their particular life worlds, norms, and rituals. This essay acknowledges the legitimacy of the quest for a universal impact of cultural renewal. But this quest for universality, so this essay argues, does not have to be construed in terms of claims to compelling rational arguments. It can instead be construed in terms of an invitation. As invitation, it must offer what is universally acknowledged as desirable. In the context of our investigation into the possibility of cultural renewal, we can proceed under the assumption that it is precisely that encompassing meaning for people’s personal life along with that of their surroundings which may serve as an initial (and so far not further specified) placeholder for what is thus universally desirable. This essay explores those traditional Christians and traditional Confucians who, precisely by endorsing paternal authority, filial piety, and an ethos of self-submission, attend to those very personalising frameworks which the dominant social democratic mainstream discounts. Such traditional Christianity and Confucianism seek universal recognition not primarily through discursive appeals to values or norms. Instead, they promote the universal appeal of their particular cultures through a revived awareness of the significance of rituals.
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- 1.
The concept of civilization engaged here merges the Hegelian notion of a “civil society” (as a general bureaucratic and legal framework sustaining various and diverse particular cultural communities) with the difference which Tönnies has established (in 1887) between the German notions of “Gemeinschaft” and “Gesellschaft” (2005). This concept moreover places both components in a liberal, i.e. pluralist and democratic setting (i.e. a setting that exposes members to political change and variety of normative options).
- 2.
The concept of modernity engaged here takes its inspiration from both the turn to immanence (Himmelfarb, 2004) and from Vattimo’s 1985 endorsement of post-modernity, i.e. his diagnosis of how Nietzsche destroyed the Enlightenment’s commitment to reason, replacing it by merely subjective valuing and by the will to power (Vattimo, 2005). That is, from the position of post-modernity, modernity surfaces as faith in a linear progress that is oriented toward rational goals and principles. Or, modernity becomes tantamount to the “Enlightenment project” itself as described by Rawls (1993, xviii).
- 3.
This pursuit can be seen as the attempt to frame politically constituted (and in the sense introduced above “civilized” societies) in terms of (meta-) communities. This pursuit thus reflects accounts of modern civilization such as the one offered (in 1893) by Durkheim, who conceives of the transition of pre-modern to modern societies in terms of a replacement of “mechanical” by “organic” solidarity, i.e. by some over-arching commitment to social values that frame the ethos of a civil society (Durkheim, 1997).
- 4.
Christianity, in spite of its particular authorizing narratives, grounds its claim to universality in Christ’s calling His disciples to teach and baptize “the world” (Mt. 28:19). Evidence for the fact that at least some Confucians endorse claims to universality for their ritual culture is provided by all the Confucian authors in this volume. Thus Fan argues that without rituals, concerning which Confucianism gives the most encompassing account, no virtue can be acquired (p. 151), Wang grounds Confucianism in a cosmic order (cf. note 18), Ping-cheung Lo takes up the generalising concept of a “Confucianism for America” (pp. 138 f), Zhang uses his phenomenological analysis of the time consciousness underlying parental and filial love, which in turn inform the most important (i.e. familial) rituals, as evidence for Confucianism’s superior ability to understand humanity, and Daniel A. Bell points to the universalizing claims in Xunzi (p. 196).
- 5.
When using “moralising” in a derogatory sense (as implying a trivialisation), I refer to a narrow concept of morality as a good in itself, which should therefore never be subordinated to anything else. On such a view (as exemplified by Immanuel Kant), morality is conceived as exhaustively accessible to human cognition and therefore (in particular) occupies a purely immanent space. While indeed religions often have moral implications, these may (as indeed in Christianity they do) remain conditional on more basic goals. (A thorough discussion of this difference can be found in Engelhardt, 2007).
- 6.
The term “Western” is not used in a geographical but in a cultural sense. It refers to that Christendom which grew out of the Western part of the Roman Empire, and which is defined by an either affirmative (in the case of Roman Catholicism) or critical (in the case of the various Protestantisms) relationship to the Vatican. These Christianities are to be distinguished from Orthodoxy which grew out of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire (even though, today, it enjoys its largest growth in the geographical West, i.e. in the United States).
- 7.
On a superficial reading, Confucianism thus appears quite compatible with the commitments of an “enlightened” modernity. Only if one looks very carefully at the way in which Confucians apply such concepts (i.e. extend “morality” to piety in view of deceased ancestors, affirm continued family lines, endorse collective experiences, cf. Wang pp. 101 f) does the proprium of their very different approach become visible. Similarly, when Fan treats the concept of “Confucian virtue” by opposing it to MacIntyre’s account, he carefully points out the different sense of that concept by linking it with Confucian rituals (pp. 146 ff, 151). The same difficulty is very carefully addressed in view of the meaning of “moral principles”, which Fan in the end distinguishes from Western “moral principles” by defining them in terms of what orients and limits rituals (p. 156).
- 8.
While the Christian invitation rests on Christ’s unconditional command to teach and baptise all nations (Mt. 28:18–20), Confucianism is less unambiguously explicit on this point. Some evidence however supports the view that Confucianism as well was a “robust” cluster of traditions in the past (cf. Han Yü’s “On the origin of the ‘Way’” or Chu His’s work, as quoted by Bauer, 1974, p. 286), and remains so until today, as Julia Ching suggests (1993, p. 1), when she invokes Confucians’ claims to “both uniqueness and even superiority”.
- 9.
This omnipresence has been described by Iltis and Solomon in this volume. See also Dücker (2007).
- 10.
That such needs can also accommodate a pointed opposition against modernity can be gleaned from the way in which family rituals are celebrated in literary works such as Adalbert Stifter’s 1857 Nachsommer (2008).
- 11.
To associate an Enlightenment thinker like David Hume with today’s concept of modernity might at first sight seem incongruous, because he himself considered his naturalism and respect for established societal customs more akin to political conservatism. In comparison to Kant-inspired modernists, Humeans seem not committed to human progress. Nevertheless 18th century naturalism is part of the project of modernity through its hostility to ritual traditions, and through the implications of its having re-construed the conditions for human flourishing in terms of empirically ascertainable pleasurable sensations. This naturalism thus became a basis for certain kinds of utilitarianism, which in turn lent themselves to “modern” projects for promoting progress in view of enhanced human well-being.
- 12.
In post-modern accounts, the concept of “culture” has a wide application. It encompasses not only relatively stable traditional systems of beliefs and habits, but also whatever ritual-enriched orientations people may adopt at certain times or in certain contexts.
