Matteo Ricci in the history of China's thoughts.
History always leaves people with some problems like the Sphinx. In the history of world culture, Judaism, which was only active in Naples at first, advocated reform. Why did it not only develop into an independent Christianity, but also become the state religion of the vast Roman Empire hundreds of years after their leader Jesus was crucified? Why did this religion, which considers itself a universal church, expand very rapidly outside Europe from the 6th century to the 8th century, especially in America and Asia, and achieved great success in missionary work? I'm afraid it can be regarded as one of such problems.
However, for the Jesuits who had hoped to make hundreds of millions of people in China believe in God, although their missionary work in China once went smoothly since Matteo Ricci, they not only converted famous officials and gentry such as Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and Yang in the late Ming Dynasty to God, but even later held important positions such as Qin or frequented the forbidden palace of Emperor Kangxi. Moreover, some people think that a Chinese-style Christianity may have appeared in the18th century, and the missionaries of various churches "had hoped to establish a new church in China that was tolerated by the state power and integrated Confucianism and ancient wisdom of China." (English) History of Christianity in Oxford, edited by John McMullers, Guizhou People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 27 1. )
However, with the occurrence of "etiquette dispute", the situation took a turn for the worse, and the missionary activities of western missionaries in China were strictly prohibited. Although during the Second Opium War, western powers forced the Qing court to sign two peace treaties, both of which contained so-called "missionary tolerance clauses". This changed the general plan of Jesuit missionaries in Ming and Qing dynasties, and made the missionary work have an ambiguous relationship with the western colonial cause. "This provision gives missionaries unprecedented freedom, but it makes their expected goal-turning China into a country of Christ-more and more distant." Zhu Weizheng: Christianity and modern China. Preface, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1994, p. 13. At the end of last century, with the re-emergence of China, in the eyes of Americans like Samuel P. Huntington, "Greater China" became a "cultural and economic reality" to prevent the expansion of western universalism like Islamic civilization today, and began to become a political reality. ((America) by samuel huntington, translated by qi zhou, etc. Clash of Civilizations and Reconstruction of World Order, Xinhua Publishing House, 2002, p. 183. )
Therefore, in the history of world culture, perhaps the question becomes: Compared with the victorious history of Christianity in America and other Asian countries, why do their missionary work have such a contrary record in China? Considering that there has never been a religious war in China, China people generally hold a quite tolerant attitude towards religion, and this contrast is even more thought-provoking. Of course, as an academic issue, this issue is very complicated and involves a wide range, but there is one problem that cannot be avoided: how to treat and evaluate the missionary activities of Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci in China?
There is another side to history. Since the middle of19th century, western culture has changed the face of China as never before. No one can deny that today's China is actually the result of cultural conflict and integration between China and the West. Intellectuals in China, even ordinary citizens with secondary education, certainly know much more about the West than ordinary western intellectuals know about China. Today's China people continue to maintain a strong thirst for knowledge about western culture. In addition, since 1990s, China scholars have made new achievements in religious studies, religious philosophy and comparative religious studies. In this case, Matteo Ricci and his missionary activities naturally aroused people's research interest again.
There are always different disciplines and ways of thinking to study such a history and its consequences. The common method is history. Besides the description of missionary history, we can also look at the progress in astronomy, geometry, water conservancy and calendar brought by missionaries to China from the perspective of the history of science and technology. Exploring the role of China culture in the Western Enlightenment from the perspective of the history of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries seems to be more like a study of the history of ideological culture. At this level, people have noticed that "Jesuits once envisioned a new Christian view in India and China, which could absorb the wisdom and opinions of the ancient civilizations of these two countries, but this idea ended in failure." (English) History of Christianity in Oxford, edited by John McMullers, Guizhou People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 278. )
Xie Henai, a famous western sinologist, believes that the failure of Christianity in China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was rooted in the profound differences between Christianity and China culture and the difficulty in assimilation of China culture, rather than pure xenophobia. This difference is holistic, not only in the handling of ethical relations that can be seen everywhere, but also in the fact that the ultimate concern of Confucianism's entry into the WTO is completely different from the opposition between Christian religious obligations and secular obligations.
In the field of metaphysics, the core concept of Christianity is the relationship between the creator and his creation, and "the inseparable characteristics between the visible heaven and the heaven as a positive factor of justice, and the relationship between the concepts of' body' and' use' are China's basic concepts." China people's resistance to Christian philosophy has a deeper root-language. There is no verb for "being" in Chinese. "The structure and rhetoric of language seem to lead the thoughts of China and the West in different directions as the basis for the development of an independent culture and religious tradition with a broad background." ([France] by Xie Henai, translated China and Christianity-The First Collision between Chinese and Western Cultures, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2003, pp. 180, 225. )
From this perspective, people can ask a question: Is the missionary work of Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci just a historical accident or just an accident for the development of the history of China's thought, especially for the history of China's philosophy? In other words, has it influenced the development of China's philosophy and thought, and has it become a part of the history of China's philosophy or thought? At present, the popular works such as the general history of China's ideological history and the general history of China's philosophy seem to support the above evaluation of the "failure" of Christianity more than 300 years ago. Through in-depth study of the most important text of Catholicism in China, The Truth of God, Dr. Zhang Xiaolin raised an objection. He has been writing the book "On the True Meaning of God" for several years, systematically and thoroughly demonstrating his new position of China Catholic monotheism or "Confucian monotheism" in the history of China philosophy.