- 13.
It is worth noting that there are also non-moralizing ways of trivializing ritual. Moses Mendelsohn (1729–1786) for example reduces their function to the communication of “ideas” about God (1983, 118 f). Since his own view of theology goes beyond such fixed ideas and allows to form “conjectures” and “draw conclusions,” he (already in 1783, when his Jerusalem first appeared) argues for leaving rituals altogether behind. Since the informative function of rituals is conceived not in terms of morality but (in an immediate sense) concerns “public and private felicity” (op.cit. p. 128), Mendelsohn in the end considers the particular rituals of the Jewish religion superfluous (op.cit. p. 139).
- 14.
The problem with such frameworks is that they rest on the assumption of a “universal reason of mankind” authorising the framework’s norms. The extent to which the existence of such rationally accessible norms is an illusion which vanishes as soon as these norms are applied to particular conflicts has been extensively discussed by Engelhardt (2000, 28 ff) The multiplicity of cultures thus corresponds to a multiplicity of moral rationalities. It is revealing, as Engelhardt observes, that more blood has been shed over the question whether the individual bourgeois or the workers’ class is the only true subject of humans’ moral progress than over – for example – religious differences.
- 15.
Here one might especially think of the affirmation of human dignity and therefore of human freedom, along with extensive political and claim rights in excess of what Kant himself would have endorsed, as advocated by prominent thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls.
- 16.
Affirmation of such a world-ethos can be found even in the Christian – Confucian dialogue, as pursued by Hans Küng (Küng and Ching, 1988, 140 f, 302 ff).
- 17.
In the present volume, Bell’s essay (Chapter 11) can be taken as representative of this position. Even though he defends rituals against their Western enemies, he engages them merely as support for his utilitarian concern with inducing the powerful and social elite to assume responsibility for the weak and vulnerable. Ritual is thus deprived of its independent orienting, and reduced to its educational function.
- 18.
An instructive example for a Confucian regard for various ways in which “transcendence” is relevant for ritual is provided by Wang’s references to the cosmos and god (p. 90), ultimate reality (p. 92), transcendent meanings (p. 98), a sacred and mystic world (p. 99) and mystery and sacredness (p. 101), by Zhang’s reference to the principles of Heaven and Earth (p. 109), as well as by Lo’s insistence on the religious dimension of Confucianism (pp. 127, 129, 133), along with his regard for the spirit of Confucius, prayer, the gods, and the principle of heaven (p. 126).
Without such roots, rituals’ orienting function remains limited to those who happen to share the underlying value commitments. Thus in Bell’s account, the utilitarian value of ritual is described with a view to a society with fixed social classes. Such a view might be persuasive to Japanese and old fashioned Britains, not however to societies that prize social mobility and change, like the US. This lack of universal appeal is honestly acknowledged when Bell observes that even the terms required for presenting a ritual culture find no adequate Western counterpart (p. 191). Bell recommends rituals’ usefulness in terms of their offering a tradeoff between economic and social inequality in the sense that ritual cultures are easier reconciled to those economically redistributive policies which he takes to be universally desirable. Still, his intellectual integrity forces him to recognize that the economic equality he prefers profoundly differs from the social equality endorsed in modern (in the sense of change-friendly) societies (pp. 191 f).
- 19.
Cf. Bell’s government agency for ritual design (pp.188 ff) and in the West the new profession of a “ritual advisor” (Welt der Frau, 2009).
- 20.
Thus Protestants, after having exorcised much of Christianity’s traditional ritual life, are discovering today that they have lost their hold on believers’ heart, and are trying to re-ritualise their religious practice (cf. Epd, 2009). Thus Roman Catholics, after having sacrificed much of their still viable ritual life to the demand for change at Vatican II, are discovering that they have disoriented their members’ piety, and are trying to recapture what they abandoned (see for example Benedict XVI’s renewed emphasis on the traditional Latin mass, 2007). And similarly modern Confucians, or the modern variety of “Neo-Confucians” (Wang, p. 94, Fan, p. 157, Lo, p. 137 [where they disagree with the historical Neo-Confucians], along with their Western sympathizers, such as Bell in this volume), discovering that their own version of Enlightenment has impoverished what Chinese understood as their cultural identity, try to harmonise the Confucian rituals of the past with the moral goals that frame their present (Westernized) understanding of a global order. But here as well, changing moral fashions require ritual re-configuration. It is no longer the ritual that orients the Chinese but the Chinese who re-design their rituals.
- 21.
Cf. Xunzi, as quoted by Bell, p. 176, in this volume.
- 22.
And again, the authority of such persons must be based on their envisaging an orientation which maintains stability over and against social change, so that they, in taking their bearings for ritual adjustment, are enabled to assess the relevance of different aspects of the change to which they adjust.
- 23.
An especially impressive example of such cosmic orientation is provided by Chang Tsai’s so-called “Western inscription” (as quoted by Bauer, 1974, p. 293).
- 24.
As long as Confucian rituals are engaged because it is more efficient to teach people to regulate their behaviour internally, through a sense of shame, than to bridle them through external sanctions (cf. Lun Yü, as quoted by Bauer, op.cit. p. 41), ritual is still instrumentalized for independently conceived moral purposes. Such an understanding is insufficient for a robustly traditional Confucianism in the sense proposed in this essay.
- 25.
Ruiping Fan’s concept of an “internal” goal captures the point of the story about Confucius who, when asked about ren (humanity, or loving humans) answered by “doing the rituals”. Or, as Wang also put it: “Li is not just sensible, external and prescribed act, but the real bearer and embodiment of the spirit of ren” (p. 90) and “Morality and ren is impossible without ritual”. Somewhat like the way in which Confucian filial love is defined by the ritual governing children’s’ comportment vis à vis their parents, and can be achieved only through perfection in that ritual, is Christian love defined by what can be achieved – as a rule – only in the course of a life that is oriented by the ritual of the Church. It is precisely this link between human accomplishment and ritual, in which Orthodox Christians discover Confucianism as of kindred spirit.
- 26.
See especially his posthumously published Dialogues concerning natural religion (1779).
- 27.
That is to say: All those who reject the notion of transcendence altogether will also be opposed to rituals in the strong, orienting sense of the term.
- 28.
Such overcoming is achieved either, for Kant, by morally subjecting the inclinations rooted in humans’ animal nature or, for Hume, by sceptically discounting one’s own instinctively unavoidable beliefs.
- 29.
Such respect can be offered in terms of abstaining from interference, but also in terms of providing goods and services which are indispensable for successful self determination in a world of scarce resources and limited opportunities. Depending on which option is chosen, the corresponding political framework will engage either a less or a more invasive (i.e. income-redistributing) state. In the present context, these important political ramifications must however be left aside.
- 30.
As Zhang’s critique of Heidegger (p. 108) makes clear, it is the prejudice that time experiences are authentic only if they concern the individual by himself (and especially each individual’s prospect of his own death) which is responsible for Existentialists’ inability to appreciate the embodied, and thus relational character of humanity, which underlies the significance of rituals.
- 31.
See e.g. Wang’s reference to Rousseau, p. 93, and David Solomon, pp. 169 f.
- 32.
For another prominent example, consider Sören Kierkegaard’s 1855 criticism of “official Christianity” in 1972, 117 ff.
- 33.
The liberal tolerance for families presupposes, of course, that the definition of “family” has been rendered contingent upon changing societal commitments. Governmental policies seeking to implement the – for example – German constitution’s confessed commitment to protecting the family are thus re-framed so as to either focus on the presence of children, or on an odd mixture of sexual bonding and willingness to take some extended care of one another. All of this renders the stability of families a function of each of their mature and thus equal-status participants’ contingently maintained good will (cf. Schwab, 2004).
- 34.
For Christians, the Divine endorsement of the family is powerfully proclaimed in – e.g. – the Decalogue’s 5th commandment and in Col. 3:20; for Confucians one might cite the neo-Confucian view of the family as an image of the universe (Bauer, 1974, p. 292, see also Bellah who quotes Hsiao-Ching (1991, 87 f, and also Ching, 1993, 57 f).
- 35.
According to traditional cultures, even if some people refuse to fulfil their roles as fathers or sons, this refusal does not relieve them from having failed as fathers and sons.
- 36.
In the present context of a comparison between Confucian and Christian rituals, further dimensions of ritual must remain unaddressed. For example, we will not be able to discuss ritual’s function of presenting actors with a stage on which their passions and feelings can run their course in a civilized manner, as portrayed in Kolesch (2006).
- 37.
- 38.
It is characteristic that the robbers (in the classic novel The outlaws of the marsh, Nai’an, 1993), (because they represent the truly ordered life as opposed to a political system that has succumbed to evil, are portrayed as pervasively ritual-faithful.
- 39.
The particular affinity between ritual and love is highlighted by Gallatin: “Without such repeated, predictable interactions, there is no ongoing love story… . Because what makes love real is its constancy and its predictability… It is a powerful sameness, an invariability lying beneath all the changes and alterations of life.” This affinity is even higher when the “object” of love is the unchanging God, Who revealed the rituals through which He wants to be loved: “worship whose object is the unchangeable God must in itself be changeless in nature. Trying to touch Sameness through random acts of spontaneity… is like my attempting to hold in an unbroken embrace someone who is standing immovably on solid ground, while I myself am standing on a revolving carousel” (2002, p. 86).
- 40.
Cf. Fei, as quoted by Chan (pp. 197 f). This importance is reflected in Confucius’ saying that one should always behave as if one were about to perform an important sacrifice, and that one should deal with others as if they were very important guests. In a kindred way, Irenaeus of Lyon speaks of God calling fallen humans to “things of primary importance by means of those which were secondary; that is, to things that are real by means of those that are typical; and by things temporal to eternal; and by the carnal to the spiritual; and by the earthly to the heavenly” (Chap. XIV # 3, 1995, p. 479).
- 41.
When Confucius is recorded of having dedicated himself for 60 years to the rituals, before his freedom of will had been re-fashioned in such a way as to naturally harmonise with what ritual prescribes, it becomes clear that he led a life that did not merely make room for ritual, while at other times pursuing other business. Instead, he must have integrated whatever other business was needed into the spirit of the ritual, so as to become an altogether other person. In a kindred spirit Christians, in order to rightly partake of their central ritual (the Holy Eucharist), are called to integrate the entirety of their earthly life, including all their contingent business, relaxation and socialising, into that purity of heart which renders them worthy participants. Even more, they die and are re-born: “This offering strips us of everything: we are lost [Mt. 16:25]. We cease to exist. We die. At the same time, this is the moment when we are born into life; we partake in divine life through offering everything, through becoming an offering of thanksgiving. So the loss of our life is at the same time the emergence of our existence into a world ‘new and uncompounded’: and when we have reached that world, we are truly human beings” (Vasileios, 1998, p. 59).
(It is with some misgiving that I speak of “partaking in ritual”, especially in view of the Eucharist. Strictly speaking, what Christians here partake in is a bread and wine that has been mystically transformed. Engelhardt and Cherry have therefore rightly spoken of the ontologically transforming impact of ritual. It is precisely because that ontological change is at the source of all ritual, that I have refrained from even using the term “performative”: Insofar as that term suggests that ritual can do something of its own, a Christian must insist that whatever is accomplished is due to the grace of God. The ritual here constitutes rather a setting for the required human cooperation in that grace-given ontological change.)
- 42.
A profound commentary on Holy Baptism is given in Schmemann (1974).
- 43.
A good introduction into the rituals of the Divine Liturgy is offered by Schmemann (2003).
- 44.
- 45.
- 46.
The ritual of invoking the name of God and of thanksgiving is even to permeate every moment of a person’s life: “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Co. 3:17).
- 47.
The full marriage rite is available e.g. in Meyendorff (1983, 113 ff).
- 48.
The full Rite of the anointing of the sick is available e.g. in Meyendorff (2009, 113 ff).
- 49.
The deeper reason, of course, is provided by St. Basil of Caesarea, when he distinguishes between that part of the teaching of the Church which is expressed in words (the “kerygma”), and that other part which permeates the life of the Church (the “dogma”). The latter remains covered in silence so as to keep it from being desecrated (Basil of Caesarea, 1995, On the Holy Spirit, chap. 27). This account also allows integrating Moses Mendelsohn’s observation (1983, p. 102), that in the Hebrew tradition it was “at first, expressly forbidden to write more about the law than God had caused Moses to record for that nation”.
- 50.
In the NT, see Math. 2:3, 11 where the wise men come to worship Jesus as King of the Jews, 6:9 where Jesus teaches his followers how to pray the “Our Father”, 14:33 and 28:17 where the disciples worship Jesus, 17:4 where Peter suggests building “tabernacles”, 26:7 where Magdalena applies ointment to Jesus’ feet, Mark 11:7 where the people of Jerusalem celebrate Jesus’ arrival.