In short, Zhang Xiaolin believes that by combing the complex relationship between the Catholic philosophy of God in China represented by The Truth of God and the thoughts of mainstream scholars in China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, we can see that the Catholic philosophy of God in China expounded by missionaries and their converts in China is different from any of the traditional Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. However, it not only left a batch of China's philosophical documents worthy of attention, but also the ideas they explained constituted an organic part of the history of China's philosophical thoughts. Besides the traditional three religions, it has opened up a new clue of unique ideological system. In order to describe a complete history of China's thought and philosophy since the late Ming Dynasty, we must fully study and clarify the interactive relationship between Catholic philosophy of God and China's traditional philosophy.
As we all know, as a modern discipline, the history of China's thoughts and the history of China's philosophy were established in the first half of the 20th century, especially after the May 4th New Culture Movement. It was an era when "science" had just risen to its value, and it was also an era when religion was severely rejected and attacked. The famous "Anti-Christian Grand Alliance" once included almost all the cultural elites, which is a typical example of the spiritual trend of that era. At that time, the paradigm of historical science was generally provided by positivism and Marxism. These two mutually exclusive schools have the same language in the method of historical determinism. These are naturally branded with their own research on the true meaning of God.
To be fair, people all admit that the true meaning of God is to explain Catholic teachings with Confucian language and concepts. However, from the perspective of historicism, the correctness of this explanation is questioned; Whether this situation is caused by Li's limited education (misunderstanding) or a deliberate misinterpretation of Confucian classics is even more doubtful. For example, Mr. Hou Wailu's "General History of China's Ideological History" said that Li "used Confucianism to enrich Christian teachings, and his strategy was to" integrate Confucianism, supplement Confucianism, benefit Confucianism and surpass Confucianism ". It is "downright absurd" to promote the integration of Confucianism from the standpoint of feudalism (Hou Wailu's General History of China Thought, p. 1080).
The relationship between the legitimacy of "combining Confucianism" in The Truth of God and the author's subjective intention is not impossible to explore. But what is true Confucianism is a question in itself. From the perspective of hermeneutics, anyone's interpretation is bound to bring his own "foresight", and the understanding of any era includes Gadamer's so-called "horizon fusion". Therefore, it doesn't matter whether and to what extent God misread Confucian classics. What is important is how to "understand the phenomenon itself in its one-off and historical concrete relationship" (Gadamer's Truth and Method, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1999, p. 5).
Taking The True Meaning of God as an hermeneutic text enables Zhang Zhu to avoid the entanglement in the historical paradigm and focus on the reflection of "understanding" which belongs to effective history. Therefore, it has gone beyond the previous historical study of Catholicism in China and entered the text study. Readers can see that Zhang Zhu has made a full comparative study of the relationship between the most important Catholic texts in China and the traditional Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in China, and has made a detailed combing of the relationship between the mainstream scholars in China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties and the Catholic theological philosophy system in China represented by Tianli.
In this process, the author noticed that Matteo Ricci's understanding of the complexity of China's traditional Confucianism and its schools was limited, and what he actually faced was not a complete Confucian tradition. At the same time, it is also noted that although Matteo Ricci's professional knowledge of Buddhism and Taoism is quite limited, he has profound views on the conflict between Buddhism and Taoism and Christian principles. The author absorbed the latest achievements of western sinology research, used the concept of "Confucian monotheism" and his empirical efforts in using materials, which made his description of the interaction between Chinese and Western ideas in the Ming and Qing Dynasties very convincing. All these strongly support the purpose of this book, that is, China's Catholic philosophy of God exists in the history of China's philosophical thoughts, rather than purely foreign thoughts.
Generally speaking, in recent twenty years, China scholars have made considerable progress in the study of western religions and their philosophies. However, the research on the interaction between western religious philosophy and China's traditional philosophy is relatively backward. Therefore, Dr. Zhang Xiaolin's book has become a bright spot to broaden the research field of China's philosophy history. In fact, since the late Ming Dynasty, the position of Catholic philosophy of God in the history of China's philosophical thought has been looming. Although this may not be an obvious tradition, it is a clue worth studying and learning from. Not to mention that the relationship between China thinkers and Catholic philosophy of God in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties is far from clear, and the relationship between Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and Christianity in the late Qing Dynasty seems to have a lot of room for further discussion. How much Christian stimulation and inspiration does Kang Youwei's ideological creation contain? It is also worth studying. /kloc-At the turn of the 20th century, it is unclear what role the western religious documents played in the formation of China people's concept of modernity.
Another interesting phenomenon is that the attitude of Neo-Confucianism towards Christianity has also undergone subtle changes: if its pioneer Kang Youwei was inspired by the great role of Christianity in western society and tried to create "Confucianism" to compete with it, then most of the first generation of Neo-Confucianism were strongly non-Christian. Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili and Feng Youlan are all like this. This may be due to cultural traditionalism. This naturally devalues the significance of "Catholicism in China" in the study of China's philosophy history. For example, the main reason why Mr. Feng Youlan spoke highly of Zeng Guofan is that he won the "jihad" against Christianity. (Feng Youlan said: "Zeng Guofan's struggle with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is a war between Chinese and Western cultures and religions, which refers to the so-called' jihad' in the western religious struggle. This is the historical significance of Zeng Guofan's struggle with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. " See China Philosophy and History, Volume VI, People's Publishing House, 1989, p. 75). Their successors, the second and third generation neo-Confucians, paid great attention to exploring the similarities between Confucian tradition and Christianity, with special emphasis on the religious nature of Confucianism, and borrowed the "ultimate concern" theory of contemporary western Christian philosopher Paul Tillis to explain it. All these phenomena need to be studied deeply and systematically, because they are all part of the history of China's philosophy.