- 51.
cf. Math. 5:17–20, 3:15, His letting Himself be baptized by John (cf. Math. 3:6), Lk. 2:21–24), His being named, circumcised and presented in the temple according to Jewish rituals, Math. 14:23, and the many occasions of His praying.
- 52.
Matt. 8:4
- 53.
Mk. 7:32–35, 8:23–25, Lk. 9:6.
- 54.
Matt. 16:18–19 and 18:18, where He authorises the Church to bind and to lose members’ sins, 17:21, where the Church’s healing power is linked with praying and fasting, 26:26–28, where the ritual of the holy communion is instituted (cf. Jn. 6:35, 48, 53–56), Math. 28:19, where the disciples are commanded to teach and baptize, Mk. 6:13, where holy unction is exemplified.
- 55.
In his commentary on the Divine Liturgy, Archimandrite Vasileus writes: “It is in this praise and thanksgiving that we come to know theology, and the origin of the world is revealed” (1984, p. 57).
- 56.
“Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God [i.e. offers valid, transcendence-based orientation] or whether I am speaking on my own [i.e. as the merely human being those around him assumed him to be]” (John 7:17) (italics mine, CDH).
- 57.
- 58.
Citations from the Old Testament would be legion, e.g. Jes. 1:11–17, 13:29, Hosea 3:6 (cf. also the Patristic echo, e.g. in St. Cyprian of Carthage, 1995, Treatises Book III:1, 530 f., Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV:16, 1995, 480 ff, and the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions I:37, 1995, p. 87). I shall restrict myself to the New Testament.
- 59.
Thus Xunzi (as quoted in Chapter 11) emphasises the importance of a “good will” that is spontaneously, yet in a clearly ritual-training-inspired manner, directed to self-perfection. And this perfection concerns not only mastering the externalities, but especially also the specific human excellence which ritual is to develop. As Bell argues, Xunzi demands that before one begins a ritual, one ought to place oneself into that very frame of mind which the ritual was initially supposed to generate, then to call it up, and subsequently to express it. We may assume that at the stage of mastery, this relationship between the internal and the external is reversed: instead of the external forms supporting the internal attitude, now the internal attitude enlivens the external forms.
For Christians, this emphasis on the internal focus of external ritual is even more radical. As St. John Cassian claims: “he who does not pray with an earnest mind cannot perform that threefold bow of reverence which is customary among the brethren at the conclusion of the service” (The first conference of Abbot Isaac, 9: 34, 1995, p. 400).
- 60.
Cf. Bruschweiler, Symeon, Archimandrite: “The liturgy is not only human. Before the beginning of the Eucharistic celebration the deacon, addressing the priest, says: ‘It is time for the Lord to act’ (Ps. 118, 126). The human action during the liturgy is also Divine action, this is why it is called Divine Liturgy. It is a divine-human cooperation” (2003, p. 76).
- 61.
The extent to which Christians are called to sanctify every aspect of their lives can be seen to correspond to Fan’s emphasis on the minute rituals (e.g. p. 146).
- 62.
Thus St. John Cassian emphasizes that the ritual of prayer will work its effect (“if we ask according to his will”, op.cit. p. 399, i.e. if what is desired promotes a person’s sanctification) in proportion to a person’s serious application in faith, perseverance, importunity, almsgiving, and purification of his life (op.cit. p. 398).
- 63.
Cf. Fan’s discussion (pp. 154–157) of limits to the obligatory character of rituals.
- 64.
This thought is well expressed in the way St. Ephrem the Syrian links the proscription in Paradise (not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge) with the temple service instituted by Moses: “God did not permit Adam to enter that innermost Tabernacle; this was withheld, so that first he might prove pleasing in his service of that outer Tabernacle; like a priest with fragrant incense, Adam’s keeping of the commandment was to be his censer; then he might enter before the Hidden One into that hidden Tabernacle. The symbol of Paradise was depicted by Moses, who made the two sanctuaries, the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies; into the outer one entrance was permitted, but into the inner, only once a year. So too with Paradise, God closed off the inner part, but He opened up the outer, wherein Adam might gaze” (1990, p. 96).
An especially patent example of the way in which the old law got replaced by the new law is offered in Acts 10:11 ff, where St. Peter receives in a vision instruction about the way in which he must abandon the old Jewish laws of ritual cleanness in order to obey the new law of turning to all the nations (cf. also Acts 15: 1 ff, 21:21 ff on the law of circumcision).
- 65.
Thus also, as St. Cyril of Alexandria points out (1983, p. 198), the woman with an issue of blood is healed by Christ not only even though she violated the law in touching His garment, but precisely because her faith exceeded her fidelity to the law.
- 66.
As we learn from Rev. 4:8–11, even the angels in heaven, as embodied in a different, non-corporeal manner, “celebrate” and “worship” in some fashion.
- 67.
See for example Motovilov’s experience of St. Seraphim allowing him to partake in the Divine uncreated light (Moor, 1994, p. 167).
This realm of experience is also addressed in Katos’ analysis of the way in which Evagrius Ponticus treated noetic prayer as tantamount to liturgical ritual’: “Evagrius argued that noetic prayer is the equivalent of an offering or even a sacrifice unto God… . He suggested that noetic prayer is analogous to various aspects of Old Testament ritual offering and sacrifice. For example, Evagrius likened noetic prayer unto incense… . Evagrius’ metaphor suggests that the smell of this sweet incense arose only from a fire of self-purification, in which one purged the soul of sin and passion… Evagrius also incorporated the imagery of an altar into his metaphor of noetic prayer as an offering..” (2008, 58 ff).
- 68.
One might ask whether the regard for such a “beyond” does not, once again, introduce that very external purpose for ritual, which we took pains to reject when discussing its merely morally instrumental understandings (see above, pp. 11 ff). It is at this point that we need to dissociate our understanding of “internal” and “external” goals from that offered by MacIntyre (2007, p. 181), and approvingly invoked by Solomon (p. 164). Surely we can agree with MacIntyre that a goal of a practice is internal if it does not transform that practice into a mere means. And surely, acknowledging that getting candy is not an internal goal of chess-playing (because chess was not invented for the sake of candy) accords with acknowledging that sanctification is indeed an internal goal of Christian ritual (because that ritual was instituted for the sake of rendering humans receptive to God’s sanctifying grace). Yet unlike playing chess for the joy of achieving excellence in it, sanctification as the internal goal of Christian ritual can also be Divinely granted within non-ritual settings (e.g. repentance, suffering, offering works of love). Moreover, while surely the Church prays during liturgy for sanctification of all who “love the beauty of the Church” (and thus of the Church’s ritual, Hapgood 121), thus endorsing the value of ritual in and by itself, she does so ultimately because ritual prepares humans for sanctification. While for MacIntyre, external goals can be appropriated (at the exclusion of other owners), this does not hold for Christian ritual’s “beyond”, namely sanctification.
- 69.
Moreover, just as with Confucianism, so Christianity understands the obligations in view of one’s parents to also imply obligations in view of teachers, elders, masters, rulers, and benefactors (Nikodemos, 2006, p. 94).
- 70.
The Old Testament provides, of course, a still much more fertile source (Ex. 20:12, Lev. 19:3, 20:9). For the Christian-Confucian dialogue pursued here however, the one example of how Jacob’s sons performed the mourning rituals for their deceased father may be sufficient, see Gen. 50:1 ff.
- 71.
The depth of Christians’ obligation to their ancestors is highlighted by the following remark of Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov): “The Lord has justified and sanctified the ascending line of His ancestors according to the flesh. Thus, by obeying Christ’s commandments, each of us can restore the image of God which is darkened in us through the tears of repentance, and thereby justify his own personal existence as well as contribute to the justification of the existence of our preceding generations” (2003a, 10 f, translation CDH). Confucians might be pleased to discover a Christian manner of “ancestor worship” which not only honours ancestors, but even improves that spiritual state which they continue to endure (until the final day of judgment), without however their being able any longer to influence on their own.
- 72.
Jesus himself not only spent the first thirty years of his life as the obedient carpenter son of his carpenter foster father, but even obeyed his mother, when she prompted him to do a miracle even before his “time had come” (Jn. 2:5). Even when approaching a tormenting death while nailed to the cross, he still took care of his mother, entrusting her to his favourite disciple, thus making sure she would not be left without support (Jn. 19:25–27).
- 73.
When Adam foresees that a man will leave father and mother for the sake of his wife, this does not imply any obliviousness to the obligations of a son to his parents, but instead an affirmation of the stronger link between the sexes.
The character of marriage as a Divine ordinance, and thus the metaphysically revealed binding force of the crowning ritual, are highlighted by a comparison with John Locke’s 1690 Second treatise on government, where “natural rights” (i.e. a rational moral account) supplement the contract account of marriage (chap. 7, # 82f, 1955, 65f).
- 74.
From the literature available to me, I venture to conclude that different Confucians seem to occupy different positions in view of the possibility or necessity of relativizing family loyalty. At the one end of the spectrum, we find in the Analects 13:18 (as quoted by Ching, 1997, 78 f) the claim that sons must not give away fathers, nor fathers sons, even if either one of them broke the law. A middle position (which is not necessarily incompatible with the first one) is occupied by Hsün Tzu (as quoted in Bauer, 1974, p. 90), who rules that if filial obedience would endanger the parents or expose them to shame or cause them to behave in an uncultured way, such obedience should not be offered. But clearly the first position is incompatible with its opposite extreme, where filial piety is seen as a way of inspiring a merely generalized humanitarian virtue and benevolence, which sheds all “family partiality”. This latter position seems to characterise Confucius himself, at least in Bauer’s presentation as the “great discoverer of the virtue of humanity” (46).
- 75.
Cf. Deut. 33:9.
- 76.
Cf. Cyprian of Carthage, 1995, Treatise IV, 9–11, 449 f.
- 77.
While God Himself continued His paternal care unchanged even after the fall of man (for example by clothing those He had just expelled from Paradise in a garment of hide, Gen. 3:22), humans no longer could muster the confidence necessary to invoke that fatherly care on their own. It is this confidence which Christ restored and extended to all mankind.
- 78.
This extension of human son-ship to man’s relationship to God also encompasses the replacement of humans’ spirit of servitude (of obedience to the old law’s ritual prescriptions) by a spirit of son-ship (Rom. 8:15), i.e. it links the transformation of family with the transformation of ritual.
- 79.
Of course, the Trinitarian theological context adds a still further dimension to this filial piety: cf. Christ’s declaration of His unity with the Father (as in John 5:19–23).
- 80.
As will become clear further down, paternal authority permeates Christianity not only in view of God’s own having revealed Himself as “Father”, but also in view of human access to theological knowledge. This knowledge, one must keep in mind, does not primarily concern theological “matters of fact about” God and man. God is in a strict sense inaccessible to the human understanding. One is entitled to speak about Him only insofar as He revealed Himself to His creatures, condescending in the process to the limited concepts of the human mind. Theological knowledge thus is designed so as to facilitate human access to such Divine Self-revelation. Accordingly, each of the fatherly teachers of the Church integrates his own such experiences into his teaching. It is therefore a risky undertaking (for those who have not themselves experienced God) to even compare the (differently expressed) teachings of different Fathers. On the other hand, recognition of a theological teaching as “Patristic” depends on that teaching’s harmonising with what the Church has taught at all times and in all places. There exists, thus, beside the primary formative also a secondary informative dimension to such teaching, which can be invoked in scholarly undertakings, such as the present essay.
- 81.
This vocation (which recalls Zhang’s Confucian principle “always demanding a becoming”, p. 110) calls humans onto what may be depicted as a bridge, established by the transforming Divine energies, and across which the Creator seeks to reach out to those who are separated from Him by an ontological abyss.
- 82.
Cf. St. John Chrysostom, Homily 9 on Genesis 7, 1986, 120.
- 83.
In his role as lord of the created world, man is called to sanctify that world by offering it back to the Creator in thanksgiving. In a remotely similar way Ching (1993, p. 62) describes the emperor’s cult to heaven as a cult of thanksgiving, thus suggesting a kindred task of sanctification.
- 84.
Cf. Maximus the Confessor, 1984, 1st Century on Theology, p. 116: “By exercising this freedom of choice, each soul either reaffirms its true nobility or through its actions deliberately embraces what is ignoble”.
- 85.
Cf. St. John Chrysostom: “As the word ‘image’ indicated a similitude of command, so too ‘likeness’, with the result that we become like God to the extent of our human power – that is to say, we resemble him in our gentleness and mildness and in regard to virtue” (1986 Hom. 9, #7, 120) The idea that the only likeness to God which is humanly accessible must concern God’s humility (cf. 2. Cor. 8:9, Phil. 2:5–7) is also supported by St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on the beatitudes (2000, I-4, 26 f). For likeness as the assimilation to God through virtue see St. John Damascene, An exact Exposition, book 2, chap. 12.
- 86.
Cf. St. Maximus the Confessor (1984, 2nd Cent. #7, p. 139): “he who through obedience has kept the commandments … has not cut himself off from union in love with Him who gave them”.
- 87.
As some of the Fathers emphasise (viz. Symeon the New Theologian, 2001, p. 113), Adam’s failure consisted not only in his disobedience, but also in his unwillingness – when being questioned by God – to repent. This essay, in seeking a dialogue with Confucians and concentrating therefore on ritual as a common ground, can address only one very thin layer of the Christian teaching.
- 88.
“Indeed, he who has perfect obedience will be counted worthy to receive a great name in heaven, a name of sonship, which will be revered even by the angels – a double crown in the heavenly glory” (Elder Ephraim, 1999, p. 102).
- 89.
This is also why Columban’s rule for monks, following St. Basil the Great and St. John Cassian, invokes the model of Christ in demanding unlimited monastic obedience, even unto death (2007, p. 16). Since the point of obedience is to recapture the true humility of son-ship to God, and to overcome pride, therefore even a misguided command will be rewarded by God (op.cit. p. 33).
- 90.
In taking up a theme of Lk. 10:16, where Christ empowers the seventy disciples sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God by decreeing: “Whoever listens to you, listens to me”, Elder Ephraim generalizes: “Every spiritual father is an icon of Christ. So corresponding to how one obeys his spiritual father, he obeys Christ” (Elder Ephraim, 1999, p. 113).
- 91.
Once again this might at first sound similar to the way in which Ching (1997, p. 75) has Confucius stating that the virtue of “jen” means self-conquest for the sake of recovering propriety. Yet for Christians, unlike for Confucians, the possibility of pursuing such a path of such self-willed denial of one’s own willing self, and of bending that self into obedience to fatherly authorities, is impossible without Divine support.
- 92.
Since the ritual-directed life is possible only as supported by the Holy Spirit, it accomplishes two objectives at the same time: as a means, it invites further such support, and in an anticipatory way it already implements that purpose. Traditional rituals’ “instrumental character,” thus understood, unlike ritual’s moralising instrumentalisation, can therefore be recognized as successfully goal-directed only from the Divine perspective.
- 93.
The term “noetic” refers to a knowledge that is received through the Divine self-revelation. It is empirical, but not sensible. The “nous” represents a faculty of the human soul that, on the one hand, attends to what goes on in the mind, and, on the other hand, can be rendered receptive to Divine revelations, if a person’s heart is properly purified. While Thomas of Aquinas still retains the difference between nous and logos in the duality of intellectus and ratio, the subsequent Latin theologies have blurred the difference between both. Eventually (especially after the quarrel between St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria) the existence of a separate cognitive faculty beside reason was altogether discounted in the Christian West.
- 94.
As Evagrius Ponticus notes (2003, # 60): to be a theologian means to pray truly.
- 95.
Christian Tradition thus, with respect to both its dogma and its kerygma, is based on spiritual experience. In that sense, Ching’s claim that Confucianism is more experience-based than Christianity (with, as she puts it, its “faith in revelation”, 1993, p. 227) should be modified. While surely the Christianity of the Latin West, after an initial period of faithfulness to Tradition (with Gregory the great and Cassian the Roman), developed into an increasingly abstract, notional affair, at least Orthodox Christianity rests on “noetic” (i.e. truly spiritual) experience.
- 96.
To be sure, this turn to human reason was taken to be justified in view of the claim that this reason, as Divine endowment, provided a “natural light”, supposedly unaffected by the fall. Patristic teaching however has always taken seriously Christ’s denouncement of man’s worldly wisdom (Matt. 11:25), as confirmed by Paul (Rom. 1:22, 1. Cor. 3:18–21).
- 97.
To cite just a few relevant consequences: Once theology is subjected to human reason, God’s revealed omnipotence can no longer be adequately distinguished from His equally revealed omniscience. Accordingly, it is no longer possible to allow for His freely limiting the former while retaining the latter, and thus to account for human freedom. Moreover, God’s revealed unconditional authority – as in the example of the command that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac – can no longer be squared with what a rational approach privileges and singles out as “the moral implications” of the Divine laws. It thus becomes necessary to subordinate God’s omnipotence and authority to those very moral norms which are accessible to human reason. Just as God’s Divine freedom and will must therefore be re-construed in terms of his supposed rational morality, so must the freedom granted to humans be identified with their theoretical and practical compliance with a theology which in turn has changed from a mystical therapy to a dogma.
- 98.
This development eventually reduced what was still confessed as the “trans-rational” element of the Christian faith to a mere “openness for transcendence,” where the latter term signifies nothing beyond an empty point of reference. It is this reduction, which suggests an easy path to ecumenical cooperation, even with Confucians. Thus Küng (Küng and Ching 1988, 303 f) claims that a Christian can both develop a common world ethos with other religions and at the same time “take seriously” those others’ religious concerns, conceptions, and practices, - as long as these do not contradict the Christian faith. He thus in effect separates that faith from concerns, conceptions, and practices. He renders it a purely theoretical undertaking. In thus trying to both keep his cake and eat it (or separate ritual from faith and retain their connection), his project depends on its strategic ambiguity: While piously opposing “double citizenship” in Christianity and Confucianism, Küng liberally endorses an enculturation “in the spirit of Jesus Christ”. But since he has reduced what he calls the “Jesus event” to such a degree that Jesus’ twofold human-divine nature is discounted, the remaining “spirit of Jesus Christ” in effect can refer to no more than morality. In what concerns the recommended “taking seriously” of religious practices, nothing seems left beyond “respectfully” appreciating their aesthetic quality.
- 99.
Adam’s failure which consisted in wanting to understand “good and evil” independently of God is thus re-enacted: Such “theologians” seek to philosophically usurp that likeness to God which is accessible only as a Divinely transforming gift.
- 100.
A merely superficial reading of the traditional text might be misleading. It is only in connection with man’s fallen nature, that the body with its needs and cravings presents that powerful distraction from a spiritual life, which renders a particular discipline necessary. This is why these texts – because of their pastoral orientation - often take the term “body” as emblematic of all such distractions. Thus on closer look it becomes clear that what St. Paul – to take the most important theologian in this regard – understands by “flesh” is the entire compass of a worldly life that affects not only the body’s supposed “needs” and a person’s emotional desires, but even his intellectual predilections. The pride of the rationalist thus also discloses his “fleshly” orientation. It is not the body as such which is hostile to a life in Christ but the whole this-world-centred focus of man’s strivings.
- 101.
The survey offered here must remain sketchy and superficial. We cannot attend, for example, to the Protestant reaction which led to an abolition of traditional ecclesiology and anthropology. In rightly denying that an institutional “mediator”-church between Christians and God is necessary, Protestantism deprived Christians of their dignity as mystical members of the Church. In rightly opposing clerical arrogance, they sacrificed the spiritual fatherhood image of the Divine fatherhood. The resulting confusion for the Christian-Confucian interchange can be studied in Bellah (1991, pp. 91–93).
- 102.
St. John Chrysostom (Homily14 on Genesis, 11, 1986, p. 186) expressly points to the gentle, “instructing” character in which God informs Adam of the one command not to eat of the forbidden tree. He emphasises how this mode of communicating harmonises with the Divine gift of free self-government and royal dignity offered Adam in Paradise. To be sure, after the fall this obedience took on the harsher meaning of repentance, of having to turn around and distance oneself from (i.e. renounce) all one’s fallen orientations. But even here, and even before Christ re-opened the door to communion with God, the point of that obedience to the law of Moses was to re-train through a ritualised life the mis-directed heart in the art of loving God.
- 103.
Perhaps we can compare the phenomenon of legalism in Confucianism with its consequence of rendering the ethos of self-submission more oppressive than liberating (cf. Ching, 1997, p. 267) with this change within Christianity.
- 104.
More specifically, Christianity’s focus on love as an endowment with the Divine energies was replaced by a moral principle of universal human solidarity. This is the reason why Christians in the Latin-tradition West today have no spiritual resources left for defending allegiance to the particularity of family life (as the natural unity endorsed by the Divine will) against its liberal destruction.
It is this moralising spirit, still dominating our present times, which makes it also difficult to discern the real meaning intended by Confucian scholars educated in the West, who describe Confucianism in terms of its moral implications. Often such scholars introduce a distinction between Confucianism’s ritual and moral aspects, but the question of their either instrumental or constitutive relationship to one another remains un-addressed. Where Confucian morality is associated with the pursuit of wisdom, it is usually unclear whether that wisdom is exhausted by moral compliance with socially established rules or also encompasses a cosmic vision. A good example for this ambiguity is Julia Ching. When she calls Confucianism the “moralist” answer to existential questions (1993), she seems to endorse an autonomous morality. When she specifies this answer by adding an “existential quest for wisdom or moral perfection” (loc.cit.), that autonomy of morality seems relativised, especially since she immediately afterwards places morality’s “horizontal concerns” in a “vertical, transcendent” context. Her invocation of a “soteriological” aspect of sage-hood (1993, p. 226), on the other hand, seems infected by her Christian dialogue-partners’ willingness to settle for a vague moralisation-cum-transcendence-touch paradigm. Once Confucians’ Western dialogue-partners have ceased to take seriously the idea that God is alive, their theology becomes mumbled and confusing for their non-Western interlocutors.
- 105.
See for example St. John of Damascus’ analysis of what it meant for Adam and Eve to have their eyes opened to their nakedness.
- 106.
There are, of course, many more dimensions to fallen humanity’s loss of integrity, which must remain beyond the scope of this essay. One of these concerns their finitude. Much of the modern quest for progress and the post-modern quest for “making a difference” or “leaving an impression” has to do with securing surrogate eternities among those who have lost faith in eternal life.
- 107.
To be sure, the fact that God is revealed as “Father” (when Christ teaches His disciples to address Him so) also constitutes an accommodation to humans’ earthly experience. In that sense we must understand the Fatherhood of God in a merely analogical sense. This becomes especially clear when one remembers that God’s relationship to His human creatures is based on His desire to unify them with Himself, - an act of love that resembles more the human experience between husband and wife (as poetically portrayed as erotic love between God and the human soul in the Song of Songs). It is just that the way in which humans are encouraged to access God’s condescension in terms of “fatherhood” also presents a model in keeping with which humans are to design their own diverse fatherhoods.
- 108.
- 109.
God’s omniscience can here be reconciled with an omnipotence, the exercise of which God Himself freely limits when offering His human creatures a share in freedom. Similarly, God’s authority is envisaged in its revealed, trans-moral integrity: The point of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac can – with St. Paul – be situated in the context of a quest for an unconditional faith, which (unlike with the first-created man in Paradise) overcomes the temptation to seek the “good” in terms of human independence.
- 110.
“Every soul that cleaves to God is softened like wax and, receiving the impress and stamp of divine realities, it becomes ‘in spirit the dwelling-place of God’ (Eph. 2:22)”, St. Maximus the Confessor, 1st Century on Theology, #12, p. 116.
- 111.
Characteristically, one of the prosomia for the Vesper service for three great Hierarchs of the Christian Church (Sts. Basil of Caesarea, Sts. Gregory of Nazianz, the Theologian, and Sts. John Chrysostom, Jan. 31st) speaks of “them as shepherding the people of Christ through their divine teaching” (Megas Hieros Synekdimos, n.d., 848).
- 112.
Perhaps one could read into Wang’s remark that the ritual “system itself may be reinforced by every performance of ritual” (p. 96) some awareness of a similarly dialogical design between the cosmic order and humans’ reaffirming, along with their ritual integration into that order, their commitment to that order itself.
- 113.
Cf. Jn. 14:23 “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them…”, a promise that is confirmed by the experience of the saints (see for example Evagrius, 2003, # 54 “One who loves God is ever communing with him as with a father”, or # 65 “If you long for prayer, do nothing that is opposed to prayer, so that God may draw near and journey with you”)
- 114.
For example, exclusion from the Holy Mysteries is applied to those (heretics) who mislead others.
- 115.
The Biblical texts are permeated with admonitions about the necessity for all those in authority to do nothing without seeking council (Sir. 32:19, Deut 32:7 are just two examples). This principle is also confirmed by the Tradition (see e.g. Columban 2007, Rule 3, 36). A model of humility in this regard is offered by Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) in his letter to David Balfour, a Roman Catholic spiritual son who converted to Orthodoxy. After accepting the risk of confronting his spiritual son with some of the more difficult truths about the life in Christ, Father Sophrony adds: “But I trust in the bravery of your soul and this is why I tell you, and later … , I shall tell you still a little more, so that afterwards I might receive your advice in turn, because my soul rejoices in submitting itself to you” (2003b, 15, transl. CDH).
- 116.
To put the matter in Archimandrite Sophrony’s words: “Proceeding from the marvelous revelation I AM THAT I AM, we experience and live man, created ‘in the image, after the likeness’, first and foremost as persona. It is precisely to this principle in us that eternity relates” (1988, p. 194). A good theological compilation of the theology of personhood is found in Vlachos (1998).
- 117.
The way in which this relationship can be captured in a theology of the Divine image is well traced in Lossky (2001, p. 139).
- 118.
A helpful introduction into Trinitarian theology is offered by Lossky (1989, 45 ff).
- 119.
As Archimandrite Sophrony insists, the view toward the annihilation of the self is even a dangerous temptation: “we find those who aspire to divest themselves of their earthly mode of existence – they are fascinated by the profound quiet of some mysterious, all-transcending Non-being – and other s who, accepting Christ’s word, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force’ [Matt. 11:12] engage on the painful battle to overcome our mortality… It is characteristic of the former to think of the First-Absolute as trans-personal. For them personeity at its best is the initial stage of the degradation, the self-restriction of the Absolute. For the others it is precisely the Persona that lies at the root of all that exists [cf. John 1:3]” (1988, p. 191).
- 120.
To be sure, as Ching admirably argues (1997), the roots of Confucianism’s openness to transcendence lie in the shamanistic practices framing the early Chinese governors’ priestly role. But one must bear in mind that a crucial difference between shamanism and theist religion lies in the fact that the shaman can “call up” spiritual agents, whereas the religious person can only “call on” the Spirit. That is to say, the initiative in the one case lies with humans, in the other case with God.
- 121.
It goes, in other words, against traditional Christians’ grain to even speak of a project of cultural renewal, when, deep in his heart, he is aware of two requirements: that he needs to reform himself first, and that this is a life-absorbing occupation. St. Seraphim of Sarov summarised this teaching when promising that, if a Christian renews himself, i.e. acquires the spirit of peace, then thousands around him will partake of his renewal and will be saved.
- 122.
The sketch of the Christian truth offered here had to remain incomplete. There is no room for further details of how and why a personal loving God has revealed Himself as the three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, - or as a Holy Trinity. For the inter-cultural dialogue undertaken in this volume, it must suffice to specify the challenge which the Christian perspective adopted here poses for similar Confucian projects of ritual renewal.
- 123.
A third option might be supposed to lie in Küng’s turn to a rational examination of the various faith traditions, and among them Confucianism, so as to purge them from superstitions as well as from their ideological utilisation for particular interest groups. In invoking Analects 15:27 (Küng and Ching, 1988, 130 f), Küng claims that this method agrees with the basic attitude endorsed by Confucianism itself. But it is hard to determine, how the claimed authority of reason to effect such discernment is compatible with King’s own rejection of rationalism (for which he invokes the agreement of both Jesus and Confucius) and the moralisation of religion on the one side, and his desire to retain space for transcendence (op.cit. p. 133) on the other side. Again one finds Küng wanting to have his cake (i.e. human access to a universal world ethos) and eat it (retain some relevance for transcendence).
- 124.
It is precisely such a solution which Ching, in one of her various modes of approaching Confucianism’s relevance today, seems to recommend (1993, 229 f), when she demands that the concept of religion (which she takes to apply to Confucianism) should be adjusted so as to accommodate a liberal and secular humanism that downsizes transcendence by deriving it from the self-transcendence involved in human perfection.
- 125.
It is significant that among the “pre-modern ideological-institutional ballast” which Confucianism in Küng’s view must discard in order to render its humanism modernity-proof, he includes patriarchialism (Küng and Ching, 1988, p. 249).
- 126.
In this connection a critical review of the impact which (if we follow Bauer, 1974, 284 f) Buddhist cosmopolitism had on the cultural integrity and stability of the Chinese empire might be illustrative.
- 127.
Fan himself emphasizes that there is self mastery and excellence among robbers. But once one goes beyond obvious examples of ethically ill-directed rituals, any purely ethical account concerning which “moral principles” might excuse a breach of ritual correctness in precisely which situations, once such an account is presented to an ethically plural audience, lacks resources for settling differences in interpretation. This is also why Fan’s restriction to the domain of Confucian virtue, even if recognized as leaving out Confucianism’s transcendent dimension (pp. 144, 152n9), weakens the universal appeal of that virtue: Only when placed within a cosmic perspective can Confucians not only specify their “Confucian identity” (as pointedly addressed in p. 145), but also establish Confucianism’s ability to invite universal assent. And this is why Lo is right when he emphasizes the inseparability of Confucian ethics from religion (pp. 127, 129, 133), as shared with traditional Christianity.
- 128.
For this purpose, it is not enough to conceive humans’ attitude to that transcendence as “proto-personally” as Ching does in her later book (1997), where she traces the Chinese “cultural heritage” to a common inspiration according to which humans are “open to”, “attuned to”, and “desirous of becoming one with” a still anonymous “the divine and the spiritual” (op.cit. p. 271). Precisely such unification would repudiate that very concern for personhood and personal uniqueness which Confucianism is challenged to offer in our time. Nor is it enough to invoke a “metaphysic of the self”, as Ching does in the book she co-authored with Manfred Küng (Küng and Ching, 1988). In order to render someone a person and thus a self, another person must address him as person. In Christianity, accordingly, humans’ openness and attunedness to, just as their desire for, the transcendent are recognised as responding to a Divine outreach, directed personally at each human being.
- 129.
Even Ching admits “periods” and “circles” which endorsed a personalist view of transcendence (1993, 2 f). In her last book she is even more explicit: “Scholars have tended to agree that Heaven remained a supreme personal deity for Confucians” (1997, p. 80). She even claims that Confucius himself was a believer in a personal deity (1992, p. 55).
- 130.
They would also need to go beyond Zhang’s phenomenological account (MS 17) of how certain structures of experienced time give rise to humanity in a normative sense, intimately connected with family and inter-generational piety. Instead, they would need to accommodate the way in which it is precisely the life of the family which gives rise to, as well as preserves, protects, and celebrates, the un-exchangability of family members‘ specific personalities.
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Delkeskamp-Hayes, C. (2012). Renewing Ritual Cultures: Paternal Authority, Filial Piety, and the Ethos of Self-Submission in Christianity and Confucianism. In: Solomon, D., Fan, R., Lo, Pc. (eds) Ritual and the Moral Life. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2756-4_14
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